Chapter 7 Our Tenants

Our Auntie Married to a lawyer,plus our father -home guard shifted to next chapter


Just after the our grand mother brought a piece of land along Anson Road,opposite the General Hospital,and a stone's throw from the Primary Anglo-Chinese School.There a wooden house was constructed with the ground floor slightly raised as this area is prone to flooding especially during rainy season at the end of the year.

The small building consisted of of two rooms,a sitting room,a verandah in front,a kitchen and dinning room. Further down at its end was a shed area where our "padi" were were smashed by a leg operated wooden hammer,this was to remove its husk.All these were constructed during the Japanese occupation.During the occupation we had to plant our on food in the jungle.

With the surrender of the Japanese the rice situation slowly improved although there restriction in its purchased.I remembered the purchasing of rice with cards which were issued to every adult individual,yes there was a rationing of rice sold to the public then.The rationing I think lasted a few years and finally removed.

With the availability of rice our planting of "padi" was slowly phased out with time and the wooden rice smasher finally lost its importance put aside to waste away.Money with our family was running out at the same time so in order to generate some money the back portion where the the wooden laid was renovated into a room cum workshop for an old clog maker.

With that renting of that portion to the clog maker,our back play ground were always packed with short logs.Every morning the clog maker's assistant would saw the logs into short lengths (the length of human foot).After sawing sufficient logs he would then chopped them into suitable size for clogs.He was quite an expert at these spliting to secure the most from the logs.

The old man,his master would take own sweet time to give the final touches to those wood that after he had enjoyed the porridge cooked by the assistant.With stomach full then only will he moved on to smoked his pipe ( a 2 feet bamboo pipe which was half filled with water) Funny pipe as he had to insert some tobacco to a small piping attachment then lit it with an incense stick.With that tobacco lighted he blows the pipe to suck in the smoke into his system.As he sucked the pipe he created quite a noise.
He remained squatted as he smoked and smoked until he is finally satisfied.

Then he took a final sip of Chinese tea,before easing off to the chopping block where he expertly chipped away the clogs following the outline drawn out by the apprentice.Being an expert he easily churned out a number of pairs of clogs.Those that needed to be painted red were hastily done by the assistant.However his production were never a daily affair for what he produced were had to be sold,so sometimes he ferried his wares to the market for sales,should business be fantastic he would go to sell his wares daily.

His timber logs for the clogs cleared the grassy patch at the back of our house,When they finally moved away that patch was so well cleared and flat that my younger brother could draw on it with just apiece of twig.It was here my brother developed his inert talent in drawing.His subjects initially were those actors and actresses of opera which he had the following evening.He never knew about pencil or paper those days.As for colors those imprinted deep in his mind because of the costumes worn by those actors ant actresses.

With the going of the clog maker ,his place was filled by a night hawker at the Amusement park.This hawker moved in with his family consisting of three adults and two kids then.Every evening he would pushed his carts of salted tit bits to Amusement park,assisting him was his brother.We called this jovial man,Ah Loy Sok and his brother Ng Sok.

This new tenants occupied the whole of the back,a room and the space left vacant by the clog maker and we shared a common kitchen and bathroom.This Ah Loy Sok plied his trade only during the evening .During the day he and his brother would prepared the items they sold,which consisted mostly preserved fruits both salted and sweetened,much of them also immersed in vinegar.

Fresh fruits like pears and apples were sliced into smaller pieces and sold by the piece.Their specialized in salted pear drinks kept in a wooden container.Both brothers served at their stall at the amusement park.As kids we often visit their stall whenever we went to the Cantonese opera with our parents.

Their normal time of work began as early as 6 p.m.when they took turn to push their cart towards the Amusement Park.They plied their trade till past midnight,then only will they return home pushing the cart as well.This Ah Loy Sok although forty plus looked strong physically fit,although he returned home in the early hours still waked up as early as 7.00 a.m.So des his brother.

It was in one of such early morning waking up he discovered a young artist drawing on the sand.It astonished him and taken aback how a young tot of three could draw those drawings on the ground.It was definitely unbelievable to him.So he blew out hot and warm praises for my brother's talent until all around knew it loud and clear.

His small family and two little daughters lived with him an brother.A small family with simple live styles,anyway who ain't,eh?..

Later the vacant ground next to our house was rented to a timber retailer calling himself Southern Timber Trader.Having enormous capital he started big with plenty of timber for re-sales.Part of our main verandah was partitioned ,turning it into an office.Assisting him were his brothers and it was a family business.

That man was extremely enterprising for he also saw hard wood like Chengal to serve the requirements of the market.Those days sometimes utilizing pure human brute force of cheap labor available then can produce huge sizes sawn timber of Chengal hard wood, cheaper and faster then ordering from the saw mill waving all protocols and standard procedure.

As a small boy I was always at hand to witness such ardrous processes by a couple of old men. These old timers although old can hand sliced huge logs of diameter about five feet or so within days.These workers like the clog maker or any old workers those days like to smoke bamboo water pipes.We often squatted around to watch them smoked with much enthusiasium fun.Watered Bamboo pipes do not exit nowadays.
That art of smoking had died out.

Should anyone of us be naughty,we now had a place to hide among those properly stacked timber at the timber yard where our dear grand mother could not catch us especially me,most of the time.It surely were an ideal place for us to play hide and seek in the 3evenings when no workers were around.On working days when the place were opened for business we were told not to go near them.



to continue when inspired.