reunion dinner @ jelapang

this year we opted for steamboat dinner. first had to discard last year's korean bbq set because it had given up on us. also threw away another old set which made use of cartridge gas. the present set which we acquired last year makes use of electric power.

for the soup stock, we used the thigh bones of the pig. three types of vegetables - long cabbage, tang oh and pharng chye - were cooked in the soup. i bought fishballs from woodlands loop, shabu shabu beef and chicken cutlets from cold storage.

the other stuff that eventually went into the steamboat included abalone, scallops, big prawns, prawn balls, meat balls, button mushrooms, cuttle fish, pork, eggs, dried fish maw and crab sticks.

for dessert, we had orh nee with pumpkin which i had bought from block 15 woodlands loop.

masturbating monkey

huat cheong, one of my walking kakis, was telling us about a pet monkey kept by the owner of the fishing ponds at old tampines road, a place which used to be our haunt many years ago.

one day, the owner took him to watch his male pet monkey masturbating. like humans, this monkey preferred to perform this self-gratifying act away from the prying eyes of people and monkeys. so, he told huat cheong not to let his presence be known to the marcaque.

according to huat cheong, the monkey clasped his hand around his organ and pumped it vigorously for sometime before the sperm spurted out. some landed on the fur of its hands and the monkey licked it up. after a while, it continued with its masturbation.

so, you see, it is not "monkey see, monkey do"; it is "man see monkey do."

food snatching monkeys

these incidents of wild monkeys snatching food from unsuspecting or suspecting visitors to the parks are not a new phenomenon. i remember in the old days when we visited our own botanic gardens at tanglin, we had to be wary of these monkeys. people then were feeding monkeys openly as it was not an offence to do so. that was before they were declared a public nuisance and were subsequently culled.

i also remember my visit to penang's botanic gardens more than 30 years ago. the garden is located at the end of jalan kebun bunga, about 8km from the city, georgetown. i had gone to penang to visit my balestier hill's colleague khoo boo sun. i can still remember the bewilderment and fear of some young children as the long tailed marcaques snatched away their snacks. we could only watched helplessly.

humans seem to have some strong affinity for their closest relatives in the animal kingdom. it is almost instinctive that they have to feed the monkeys. in spite of all the warning signs, i have seen, at various spots all over the island, people sneaking food to the wild monkeys.

with the doubling of the fine - from $250 to $500, may be these 'kind-hearted people' will be more discreet and careful.

lunch at lee kui (ah hoi)

today, arranged to meet ian song outside the cold storage at novena square. instead, he was waiting for us at the food-court. went on to show him where the first coach office was so that he would have no problem locating the place the next day. he would have to be there at 7.00 a.m. for his coach trip to kuala lumpur.

drove to mosque street in chinatown to eat at the teochew restaurant known for its cold crab, orh nee and pig's trotters. finding a parking space was a problem, so i parked the car at the hdb's multi-storey car-park at smith street. ida had gone to the restaurant on her own after her church service at henderson industrial park.

we had cold crabs, fried prawn balls, ngoh hiang, kangkong and noodles. for dessert, we had the very popular orh nee with pumpkin.

ian rested at our place till about 5.45 p.m. when we drove him to joab's place at telok kurau.

breakfast sold at our doorstep

come to think of it, in some ways we were quite spoilt during those kampong days. i remember this wiry old lady from the next kampong, lorong sinaran, who would come around in the morning with a cane basket slung over her shoulders. she moved from door to door to sell breakfast items like chye tow kueh (carrot cake), longkow (monsoon drain) kuay, you tiao and 'rockets'.

although those items that i have mentioned were all fried stuff, she also had non-fried food to offer, like ang koo kueh, pak tong kou and the colourful nine-layered kueh.

in those days, each item could not have cost more than ten cents. we did not have the means to eat such stuff every day. our usual morning breakfast consisted of french loaf (cheam tow roti) which we dipped in black coffee (kopi oh). whenever there were some festive celebrations, then we would get to eat home-made ang koo kueh and huat kueh.

somedays we had slices of no-brand white bread on which we spread planta margarine or kaya. no butter for us because it was considered a luxury item.

accident at devil's bend

talking about the tragic death of the two polytechnic students in a car accident at the old upper thomson road, tye thong tried to remind me of an incident we had at the same spot. actually, there was no need for any reminder because when i heard about the accident, right away i had flashback of our own experiences.

it happened during those wild, motorcycling days. we were heading for balestier road from sembawang when we decided to test our skills along the old grand prix circuit. of course, kok weng - the most daring and skilful among us - sped ahead. tye thong and i were contented to just weave along.

then when we rounded the bend, we came to an abrupt stop. kok weng was standing, stunned, on the grass verge, with his blue yahama 250cc motorcycle nowhere in sight. we stopped quickly by the side of the road. kok weng pointed to a small ravine when his motor bike had come to a rest.

three of us managed to haul the bike out of the ravine and onto the road side. fortunately, the bike was damaged slightly and so we could continue with our journey back to balestier road at a sane speed.

complimentary aerated drinks

with chinese new year just around the corner, i am reminded of a discontinued practice of our kampong days.

when we lived in the kampong, one of the things we looked forward to as lunar new year neared was the delivery of complimentary bottled aerated drinks to our home from one of the neighbourhood provision shops. there were three shops in the kampong but we chose to patronise one more than the other two.

depending on the extent of your patronage, you would get between 12 and 24 bottles of aerated drinks, usually f& n's orange crush, sarsaparilla or cherryade. the shopkeeper had a system of deciding the number of bottles each household would get based on the year's purchases. some years we got more bottles than other years.

much as we children would like to have a taste of the sweetened drinks, we had to wait till the big re-union dinner on chinese new year's eve before we could down the marvellous drinks.

when my siblings gathered at my place today (2nd day of the lunar new year), they reminded me that the 'tow yew' man also gave complimentary bottles of dark and light sauce for the chinese new year.

back in those low tech days, we - at least, the adults - could get things from the shop on credit. all that was needed to keep track of transactions was a hand-held '555' notebook, the thickness of four credit cards.