My Teenage Years in Marsiling- Mr Lai Tuck Chong

My Teenage Years in Marsiling - by Mr TC Lai (Lai Tuck Chong), 1st July 2014 I first arrived in Marsiling in Dec 1975 right after my PSLE. I had been living in Rangoon Road then; before that, Geylang. The circumstances of my arrival were rather unusual. My mom needed a flat quickly and the HDB offered her one in just two weeks! So off we went to far-flung Marsiling Estate. It did not matter that the flat we got was a new $55-a-month two-room rental. Blk 16 and Blk 17 along Marsiling Lane were such flats. The journey to Marsiling was quite fantastical for someone like me who grew up in suburban towns. The road up north never seemed to end for me that day. I was sitting atop our long lorry laden with household furnishings and belongings and wondering where on Earth Marsiling was. I thought at first it was Bukit Panjang, then Yew Tee. By the time we left all civilisation behind, I settled for Kranji Cemetery. Hey, it looked very peaceful and had large spaces. I was also curious about the kampungs that lined Woodlands Road around Kranji Road mouth. There were quite a number of motorcycle repair shops there. I was wondering then if I would miss working with my dad in his Engineering workshop. Then the big trees finally receded to reveal both sky and sea. We had come to the coast of Singapore! A sister exclaimed that the town across the waters was Johor! I was astounded that we had come this far! Not far ahead was the Singapore Causeway Customs! Marsiling was then very new. Blk 16 area could be considered 2nd phase after the first HDB blocks of 1 to 5 some years earlier. They were beige in color and three-room affairs. Across these 'old' blocks were the new blocks of no. 6 to 19. Blk 18 and 19 were the low shophouses next to the wet market and hawker centre. There was no bus terminus yet; no block no. 20 onwards. In fact, Marsiling Lane looked downright unfinished with its new tree saplings and kerbside mud. As an active kid of 12 going 13, I was curious about this new place I had to call home. Our flat in Blk 16 was no doubt small for a family of eight but it was new and cozy. Nothing a double decker bed couldn't accomodate. The toilet door was of space-agey aluminum (or so I thought!) Leisure for us kids then was the CC at the first corner unit of Blk 18 at the entrance to an open-air carpark. This CC reminded me of a kampung house with its wooden doors and louvre windows. There I met many kids my age and together, we took turns to challenge each other in a game of carrom or table tennis. In the evenings, folks would gather outside in the circular courtyard and sit on its terrazzo stone benches to watch the 9 o'clock news or their fave HK dramas. The 1970s was a rich period for iconic HK TV serials and so the CC was always lively. The 70s was also a hot period for home terrazzo floorings and waxing. Or Armstrong vinyl tiles. No need waxing these. ==== Another fave play area for us kids was the field behind Blk 15 (it's no longer there having made way for a multistorey carpark some years back!) We would kick football and fly kites in this field. Kids would even kite-fight with glass-coated strings. I remember losing a beautiful Chinese kite of butterfly design to these combative kids. It was bought from People's Park and had eyes that spun with the wind! At one end of this field was a big collection of giant granite rocks no doubt unearthed when the area was being built up. We kids would clamber about them and stand on the tallest one pretending to be TV Tarzan "or-yee-orhing" from his perch high up the Victoria Falls. It was fun times (and helped to prepare me when I climbed Mt Ophir in Malaysia years later). Nearby, across the carpark near Blk 10, was a smaller cluster of giant rocks. Around them, rubber trees. Here was where we stood each morning to catch either bus no. 180 or 182 to get to Bukit Panjang and beyond. Busing out of Marsiling was always tedious then. There was only Woodlands Road and it would either flood when it rained heavily or jammed up to the Customs with goods lorries on the way back. Such was life then. There was also the large black stinky pond of the old Ajinomoto plant that we had to endure every morning as we left Marsiling and the bus turning into Woodlands Road. In the early morning, the pond looked fairy-like with a thin layer of mist. But its rotten egg smell reminded of something else. For a long while, we wondered if Marsiling would stay that way as Ang Mo Kio and Bedok developed. We longed for a shopping area and cinema - but these took a lot of prayers to arrive. As pioneers, we had to settle for the shops at Blk 18 and Blk 19. The hardware shop in Blk 19 was the only one around and it thrived in this new estate. Same as the only bookshop in Blk 18. Later the only sports shop opened at Woodlands Central right by the overhead bridge. The stern mustachioed guy was hard to forget. And students would go to him to get notes photocopied