I remembered wrongly

Sigh … I realized that I made a mistake in the very first sentence of my book ☹.

I wrote in my Introduction that many years ago, I saw a Taiwanese movie by the title of; 一个平凡人的故事, or An Ordinary Man’s Story.

I think this is incorrect. That movie, whose title I still cannot recall, was about the struggles of a man who tried all his life to achieve something extraordinary. Finally, he realized that that was unrealistic and it only made him and those closest to him miserable (something to this effect). In the end, he wrote a book with that title I quoted.

I hope someone can confirm my recollections.

Never too old to blog

Did you see the article in the Straits Times today, where I was featured together with my fellow senior nostalgia bloggers, Philip Chew, James Seah and Victor Yue? There’s a photo on page A4 of me and James. And do you know where this photo was taken, what’s that thing that I am holding in my hand?

Answer. I was holding my primary school report book. The school, as regular readers of my blog, as well as those who have read my book, would know, was the Braddell Rise School. The reporter wanted to take a photo of James and me as a location that could be linked to our fondest memories of the old Singapore. For James, it would be Bukit Ho Swee; whereas, for me, it was my kampong at Lorong Kinchir off Lorong Chuan. Unfortunately, both these places no long exist, and so I suggested we met at Mount Alvernia Hospital and took our photo at the site of the former Braddell Rise School. I told her that I had studied in BRS from 1960 to 1963, and had literally seen the hospital next door sprout from the ground. The BRS buildings are slated for demolition soon to give way for a new wing of the Assisi Hospice. Fortunately, the demolition works had not started yet and so we could sneak in for a photo-shoot.

I requested that the report make mention of my book Good Morning Yesterday ….. for obvious reasons. Many people know me to be a blogger, but many do not know that I am also an author; and even fewer people know where to purchase it. I myself am not sure, since it has been two years since the book was released, and many bookstores no longer carry it; but I am quite sure that the Kinokuniya branch Orchard Road does – at least that was what my distributor says.

Another place where you can purchase my book, at least for this weekend, is at the 50Plus Expo organized by the Council for Third Age (C3A). The expo will be held from 28^th to 30^th March at the Suntec City Hall 401-404. For the 3^rd time in a row, I have been invited to speak at the Forum, and so has my friend James Seah. My book will be on sale at the Booth C27 (Spring Publishing Pte Ltd). If you would like to attend the 50Plus Expo, please register at the C3A website.

 So here again are the details.

Aii Chan enjoys Good Morning Yesterday, the book

From my Inbox (2012-11-02)

Hi Chun See,

Got back to Luxembourg for few days, first thing when time available - to read your book, now half way, thoroughly enjoying it!  Congratulations on a project well done, so proud to be telling everyone:  it was written by my primary school classmate. I do have some comments (i.e. up to page 96 now)

1) Thank you for bringing us (our generation) down the memory lane via your book, I felt the book is even better than visiting the modern Singapore because everything/everywhere familiar is disappearing so fast, no memory lanes anymore left for us. This trip I felt like a "foreigner" visiting a completely new place - i.e. not like "coming home" feeling.

2) I do envy those who lived in your village - they could enjoy and keep your vivid descriptions of the whole neighbourhood.  How I wish someone could do this to our village too, so that Sock Geck and I could keep the memories in words!  Congratulations also to your brother Chun Chew for his super memory to help you too.

3)  You both are lucky to have an English-educated father, that means a world of difference because then he had a good job position, hence the possibility to buy cameras and to have typewriter/fridge/car at home.  With the cameras, you were able to get so many photos of the past (seeing is believing). I think your family house must have been a luxury of those days to, compared with the poor attap houses around.

4) Again, you were lucky to be living in a non-Cantonese community because you picked up a lot of Hokkien and Teochew dialects on growing up.  Most of the terms used by you were in Hokkien, which was commonly used in the other areas of Singapore (apart from Chinatown).  In fact for a Cantonese person, I think your Hokkien is excellent :-))

5)  I am amazed by the "Kan teko" (KTK), now that I am reading it. I do have some recollections of such a trade. We never had pigs (only chicken), but our neighbour (4 - 5 doors away had them), so now I do recall remarks about this person, maybe I was too young to know what he was doing.  On the other hand, I remember that there was such a person who came to "sterilize" the chicken from time to time.  I can recall watching him too.  But anyone can help me: why sterilize the chicken?

