Chew See Chiang and Kamalesh S/O Logarajan
Kampong Spirit
Chew See Chiang:
During my early childhood place where I live, all around was shophouses and a lot of hawker stalls and there is a roadside market. The neighbourhood I live, the surrounding is a Teochew community and small Malay family nearby. We foster good neighbourhood relationships and every household know each other and every house was not closed for we know each other.
When festival time, the whole community celebrates and is so lively. The only occasion I love most is Chinese New Year where every household tries to outbid each other by firing firecrackers hanging from the shophouse. The longer crackers show their spending power and wealth. The big occasion so celebrate.
When celebrate the god birthday with demonstration of festive display and roadside wayang held a few days. Like festive period with stalls selling goodies and food stalls selling favourite variety of choices. As a kid, I liked to go to wayang stage. During the start of session, they throw coins to people below the stage. We are so happy to pick up the coins. During the lantern festival, we don’t have much money to buy the lantern. We have to make our own.
I also live near the river where there is a lot of tongkang offloading the goods we would have the opportunity to pick rice that dropped from the labourer offloading the rice bag. There is also a cold room kept by fruit importer. Sometimes, they throw away the fruits e.g. orange, apple, etc. We normally scavenge for the throw-away.
Later, I got married and lived in a new community. As days go by, I made friends with my new neighbour and got the opportunity to bring them shopping as and when we arrange for them to go on a shopping tour as an RC member. I normally deal with senior citizens in our area. I am very happy to mix around with them because this is kampong spirit.
Kamalesh S/O Logarajan:
Unlike Mr. Chew, my story of the Kampung started in Zion Road. I lived in Block 88, the furthest from Great World City. At my block, there were quite a number of kids around the same age as me and my sister. And we had two badminton courts just below the block, which were perfect for playing all kinds of games and for ladies and men to mingle with each other.
As a kid, living in Zion Road was a memorable time for me where I made a lot of my childhood friends. I would dare say my best friends were first my neighbours, who then became friends, and then my brothers through hanging out and playing games. Back then, our access to technology wasn’t as pronounced as now. So, our hanging out meant playing monopoly and block catching in the void deck, others include the badminton court being used as soccer courts, etc.
Every weekend, the moment Friday comes, time to go to our neighbour’s house, and calling our friends names to come to play is the norm. We didn’t have phones as kids and our voices were our phones. And with the court below us, we always played till the lights went out or we were too tired or when our parents called us for dinner.
Holidays were extra special as we always knew that we can eat each other’s snacks and go over to each other’s houses on those occasions. Sharing food and bonding with each other during the holidays is something that I will always cherish from the Kampung spirit in Zion Road.
