"We built a well with our neighbours"
Cheng Siew Kee's father was a resourceful man who built his own well and a fish pond. Here is how her family made the best of what little they had.
I was born in 1936 and lived in Singapore during the Japanese Occupation. I was just a young child, around 6-7 years old at the time. Our home was at 41 Throno Road, situated on Bendemeer/Serangoon Road. It was a modest house with a garden in both the front and back, part of a row of small houses. The house had one hall, two rooms, and one kitchen. We converted the indoor kitchen into an additional room, so most of our cooking was done outdoors. My mother took care of the household, and my father worked at MPH (Malaya Publishing House) during the war.
MPH (Malaya Publishing House) was located at the junction of Stamford Road and Armenian Street
1930s
Credit: NLB
During those trying times, our diet was meagre and simple. We survived on sweet potatoes, tapioca, and the leaves of those root plants. There was no rice available, except for the government-issued rations. You couldn’t get it any other way. There was no milk even. My mother would steam or boil the root vegetables for our meals. We were fortunate to have several fruit trees, including soursop, guava, papaya, and banana. We also grew various vegetables like spinach, chye sim (Chinese spinach), and spices like chilli to add flavour to our food. We kept chickens and ducks too.
During the war, we had no water or electricity. In response, my father approached our neighbour and proposed the idea of building a well. This well would save us the trouble of fetching water from the river. My father and my elder brother worked alongside our neighbour and his eldest son to dig a well right next to our house. The water source was a natural spring deep beneath the ground. Funny, the well water never ran dry! The well itself was round and quite big and my father used banana leaves to cover the top. The sides were covered with stones and the well was quite deep, so we used a pail on a rope to retrieve water.
Illustration of a DIY well built by Cheng Siew Kee's father
Illustrated by Julia Tay
My father also built a fish pond. It was rectangular and had a very simple structure. When the war ended, the British soldiers passing by stepped into the pond to bathe and all the fishes died! Our house was close to the roadside, and there was no fence, so anyone could walk in.There was no water elsewhere so the British soldiers used whatever little they found. I was at the window and saw them bathing in it! There was no food either, they were so thin. Everyone, including me, were so thin back then.
At night, we relied on a kerosene lamp for lighting since electricity was unavailable. For cooking, we didn't have a conventional stovetop. Instead, we stacked four bricks on top of each other, placed branches and dried leaves inside, added some paper, and poured a bit of kerosene to start a fire.
We were so poor, it was very difficult for one person to support a family. We often went around barefoot. I had five siblings, and I was the second oldest child. My parents were match-made, with my mother being just 17 and my father 18 at the time of their marriage. My father was from China, while my mother was a local.
My brother would venture to the Bendemeer River to catch fish. It was very risky because there was quicksand around the area. Tragically, many children lost their lives there. He typically caught smaller fishes - it was impossible to catch large fishes in that area.
After the war, my mother sold kueh (a bite-sized traditional cake or pastry) while my father obtained a licence to sell Western medicine to local doctors in Singapore. The doctors would ride their bicycles to purchase medicine from him. These were extremely difficult times, we had to adapt and persevere to make ends meet.