My maternal grandfather was born in 1933. He is now 75 years old. I call him ‘Gong Gong’. My great grandfather passed away when my Gong Gong was very young. He had three brothers and two sisters. He was the second youngest of the family. His family was very poor.

During the Japanese invasion of Singapore, Gong Gong was around 10 years old. His family lived in an atap house in Hougang. There was no work then and his family lived on whatever they could grow outside their house. Subsequently, they moved on to live in a rented place in a shophouse. The shop below their house was selling charcoal. Gong Gong helped his family to sell fruits outside the charcoal shop.

My Gong Gong did not have any money to go to school. He only managed to study about 1-2 years. He started to do odd jobs. He helped out at the hawker stall to sell pig organs soup. He even worked as a coolie at the shipyard but for a short period. Gong Gong also started to sell sleeping mats. When night fell, he would go to the night market to sell torch lights. Unfortunately, every now and then, the policemen would check on them and confiscate their goods. He eventually stopped working in the night market. Then he started to help out at a beef noodle stall. Gong Gong is very filial, all the money he earned would go to his mother.

My Gong Gong is very generous. He often gave money to help out his siblings. He supported his youngest brother to school. My grand-uncle studied till Secondary Four (which was considered quite good at that time). My Gong Gong was ambitious and decided to go into business. He worked at a textile shop in Circular Road. He became a salesman and eventually a partner in the business.

Gong Gong married when he was 28 years old. He has 3 sons and 3 daughters. He retired when he was 55 years old. Nowadays, he spends his leisure time buying and selling shares and also playing Chinese chess. We normally visit Gong Gong on Saturdays. When he sees all his grandchildren, he will normally give them $2 each.

There are two things that my Gong Gong dare not eat after his childhood experience. One is the chilli paste (other than home-made) and the other is shark’s fish. My Gong Gong told me that when he was helping the hawkers to sell their food, he saw how they made chilli paste. The hawkers would buy all the leftover chilli from the market, including rotten ones. They would soak the chilli in water, grind them and put them in pails. On hot days, dead cockroaches could be seen floating on top of the chilli paste. The hawkers would just scoop the dead cockroaches away and serve the chilli to customers. How disgusting!

As for shark fish, Gong Gong told me that during the Japanese invasion, dead bodies were thrown into the sea. Sharks ate up the dead bodies! When the fishermen caught the sharks, and cut them up, they could find hands and legs of humans inside the sharks. My Gong Gong had seen the limbs before so since then, he stays away from sharks even though he loves to eat fish.

My Gong Gong has an interesting but difficult childhood. We are so lucky nowadays. We must treasure what we have now.

Jia Min (3Charity)