During the early 1950′s, I was staying at the Upper East Coast Rd. The house was roughly opposite the vicinity of the grand Ocean Park Hotel. Occasionally the wayang stage which was in front of a temple would hold a Chinese Opera. It was an exciting moment for a 11+ yrs old boy to venture amongst the noisy crowd, pushing & snaking towards the ringing of the ice-man. With the co-operation of a gang of like-minded boys, we crowded around the back of the ice-cream bicycle. After paying a small sum , we were given a chance of playing ‘tikam, tikam’. We turned the tiny stake, and watched it go round & round hoping to win a prize. If the pointer (a dangling piece of wire) landed on a narrow sector which indicated an ice-cream, then you would get another ice-cream free. The excitement would be winning the 10 cents prize. We would usually win that prize because we used a magnet and placed it under neath the ‘tikam2′ without the knowledge. Of course we would pretend to lose occasionally so as not to arouse the ice-cream man’s suspicion. Our antics stopped when we met the Ice-man’s family. He had about 5 small children. It made us guilty & we decided to stop cheating the poor fella.
