A Better Education in Singapore 1952
Mdm Ng Kam Ying hails from Kuantan. She came to Singapore in 1952 with her mother. Her father had passed away when she was very young but he had left behind a rubber trading company which provided well for them.
She and her mother had come to Singapore on a holiday the previous year and relatives encouraged her mother to come live in Singapore.
"It would be good for her education and it would be better than living in a small place like Kuantan," their relatives in Singapore persuaded.
"In those days, Kuantan was not quite developed." Kam Ying conceded.
No Views Lah!
When mother and child arrived, relatives help them secure a rented room in a shop house in the town area as it was convenient for Kam Ying to get to school. The shop houses where she used to live was next to the old Raffles Hotel before it was renovated and extended into part of Seah Street.
During their initial sojourn in the town area in the 1950s, they moved three times.
"I lived at 16 and 21 Seah Street."
Later they moved to another shop house on the next street, Purvis Street.
"I can't remember the house number at Purvis Street."
One of the rented rooms was a middle room at one of the shop houses which had a window for ventilation.
"No views lah, but I could see the sky,"
Kam Ying explained with a broad smile.
She also lived in a smaller room at the back part of another shop house which had a window which looked out into the kitchen.
"I could see the kitchen, some trees and part of the old Raffles Hotel." Alas, it was also not a room with a view.
Communal Amenities
In those days, not many people owned their own landed property. Landlords usually partitioned the upper floors of their two or three storeys shop houses and rented them to three or four different families.
"The room was slightly bigger than this room." Kam Ying glanced around the consultation room, at Clinic 41 on the 4th floor of Khoo Teck Puat Hospital Tower C where this interview was conducted.
“We could fit a bed, a wardrobe, a table and a couple of stools into the room."
The tenants shared a common kitchen, a common bathroom and a toilet. The bathroom and toilet were downstairs.
"It was rather inconvenient. We had very little privacy but at least there was modern sanitation. Back in Kuantan we were still using the bucket system," Kam Ying recounted.
(This story was documented as part of SMP’s collaboration with Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Alexandra Health System.)
