Growing up in the 1980s

Reading this extract from email circulated to me by fren just bring back those memories..

1. You grew up watching He-man, Transformers, Silver hawk and Mickey Mouse. Not to forget, Ninja turtles and Smurfs too. Far, very far from here, in a little village full of mushroom-shaped houses live the Smurfs....and the wicked Gagarmel!

2. You grew up brushing your teeth with a mug in Primary school during recess time. You will squat by a drain with all your classmates beside you, and brush your teeth with a coloured mug. The teachers said you must brush each side10 times too. And the dreadful dentist assistant that goes around classes to book you for appointment.

3. You know what's Bin(1) Fen(1) Ba (1) San(1) is all about. That spells the beginning of a color TV set for my family too.

4. You know what SBC stands for.

5. You were there when the first chinese serial, the Awakening was shown on TV. AND Ah Shui, and Ah Mei...Really we could sing all the theme songs of these soap drama too.

6. SBS buses used to be non-airconditioned. The bus seats are made of wood and the cushion is red.! The big red bell gives a loud BEEEP! when pressed.There are colourful tickets for TIBS buses. The conductor will check for tickets by using a machine which punches a hole on the ticket. My sister collects these tics and taught me a method to calculate whether today is lucky day based on the ID number on the ticket.

7. Your favourite actor and actress is Huang Wenyong and Xiangyun. Next is Lee Nanxing and Zoe Tay and the Aiyoyo woman.My fav passtime is cut out photos of my various SBC star like Chen Bifeng from newspaper and paste them in this brown jotterbook and bring to school to show my friend.

8. You've probably read Young Generation magazine. You know who's Vinny the little vampire and Acai the constable. AND the Bookworm club. Mei Mei is faithful follower and collector of all things bookworm club

9. Movie tickets used to cost only $3.50. Small kids like us no need pay we just slip in

10. You longed to buy tibits called Kaka(20 cents per pack) and Ding Dang(50 cents per box), that had a toy in it and it changes every week not forgetting the 15 cents animal crackers and the ring pop, where the lollipop is the diamond on the ring. Ding Dang is the best of all. Chocolate with toy!

11. Autograph books were loaded with "Best Wishes", "Forget Me Not", and small poems like "Bird fly high, hard to catch, Friends like you, hard to forget". ...Roses are red, Violets are blue..

My best friend in primary school

Sometimes its difficult to write about my best friends......

Heres some of my fav frens that I shared some of my best memories with.

#1. We both grew up being bully by the Ah bengs of our neighborhood. We love to rent VCD from the blk 6 VCD shop.. and watch at your house coz we will only save movies for very special occasion. Like all good friends we had a lot of common habits. One is to take unsynchronized turns to be late for our appointment. At times these appointments had to be cancel..either becoz when I will walk up your house and found you still sleeping or you will call me and found me grounded coz mum doesn't allows me out. And incase someone think our primary school days are all play and no study...let me point out that we are also regular at the tuition centre at block twenty-something.. those late nights after study playing with candles at playground sharing our little stories. Strangely enough we rarely grew tired of each other even when we meet 24x7 in a year. Still one of the regrets I had is missing your wedding. Oh I cant say how sad I feel...

#2. I know your elder brother and your younger sister and I love to play at your house. We will walk the big football field at the then Telok Blangah Primary school premise, hand in hand during recess time. We will speak up and stood for one another when either one of us get bully. When you moved to Jurong east, I was really sad and that year I was 8 years old. We have lost contact by now. But I want to believe that we are both living under the same blue sky. Maybe a day will come when our path will cross again. Till then my fren!

#3. I can still remember the girly picture you draw. You are my first pen pal. The first letter I wrote was to you and its one with a sketch stamp and not a pasted one. Haha what was on my mind when i post that letter of mine without a real stamp thinking that it will ever reach you.
I still have your old phone number in my yellow phone book. Just not sure who will pick up the phone and if I make a dial.

My first economics lesson at 5.

When I was little, having 50 cents was a quite a deal.
I could spent half an hour loitering around several mama shops yet still undecided on what to buy for treats to be shared among my little sister and brother:-

- 3 sweets for ten cents, or
- one pack of maggie mee for forty cents, or
- sour plum of 6 wrapped in old yellow page for twenty cents...?

---scare resources vs unlimited wants...oh sweet memories.

Telok Blangah Crescent Blk 15 (1975-1990)

Work with CSA had bring me back to this familiar place where I have had lived for 15 years. Call me nostalgic, reminiscent, whimiscal.. whatever, somehow the smell of the air and sunshine of the leaves just resemble days of the aged.. akin to eternal sunshine of the spotless mind....Oh ya. In my mind I could always paint a picture of me then the 12 years old girl in a boy crew cut hair, maroon sleeveless top and mud brown long pants with hands full of library books strolling down the lane to catch a 271 bus to the Bt merah library. More often than not I will also bump into my mum and dad with ntuc shopping bags alighting from the same bus that I want to aboard.. & greeting me with " Tao Tao" come home early in loud audible voice that turn my face red hee hee...

...those seemingly endless long cosy sat afternoon tinted with shade of golden sun..now part of my fondest past. Everybit of it even the familiar yelling of my mum.