The Ang Moh Nanyang Society

Taking the foreign local one short story at a time

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Story 4: Good Morning Eden Grove

65 Eden Grove: Morning is a story of family missed and not missed. Ah Tee is a one-boy neighbourhood watch. From his grandma's cool dark shop, he watches and waits for his aunts to go to work and for the funny old man with his fishball sticks.

Today, we follow Ah Tee’s observations of his neighbors.

We arrive amidst the fast flying morning traffic of Upper Serangoon Road, and just like Ah Tee, we note the heat is starting to set in. This is going to be a hot one. We brace ourselves with a cup of teh, prata and gravy - obvious choices to beat the heat.

The streetcars and mile markers of Ah Tee's boyhood are long gone, so we start with our first and by far the easiest marker we have found in our stories - Ah Tee's home at 65 Eden Grove. We stand, we look, we linger long enough to take a few photos of No 65, and long enough to see the front window curtains move: a bewildered resident peeking out at the two ang mohs taking a selfie in front of their house. "Strange, lor." A mystery they'll save for the family meal tonight.

Following Ah Tee’s landmarks, we walked midway down Eden Grove, then to the cool shade of Sunshine Park for a spot of sitting; it's just us chatting, cooling our feet on one side of the park and a man silently practicing his TaiChi on the other.

"Auntie Mary lived...in a small housing estate that strangely bore no fancy name such as Sennett Estate or Serangoon Gardens or anything like that, names of estates that sounded nice to Ah Tee."

Leaving the pleasant sounding streets we pushed on through the heat, below Eden Grove, down to Jalan Labah Merah and its sister roads at Ayer and Manis, spying a few wonderful old houses discretely hidden behind lush tropical gardens, and their new neighbours, all pose, all front, consuming every square inch of their block with concrete and angles, rather yielding a tree for a tile.

I can't help but think the neighborhood would have been an oasis of quiet when Ah Tee roamed the alleys. Today, the residents have already left for work or school, leaving a very quiet, very hot neighborhood.

With the heat sinking down on us, we drag our feet back to Upper Serangoon Road, first stop a bottle of cold, cold rhinoceros water. In this heat, even dragons need to rest in whatever shade they can find.

Suriya Indian Food and Cool Cafe Egg Prata $1.60 Honey Prata $2.20 2 x Kopi $2.00

Balik Kampung 2A People and Places, edited by Verena Tay 56 Eden Grove: Morning by Sonny Lim

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Story 2: Mt Sinai, where spiders fight

The Bush is a boys’ own after-school adventure of spider fights, samseng gangs and bush battles for boyhood superiority in the suburb of Mount Sinai.

“They [the samsengs] were like potent chilli padis while the J brothers were more like limp, overcooked yong tau foo chillies.”

Today, we go bush in search of the boys' secret spider breeding spot. From a bus stop on Holland Road we turn left into Moonbeam Walk and follow the butterflies, turning left again into Moonbeam Terrace, past two cul-de-sacs – Moonbeam View and Moonbeam Drive – and into Mount Sinai Avenue, right into Mount Sinai View, left towards Mount Sinai Drive, past Mount Sinai Rise, Mount Sinai Plain, Mount Sinai Crescent, Mount Sinai Lane at which point Mount Sinai Drive turns into Mount Sinai Road which eventually turns into Ghim Moh Road where we stop for lunch at Ghim Moh Market. Phew.

What was once a kampung, is now Pleasantville.

Who was behind the butterflies colourfully tattooed (officially) on the footpath and perched high on the street signs; and where did the name Moonbeam Estate come from? Harry Nilsson’s 1971 easy-listening Moonbeam Song? 

With a bit of online research we sort of found an answer. Back in the late 1960s, the original street names – Jalan Kain Limau and Jalan Kain Mastuli (types of Malay cloth) – fell out of fashion with the local residents who preferred more “pleasant sounding” names as a) not everyone one could pronounce the streets with the correct accent and b) no one knew what they were named after and so, ergo, the names were not memorable. On this last point, the new names are certainly memorable, but perhaps not in the way originally intended. 

Ghim Moh Food Centre

A plate of popiah $5.00 Two healthy soya drinks $2.50 each

Balik Kampung 2A, People and Places, edited by Verena Tay The Bush by Woon Chet Choon

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Story 5: There is no wood for the trees

Enough follows the story of police officer Kali, a raid on an illegal workers camp, the comfort women found there, and officer Kali’s own sister.

I have been to Woodlands hundreds of times, well actually to the customs as I crossed the causeway to JB a couple of times a month a few years ago for work.

“...her contact with the international community came in the form of pursuing motorcycles from Johor through the winding HDB carparks before they made a run for the causeway… they were, after all, overseas bikes”

It’s a part of Singapore that Ang Mohs just pass through on their way to the resorts of Malaysia, or to drop off their kids at the American School which sits at its fringe. When Betty mentioned our intending visit to her hairdresser, the reply was, “Woodlands. Nothing to eat.” And she lives there.

