It was one of those rare Sundays when Snowylass and Snowybeagle both fell asleep for their nap at the same time ... at my in-laws' place ...
Which means ...
Snowylady and I finally got to go jalan-jalan, hand-in-hand together ... at least for a couple of hours ... we hope ...
It was extremely fortunate for us that our in-laws' place is at Tiong Bahru, a very short distance away from Chinatown. A short hop on the bus later and we found ourselves walking along the streets, trying to decide which eatery to attack ...
Even before we got to the place for lunch, just walking with her, talking, telling her how the Chinatown scene was reminiscent to me of my earliest memories when I was in HK ... was fun.
Passing by Temple Street, I just noticed for the first time that the Chinese name for it was not 廟街/庙街 but 邓婆街. When I did some checks today, apparently it was brought up in Parliament on 18 April, 2005 by Prof. Ivan Png Paak Liang to review all Chinese district and names to make the names consistent and intuitive in the Chinese translation, the Temple Street being one prominent example. Prof Png directed the question to the PM, and the PM referred him to Street and Building Names Board (SBNB), and cited that :
The existing Chinese street names should generally be retained. Many of the names, including those that the Member had cited, have been in use for a long time and are now widely accepted and familiar to Singaporeans. To change the Chinese names now would confuse the public.
The translation of street names in Chinese is guided by the Report of the Committee on the Standardisation of Street Names in Chinese which was released in 1970. Following a review of all the existing street names in Chinese, the Committee set out these general principles:
- To provide more readable street names in Chinese.
- For the purpose of transliteration, Mandarin pronunciation should generally be taken.
Reference : http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~ipng/pol/parl_2005/20050418.pdf
Back to my walk in Chinatown ... we spotted the posters of Yangtze cinema playing their usual fare ... except one seemed rather unusual ... "Bunford's Beach Bunnies" ... a very American title with an actor who looked like Tom Hanks. Checked IMDB when I got back ... he's Jim Hanks, brother of Tom Hanks ... quite an old show from the early 1990s ... one of those campy comedies with a bit of peek-a-boo ... ha ha ha ... I think the D.O.M. who spent money watching it might be disappointed.
Finally had our lunch ... tried the Sarawak Kolo Noodles ... mmmmmm ... nice ... brings back memories ... my childhood noodles before I came to Singapore was very similar ... without the char-siew and prawns. The only complaint is the prawns were terribly unfresh, disintegrating into tasteless crumbs when bitten. But it's practically the same type of noodles, drenched in the same type of pork oil ... with lots of chopped chicken chunks ... aaaah, yummy
Desert was back at Temple Street ... okay, but not great mango pudding+pomelo.
Somehow, we managed to squeeze a quick walk from there to see how Chinatown became more and more commercialised. When I was a kid, families actually lived in these shophouses. Still, we wondered why Chinatown in San Francisco just doesn't seem to be as bustling despite the fact that families and people actually do live in the buildings over there.
Our sojourn was all too quickly interrupted by a call from grandma, announcing Snowylad woke up and cried quite angrily when he realised mummy was not around ...
*sigh*
All of us 8 kids learnt from as young as 6 months that Mummy won't always be around...maybe Snowylad can start learning that too, so you and your lady can have more precious time together? ;-)
ReplyDeleteNot really ... they'll only be like this for a few more years ...
ReplyDeleteWe used to leave them longer, but ever since my mother-in-law had her operation, she can't carry Snowylad until she's fully recovered. That leaves the maid whose primary responsibility is to care for my father-in-law. Besides, we don't want to push duty of caring for the child to the maid.
Now that Snowylad has grown more, the concern is that he's too active and needs proper supervision. He's already learned to climb up the first bar of the grill-gate.
As for Snowylass, I'm thinking of bringing her along more to walk in places like Chinatown to develop her street-sense.
Strange, Moon, Charlotte and I passed by the road just this saturday, and this immediately kind of hit our eyes... I was wondering why the difference, whilst in Hong Kong we have 廟街?
