Singapore HeritageFest 2007 (Part 2): Childhood Memories
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 favourite…
The colourful kuti-kuti! This is one of my favourite childhood toys, not because it is so darn fun to play with (it isn’t really), but the colourful 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.
More childhood games such as the five stones which are made from cloth and sand. My Mom played with these in HER childhood!
Colourful 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.
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).
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?
Ahh… Who can forget the simple playing cards like Old Maid, Donkey, Happy Family and Snap? They bring back fond memories indeed.
The colourful chapteh (an Asian shuttlecock game)! The boys in my school used to play with it.
Do you remember brushing your teeth alongside your classmates during recess breaks back in primary school? We used to rinse out of these colourful 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?
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…
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.
Oh! I remember those colourful 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.
These are things used during the physical education classes in school.
At the exhibition, there was a large table with crayons and paper. Kids could draw freely with their creative juices!
The drawings would then be pinned up on the Memory Wall, just like a classroom wall!
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.
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.
Date: July 18-29, 2007
Venue: Anchor exhibition at Suntec City Mall and outreach events at various places
I cannot wait to check out those other activities! Time is running out though, so do hurry!
Jul 25, 2007
90
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
Jul 25, 2007
182
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*
Jul 25, 2007
3472
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!
Jul 26, 2007
16
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.
Jul 26, 2007
16
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
Jul 26, 2007
41
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
Jul 26, 2007
3472
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.
Jul 26, 2007
15
Western Bar rocks man. I remember the crying sound-effect well, always kana one. Haha :P
Jul 26, 2007
27
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
Jul 26, 2007
15
the aeroplane chess in chinese which we called last time is ‘tiao fei ji’. =)
Jul 26, 2007
90
@lorewang: i’d always thought that “tiao fei ji” meant hopscotch… :D
Jul 26, 2007
3472
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.
Jul 26, 2007
90
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.
Jul 26, 2007
3472
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”.
Jul 26, 2007
44
Wow, those items really brings back some of my childhood memories.
Just to share my personal experience about the toothbrush and the colourful 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 …
Jul 26, 2007
3472
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
Jul 26, 2007
4
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 colourful erasers and pencils.
*sigh… great memories.
Jul 26, 2007
3472
Looks like the Five Stones and Chapteh were common to many South-East Asian countries!
Speaking of the colourful 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.
Jul 26, 2007
4
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.
Jul 26, 2007
3472
Yeah! That eraser game was played in the same way as the kuti-kuti too!