Of Hand-me downs, Flip Flops and a Frock

During my childhood, or during my elder sister’s or aunt’s childhood, parents with lower and unstable incomes were not that extravagant in purchasing clothes for their children as compared to parents of present times. That did not mean that parents those days loved their children any less.  It was just that they were more careful in spending their husbands’ hard earned money especially when only the men were bringing food on to their tables.   

I remember I had to wear my sister’s or aunt’s or mother’s slippers to walk out into the streets. I cannot remember whether I had hated it or not, but I can recall of a few occasions when I sprained my ankle as a result of wearing outsized slippers.


 I also remember Ah Peng and I had to wear dresses that were once our sisters’ and that were either too large or too long. Ah Peng used to playfully put both her arms inside the dress or blouse instead of putting them through the armholes, pretending that she had no arms. Both of us would clown around and laugh at each other’s antics. Our mothers would get very infuriated with us for doing that. They thought that we were making fun of physically handicapped people! Wait till the gods punish you for being so unsympathetic, they warned us.

Clothes were items that I was not overly fretful about when I was little. Every other child in the neighbourhood had not many pretty clothes to wear anyway.  


Things changed however one day, when a new family moved into our neighbourhood. They had a lot of beautiful possessions like stylish furniture, a big car, expensive looking toys and beautiful clothes. Before that, I had never set eyes on such pretty things before.  I was living in a closed world.

The newcomers were from a rich family who, because of some financial problems, had to temporarily reside in the house just behind mine.  They had a daughter who was a real beauty.  I was mesmerised by her good looks.  She had a heart-shaped face with large almond shaped eyes, a thin pointed nose, small red lips and her complexion was very fair, almost flawless. Every time she spoke I would just stare at her, totally fascinated by her fluttering long eyelashes.


 She used to come to my house to play with me and she had so many beautiful dresses that I wished that she would give me one.


Feeling exasperated at just envying my new friend’s dresses, I decided to persuade my mother to get me a frock like hers. I started by asking her why my dresses were not anything like hers, why mine had to made by my elder sister and why they were not bought from a shop in town.


  My mother’s first answer was that they had money and that they could afford them.  This was followed by another question from the dissatisfied me.  Why is it that they have money and we have not, I was heard asking. At this point, I was shoved off and told to be grateful for what I was given.

Pork Marks, Plain Porridge and "Feng Shui"

The days that followed were more tolerable.  At least I was able to get a lukewarm bath in a day.  The temperature was much reduced after I had yelled out my demands. I insisted that children ought to be heard, not just be seen.  My grandma had to waggle a stick to remind me of my manners.  I had also learnt to sulk and my mother pointed out to me that my face had grown a few inches longer.

For a period of about three months, which had seemed like decades, after I had chickenpox I was put on a strict diet of mostly plain rice porridge and bland foods.  No black soya sauce, the minimum amount of oil, no shrimps, no meat of rooster, no ginger or any spicy foods. 


 The restrictions were imposed to ward off either any recurrence of the disease or the possibility of getting pock marks from the remaining hard-to-heal blisters.  The pock marks especially the ones on ‘strategic’ places of certain parts of the face were believed to influence one’s lives, said some clairvoyants.  A scar or scars on the wrong places would jeopardise good fortune in one’s life, so human intervention was necessary.  It was all part and parcel of what they called ‘fate’.

As a result of this fear of getting pork marks, it was many meals of plain rice porridge eaten with preserved radish, preserved leeks,  preserved  olives , salted egg (only the white was allowed) and sometimes steamed non-oily fish.


  Had I not protested, this kind of meal would have continued because the two elderly ladies would not have imagined that I would not like them.  When they were in China, a meal like the ones they had served me was considered godsend.  They had not much to eat during the pre-Communist rule.   Getting exhausted with having to force me to eat, my mother slowly abandoned the whole idea and relaxed the ‘rules’ a little.  She gave me some of the food cooked for the rest of the family.

