Singapore HeritageFest 2007 (Part 2): Childhood Memories

By Veron | Posted in Travel / Singapore
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As promised, here’s Part 2 of my feature on the Singapore HeritageFest 2007 flagship exhibition, which I title “Childhood Memories”. (And here’s Part 1: Household Things!) This exhibition takes place at Suntec City Mall.

For me personally, the highlight of the exhibition was seeing all the various items and toys from my childhood. I know many of you would find these things familiar, especially if you grew up in the 1980s or 1990s. This list should interest you too.

Firstly, my most favorite…

The colorful kuti-kuti! This is one of my favorite childhood toys, not because it is so darn fun to play with (it isn’t really), but the colorful transparent pieces in various animal shapes simply look so adorable!

This is how you play with kuti-kuti. From the Singapore Museum Shops website:

Two players, or two groups of players, would take their turn in flicking with one finger (known in Malay as “kuti”) these colourful little animal-shaped tokens, aiming to land their piece on top of the opponent player’s to win the game.

Five stones game

More childhood games such as the five stones which are made from cloth and sand. My Mom played with these in HER childhood!

Puzzles

Colorful plastic puzzles! I had both of these! The empty slot is there so that you can slide the letters or numbers to rearrange them in the correct order.

Western Bar, handheld game from Casio

This handheld game from casio was a total classic! It’s called Western Bar. Your cowboy character enters the bar to shoot and break the plates and dishes while avoiding any that may drop onto his head. It was a very fun and highly addictive game (with an ending music that I dreaded hearing each time I lost the game).

Board game

The red, blue, green and yellow board game above was pretty common when I was a kid, although I never did find out how it was played. A friend tried to explain the rules and objectives to me recently, and made it seem like the most pointless game ever (too pointless to be true)!

Would someone please tell me the name of this game and how it’s meant to be played?

Old playing cards such as Old Maid and Happy Family

Ahh… Who can forget the simple playing cards like Old Maid, Donkey, Happy Family and Snap? They bring back fond memories indeed.

Chapteh, an Asian shuttlecock game

The colorful chapteh (an Asian shuttlecock game)! The boys in my school used to play with it.

Toothbrush, toothpaste and rinsing mugs

Do you remember brushing your teeth alongside your classmates during recess breaks back in primary school? We used to rinse out of these colorful plastic mugs! Mine was the yellow one, complete with the words “clean teeth never decay” in gold!

By the way, do you notice something interesting about the toothpaste?

Darkie toothpaste, known as "Darlie" today

Instead of the current Darlie toothpaste that we’re all familiar with, there was a time when it was called Darkie! A friend told me that this name and the logo of the smiling dark-skinned man were deemed racist back then. Hence the name was changed and logo modified to make it more racially sensitive!

This is a more detailed backstory on the Darkie/Darlie saga for those of you who are interested.

Moving on…

Condensed milk label

I found these condensed milk labels very interesting. They were printed on reused paper; the back of these labels had a whole bunch of other text and pictures on them.

What’s the story behind the condensed milk? Did schools order it for school children in the past? For me there had always been chocolate and strawberry milk packets, or even Milo. But never condensed milk.

Pencil case and stationery

Oh! I remember those colorful pencil cases very well. They had all kinds of interesting buttons and different compartments in them. The more there were, the more bragging rights the owner had!

The blue ink erasers would frequently rub holes onto the thin pages of the brown exercise books! Those cheap made-in-china wooden pencils were the norm back then. I think they cost just 10 or 20 cents apiece.

Here’s a timeline on how writing media has evolved over the years, from the graphite pencils in mid 1600 to the iPhone of today!

While we’re at it, here’s another timeline for the evolution of music media.

Game and sports items used in physical education classes

These are things used during the physical education classes in school.

Little girl drawing a picture

At the exhibition, there was a large table with crayons and paper. Kids could draw freely with their creative juices!

Memory Wall, filled with children's drawings

The drawings would then be pinned up on the Memory Wall, just like a classroom wall!

Barber

Before I forget, there is also a barber on hand giving cheap haircuts to men and boys, reminiscent of the street barbers in the past. An adult haircut costs just $3 while a kid’s haircut costs $1! He gives only ten haircuts a day though.

Singapore HeritageFest 2007

So, are you intrigued yet? Head down to the heritage exhibition at Suntec City Mall then! It runs ’til this Sunday! There are also a whole slew of other activities taking place at various venues across the island.

Event: Singapore HeritageFest 2007
Date: July 18-29, 2007
Venue: Anchor exhibition at Suntec City Mall and outreach events at various places

More information

I cannot wait to check out those other activities! Time is running out though, so do hurry!

Also in this series

Singapore HeritageFest 2007 (Part 1): Household Things

About the Author

Veron Ang is the founder and chief editor of Sparklette. She lives in Singapore and has dined and traveled across the world. She also runs Sparklette Studio, a web design and development firm. If you'd like to connect with her, head on over to the contact page or follow her on Twitter: @sparklette.

