Reminisce: Growing up in Chinatown

To be exact, growing up in Tng Tiam Hung, the Hokkien name for Craig Road. And for us youngters, so long we could "pa pa chao" - running around in Hokkien, we were gone, only to be back during meal times. And so, our playground grew bigger and wider as we grew older, and bolder. Oblivious to the dangers of traffic and gangsters (read also as secret society members), we went everywhere, well, almost. Certain streets are not meant to be entered and so, we didn't.

Now, as memories grew dimmer in the mind, I thought I should enlist former residents (and even current residents) of greater Chinatown, known as Tua Po, to share more of your experiences. Each of us has our own and we treasure them. I guess some would be private and others public.

Like, when we were young, sitting on the steps from the main doorway of where we lived, we would tease the girls as they passed by, on the way to school. One day, many years later, I was to be introduced to one girl in a colleague's house! Aha, so that was you?? Well, vaguely, as we have grown out of our cocoons, and could not really recognise each other.

Come 29Apr16 at 7pm, I hope to share more, and well, gather more from anyone keen to come along to Grassroots Book Room to talk about the old times (our young times). A number of the old places are gone and so, we will need other triggers to get that segment of our memory back.

Check out more about the Heritagefest. There are also many interesting tales of the old.

http://heritagefest.sg/events/growing-up-in-chinatown