6) The last points are my questions.  I visited a place called Imperial Court at Thomson road this year, is this the old Imperial cinema?

a) At the beginning of Jalan Perminpin -Thomson Road there was a huge tree, we used to call it "Tau chiu ka" there were food stalls/coffeeshop there?

b) My last questionn:  I recall between Thomson Road (5 miles) and Sembawang Hill Estate (7 miles) a place we called in Chinese, "Ang Mo Tan keh";  anything to do with the fruit rambutan trees growing there?

One of my brothers-in-law thoroughly enjoyed the book (I bought for him at Popular).  He grew up in a different area, Devonshire Road, so things were quite different there. He appreciated very much what you wrote, since he was teaching at Nee Soon primary school (Yishun today) his students all came from the village area.

PS - Hopefully there will be a "future book" coming :-))

My Remarks

Thanks Aii Chan for your kind comments and for recommending “our” book to your friends. 

Yes; like many other friends, Aii Chan owns part of Good Morning Yesterday, the book. She contributed details to the sections on Braddell Rise School (Chapter 7), and games that girls of our generation played (page 114). She also narrated that interesting account of her encounter with the night soil carrier at Braddell Rise School in page 53.

Related posts

My Recollections of Braddell Rise School 

Return to “Police Catch Nuns”

Singapore Book Fair 2012

Dear friends,

My book Good Morning Yesterday will be on sale at 20% discount at the Singapore BookFair 2012. Details as follows

Venue: Suntec Singapore Convention & Exhibition Centre, Level 4, Halls 402 – 404

Dates: 25 May (Fri) to 03 Jun (Sun)

Time: 11 am to 10 pm daily.

I will be at the MarketAsia Distributors booth (D01-D05) to meet readers on these dates/times:

• Tue (29/5) from 5 pm to 6 pm
• Thu (31/5) from 12 pm to 1 pm
• Fri (1/6)    from 3 pm to 4 pm

Look forward to seeing you there!

Gift Ideas for your parents

Don’t know what to get for your parent’s birthday? Instead of adding to his calories with chocolates or an expensive meal, why not take him on a stroll down memory lane?

Get him a copy Good Morning Yesterday. Available at Times, Kinokuniya and Popular at only $18.65.

PS – If you cannot find my book at the book stores, please let me know so that I can feedback to the distributor. Send me an email, and I will do something about it. Anybody who wants GMY should be able to get one!

Facebook fan page

Dear friends,

I have set up a Facebook Fan Page for my book Good Morning Yesterday. I will collate and centralize all information and updates about my book there. Do drop by and share your views and suggestions - but remember to "Like" it first. Greatly appreciate if you would recommend it to your friends.

This photo was taken during the ACS Great 60th Birthday Bash held at the SICC Grand Ball Room on the 10th of March 2012. My cohort of ACS old boys from 1968 as well as some old girls from 1970 held a combined 60th birthday gathering. Most of us would be 60 this year. I set up a station to promote and sell by book. To my pleasant surprise this gentleman who was attending a dinner function in the next room came over to purchase a copy. What a pleasant surprise.

Here's the link to the Facebook Page.

Soft launch of my book @ Peranakan Museum

This afternoon, I attended the “soft-launch” of my book, Good Morning Yesterday. I want to thank all friends who came and friends at the National Heritage Board who helped organise this event. I call this a “soft launch” because it was limited to invited friends. These are my friends from the “Friends of Yesterday.sg” (FOYers) group, as well as fellow nostalgia/heritage bloggers.



The reason I chose to do this launch with my FOYer friends is because this book has its roots in the group. I remember we had our inaugural meeting exactly 6 years ago at the nearby Moon River Restaurant. Six years passed quickly, and the movement we started that day has grown tremendously. Interest in heritage and nostalgia blogging has grown significantly and so has the number of our members. Many of us still blog regularly and we meet regularly too. And we have made many new friends, some in the cyberspace, and some from overseas.


Judging from the number of requests for assistance received by me and my friends - from students, media people, as well as tv documentary producers - I think interest in heritage and nostalgia has grown tremendously these past few years. I’d like to believe that our group played no small part. And one of those developments of course, is the publication of my book. Hence, it is appropriate that I celebrate this milestone in my career with my fellow FOYers.


