No More Dead Chickens, but ..

Some time ago, I blogged about the stretch of the Kallang River between Bishan Road and Braddell Road. I said that this stretch of the Kallang River once had the unsavory reputation of being called the Dead Chicken River because kampong folks simply discarded their dead animals into the river. Thankfully, that problem no longer exists today because modern Singaporeans are better educated and more civilized.

But I guess I was wrong. A picture is worth a thousand words.

I hope the person who discarded this dead cat into the canal did not get the idea from reading my blog.

The Kallang River where it meets the CTE.

Nowadays, not many Singaporeans rear chickens and pigs, but they certainly use a lot of plastic.

How To Do Well In English (Part 2)

My earlier post has inspired Ivan, to share his story about how he came to fall in love with books. I felt ashamed when I read his account because I had neglected to mention my father’s role. So here I am, making amends.

1948 Photo of my dad

My father was probably the biggest influence in encouraging us to read. When my siblings and I were in primary school, he used to borrow books from the library at this place called ‘Lembaga’ – I think it was the Adult Education Department of the Ministry of Education, for us to read. So even in primary school, we read simplified versions of classics such as Lorna Doone and The Black Tulip.

In secondary school, he encouraged us to write book reviews, and he actually took the trouble to mark them. I still have the exercise book on which I wrote those reviews – actually it was just a summary followed by a paragraph of comments. I reproduce a page below for you to see. Please don’t laugh at the childish remarks (if you can read them that is – I deliberately scanned it in low resolution to make it difficult for you to do so. Haha). This was the initial attempt of a Sec 3 kampong boy.

This is the first page of a two-and-a-half page review of Uncle Tom's Cabin that I wrote on 5/9/67. One line reads; “How do you think they felt, as they stood there crying, chained, whilst two people are arguing hotly, and the subject of their argument; their prices.”




Of course it was also our dad who introduced us to the National Library at Stamford Road and the mee rebus and Indian rojak stalls at Waterloo Street. So you can understand why guys of our generation have such fond memories of that place and felt really upset when the government went ahead to tear it down in spite of much opposition from the public.

Like IML, I too try to pass this reading habit on to my children. When they were young, I often read bedtime stories to them. Our favourites were stories from the Children's bible. And they made us repeat the stories over and over again. My youngest, who was the cheekiest of my 3 children, liked to act out a particular scene from The Prodigal Son. Everytime we came to the part where the father rushed out of the house to greet his long lost son and ‘threw his arms’ around him, she would jump off the bed and pretend to rip off her own arms and hurled them at us!

How To Do Well In English

I think some of my young readers are preparing for their O levels and some may even be struggling with their English paper. Although it may be a bit late to be giving advice, still I see no harm.

The secret to doing well in English or any other language is this: you must try to like it. Try not to adopt an exam-oriented approach like for the other subjects.

When I was in secondary 3 or 4, I used to listen to a radio programme called The Chief Examiner Explains. The Chief Examiner was usually an Englishman from Cambridge who gave tips on how to prepare for the Senior Cambridge exams (now called O levels). I remember one particular programme where the speaker explained about the subject, English Literature. The main aim, he explained, was to cultivate in us an interest in books. They tried to select a few good books and hoped that after studying these books, we would develop a life-long love for good books.

I must say, that they succeeded to do that for me. The book we studied was No Highway by Nevil Shute. After that, I went on to read almost all of his books. We also studied Terrence Rattigan's play about Alexander The Great. I can still recall this line ... The first conquest is yourself, only after that the world. We also studied narrative poems like Sorab and Rustom, and The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.

I was fortunate to have a very good English teacher in Sec 4 by the name of Ernest Lau. He often boasted that his class produced the most number of A's for the English paper. I was one of those who frequently scored more than 7 upon 10 for his composition assignments which meant that I had a good chance of getting an A. But as it turned out, I fumbled during the exam and got only a credit. I remember that after our prelim exams, he even made us study poems and Shakespearean plays that were not in the exam syllabus just to reinforce the message that we should study English literature for enjoyment and not just to score in exams. In that regard, I think I got an A after all.

Unfortunately, nowadays I don't read as often as I would like to, owing to lack of time. But I still read my King James Bible regularly. Inside this magnificent book, you can find some of the most beautiful verses ever penned in English. As our English bible is translated from the original Hebrew and Greek, I often wondered how beautiful the original verses would have been.