I was not a very vain child since young.  I would rather trade my freedom for many other things and in this case, flawless skin and the so-called ‘good fortune’.  Even as a child I was not convinced of several housewives’ tales or beliefs that I had often pricked my ears to listen.  I remained sceptical of them even though I had imbibed them at some time or other. 

When I had finished high school and started working, my sister used to describe my situation as not ‘smooth sailing’ for I did not have the luck to further my studies like most of my friends had.  She pointed to the pock mark on my left eye brow which had caused the length to be much shorter than the right one. 


 She thought it was the wrong place to have the mark and it had not only spoiled my looks, it had also given me bad luck.  Yes, I unwilling agreed with her because the other ‘bad luck’ she did not mention was the demise of my mother when I was eleven. It was the worst of luck but I refused to think that it had to do with my non-compliance.

Sponging and Hot Bath

   Back home, I could hear my mother complaining about her missing flip flops.  None was heard about a missing daughter and that affirmed that my disappearance had not been discovered and that the ladies had just come back.  


Quickly and quietly, I slipped back into my bedroom.  I laid down on the bed with my legs dangling down its side.  I did not want to dirty the spotlessly clean bed sheet with my soiled feet.  Just as I was about to get up and reach out for the rag on the floor to clean the dirt off, my mother walked in. 

 Staring at her goggle-eyed,  I was lost for words for a few seconds but somehow , I managed to think of an excuse quite quickly.  I explained that  I was actually thinking of sitting down on the cool cement floor and that the bed had become too hot to bear. I was hoping that she had not seen my feet and much to my relief, she had not. 


She told me that the cold floor would not be good for me.  Instead of scolding me, she rewarded me with two coconut candies and commented that I had been a very good girl!  I opened one of them to eat and kept the other for Ah Peng.  Wait till she sees this, I thought to myself.  Indeed Ah Peng was delighted to receive such a precious gift from me!


      My mother put her palm on my forehead and was happy that the temperature had gone down.  On seeing that I was perspiring a lot, which was a good sign, she decided to clean me up. This was the first time after nearly a week that I was brought to the bathroom. I felt excited as she filled a bathtub of cold water and then, mixed it with some hot water.  She tested the water with her hands and when she thought the temperature was right, she soaked a towel in it.


  By then I had undressed myself.  My mother brought the wet towel towards my tender body and just as she was about to touch me with it,  I yelled because I could feel the heat. I pushed away her hand and the water splashed on her face and clothes.  My mother was so angry that she smacked me on my legs.


    The session continued with me wailing and my mother grumbling.  If I knew it was going to be like this I would rather have the sponging.  It was for my own good , so said my grandma.  My body was not ready to take any coldness yet.

The Guppies in the Drain

Finally, the monsoon drain in sight.  Ah Peng twisted and broke a dry twig from a broken branch of a 'cherry' tree.  I was about to ask her why she needed it when she scurried off to the drain , leaving me staring behind her. 


 Just as she reached the edge of the drain, she squatted down.  I hurried towards her, afraid that I might miss anything interesting.  Ah Peng used the twig to poke into the water in the drain and as she did that, tiny grey guppies swam around it.  I was gleefully looking at them when Ah Peng spoiled my mood.  


Mischievously, she gave the twig a shake and the guppies shot away in all directions, dispersing like a blob of light grey paint dropped from a height.  She chuckled and told me to squat down.  She gave me the twig and suggested that I 'teased' the fish in the water too.

   Together we squatted at the edge of the monsoon drain .The drain was silted up and its sides had fallen in. There were oil slicks floating on the water, possibly from the mechanic's workshop located just a few yards away.  It was a miracle that the tiny guppies could thrive in such a condition.

   Time seemed to fly by.  We did not realise it as we were so engrossed 'communicating' with our aquatic friends.  It was almost midday and our stomachs were beginning to groan.  As we were about to get up to go home, a familiar shrill voice from behind made us jump up.  We turned our heads and to our surprise, we saw Ah Peng's mother! 


