The old man with the hats. He is most often sitting at Hougang bus interchange, but could be spotted anywhere else in the neighbourhood. Coffeeshops, on the streets. Short, squat, with a blank expression. He fashions fantastical hats you wouldn’t dream of. His signature: a skullcap made up flattened Coke cans, and perched atop is a rubber ducky. Other favorites are his festive-themed Fortune God hat, with Cai Shen Ye proudly unfurling couplet scrolls from the crown.
The fights. Between couples, between families. Loud and public. One family, in particular, in the block across from us. Between window grilles I poked my nose out, trying to put a visual to that child’s shrieks which are terrifying, urgent, matched only by the desperate scoldings of its parent. I’ve never seen them, but heard enough for a lifetime. From the adjacent block, a man holding a chopper chases a woman across the parking lot.
And, in the shops surrounding this parking lot, back when the crowd were boxed in by uncleared grassy fields, young men traded hands furtively, too obvious even to my 9-year-old eyes.
Across the street from this parking lot, a little park that hosted getai for many years every 7th month of the lunar calendar, before getai was no longer in demand. Sin Heng Kee porridge, those massive pots where they stirred the most delicious congee you’d have had. That one staff lady who was teased when I was there once, for I was, inexplicably, her oǔ xiàng (idol)? To this day I do not understand what transpired.
Hougang One. Sakae Sushi, with its conveyer belt, a happy indulgence a few times a week. Peak luxury to me, at the time. The billiards shop right across to it, that one day many years later I would play at, just once. And just in the hawker centre a few minutes walk away, the famous A Star Western, with its massive chops and fish and chips with decadent tar tar sauce.
In another part of Hougang, a landed home where the Mugger’s Club was formed, as we studied together for ‘O’ levels. Day in and out, together in that living room, eating huge pots of pasta. Not remembering any studying done, only the games and silliness.
Again, another part of Hougang less familiar to me, but still felt like home anyway, where I visited twice a week throughout my University days to give tuition to C. She had the same name as my best friend, and I liked her too, half-German, half-Indian, earnest and sweet. She had big dreams and ambitions, and wanted to be a nice girl. Her father was a horror show, and her mother delayed payment to me for months after we completed her tuition – sending me apologetic and evasive messages riddled with unnecessary umlauts. Once, she made spätzle which tasted like puke.
But let’s end on a happy note.
Ciyuan Community Club, where Popo and I went to sing karaoke, just us. Where we ate at the open-spaced hawker centre with those giant fans overhead, long-limbed and slumberous. Where Kym Ng happened to be filming there, for a food review, and – sitting just a few tables away – my ever-free-spirited Popo said aloud “Oh that’s Kym Ng! Used to be famous, now not anymore.”
Q 