My Commanders

My description of the punishments we received as recruits in my previous post might give you the impression that our commanders in those days were all unreasonable ‘mad dogs’. This of course is not true. In fact, the commanders that I trained under were mostly gentlemen worthy of our respect. So I would like to share a bit about what I can remember of them.


My First Platoon Commander

My first PC when I was drafted into SBMT (School of Basic Military Training) in Safti in 1971, was a Lieutenant Thing. On the first night after we had ‘checked in’, he came to check on how we were doing and introduced himself. He was dressed in all white PT kit and looked quite dashing. Those days, only officers were allowed to wear white PT kits. He told us that he too was a national serviceman and had graduated from Nantah before he was enlisted. He was with us for only a short while before he completed his NS.

I met him again about 10 years ago when I did some work for the Corrugated Box Manufacturers Association of Singapore. He had become a wealthy businessman running a string of carton box factories, the largest being the Far East Packaging Group, and one of the association’s management committee members.


My Second Platoon Commander

My next platoon commander was 2LT Neo Keng Kok. Unlike Thing Chiang Ching, he was a ‘tan-chia’ or regular soldier. Although he was not highly educated, he was a real professional and we had great respect for him. He was also very fit physically. Whenever we went for runs, he would shoulder the rifles of those of our platoon trainees who were having difficulty. Try to picture it – an officer shouldering 3 or 4 rifles running alongside his men. This was one feat I was not able to emulate when I became a platoon commander.


Platoon Photo. I am seated in front row extreme left. 2LT Neo is seated in the centre. On his left is our section commander – but I cannot recall name.


2LT Neo seemed to like me. I remember one interesting incident when our company was assigned to do ‘fatigue’ work along the ‘long and winding road’ leading to the ‘Boatshed’ on the western coast of Singapore. Earlier, there was a fatal accident involving a land rover at one of the sharp bends. So we were tasked to improve the road by building an embankment with sandbags. As we broke for lunch and rested by the side of a hill, I was punished by one of the corporals. I cannot remember what the offence was, but it was not over food or drinks as what my friend Ivan, the Rambling Librarian, may think. He asked me to run up one of the steep hills. 2LT Neo probably disapproved (看不过眼) of his bullying tactics, but he didn’t want to contravene his subordinate’s orders. So he said, “And Cpl So-and-so will race you up the hill and back.” So the Cpl who punished me ended up being punished himself, and that was one occasion when I actually enjoyed my punishment.

2LT Neo continued to be our PC when we progressed from BMT to Section Leaders Course. But towards the end of our course, he left us to join the newly set up Commando Training School which was located just behind our company lines. Occasionally, we saw him and his buddies being ‘tekaned’ by the tough commando trainers and found it quite amusing.

The last time I met him was when I was an officer cadet in Safti’s Officer Cadet School a few years later, after I completed my university education. He was holding a captain’s rank and was on DFO duty in the cookhouse. Looking every inch a professional soldier with his red beret, he loudly called out; “Recruit Lam Chun See; Platoon xx, Lima Coy”, when he spotted me. I felt quite honoured that he could remember me.



This photo was taken during route march. The place is somewhere behind the Nanyang University Campus. Me looking like a clown with the Troops Marching sign hung around my neck. I had to walk far in front of the rest of the company to stop the traffic.


Disper or you will disper by force

Regular officers in the early days of SAF were usually not highly educated. So we used to be quite amused by the way they mispronounced certain English words. One particularly funny line was “Disperse or you will be dispersed by force” which the officers loudly hailed when conducting what was called IS Operations training. IS stood for Internal Security, and we were being trained to disperse rioters. We had to put on our smartest No. 3 uniforms and metal studded boots with bayonets fixed to our rifles for this training. When the command was given, we had to yell “HA!” in unison.

Although it all appeared rather silly to us at that time, I appreciated it because I have experienced the calming effect of seeing such soldiers patrolling the streets outside the National Junior College in 1969. This was during the time of the May 69 racial riots in Malaysia. Apparently, some thugs in Singapore wanted to stir up racial trouble, and so the SAF soldiers were out in a display of force. It was quite comforting to see and hear them marching in their metal-studded boots.



毕伟星

In OCS, my section instructor was a young second lieutenant by the name of Bilveer Singh. I said young because, strangely, he was the youngest in our section. This was because most of us were university or polytechnic graduates who did NS after completing our tertiary education. Some were ‘disrupted’ cases like me. Others were regulars who had already several years of experience in the army.