On exiting Marsiling MRT with its clear view to the causeway crossing, our interpretation of “nothing to eat” being nothing worth eating soon switched to perhaps there might not be anything here at all. But we used Officer Kali as our guide and suggestions from friends to find something of the neighborhood - Block 17 Marsiling Lane.

We also wanted to find the police station in Officer Kali’s story, but what we found was something closer to a police outpost - unmanned but air-conditioned - with a fully automated box to place ‘found items’ into, and historical displays. While it is easy to use this as an analogy for modern Singapore - efficient, air conditioned and soulless - we saw a similar storyline faced by Officer Kali in Enough, staying long enough to watch a mini movie on Linh - a doomed young Vietnamese woman trafficked and tricked into working as a “bar girl”.

Leaving the safe zone, we walked towards Block 17 and food.  We have have had many hits on our outings, we were destined for a miss and I think we had it — two lime juices that arrived as a blended ice drink mixed with brown syrup, white syrup and tapioca snot balls and  a round of average mee siam and mussels.  

And then there was the fried tapioca cake from the fried foodstuff stall. A strange bright green substance covered with batter. It was awesome. Fried and wonderful.

After a walk to Admiralty Park with its strict guidelines, we did feel like we were leaving Woodlands without knowing anything more, or feeling anything more about this neighborhood. Perhaps like Office Kali, life goes on as you expect it, disappointed.

Block 17 food centre

Two lime juices $4.00 Mee Siam & Nasi padang $7.00 Two kopi $1.20 Fried tapioca cake $0.80

Balik Kampung 2A, People and places, edited by Verena Tay Enough by Shelly Bryant

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Story 3: Volcanos rocking the ge-tai

Missing is the story of a young girl named Hui, her family’s new neighbourhood, Balestier, and her search for their missing driver come handyman come uncle, Seng.

I agree with Hui: Balestier is “more like a techno ge-tai.” I have been here often - driving through the main strip from Thompson Hospital to the CTE, BBQs and pool time at the new condos that look over the center for disease control. But now I am a little more open to the neighborhood where Mr. Balestier once grew sugar cane.

It took us two trips to explore Balestier: the first  we succumbed to the searing heat and lack of food focus. Round two was much more random and so much more surprising.

“this is not the [plane, train, typewriter] of Soong Ching Ling, but just a replica”.

As Seng took Hui for her dose of “Chinese culture” we too went Sun Yat Sen Nan Yang Memorial Hall for ours. The permanent exhibitions reminded me of how little I remember of all my university Chinese history classes. From room to room: a haunting tribute to executed Nangyang revolutionaries and their last message to their families gave me a shiver as their words sound all too contemporary; memorabilia from the incredible life of Soong Ching Ling that raised intriguing questions; insights into what Singapore was and how business was built at the turn of the last century: all thanks to the six merchant-philanthropists who bought and donated the building in 1938 - we are so lucky - and in doing so saved [a little bit of ] Balestier from another 200 block apartment building.

Hungry post culture, we sought kueh from Subway Niche and volcanos from 603 Tau Sar Piah. I urge you to buy two volcanos because one is definitely not enough. We also had the obligatory tau sar piah.

On trip two to Balestier we were determined to “walk the waterways”, along the banks of the mighty Kallang River to where it joined the Whampoa. Ok, they might be canals but they were rivers once and we were off to find them. In other cities a walk down a secluded waterway might invoke a bit of fear, in Singapore you just meet the tinker man that lives under the bridge who is happy to walk you all the way back out to the street to avoid the “police cameras” on the other side of the bridge. He also turned up later on his bike to make sure we got to the Whampoa and once he knew we were right, he peddled on in search of his lunch, while we stopped for a cool beer.

“Balestier has famous bakeries. They bake their own bread.”

While that might seem redundant. The Sin Hoon Loong bakery makes more bread than I have seen in any bakery for a long time. I feel a connection to their perfect rectangles of white bread - a link to the past and to my kaya.

I know Hui was left searching for Seng, and in some ways I think you could be left searching for the old Balestier - but it is still there — we found a few gems when we kept our eyes at street level and ignored the looming condos.

603 Tau Sar Piah 2 Volcanos $1.20

Sin Hoon Loong Bakery 6 pack of red bean white bread rolls $3.00

Wheelers Yard Two Tiger Beers $19

Balik Kampung 2A, People and places, edited by Verena Tay Missing by Ng Swee San

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Story 8 – Ping Pong Beef Balls in Frankel Estate

This week we jump towards the end of our guidebook, picking Amy’s Story set in Frankel Estate. Amy is a wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law: and Amy is lost, correction, is at a loss. 