as well as racquet strings restrung. School for me was Assumption English in Boys Town (I had to give up my allocated school, Tg Katong Technical, in Katong as it became faraway). At AES I met quite a number of classmates who also lived in Marsiling. I found out years later that they had relocated from kampungs in Bukit Panjang, such as those in Lor Ah Thia, around Chestnut Drive and Lengkok Saga. Going to AES also allowed me to make friends with those who lived on farms in Mandai and Lim Chu Kang. If I had remained in suburban Singapore, I don't think I would have ever gotten the chance to explore these outskirts. Today, only Neo Tiew Road area in Kranji reminds me of those kampung roads I used to travel and cycle on with my friends. Roads flanked by lallang, tapioca plants and of course, concrete lamp posts. ==== So Marsiling to us then was just 19 blocks. All around was cleared land of mud and clay. Everywhere was dusty and under construction (kind of). It was like a cowboy town laid bare and kind of ghostly. I guess Marsiling Estate wasn't as high priority as other satellite towns that were larger. However, Marsiling had something few towns offered at the time: a coastal sea. If we stood on the hill next to the Shell Co. storage tanks, we could look straight down upon the Causeway; and make a traffic report. We Marsilingans have been sharing more air and rain with Johoreans than our fellow Singaporeans over the decades! That coastal strip road starting from the Rotterham Gate after Shell and ending at Sungei Cina River mouth became a popular jogging and fishing area. Johor Bahru City was just across the waters with the iconic Sultan Ibrahim Building tower still visible since 1940! We boys loved this coastal area back then for another reason: a huge but dilapidated jetty that screamed Tom Saywer or Huckleberry Finn adventure. We could fish, crab and dive off it. No doubt by the time we boys found fun there from the mid-70s onwards, the iron-wood jetty was already potholed and scaly-rusted. It wasn't so bad at first but as kids started to BBQ fish, crab and then grasshopper there, the thick wooden planks slowly disappeared as firewood; or simply fallen into the sea. The jetty thus slowly became more skeletal and we had to tread on with care. -Advanced obstacle course training for us kids before National Service! But we boys couldn't care less of the jetty's condition - boys will always be boys. And indeed, over the years and decades, many a Marsiling boy had indeed swum, fished or crabbed from this jetty. I liked this old Ruthenia Oiling Jetty (that's its proper name!) for another reason: getting there. The way by car would be to take Marsiling Lane to its end and then past Shell Co. and Rotterham Gate. But we car-less (and bicycleless) boys would take a short cut through the kampung atop the Shell Co. hill and reach Ruthenia J via its backslope. It was a slope we liked as it was filled with abandoned fruit trees. -Soursop fruit trees no less. How delightful! I remember this small kampung very well; it had few houses and was cozy and quaint and lighted with colorful stringed light bulbs in the evenings. Why it was demolished I never ceased to wonder! It was like a kind of Private Idaho secluded by hill and trees. Of course, this was the last remnant of Kampung Sungei Cina. We Woodlands New Town boys (of which Marsiling is a part) did not know this about KSC of course. It had been demolised a few years prior to our arrival. We also did not know about Sungei Cina River except that a small river snaked from a mangrove swamp out into sea. Its river mouth was large and prominent though and crossed by a big, solid concrete bridge from which many would eventually fish and crab from. This Rotterham Gate strip of coastline offered up many flower crabs to catchers over the years. I learned to catch them with square rattan nets hooked up with smelly fishhead baits at old Ruthenia OJ, trudging through Kampung Sungei Cina (Kechil) through the dead of night (the best time for it). In the day, you could also catch one-armed rock crabs too, especially at a nearby sandy patch that had many rocks and an odd WWII relic of a riveted rusty metal shell of a box. At Sungei Cina River mouth, folks would also wade in to cast nets to catch shrimp. Rumor had it that a large crocodile once roamed the area. With the recent Barney case, I am not surprised. Besides play, Ruthenia OJ was for me a place for contemplation as well. In the evenings, one could watch the sun set over Kranji from the jetty's end. It was sad to see it disappear after the coastline was remodelled and upgraded in the late 90s and beyond. Now we have the large Woodlands Waterfront Jetty at the far end of this coastal strip road. But that sense of danger and adventure playing on a falling-apart iron jetty few can relive these days. ==== You could say I grew up in Marsiling. Three years after moving there, we moved from Blk 16 to Blk 34, a new four-roomer and