Park Road School Part 11

The joy and fondest of my childhood memories were part of growing up in 1980s, especially the primary school days in Park Road School. School life seemed slower, little stressful and boring; there were then no mobile phone, no internet, cable TV, Facebook, Twitter etc. Classmates in the school were our friends and playmates. They could provide us much comfort and joy to an otherwise mundane day in the school. In the lower primary school days, our childhood life was very casual and we played and entertained ourselves in the classroom or playground with a sense of camaraderie. The play provided a much-needed break from all the “important near-work” of reading and writing. Such play could help us in the building up of bonds with our classmates. In the school classroom, we played merely simple games. Such simple games in those days could be both fun and exercising. "Musical Chairs” was a game which children walked to music around a group of chairs (arranged in a circle) containing one fewer than the number of children and they rushed to sit down on the chair when the music abruptly stopped. The child left standing in each round was eliminated from the game. The eventual winner would be the one seated on the last chair. I also remembered the game “Lucy Locket Lost Her Pocket”. Children sat in a circle on the floor. One kid would walk with a handkerchief around the outside of the circle. The child would surreptitiously drop the handkerchief behind the one of the seated kids. The kid had to get up from seating, chased the first child around the sitting circle of children until the child sat down in the vacated space. Keep playing and this game may involve no singing. Other memories included recess time at the small tuck-shop of Park Road School. The school used a brass bell to signal the start or end of the class lesson and for school recess too. The manual bell was swung heavily by the school caretaker so that every child could hear it from the furthest classroom. The duration of the recess was 20 to 25 minutes only. The place where we call ‘canteen’ was ‘tuck-shop' during our generation. Young kids were instructed to hold hands in twos whenever they moved from classroom to classroom, or to assembly or to tuck-shop. For the young boys and girls, they only crossed and hooked out their last fingers when holding each other hands. Recess time was a frenzied time for the pupils rushing to the tuck-shop and buying meals, finding and sitting at the bench, gulping down the "unhealthy" food; so that they could proceed quickly to their “next” activity! The tuck-shop of Park School was a small block within the three-storey building and they were few different operating food vendors. There were long benches and tables in the centre of the tuck-shop for the pupils to sit and had their meals. The tuck-shop did not have the varieties of food as we have now in the school canteen. Nonetheless the food was very much cheaper and ranged between 5 cents (e.g. for a packet of peppermint sweets) to 30 cents (for a bowl of noodles). There was a noodle stall. There was also an uncle who sold candies and crackers and another stall that sold rose syrup cold drinks to quench our thirst. The pupils waited and queued at the tuck-shop and at least half of the meal time to WAIT IN LINE to get their food and pay for it, leaving 10-15 minutes to actually eat it. There was little time to really savour food and learn to appreciate all its aroma, taste, flavour and texture. As said, the food served at the tuck-shop was inexpensive and nutritionally deficient in quality and variety. There were no styrofoam plates at a sit-down meal during our time; some kids considered recess a break from the work in the classroom. Often times, some used to skip their meal altogether and went for the unhealthy alternatives. Children ate salty, sweet and oily snacks, candies, pastries and drank sweetened soft drinks which contained very little essential nutrients. The joys of tidbits available in those good old days were crunchy munchy kachang puteh, a variety of fried nuts typically sold by the Indian man. It originated from the Chevdo, a seasoned vegetarian snack from India. This could explain why the Indians made up the majority of the kacang puteh sellers. “Kachang” in Malay means bean, “puteh” denotes colour white and kachang puteh means white beans. The nuts included assortment of local dry snacks (at least 5 to 20 different types) such as sugar-coated peanuts, broad beans (boiled and soft in skin or shelled, baked and crispy), water-melon and parrot seeds, chickpeas, salted crispy green peas, corns and various other nuts. They were either bought raw and prepared at home or purchased ready-made from the suppliers. Sold at reasonable 5 cents per long paper cone wrapped (deftly and skilfully rolled up, filled and packed) from old newspaper or magazine loose sheets, they were savoured by the young and old. In those days, the young students did not have the kind of options that the modern-day children have. The current generation kids have the luxury of all kinds of snacks that are not only multi-coloured but also artificially enhanced to lure the young, naïve and innocent hearts. The kids in old days could just munch for a meal these peas out of the paper cones to their heart’s delight - very filling and satisfying. They may like best about eating kacang puteh was the unfurling of the paper cone at the end and digging out the last nut hiding in the bottom of the paper cone. The last bite of the remaining nut was the sweetest of all! Outside the school compound, it was a common sight to see a kachang puteh Indian man (primarily dressed in white sarong) with his tray of kachang puteh (various nuts, beans, and peas and were stored in separate containers) for the movie-goers outside the cinema lobby. It was crunchy kachang puteh that most cinema goers would be munching in the movie hall. The habits of the movie-goers have changed over time; they now prefer popcorn rather than kacang puteh. Kacang puteh sellers were roving vendors and did not confine their presence at just cinemas. They may roam around on a bicycle or a pushcart, or peddling, walking and balancing on their head six compartments of different types of murukus. Nowadays, kacang puteh is pre-packed and sealed. The kacang puteh selling has been commercialised and it is seen by presence of household brands such as Tong Garden and Camel in the supermarket. Kacang puteh is no longer cheap anymore.