I was not a chewing gum eater. I detested people who chewed gum while holding a conversation. To me, that was horrendous as it meant that they did not see the conversation as important. I would wonder whether the person was engaged in the conversation or preoccupied with chewing gum. In the old days, eating or drinking in the school classroom was considered having “no manners”. I would classify a person chewing gum and simultaneously holding a conversation as rude, too. When I was teaching, prior to the ban of chewing gum in 1992, it was most frustrating for me to see blobs of chewing gum stuck all over the cement floor. Sometimes, teachers would call pupils to the front of the class to force them to focus on the lesson. Students would knowingly or unknowingly sit on the blobs of chewing gum spat out by someone else. In those days, parents were not very particular about where their children sat in class. Every year during the “Use Your Hands Campaign” (known today as the Community Involvement Programme), I, being the Prefect Master, would muster a group of prefects armed with scrapers to scrape up black blots of gum along the corridors and staircases that had been spat out by inconsiderate pupils. Scraping off the dried gum blots kicked up dust and germs that could have been breathed in by the children. Why should our pupils be subjected to indignity of scraping gum left by irresponsible brats?
In the classroom, pupils often complained of chewing gum that had been stuck under the tables and chairs. Some pupils unknowingly placed their books on the gum. Disgusted, the pupils’ hands would shoot up and they would scream, “Cher, chewing gum!” I could not blame the pupils for doing that as I had been a victim of this several times. I once got into a lift where someone had stuck chewing gum on all the buttons. If we were in a hurry, we had no choice but to soil our fingers and press the chewing gum-tainted buttons. Of course, once we reached home we would wash our hands many times with soap as we did not know if the person who stuck the gum on the buttons was suffering from any infectious disease.
Once, I was at Palace Theater (Katong) watching a show with my girlfriend. As the show started, I settled myself comfortably into my seat to enjoy the movie. But I felt something restricting my movement. It seemed that my pants were caught on something. I felt my pants. It was sticky. I tried to remove it. But it became worse. Instead of dislodging, bits of the blob came out in thin strands. The small strands continued to stick on the pants in a wider area. It got on my fingers too. It was impossible to remove. I had to keep very still sitting on the gum as I was afraid it would smear an even larger area. I was in agony. My whole night was ruined. After the show, I went to the toilet to wet the blob to try to remove it, but to no avail. Then I rode my motorcycle home. I am the sort who must solve a problem instantly. I could not believe that it could not be removed. I spent the rest of the night trying to remove the blob. I used hot water. I used kerosene and cooking oil. When all else failed, I used a needle to lift the gum off bit by bit. No. With each poke and lift of the needle, a continuous tiny strand would come off, break and fall back. The blob was already deeply entrenched in the spaces of the cloth. How frustrating! I had to throw that pair of pants away. In the seventies, most people wore made-to-measure pants. They were costly. In my life, I had never thrown away a piece of garment unless it was tattered and torn. The very thought of throwing away a pair of new pants just because of the blob of chewing gum made my blood boil. Who to blame? I blamed myself. My grandmother had always told us that before we sat down we had to give the seat several hard slaps and rub it vigorously. I had failed to do that that night.
In 1992, when the government announced over the newsreel that chewing gum would be banned, I was on cloud nine. I supported the ban totally and praised our then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew for having the guts to ban gum. He had to answer to the whole world, in particular the USA, a major exporter of gum. I remember very clearly that he spoke of gum “fouling the streets and turning up on buildings, buses and subway trains”. He also reiterated that Singapore spent millions of dollars every year removing the blobs of gum that could otherwise be spent on other worthier causes. After the ban, some children still brought gum to school after their visits to neighbouring countries. Those caught with gum were referred to the principal for disciplinary action. In 2004, Singapore partially lifted its ban on gum after the conclusion of a US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement; only registered users using gum for therapeutic purposes could purchase the gum in pharmacies.
