1st photo with family members, 1st cousins, uncle Phoon and Aunty Dona
As a kid, I had it really good. In all honesty, I was very fortunate, this little brown kid living with his parents in a nice big house, all 30,000 square feet of land, with a nice white car and cousins, friends, maids, dog, all play and parties. This was the dream, or so I thought. What did I know ? I was only 3 years old then.
In the photo above, my Uncle Phoon (now in his 80s) and Aunty Mona (close to 80) was carrying my first cousin, Lorraine. At extreme right staring into the camera is her brother, Rick, who is 10 months older than me. At the left of the photo were my Mum's nieces and my cousins Wynne, May and some other girls. The tall lanky good looking boy to my left was Kee Seng, who took care of me from time to time. He must have been at least 7 - 10 years older than me. Kee Seng lived in the neighbourhood along Sophia Road.
To my right was my eldest cousin Clifford Lau looking at Kee Seng and some other relative.
Clifford is stationed in Australia and Kee Seng and our family lost contact decades ago.
This 2nd photo with me again looking bemused with my Mum and more family members
In the second photo above, my cousin May who is about 5 years older than me is standing at the left with the curly hair. I recognise Poh San, the girl behind to rhe right of my mother. She became an air stewardess with Singapore Airlines but our families lost touch. The stout boy to my Mum's left is Liang Puck and to my right are my elder cousins Clifford (with straw) and Winston. Clifford and May are siblings, Rick and Lorraine are siblings, Winston and Wynne are siblings.
My Mum being the eldest in the family, or big sister wielded the most 'power', all the sisters and 2 brothers listened to her firm and sagely advice on family, career and investment matters, even though she was only in her mid 30s then.They had a tumultuous time first in China, as my grandfather worked for the Chiang Kai Shek administration, before the 2nd World War broke out. So all in all there were 4 sisters, Anna, Dona, Mina and Mona. 1 younger brother David Mun (whose kids were not born yet) and 1 half brother Gordon (my grandfather married another woman).
The family though close have not had contact with Uncle Gordon for decades.
Sitting on the garden swing ; the Big Head brown boy with his pretty Mum
1965 was the year Singapore separated from the Federation of Malaya and had to 'go it alone'. The little island was beset by many Communists aligned to the CCP of China, the island was poor, there was a mix of races with Chinese being the majority, Malay and Indians.
GDP per capita was like US$ 300. We had no natural resources, no foreign reserves, nothing. But we had in 1 brilliant man, Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, a driven and gifted politician who had the steely determination to wipe out the Communists, a fledgling People's Action Party which had a very strong core team of 1st Generation Leaders, Goh Keng Swee, Toh Chin Chye, S. Rajaratnam, Yusoff Ishyak and J.Y. Pillay to name a few. From this core team, a lot of hard work was done to elevate everyone's standard of living to what it is today, a first world metropolis, safe and a high standard of living.
Clearly I was not a 'happy camper' in this picture circa 1963.
So, I had the whole single child thingy for 3 years. Then came John.... that is for the next posts.
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