 Oh, gosh! The shade of the big cherry had blocked off most of

 the hot sun , so much so that we did not realise it was nearly

lunch time.  Ah Peng's mother had come home from work and

she was still in her smelly work clothes.  As she pushed her

bicycle and walked away, Ah Peng sheepishly followed.  Her

mother muttered something which I could not comprehend,

and I saw her pinched Ah Peng's left ear. 


 I felt scared and I ran off home as fast as I could.

I almost tripped and fell down.  Wearing flip flops too large for 

one's feet is very dangerous, I realised then.

Outsized flip flops and opportune freedom

   One late morning, the house was unusually quiet. It was one of the times when the elderly ladies had to go out to run their errands or to drop by at one of my neighbour's house.  Feeling happy because I had actually imagined them to be out, I decided to take this golden opportunity to get out of the dreaded bedroom. However, with some doubts still, I did not tread out as boldly as I had hoped to.


  I was very cautious, so at first, I put out one foot into the doorway. When no reprimanding voice from my mother or grandma was heard, the other foot joined the former.  Soon, I was in the doorway.  Still no response from whoever that could be in the house.My heart leapt out in joy. I braved myself and ventured further steps. I was completely elated when I finally made it to the front door. Then, out of perfect coincidence, a familiar face popped out from the front door of the house opposite mine.  It was Ah Peng!

     Ah Peng lived across the road.  Somehow, without even uttering a single word, our mutual stares told us what we both wanted at that instance.  Hastily, we put on whatever flip flops available at our doorsteps.We did not have our own because in those days, our parents would not buy shoes or any other foot gear for their very young children as they would soon outgrow them.


 I wore my mother's flip flops whereas Ah Peng wore her grandma's.  Wearing outsized flip flops, the two of us trudged down the lane.  Ah Peng suggested that we go to a big monsoon drain nearby. She talked excitedly about it.  However, I was apprehensive about going too far away.  She insisted and quelled my fears by claiming that she had seen with her own two keen eyes , the elderly ladies of my house leaving, each going their own way. 


 With that assurance, I felt relieved and continued the journey with the extremely zealous Ah Peng.

Of Chickenpox and Breaking free

       In the sixties, most Chinese mothers in my neighbourhood who had children with chickenpox knew the importance of quarantining them from the healthy ones.  It was simply by keeping the infected ones in their bedrooms as much as possible.


 When I had chickenpox at the age of 5 or 6, I was not supposed to be exposed to any wind and that was the main reason really that I was kept in confinement.  I suppose it was to avoid getting a chill when my body was burning hot due to the high fever.


      My mother did not know anything about microbes in the air and that they were the culprits in causing the spread of the disease.  It was the same with the other Chinese mothers living in the neighbourhood.  However, fortunately they knew that chickenpox was not a disease to be taken lightly and it was contagious, but only to those who had never had it before.  The manner of how it would be spread was not known.  They were not educated and most of them were either housewives or rubber tappers.  I had thought of how they would have looked if they were told about these 'invisible' dangers lurking around them.


      I had a 'taste' of the disease that my elder sister so proudly talked about.  She had came through it with the slightest scarring.  I could not remember who it was that contracted it first that year, but my childhood friend and favourite playmate, Ah Peng,  had to be kept away from me and vice versa.


  We did not see each other for a couple of days and that was enough to almost kill us.  It was also a real agony for both my mother and myself.  Every now and then throughout those few days had me groaning and moaning, not because of the itchiness or of the fever that came with the disease, but of the sheer boredom of staying in a hot and stuffy bedroom.


No fanning, no bath, except for the sponging that my mother observed every late evening.  Like any other active and normal child, I tried several times to venture out of the bedroom.  Every attempt to walk out of the  door was doused by the sudden appearance of either my mother or grandma.  Iwas watched closely.  All of a sudden, I was guarded like a precious princess. 

Threats like getting rheumatism and all kinds of body aches long before old age were hurled at me.  I was advised to take care and to exercise discipline.  Of course I did not understand one bit what they were talking about, but I was sure that they were firm in keeping me indoors.