Singapore

As recorded by Shaun Wong
Left for Singapore in Sept 1970. An island of opportunities. Brother Henry sent me on a motorbike (Honda Cub) to Ipoh railway station in the night. Then the journey would take 15 hours. At the last moments of 20 Yeo Kuan Joo, Mother said goodbye in the evening. I was more overwhelmed by the expectation in Singapore. My sister left for England in 1969. When I left, I guess the other siblings felt emptiness too. I borrowed money from the Borneo salesgirl next door, 30 dollars. I borrowed 15 dollars from Father Brian Doro, which I returned years later. Goodbye Mum, I’m going to work as an assistant cook, making mooncakes. If I make $100, I will come back before Christmas. 1970, working in Jurong plywood, as a machine operator. My journey to Singapore was interesting. Supposed to buy train ticket to Singapore, $15 per person then. However, we then whiled the time away at the sports clubs, at games of poker and jackpot. We lost our train ticket money.

We then had to take a lorry carrying newspapers to Singapore, with zero change to my name. I changed my name along the way. I decided to go by James Wong, leaving Frankie as my term of address by my close family.

When I arrived at Singapore, the assistant cook job was tough, worked till I breathing out powder, till after the mooncake festival. After the mooncake festival, I got a job at Jurong plywood factory, as a machine operator, being paid $1 an hour. Monthly earned about $250 – 300. Worked two weeks night shift. From seven am to seven am the next day.

My first accommodation in Singapore was at Jalan Besar at the one-room corridor flat. I didn’t know I was staying in the company of gangsters. At night I slept on the floor and the gangsters would come home in the night, and I had to wake up to let them cross. The main room was the hall where everyone slept. By two weeks, my companion friend left for Ipoh, a rich man’s son. The gangster who was with me brought me to Clementi Woods, to locate the hostel, which was on the premises of an ex-army barracks.

My first proper, decent sleeping room was a wooden floor with some kind of a straw mat. Clothes hung on the wall, no proper doors, four people in a room, separated by a tall divider. Our sleeping bunks only had a pillow. The rent was free provided by Jurong Plywood. My job involved placing glue and plywood into a hot press machine to make furniture. I maybe just using one of the furniture I made myself. We worked about 12 hour shifts, two weeks day and night. Typical morning, white T-shirt, long pants, took company bus to Jurong, came back whole white shirt was sprayed with black glue dots. I was never shy, why didn’t I have a picture. I walked along Victoria Street with business types with their clean freshly pressed shirts.
Clementi Circus were some of my wild days, learnt to gamble, drink, partied with National Semiconductor girls. Normally we’d get paid twice a week. One fine day started to gamble, guess it’s a common thing when Chinese get together. Most frightening encounter was after payday of $150, played black jack, 21, 2 cards. We started to play from evening with our pay packet, until wee hours of the morning.

You know once you sit down you want to continue winning, or losing, you’d want to win back what you’ve lost. To quote Kenny Rogers, “You never count your money when you’re sitting at table, there’ll be time enough to count them, when the dealing”. Win some lose some, mostly lose.

Never a winner who wins all, unless you’re a cheat. Lost my whole pay packet, more than often. Have to keep borrowing money. I got so fed up with myself that I wouldn’t play any more. The next pay packet I got, I went to Peninsular Plaza to buy jeans, the camouflage type that were popular. Came back to my hostel, they were gambling. Wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. Everyone was gambling, every room. With $20/$30 left for food, I sat down at the table, lost again. Don’t remember any winning days. Probably some cheats around. Luckily the police weren’t active then, maybe they didn’t have time for small people like us.

One day I didn’t know we were among gangsters. My friend the dealer, kept winning, while everyone was losing. In came a gangster and said, “Last three deals, I am the dealer” My friend, the dealer, ignored his betting. You’d indicate how much of a $5 you’d want to bet, by the number of folds on the note. One better had $10, another had $5. We played blackjack. Everyone gets one card and the dealer gets the last card. You watch your card, and decide whether you want to increase your bet. If you’ve an ace, or a picture card, you may be in for a win. That particular game never ended. The banker, the dealer got the last card of the game. He put the remaining deck on the table. Everyone put their cards on the table, the banker claimed he had three aces without showing his hand and collected money from everybody. One of the players said that he only put $8 and needed to get $2 change. The banker just walked away with the money. Out came his partner with a pen knife, saying “Who wants his money back?” And they walked away. It seems one of the days I was working, one of the gangsters came, dragged the dealer out, took his money and accused him of cheating. This kind of life lasted about 6 months. Almost lost my life.

Another gambling incident happened again after we collected our pay packet. This was when I decided not to gamble, and ended up working in the factory with a few people. Not enough people to run a full process, so good we did lighter work. I went back in the morning as usual, I was too tired to gamble, so went back to wash up, then went to Peninsular to buy jeans. When I didn’t have money, I sold my jeans for food. One night at Jurong Plywood, too tired, failed to clean the optical sensors and push the plywood entirely into the machine before the compression process. Quite tired, and my eyesight wasn’t good. I pressed the start machine and the piece of plywood that was not fully pressed in, was damaged and I got a shelling from the supervisor.

We had our parties, one Saturday night, there was an uninvited guest who came in. I met girls named Nancy, Alice and Anna, they were our girlfriends. I was flirting around. I was eyeing Anna, though Nancy n I sort of clicked during Clementi days. Gangsters came in and a fight broke out. We were drunk, there was a staircase, bottles were broken, ready for a fight. Second brother was fully drunk. I was a bystander, I didn’t know what to do. I was so thin. I remember one Tan brother, jumped from the staircase, intending to attack the gangster but landed flat on the floor.