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The EARLY CHILDHOOD YEARS

 

The first decade 1939 to 1950

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I was born in Bangsar Hospital, Kuala Lumpur on the 11 July 1939 and we lived at Birch Road, Kuala Lumpur until 1940 and my father practiced as an engineer in Kuala Lumpur visiting the tin mines as a Consultant engineer.

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The Second World War years (1942-45)

 

Our hurried evacuation 1942-45 to Bombay, India on the Felix Rousell, a French warship. Jee Pek as the eldest Oon in the family, worked in the Ministry and obtained evacuation passes for his wife Jee Um, and her six children as well as Mummy, “Tuck” (Chong Teik), our Chinese helper “Ah Mui Chay” and Koo Chay, the youngest sister of the senior Oons, who had expressed a desire to study Medicine. My brother Chong Teik told me that when we were staying with our maternal grandmother, Wong Bee Ho at No. 75 Keng Lee Road in Singapore, bombs from Japanese bombers fell near our home.

 

Grandma was the daughter of the legendary Datuk Wong Ah Fook, who had built the Sultan of Johor's Palace in 1900 in Johor Bahru. We left Singapore just as the Japanese invasion forces were landing at Chua Chu Kang and Sembawang from Johor. On January 1942, Jee Pek and my father drove us all to the pier and made us board the Felix Roussel which set sail in total darkness. I was 3 years old then, and my memoirs were of a dark, and crowded ship and I was crying a lot. Mummy said that to stop me crying, people would offer up their milk rations for me. [The story of the last days of the British in Singapore can be read in Noel Barber: Sinister Twilight: The Fall and Rise Again of Singapore.

 

Other Singapore families that were with us were; Robert Loh’s family, Poh Soo Chuan and Soo Kai and his mum, Zee Um and, my cousins. The French captain guided our ship, which was one of the three to go up the Straits of Malacca, and that probably saved us  as the Japanese submarines were waiting outside the harbour and sank every ship that went south to Australia. ‘Sinister Twilight’ described the last days of the British Empire, the Japanese invasion of Singapore, the panic of the civilians, and the evacuation. All along the way to India our ships were being bombed and torpedoed. The ship carrying the last colonial secretary, Shenton, was sunk near Colombo.

 

 

 

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The 20 year old, French merchant ship which had used to plough Saigon, Thailand and Hong Kong, was bombed by Japanese bombers, all the way in the South China Sea. As soon as it docked in Singapore, it was meant to go to Australia, but the captain decided to sail us up the Straits of Malacca towards Bombay on the 15 December 1942. This was fortunate, as we were one of the three ships that survived the journey to Bombay, where we were put as refugees with families with Mrs. Posh Kinawalan. All the ships which went south to Australia were sunk in the Singapore harbour.

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Life as war refugee in Bendra, Bombay, India

 

Our ship was diverted and we landed in Bombay and we were moved to a rural part of Bombay called Bendra. Mum rented an apartment where all of us Singapore refugees stayed, and she sent us to a Jesuit kindergarten school, called the St. Stanislaw High School. (This was the place where the seeds of Catholicism Christianity was sown into me!). Accompanied by Ah Mui Chay, our Chinese maid, we would walk to school and sometimes we would pass some big open wells. Peering down these deep wells, I would see a lot of snakes.

 

Our little community grew up and were fairly close together, but we always had no news of the war and how our families left behind were doing. Mum was very good and looked after us, and was strict with my studies. I remember being spanked with a ruler for not knowing my work. Koo Chay would study on the roof terrace and would ‘shoo‘ the sixteen children away as she was studying. She later left for New Delhi to study Medicine after approaching the Malayan High Commission for financial assistance. She would visit us whenever she was in town.

 

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 ~ Kite fighting ~

 

On the terrace of our apartments, we would make reams of  ‘glass strings’ for our fighting kites. This was made by pounding glass into fine powder and then using eggs as an emulsion to spread on the tough strings in the sun. Kite flying was a really fun and serious affair. These kites fought real battles in the air; great skills, dexterity and the sharpness of your glass line would determine if you won or lost the battle of the air space. Our fingers and hands were regularly cut by these sharp glass.

 

Many booties, which were strips of movies and other decorations were put on the tails of the kites. We would run for miles with a long stick to try to catch a 'downed kite'. Such were the fun of our early childhood. Many times, we were not able to see the kites, as they were miles high, and the fight was by finger touch. The best fighters would put a booty on the tail of their kite, to entice attackers. Sometimes we would run in the streets after the fallen kites to get the booty of the cut strings or the booty!

 

My elder brother Tuck was quite naughty, and one day he climbed up a tree to get a mango, and fell. He laid so still, that I was so scared that he was dead. But resilient like he was , he got up, but on arriving home got punished by Mum. Another time, he peered over the parapet to look at the dead body of the tenant below us, and described in detail to frighten me of how the dead man’s eyes were still open! I couldn't sleep the whole night. On our balcony was also a small chicken tied to the railings and we would occasionally get fresh eggs! Ah Mui Chay, our Chinese maid, who escaped with us from Singapore, helped to look after us too.

