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 26, 2007
90
Ah yes… my mistake – it is “da shui zhan”.
Jul 26, 2007
90
I’ve lost plenty of erasers (and pocket money) to my classmates…
One would think that an eraser with bigger surface area will trump everyone…. but noooo… its the dirty and puny ones that seems to own the day… :D
Jul 26, 2007
1
To Miccheng:
Yes its the dirt erasers that always seem to win. lol may be coz they’re bigger in size.
To Veron:
Yeah and ther’s also a version where the kids play with bottle caps. Can stil rem those days when me n my cousin would walk from coffee shop to coffee shop collecting bottle caps;)
miss those fun dayz
Jul 26, 2007
15
i like five stones.
I used to like make my own five stones using green beans =)
Jul 26, 2007
15
do anyone of you remember ‘da gou bang’?
This is usually make from rolling up newspaper =)
Jul 26, 2007
1
you guys have so much stuff to share. go to mystory.heritagefest.org.sg to write down some sweet memories and stand to win some cash prizes!
Jul 26, 2007
3472
Miccheng: lol still feeling sore after all these years?
Alex: I think those old dirty erasers won because they were more rugged. Bottle caps? That’s new to me! (Or old, whichever.)
lorewang: What do people do with the “da gou bang”?
mantou28: I would enter but I’m too lazy!
Jul 27, 2007
16
打狗棒 (da gou bang) ? Is it like whacko ? You roll newspaper into rod shaped and try and hit people who will be dodging you. Whoever gets hit will become the one whacking other people ?
Jul 27, 2007
3472
lol that sounds very likely! I wonder why the heck is it called 打 “狗” 棒?
Jul 27, 2007
90
Yeah… i want my Singapore flag rubber back!
I had quite alot of pencil cases back in my day… the same multi-compartment types… i probably had enuff to switch pencil cases everyday! Ha ha…
Jul 27, 2007
15
noah – Yes. It is called da gou bang.
Veron – many players will sit in a circle to play this game. One of them will hide the rolled up newspaper behind one of the players and whacked he/she if they didnt pick up the newspaper to chase after you, before the whacker sit down.
Jul 27, 2007
3472
Oh, THAT game! Very familiar and not just limited to childhood memories. I think it’s still currently a popular activity at kids’ gatherings and orientations in schools!
Jul 30, 2007
72
Another great post on Singapore HeritageFest. Nice work there Veron and really appreciate your help. Hope that you managed to catch some of the other highlights. Well, there are always lots of events and exhibitions at the various museums around Singapore even after Singapore HeritageFest. ;)
BTW, will be seeing you on Wednesday for the New Media sharing session chaired by Melvin Yuan. I don’t know what I am going to talk about yet but its gonna be a speech without any powerpoints for me. Too freaking busy!!
Aug 19, 2007
1
hi i enjoyed the read
Sep 18, 2007
1
Hello
Very interesting information! Thanks!
Bye
Oct 31, 2007
1
the red, blue, green and yellow board game where im from is called (ludy) it is very easy and fun..an i would appreciate how i could get my hands on 1 of those i been searching all over for it
Aug 1, 2008
2
I remembered there were some games like:
1. Zero point by using rubber bands to make a string and jump across it. I was really amazed when a person was able to jump so high especially when the string of rubber bands was above the head.
2. Marble game. Everyone will contribute 1-3 marbles and we will draw a circle around the marbles. Then we will use our marbles on hand to hit onto the group of marbles. If any marble roll out from the drawn circle, it will become his and he could take it away.
3. Humtum balla. We will use a tennis green ball and hit onto a person. Anyone who pick up the ball can hit onto another person. The ouch factor is high if being hit by the ball!
4. Zombie game. I forgot how this was played but vaguely remember there’s such a game. It was like a touch and run game.
The games that we used to play were interactive in a way that we are able to interact with one another. Those were the days!
Mar 17, 2009
1
Yup.These games bring memories for people above 60 yrs old.
Aug 7, 2009
1
I doubt those who are above 60 years old used to play all these games.
Aug 7, 2009
3472
I’m pretty sure they used to play five stones and chapteh, at the very least.
Jun 5, 2009
1
I am looking for the Western Bar Game!!
Are you selling it?
Really missed that game sooooo much…
Jun 11, 2009
3472
I miss it too! I used to have one but now I can’t find it anymore! Argh!!