ReplyDeleteJust as long they don't start calling Chinatown as 唐城 I am ok...
ReplyDeleteMaybe because 廟街 in HK has a certain reputation which gahmen officials don't want associated in sanitised Singapore?
ReplyDeleteThe Temple Street in Singapore is a still a quite a few streets away from "that" district in Chinatown, so don't want the innocent people working in Temple Street to get harassed from mistaken identity?
any case, we have our Keong Siak, HK have their Temple street, but get the feeling that they are being recycled... even Bugis Street looks nothing like the old Bugis Street.
ReplyDeleteIt should be 邓婆街. That was the street name I knew since 1975. My late grandma had a stall here selling clothe and I used to help her manned the stall while she went for her breaks.
ReplyDeleteHahaha, that's cool. I used to help the fruit stall uncle sell fruits in middle school. Donno how it happened but somehow ended up running the whole fruit stall myself at recess. I of course, got paid in fruits.... :P
ReplyDeleteheehee, i got 10cents paid only.. but how to ask my grandma for more..? dare not.
ReplyDeleteBut in those days, 10cents can buy quite a lot of fancy stuff too, like candy.
I like to man the stall, because I like to watch the crowd. Just opposite the stall, there is this stall selling live snakes, turtles and all kinds of wild animals. These poor animals were slaughtered live right in front of the buyers. I remember clearly how the skin of the snakes were peel-off from the tail up. Horrible but it was a bloody-sight!
Hmm, so we have fellow entrepreneurs here.... :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction, edited my blog entry.
ReplyDeleteSo, what happened to that stall?
And do you still have the eye for assessing garment materials or assessing the customer to see how much you can fleece ... I mean ... charge them?
That was 1975.. there was one year the government announced that all street-stalls were to relocate to the Chinatown Complex (today still under upgrading). Those days there were all kinds of noodle stalls on roller-carts; a variety of them - laksa, beef kwey tiao, fish-ball, fruit stalls, even old folks selling greeting cards and chinese magazines, etc etc... If you go to the library, you may still find these black and white photos in books on the good-old Chinatown or Singapore.
ReplyDeleteYes You will be surprise how good I still am assessing materials whether the quality are good or the inferior type. My grandma was good in making quick profits though, she taught me if its the local, charge the clothe at local price. If its a tourist, than mark up to a certain price, down to a margin. And you will be surprise too how good I was with the scissors, I can measure the cloth with the 36 inch long ruler and cut the clothe across within a straight line. That require some skills indeed.
But that was like 1975 to 1985 I cant remember. Too long ago.
wow, this is indeed a new Moon I am discovering.
ReplyDeleteThat stall became a shop when we relocate it into Chinatown Complex. After my grandma passed away, my mum took over the small business for many years, till my kids came along, she decided to close it to help me with the kids.
ReplyDeleteAnyway business wasn't good.. who will still sew their own clothes when they can buy ready-made ones when its so much more cheaper and not to mention, nicer too.
But my grandma had some good regular customers, like the media-corp, (it was known as TCS that time if I am not wrong).. whenever they have some new TV series production, they buy materials from my grandma.. but still that was not very often to justify the continuation of the business.
SBC - Singapore Broadcasting Corporation.
ReplyDeleteI had to use Pascal to drawn a series of basic polygons to re-create the logo for my high school computer project ... ouch ... did the same for the logos of National Library, NUS, Singapore Zoo etc. No graphical tools or scanners available in those days.
ah yes, SBC.. then TCS, then MediaCorp?
ReplyDeleteIndeed many things were done manually those days.. and because of the advance in technology, many people lost their jobs too.. eg when buses go OMO, and food courts go self-service.. etc
umm, you might like start with RTS - Radio and Television of Singapore, then... SBC... and all the way... hehehe.
ReplyDeleteyes govt likes changes.. well its ok, i am open to changes..change is good. change is challenging.. haha!
ReplyDelete