 

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~ Friends of the war refugees ~

 

We had many kind friends in Bendra. Mr. & Mrs. Posh Kinawallah, who were Parsees, befriended and helped us. They gave us a farewell dinner in Bombay before we left to return to Singapore in June 1946 . I remember that it was a gloriously bright day, and we were all looking forward to returning home. Many years later, we would repay their kindness and hospitality when they visited us in Kuala Lumpur. Koo Chay in her account to the Singapore Medical Association (Ref: SMA News Vol: 41, No.4, pp 9-14, 2009) said that we arrived back to Singapore on the 2nd June 1946.

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 ~ The recovery years (1946 to 1950) ~

Joy and sadness on coming home to Singapore

 

The home coming was tinged with the joy of leaving as war refugees and the great sadness that followed after learning on arrival of the loss of two members of the family, Grand Ma Wong Bee Ho, and Jee Pek (Oon Khye Hong).

 

Grand Ma Bee Ho, a stoic figure, intellectual, teacher, benefactor and supporter of education, had set up a teaching school and a Buddhist Philanthropic organization, called the Red Swastika during the war years of the Japanese occupation. One night, the Japanese took her away and subjected her to severe interrogation and torture. On her release, she was so broken that she died of pneumonia several weeks later.

 

Mum’s brother Dr. Kwan Ying Hong (Sam Kow Foo), a graduate of Edinburgh University, had continued to practice medicine and my father worked in his clinic, as a clinic assistant, disguised with a beard, so that the Japanese would not recognise him. At the time, the Japanese were persecuting and executing anyone with a foreign degree or trained overseas. My father was a Cambridge graduate .

 

My cousin, Gladys, mentioned that on a bridge near to our Keng Lee Road home, she would see hanging heads of beheaded people. The second casualty of the war was Jee Pek (Oon Khye Hong). Uncle Khye Hong, was so troubled by the war news released by the Japanese that our ship, the Felix Roussel, and all other ships which left Singapore had been sunk and that he had lost all his family. Also, he was a hunted man by the Japanese because he was a U.S graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the husband of the daughter of Tan Kah Kee, the legendary philanthropist and benefactor of China during the war years.

 

Coupled with the added persecution by the Japanese, and the sorrow of the loss of his whole family, he took his life one day by jumping off the house. These great sadness and sorrows were felt by my mum, for not only did she lose her mother, but she also lost her dear brother-in-law, Jee Pek, who had introduced my father to her. Yet she bore the grief with dignity and she would always help to look after Jee Um and her family of six financially, now without a bread winner. Mum always treasured these sad memories quietly.

 

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~ Moving back to Kuala Lumpur ~

Encounter with the greatest Badminton player in history, my uncle Wong Peng Soon

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By now, my father had restarted his career as one of the very few, if not, the only qualified electrical and mechanical engineer. He was employed as the engineer for the tin mines and dredges in Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Perak and would go out frequently to these tin mines as their engineer and inspector. As this was the peak of the mining industry, my father used to travel away frequently. The Emergency had started with the Communist attacking trains, highways, even burning down rubber estate homes and some mines in their fight against the British. These were dangerous times.

 

We moved back to Kuala Lumpur, and found a house at No. 113, Ampang Road, which was about three quarters acre, and stayed there. Uncle Khye Pok (Khye Pok) and adopted son of my paternal grandfather stayed in our compound behind us, with his two sons, and two daughters. In the front of our house was a grass badminton court where we played rounders (like baseball) and badminton on the grounds.

 

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~ Inspiration by a legendary icon ~

Uncle Wong Peng Soon, the legendary World Badminton Champion 

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The wind would blow the shuttlecock in all directions; or it would rain or shine brightly, but we still learnt to play our badminton against the extremes of weather. This would help Chong Teik (‘Tuck’) and myself to be all round weather badminton players when we played in our world class championship matches in halls which either had a draught, or the overhead lights were too bright.

 

It was here in 1948, that Uncle Peng Soon, first showed us what was required to be World Class badminton player when he came up to play in the Malayan Open Championships, after Malaya won the Thomas Cup, which was a symbol of supremacy in world Badminton then. More than that, it was the manner in which he taught us, how to make sacrifices and aim for the highest and, to be the best and undefeated [see Sports: Famous Oon brothers]

 

Famous Oon brothers 

 

During his visits when he trained at our Kuala Lumpur home and played in our open badminton court, he would play and tease us and we would always ask “Master, show me how to play that shot!” as we struggled to retrieve his shots! At the back of the house, and in a shaded area, Uncle Peng Soon would skip continuously for over an hour, to strengthen his arm, wrists, legs and feet. He would also do frequent shadow badminton, playing against an invisible superior opponent on the court. We could only just worship him!

 

But these were the seeds he had sewn into us when we were then 7-8 years old. Uncle Peng Soon was also a member of our Wong Ah Fook family and left his family home in Johor Bahru to seek his fortune in Singapore. He joined the Mayflower badminton Club, which became one of the top clubs in Singapore. He also brought in a number of top badminton players. Ong Poh Lim, Ismail bin Marjan, and Cheong Hock Leng, who later played in the Malayan Thomas Cup. 

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