And so are we. Our day starts on Frankel Avenue, at one of the two remaining landmarks from Amy’s childhood, the Caltex station. From here we walk in the wrong direction to the other, the corner coffeeshop.

It is said (by Amy and so the author Sharon Lim) that the auntie at the coffeeshop serves Singapore’s best kor-lor mee - “noodles smothered in a delicious emulsion of chilli paste, oil, heh bee and other heavenly ingredients…”. We were determined to find it, and eventually we do. 

“All too soon, each plate was slurped dry and so too their words.”

After auntie delivers our dishes with a “good girl” nod and smile to Bridgit, we slurp and discuss the ins and outs of why Bridgit, the mother of two, gets “girl”, I “sister”, and what the age differential needs to be to be ordained “auntie”.  Noodles consumed, consensus not reached, we depart.

For two condo-dwelling ang mohs – Bridgit on the 14th floor, me on the second - walking this little pocket of landed houses was a garderner’s pleasure with not a high-rise in sight. La Salle Street, Siglap Walk, Siglap Rise; we stood, sighed and envied the gardens of the circa 1950 bungalows; mostly tropical, but a few neatly trimmed and European in style. 

As we walk we see the older streetscape give way to the new – tall glass, sleek vertical lines, polished concrete and gates. Like the bungalows before, it’s a style repeated, but with little room for green: as our guidebook notes Amy “loved her new kitchen at the back of their slick modernist three-story house that they had built on the site of her mother-in-law’s.”

We wander towards the potted row of shopfronts on Siglap Drive to be greeted by the neighbourhood’s newest arrival, Coast and Company – a bike shop/café come bike rack. The new is bookended by the old, a shop front that tickled Bridgit’s fancy, the Ping Pong Beef Ball shop, manufacturer of bouncy meatballs.

VL Eating House Wanton noodles & fishball noodles (dry) $5.00 Kopi & a glass of hot water $1.20

Coast and Company A cappuccino and iced latte (one shot) $11.00

Balik Kampung 2A, People and places, edited by Verena Tay Amy’s Story by Sharon Lim

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Story 1: Upper Bukit Timah

Following in the footsteps of Lim Kok Seong (with thanks to author Joshua Ip)

Our guidebook's first short story follows a reclusive bookworm, Lim Kok Seong, on his regular amble to the once popular, now forgotten 1980s mall Beauty World Shopping Centre. Oddly, Mr Lim's amble has a purpose, he walks to read, he walks to be alone.

"There were too many malls with...too many shops that people actually went to... There was always a risk that he would be recognised..." 

And so our journey (and blog) begins at Bukit Timah Shopping Centre,  Beauty World's lesser known (and no doubt older) immediate neighbour. 

Ang moh's generally know Singapore by its key shopping districts: Arab street for the rows of fabric shops, Chinatown for tourist trinkets, and Orchard Road for its same-same brands. We two ang mohs now know Bukit Timah for its maids. 

Floor after floor, agency after agency, we walked past low-seated, hopeful young women wearing the same bright green, orange, or yellow  t-shirt with their agency's logo. Each agency promotes a unique selling point: offering a choice of all or specialising in one nationality - Indonesian, Filipino, Burmese; some noted their specialised training with an onsite hospital bed, baby doll and ironing board; one advertised a summer sale on Myanmar maids. Most had shopfront photos of Maids in Action: cleaning a toilet, washing a floor, making a bed.  By the time we hit the fourth floor, guilt had set in, we were not there to buy: it was time to cross over to Lim Kok Seong's mall of choice, Beauty World Plaza.

Beauty World is the midway point between the dying days of Bukit Timah Shopping Center and the fluro modernity of Bukit Timah Plaza (all within a sweaty 10 min walk of each other and none serviced by an nearby MRT). We pass Kok Seong's usual reading retreat where his anonymity is key, a bustling air-conditioned Macdonalds with Mandarin/English signage, and continue our floor-by-floor discovery. Children's toy shops, adult toys (the wholesome variety of model car/trucks and cameras), gifts and endless nail and hair salons: we wonder how they all survive but admire that they do.

Our final destination: the rooftop food court with a recommendation from Bridgit's father-in-law. While we passed on the BeautyWorld's famous mutton soup, hands down, the carrot cake was the best we've had yet.

Uncle, you make a damn fine carrot cake. 

Ye Ri Xiang Xiao Chi Three course lunch (l-r): tau pok (something new), rojak, and the lightest of light white carrot cake: $9.50

For drinks - fruit stall near Ye Ri Xiang Xiao Chi Two apple and lemon drinks: $5.00

Balik Kampung 2A, People and places, edited by Verena Tay Peace is a foot reflexology parlour by Joshua Ip

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Ang Mo or Ang Moh?

With "h". It is the people's choice. Who are these people? My husband and a friend. So it's conclusive then: two out of two Singaporeans use an "h".