right next to the Singapore Customs building (separated by a security fence, of course). There I stayed until 1996, a total of 22 years! I even finshed my NS living in Marsiling, first going to ITD Camp near Sembawang Shipyard and then on to SAFTI in Jurong. From being a tiny outpost, Marsiling slowly got more shops and a new hawker centre....all at Woodlands Central. Woodlands Cinema and a bowling alley came later. Before Woodlands Cinema, me and my friends used to cycle to the old Canberra Cinema (located opposite the Terror Club after Sembawang Shipyard) to watch movies. The last one we caught was The Car, about a devil-possessed black automobile. The cinema was still the wooden-seat kind with vinyl seats stuffed with coconut husks, same as those found in JB. We Chinese boys would go to JB to catch HK movies in their original Cantonese language. After Canberra Cinema, we would cycle on to Sembawang Park and relax on its jetty outside Beaulieu House (which was abandoned at the time). A friend and I did take a canoeing course from a sea adventure centre that operated out of a kampong house by the sea. It's where the Bottle Tree Park is now at Lor Memburong. A sister and I also managed to cycle across the river (currently a canal park) to a Chinese kampung opposite. People tell us we could hike along the coastline all the way to Punggol! ==== There are many things to remember about old Marsiling from the 70s and Woodlands Central from the 80s. Vegetable farms could still be found at the present Woodlands MRT Station site. From these farms, one could hike to Mandai or even to Lor Malai at Bukit Panjang. That's what we did during topo in NS in the early 80s. There was no BKE expressway yet! There was also that charming sea kampung on stilts at Lor Fatimah just before the Causeway. Nearby was Lor Mandai Kechil and its river namesake - a bit odd, seeing that the place was nowhere near Mandai! But one year, a classmate and I waded out all the way to its river mouth to dig up mussels. We dug up metre-long earthworms as well! Badminton was a popular spot in Marsiling and there were quite a few teams. We played often at the courts of Marsiling CC (by then in a new building beside the underpass) and at the HDB Area Office courts at Central. Later Woodlands Primary School (behind Marsiling CC then) opened their courts for us badminton enthusiasts to use. After badminton, we would walk to the hawker centre at Central to eat cheng teng or iced lemon jelly dessert (wan tau lok), finishing many bowls at one go. This stall in the center of the hawker cerntre served up very original cheng teng. Another stall sold very nice banana fritters. An uncle that sold Hokkien Mee was very popular too and known to make loud "cling clang" noises with his kwali each time. And who could forget Chinese Emporium right in the middle of Central! For a long time, that was the only departmental store for us Marsiling residents to shop at for miles around until Yaohan made its appearance at Bukit Timah Plaza in 7th Miles. And the many fabric shops at Woodlands Central became the iconic business of the place to both residents and the shoppers from JB. ==== As kids, we also explored the twin hills of Marsiling: Hill 180 and Hill 285. We would pick up used blank cartridges and made fireworks out of them. We also scoured for tree-wood to make sturdy catapults out of - something I had learnt from Scout friends in school. I believe my NS batch in the early 80s was amongst the last to dig tenches and shellscrapes on 'em Marsiling hills. Trucks were rolling in and clearing its base of kampungs and temples. I remember a poignant moment sitting on a knoll at the break of dawn and looking down at the distant Woodlands Cinema thinking "home was so near and yet so far". I had by then moved to Blk 34 for a couple of years not far from the cinema. I was dying for a cup of coffee on that knoll, having dug a trench throughout the night! The shops at the overhead bridge at Woodlands Central changed hands frequently. Being a book lover, I remember BIG Bookshop there once on the top-most floor. It sold a variety of books there but I could never forget a set of picture books that were more like instruction manuals for surgeons than layman. Odd. Very odd. ==== So to me, Marsiling was a surprise place to live in. It has given me a different perspective of Singapore through its landscapes, landmarks and wonderful residents. My Malay neighbour at Blk 34 used to run a foodstall near Sembawang Shipyard and cooks up the best Malaccan-style beef rendang served up with signature ketupat. I, at one time, thought I would live and die in Marsiling and I almost did. It was President Benjamin Sheares funeral and I had cycled down to Kranji Memorial to observe the ceremony. On the way back and rounding Woodlands Central to get back into Marsiling, I was knocked down by a pickup from behind. Fortunately only the bike was wrecked, not me. I spent an hour at the hospital and left.