He was given the above Chinese name when we went to Taiwan for training. He became friend to some of us after our OCS training. We told him stories of university life as he was headed for the University of Singapore after his NS.



This is a photo of our section. Our section instructor, 2LT Bilveer Singh is standing 3rd from left (he was a ‘modern Singh’ and hence didn’t wear a turban) with me to his left. He made us charge up a hill before taking this photo saying it would look more ‘realistic’ if we were all sweaty and tired looking. This photo was taken in the Safti training area somewhere between Safti and Nanyang University.


A**hole Chan

Coincidentally, my platoon commander in OCS was also a commando. We nicknamed him A**hole Chan not because he was a jerk, but because he liked to use that obscene word.

Lta Chan, didn’t believe in silly punishments like extra drills and stand-by-beds or petty regulations. His main emphasis was on fitness and combat training. There was one occasion when our platoon was punished by our company 2IC to do ‘extra drill’ at night. Half way through, he got fed up and made us practise battle formations instead. It felt really funny doing this type of training, which was usually carried out in the field, in our smart No. 3’s right there in the middle of Safti parade square.

On another occasion, we were returning to our barracks after demolition live firing training. Some of our ‘unlucky’ platoon mates were assigned stores duty, meaning they had to carry the stores back to company lines a few km away. Mind you this was at the end of a tiring day of training. Our platoon IC then ordered the rest of the platoon to fall in and ‘high-port’. That was one word we hated because it usually meant we had to get ready to run and not march. Those days, the standing order was that we had to ‘double’ (run) and not march from point to point. This was to train up our stamina and prepare us for Exercise Starlight in Taiwan, the culmination of our 9 months of officer cadet training. We were so happy when we finally approached the gates of Safti. But our hearts sank when instead of the command ‘kiri belo’ which meant turning left into the Safti compound, our PC ordered us to continue running. And so we plodded on waiting for the order to turn back which never came until we reached all the way to Tuas! Boy, if we had known this would happen, we would have gladly volunteered for stores duty. I reckon that on that occasion, he broke at least 2 safety regulations. Firstly, for any running that exceeded 5 km, we are not supposed to put on steel helmets but only the inner liner (made of fibre glass I think). Secondly, no running was allowed on the main roads.


Staff Rahman

In OCS, our platoon sergeant major was a staff sergeant called Encik Rahman. We all liked him very much as he was patient and gentle – a far cry from the SSG Royston that I knew from 1971. His favourite line was, “Don’t always say say but never do.” Staff Rahman was probably a body builder. One day we discovered how strong he was when he turned out to be the only one who was able to unfasten a stuck rifle muzzle after all of us had tried unsuccessfully.

The last time I met him was probably was about 15 years ago. I met him at the National University Hospital lobby where he was working as a security officer.


Educated Idiots

There were 3 companies in OCS; Alpha, Bravo and Charlie. My company, Charlie Company was the most fortunate. Practically all our commanders and instructors; our OC, CSM, platoon commanders, section instructors, right down to platoon sergeant majors, were very ‘nice guys’ compared to those in the other 2 companies. As such our friends in A and B, who seemed to be receiving punishment all the time, really envied us. The only exception was our company 2IC, a two-pip lieutenant by the name of Toh Peng Woo. He was the nastiest but also the most colourful. We all thought he was crazy and so we nicknamed him ‘toh peng’ which was Hokkien for upside-down. He especially disliked my platoon which consisted mostly of university and polytechnic graduates. He called us ‘educated idiots’.

I remember one occasion when we had defense camp on one of the hills. I was holding the appointment of platoon sergeant. At midnight, he came to inspect our trenches and he issued me this command; “Platoon sergeant. Fall in the men for a screwing session!” So there we were; twenty over ‘educated idiots’ with all sorts of degrees and diplomas after our names being ‘screwed’ by a crazy man with probably 3 O-levels on Hill 265 at 1 am at night. Next morning, this poor platoon sergeant kena another round of lashing by the toh peng commander. That was the first and only time in my life I experienced obscenities being hurled at me from a distance of only inches from my face. I tried to concentrate on my reflection in his sun glasses and ignore the showers of saliva.

The last time I met him was in the late 1980’s. I was a trainer in the National Productivity Board, and he was a trainee in one of our diploma courses. I think at that time, the SAF was fast replacing its older officers with scholars of all shapes and sizes. Too bad my specialty was Industrial Engineering and not Business Administration.