As I said in my speech, today’s event itself is already an achievement for me. If my book does well in the marketplace, that is a bonus. It might even give me the confidence to venture into another similar project. Just as I had been inspired by the writers in our midst, like Dr Tan Wee Kiat and Mr Shaik Kadir, I hope that a few of our FOYer friends who are also contemplating writing a book will be encouraged by my ‘achievement’. However, I should caution them that such an undertaking does incur many many hours of disciplined hard work.


During our interaction, Shaik Kadir suggested that perhaps we could all join hands and do a joint publication. Personally I am for the idea. Perhaps NHB could assist us with some funding and coordination.


I hope you will get hold of a copy of my book and together we can take a trip down memory lane and revisit the Singapore that exists only in our memories …….. and relive the ‘Times of Your Life’.


Thank you.


PS – Check out PY’s post of this event and my book as well as Walter's thoughts here.

Thanks to Char Lee (Icemoon) for this shot of my book displayed at Times Tampines.

Good Morning Yesterday the book

Dear friends of Good Morning Yesterday. I am very happy to announce that my book is finally on sale at the bookshops. This book is a re-write (and more) of many of the essays in this blog; but organized into a coherent narrative. But it only covers up to 1970 since it is about growing up in Singapore. Even though much of the information was already on my blog, it was still a very very laborious (but joyous) task to rethink, rewrite and reorganize the contents.

I want to thank the many people who helped and encouraged me. First of all, I want to thank you, the faithful readers of this blog. Thank you for your positive feedback in your emails and blog comments, some of which I have reproduced in the back cover of my book – hope you don’t mind. They gave me the much-needed courage to embark on this project.


I also want to thank my friends, Dr Tan Wee Kiat and Kenneth Pinto for encouraging me to write this book. I remember the FOYers meeting at MacDonald’s (Bishan) a few years ago when they convinced me to ‘launch out into the deep’. Likewise, Walter (Cool Insights) Lim also encouraged me and pointed me to the NHB’s Hi2P scheme for assistance.


My special thanks to Derek Tait who inspired me with his books about the Singapore he knew when he was here as a kid. Besides generously sharing his photos, he gave me valuable advice on how write and publish a book.


Not all the contents and stories in my book were written by me. Many are from friends and guest bloggers who posted their stories on my blog. They include my brother Chun Chew, my friends Chuck Hio, Simon Chu Chun Sing and Charles Phua, my Braddell Rise School schoolmates, Lee Sock Geck and Kim Aii Choo; as well as guest bloggers Peter Chan, Brian Mitchell, Freddy Neo, and Edward Williams. Others, like Victor Koo, James Seah, Philip Chew, Dick Yip, Ong Yew Ghee and Yeo Hong Eng, host their own nostalgia blogs but gave me permission to use their stories.


Likewise not all the photographs in my book belong to me. I thank Derek Tait, Peter Chan, Victor Koo, Philip Chew, Yeo Hong Eng, Lau Eng Leong, Ong Yew Ghee, Victor Yue, November Tan, Geoffrey Pain, Steven Charters, John Hake, Andrew Paterson, and others for giving me permission to use their photos. The remaining came from the collection of the National Archives of Singapore.


A special word of thanks goes to Mr Gene Tan and Kevyn Lai. Gene, who is the programme director of the Singapore Memory Project, wrote the forward, and Kevyn, my friend, designed the book cover.


(** My sincere apologies to anyone whose name I have left out)


Above all, I thank the Almighty God who equipped me with the ability to write these stories and who providentially kept away my business during the past few years so that I could find the time to concentrate on my writing. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

******************************************************

OK. Now you can rush out to the following places and do the necessary. LOL. But in case they run out of stocks – not that I am such a popular author, but because they have never heard of Lam Chun See and (wisely) took only a small initial consignment - please bear with us.

1) Kinokuniya @ Ngee Ann City and Bugis Junction


2) Times @ Centrepoint, Plaza Singapura, Jelita Holland, Marina Square, Tampines One, Suntec City and Paragon.

3) Popular bookstores.


Thank you and God bless.

PS - The number of page views for this blog is fast approaching the magic figure of 1 million. Thanks a million!!!