A Carefree Childhood (2E5 Lin Xueqi's Father)

My dad, Lam Koon Pang, was born on the 4^th of September 1959, was the youngest of nine children. They lived in Strathmore Avenue and stayed on the ground level. Whenever it rained, it attracted a lot of worms and rats into the house. Therefore, kerosene was used to kill and to prevent such pests from crawling into the house. My grandmother was a thrifty person, so instead of using kerosene, she used a rolled up newspaper to get rid of all the worms. Blackouts occurred frequently but my dad enjoyed them a lot as that was when he could scare his siblings using a torch light and making funny faces and noises.

During those days of his childhood, there was not much entertainment except for catching spiders and playing with marbles and rubber bands as well as catching fish in canals. There was an incident my dad could remember from when he was in primary four. The Chinese teacher that taught him was not welcomed by the class. Even the quietest student disliked her as she was fierce.  Whenever a student was not paying attention, she would throw a piece of chalk at him or her. So someone instigated the entire class to go against her. They said that since she liked throwing chalk at them, they all threw chalk at her at the same time when she was writing on the blackboard. After the incident, no one dared to admit or betray their friends; everyone was caned by the principal and even exclaimed that their motto was ‘all for one, one for all’.

My dad attended Queenstown Primary School and then went to Kim Seng Secondary (which has since closed down). He was given 5 cents a day and walked to school, which took him about half an hour. Since he was accompanied by his other siblings, time passed faster than he thought. The only teacher he could remember was Miss Tham, his English form teacher of primary school because she was a thoughtful and soft-hearted teacher. During primary school days, my dad joined scouts where during weekends they went to people’s house to help out in order to earn some extra pocket money. In his Secondary school days, he tried to get into the CCA he wanted but was not accepted and ended up in chess club then moved on to the harmonica club.

My dad got to know my mother though a group of friends when they went to the disco. They both got married three years later. They had a wedding and thereafter went to the USA for their  honeymoon. Coming back from the trip, the newly-weds stayed at my dad’s brother house in Jurong for about two years before moving out.

A popular place of attraction then was Haw Par Villa and they went there once a year which was during the Chinese New Year. There was a place which depicted ‘hell’ which was rather terrifying because of the ‘bloody’ statues that were inside. My dad’s sister told him that this is the place where people who committed any evil deeds would end up. These words were passed down to me as a warning.

 

My dad’s fourth brother was in the pioneer batch of men who served National Service. He complained that life was tough as his officer was an Israeli who turned out to be strict and demanding.

During the Japanese Occupation, my grandmother sold tidbits and cigars at her stall. Once, the Japanese soldiers took cigars without paying, my grandmother approached them to ask for the money but in turn was shown a pistol and was almost killed by them because she had asked them to pay for the cigars. My grandfather worked as a translator as he knew some English as well as Chinese.

My dad has heard about the fire in Bukit Ho Swee but did not know the cause of it. He was told by his mother about the racial riots; she had warned him not to leave the house by telling him that  there was a group of people in black going around kidnapping children.

Things have improved tremendously under Mr Goh Chok Tong’s leadership, in terms of social security, education, jobs, quality housing and has changed Singapore from a ‘third world’ to a ‘first world’ country. Therefore, we should be contented with what we have and also understand that it took years of hardship to obtain success in developing Singapore so we must take him as an example to learn from.

  

Lin Xue Qi (09)

Date of interview: 23^rd July 2006