Ah …

Those were the days my friend,
We thought they’d never end ….…

Pay Correct Sir

Every adult male Singaporean remembers that dreaded day. (No I am not blogging about weddings). I am referring of course to the day when we were called up for national service.

For me that day happened thirty-five-and-a-half years ago. A very long time ago indeed. But I remember clearly gathering at the CMPB (Central Manpower Base) in Dempsey Road, and boarding the three-tonner which brought us to this huge complex called SAFTI (Singapore Armed Forces Training Institute) in Pasir Laba Camp along Upper Jurong Road. My kampong friend by the name of Tor Koon (pronounced in Hokkien) was called up on the same day but he was posted to a different camp. His mother was crying as they said farewell. But my mum was not emotional. Maybe it was because my elder brother David had gone in the year before. He was posted to 6 SIR, or Tanjong Gul Camp in the farthest Western corner of Singapore.

This is an old photo from the collection of the National Archives of Singapore showing fresh-faced 19-year olds being herded onto a 3-tonners, probably from CMPB in Dempsey Road, looked on by anxious parents. It reminds me of movies scenes of Jews being sent to their concentration camps in Nazi Germany

As a recruit in 1971, our pay was $90 a month. The army called it ‘allowance’. Since we toiled practically 7 days a week, this worked out to about $3 a day. Life of a recruit was tough. Practically anyone could ‘tekan’ (bash up) us; and training was tough. On days when the going was particularly bad, we used to lament; “kia ji sa kor pai tan’ (today’s $3 is hard to earn). Pay day for most people is a happy time. But for us lowly recruits, it can be a stressful time, fraught with dangers. We had to queue up in front of the company 2IC’s office and await our name to be called, then march up to the pay officer’s desk, ‘berhenti’ (halt) and salute sharply. For some, this simple process had to be repeated several times at the whim of those in charge. When the money was handed to us, we had to put out 2 hands to receive it smartly, check the amount and then salute and say; “Pay correct sir!” (Hey – shouldn’t that be “Allowance correct sir!”?) Some childish officers liked to trick us by deliberately keeping back one $10 note. Those who did not count properly became a source of more amusement for our 'dear' leaders.

(Just in case you didn’t get it the first time) Life of a recruit was tough. Practically anyone could ‘tekan’ us. From day one, we were taught this simple principle in the army. The screw travels in one direction only … downwards. Right at the bottom of the pile is the recruit. There is nothing else below except his bed.

We had a CSM (company sergeant major) by the name of Royston. Personally, I think he was sadistic. . His policy was “punish until drop”. On days, when he was on BSO (battalion orderly sergeant or something like that) duty, he looked particularly fearsome with his ‘walking stick’ and red sash. Us innocent, fresh out of school, 19-year olds learned the meaning of fear from this man.

Once my friend (I shall not reveal his name) was having lunch in the cookhouse when he was summoned by staff Royston. I do not know what big crime he committed, but when we returned to company lines after lunch we saw Royston still working on him until he threw up his lunch.

But I was quite lucky and never got into any serious trouble. Both my platoon and section commanders were reasonable gentleman. I shall blog about them another time. Minor brushes of course there were a few.

Once I was caught drinking Pepsi in my bunk during training hours. I was made to run around the parade square with my Pepsi bottle lifted up like an Olympic torch. When I ran past Juliet (I think that was Lee Hsien Loong’s company) and Kilo company, everyone cheered and clapped.



This is an old photo of the Safti parade square (from the collection of the National Archives of Singapore). The block in the background is the block of my company, Romeo Company, later renamed Lima Company. To the right, behind the troops, is the cookhouse.

Another occasion I was caught eating noodles in the bunk at night. Occasionally, when we got sick of the cookhouse food, we took a bus from Safti (now Pasir Laba Camp) to Tuas seafood village and ate the famous the fried prawn noodles (only 70 cents per packet if I remember correctly). Once someone ‘tar powed’ a packet for me and I was caught by a corporal who came around at night to do a spot check. He put my helmet on the floor and asked me to put one finger on it and then run in circles around it until I got giddy.

But the ones who suffered most, in my opinion were those who were physically unfit. Those days, they do not downgrade you from ‘combat’ vocation so easily. I had a section mate who was quite plump (for guys of our era) and I saw him suffer every time we went for runs and other types of physical training for the entire 6 months of our basic and section leaders training. I resolved that my son should not suffer this type of torture and so I encouraged him to take up sport. Thankfully, he is active in kayaking and so I have one worry less.