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45 responses

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Miccheng
July 25

The game’s called “Airplane Chess” or “Fei Ji Qi”. Yes, these games do bring back memories of growing up in the 80s and 90s.
My Primary School was Jin Tai Primary… we’ll squat over the drain grille to brush our teeth after “Recess” and just spit into the drain.
“Western Bar” was my favourite game growing up – never did realise that its build by Casio.
Thanks for bringing back all the memories, Veron. :D
Reply
py
July 25

This post is worthy for submission to Yesterday.sg !!
Oh ya, I remember having to brush teeth alongside classmate, and I didn’t like it, because the activity of brushing teeth is so regulated…..as part of the school’s programme.
Pardon me, I don’t know how to play kuti-kuti, care to share more about it?
About Darkie, a friend told me that she didn’t dare to brush her teeth after seeing the fierce looking Darkie. I think Darlie is a more friendly version. *winks*
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Veron
July 25

Miccheng: Oh yes, those checkers had airplanes on them. But how do you play it? Tell me next time!
py: I meant to submit this post (and the previous one too) to yesterday.sg, until I realised that noelbynature had already blogged about it over there!
Kuti-kuti is really just like finger-wrestling with plastic animals! You take an animal and your friend takes an animal. Using just your index finger, you try to flick/flip one animal over the other. Whichever animal is pinned down is lost to the opponent. The game continues until one player has lost all his animals!
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noah
July 26

Suddenly the music of the western bar game rang up in my mind, complete with the 2 gunshots at the end. It used to be a market place with gunshots ringing everywhere in the classroom whenever the teacher is not around in the primary school days.
Vaguely remembered collecting those Milkmaid condensed milk labels. Think can exchange for something … can’t remember clearly.
Wahahah …. those were the days.
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noah
July 26

Veron, the objective of the aeroplane chess is to be the first (or at least not be the last player) to send all the 4 aeroplane checkers to the ending point. You roll a dice and the number you rolled determines how many steps you can advance. If your dice point is just right, there are short-cuts that you can take towards the ending point. If your opponent’s checker comes to the same slot as your checker, he can kick your piece back to the starting point and you start all over again. My mum loves this game. hahaha
Reply
chillycraps
July 26

omg omg super nostalgic! I remember I used to have those pencil case with that magnetic catch, and those blue rubber always rub a hole in the paper!
ok i’m getting old =P
Reply
Veron
July 26

noah: You could exchange those Milkmaid labels for free gifts? Wahaha that’s cute.
Thanks for explaining the rules of the airplane chess! I may have to play it for myself to see what it’s like.
chillycraps: So am I, chilly. So am I.
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hucks
July 26

Western Bar rocks man. I remember the crying sound-effect well, always kana one. Haha :P
Reply
Jasmine
July 26

Wow! Is this festival held annually?
Such a waste I’m not in SG to be able to attend it. :( But great pics and entries! :D
Reply
lorewang
July 26

the aeroplane chess in chinese which we called last time is ‘tiao fei ji’. =)
Reply
Miccheng
July 26

@lorewang: i’d always thought that “tiao fei ji” meant hopscotch… :D
Reply
Veron
July 26

hucks: lol at the crying sound effect! I forgot all about that! The cowboy character would have tears pouring off his cheeks too hahaha!
Jasmine: Thanks! Yup, this is an annual event.
lorewang: I didn’t know that! Thanks!
Miccheng: For some reason “tiao fei ji” just sounds dirty to me lol.
Reply
Miccheng
July 26

There was an old Singapore Drama Series by (the then) Singapore Broadcasting Corporation – its called “Five Foot Square” that reminisces those growing up years.
The Chinese theme song mentions all the games that children played back then… “tiao fei ji… da shui bang! Dong fen xi pao zua mi chang”. This song will be inevitably sung at every year’s National Day Parade.
Reply
Veron
July 26

Hey, I know that song! (Those three lines, at least.) It’s very catchy! Is the second line “da shui bang” (water sticks?) or “da shui zhan” (water war)? I remember it as “da shui zhan”.
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Jayson
July 26

Wow, those items really brings back some of my childhood memories.
Just to share my personal experience about the toothbrush and the colorful mugs …
Every Friday, my class would fill up our mugs with water at the nearby basin, then lined up along the drain and squatted down …
As I was brushing my teeth, i always seemed to be confused whether the horrible stench came from my mouth or the drain that everybody was rinsing/spitting in …
Reply
Veron
July 26

A few people mentioned the entire class brushing their teeth by the drain and collectively spitting in afterwards. Yuck! What a load of pollution! My classmates and I did it by the large wash basin.
I think that horrible stench came from the hole that isn’t the drain :P
Reply
Augel
July 26

Wow! I didn’t think that we also played similar games when we were children (I’m from the Philippines).
I do remember playing Five Stones and Chapteh, brushing my teeth with my classmates after eating (recess and lunch). And those cute pencil cases! Yes, I had a bunch of them, along with colorful erasers and pencils.
*sigh… great memories.
Reply
Veron
July 26

Looks like the Five Stones and Chapteh were common to many South-East Asian countries!
Speaking of the colorful erasers, I remember the boys at my school collecting them too. The erasers had green on one side, and a picture of a country flag on the other. Every eraser had a different flag on it! It was quite educational.
Reply
alex
July 26

the red, blue & yellow board game. I used to play that when i was a kid, before i moved to Australia. But can’t rem how to play it. lol
Yeah and the old school stationaries. i rem that we used to collect erasers n play this eraser game. Whoever wins gets to keep their opponents eraser. So like i have a ton of eraser collections when i was young. lol.
Reply
Veron
July 26

Yeah! That eraser game was played in the same way as the kuti-kuti too!
Reply