Red
Hill Part 2 of 2
02 JUN 07
Apart
from flying trash bags, burning palms and mafiaman, there was this
HDB apartment candy shops. Children today buy their candy from neighbourhood
provision shops but for me and my lil sis, we buy our candy from
illegal candy shops in other people’s apartments. It’s
true. I remembered clearly that within our block, there was 2 candy
peddlers. One was at 5th storey and the other at 2nd storey. The
latter was our favorite.
The candy store is also home to an elderly couple. Their door was
always slightly ajar, and what me and my sister would do, is knock
on their door and they would let us in. At the side of their living
room apartment was a wide variety of candy and knick-knacks. From
KAKA crackers to Doremon chocolates, they have everything in stock.
I like to eat the candy that looks like a polo sweet but you can
make this loud whistling noise with it. It’s like an edible
toy! |
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Layout
of the illegal candy peddler that we used to frequent.
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My sister
is very choosy about her candy. |
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The
old couple would usually be busy eating porridge or taking their
afternoon nap. It was kinda odd that we could actually trust these
strangers and step into their homes and I can even open their
fridge to get that 10 cents candy drink. They could easily kidnap
us or worse, but kidnapping was not the in-thing back in the 80s
I guess. Their competitor, on 5th storey was a Chinese uncle in
his early 40s. He gave us exceptional service and was extra nice
but the thing with his candy was, there wasn’t much variety
and that the brand he have in stock was cheap knock-offs.. So
we didn’t deal business with him much. |
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Even
though he was very nice, the knick-knacks he
have in stock sucks. |
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The
last recollection I have with the old couple was when I knocked
on their door, and I got a stranger answering it. He said that
the old couple are not selling anymore and when I peered in
the door cracks the apartment was filled with strangers sobbing..
I later learned from my Mum that one of the old couple passed
away.
Another
thing that RedHill gave me was my best childhood friend Ah Liong.
Ah Liong was the same age as me and whenever I’m done
with school, he was too. And since we live right next to each
other, we would spend countless hours playing. Just for your
info, Ah Liong is the guy that introduced me to grasshoppers
fighting. One of the hi-lights of our playing session was when
he got himself this huge bubble thingy. It’s a huge plastic
toy for you to make humongous bubbles. We both stole some detergent
powder from the kitchen but we realized that UIC detergent does
not produce as much bubbles as Dragon Brand detergent. But I
remembered how huge and long the bubble was.. we soaked the
the plastic wire and we ran as fast as we could..
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Those
were the days.. Now it's just about working like a dog.
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Another
memorable incident was when I went to Malacca with my parents
and they have all these farm animals. I remembered vividly I went
into a hen house and I saw some eggs. I touched an egg and it
was boiling hot- I guess the Mother hen has been sitting on them
for awhile and she’s out for her pee break and stretch her
legs or something. . Hens does pee right? So I borrowed an egg..
Okay I stole it, and I showed it to my Mum.
I wanted to keep the chick that is inside so I thought I hatched
it myself. I placed the egg near the window cause I thought the
sun rays would warm it up and hatch it but I kept going back to
it every 3 minues and I was getting very impatient. Then I took
it and carried it whenever I went until I trip and the egg went
splat. It’s a good thing I only saw a yolk and not some
half-chick-half-yolk kinda thing cause I think that would be too
gross for my 8 year old boy brain to handle. I felt guilty.. But
back to Redhill. |
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This would give me nigtmares. |
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I
told Ah Liong about it and we decided to hatch our own eggs. Ah
Liong grab one of his eggs from his fridge and I got a pillow
from my place. The reasoning was, the pillow acts like a hens
backside.. minus the feathers. We presume that the soft pillow
would heat the egg up in time and a cute chick will spring to
life. Right. Ok.. 5 minutes passed and both of us were getting
impatient. Then we suggested that we need more pillows to exert
more pressure and thus produce more heat. So I got like 8 pillows
and a couple of bolsters. Soon, we were piling the pillows up
on the egg like jenga. |
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For your info, we did this outside, along
the HDB hallway.
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We
decided to play while we left the pillow stack because we were
definitely sure that a chick will sprout once we’re done
playing. After several rounds of “Chee Ko Pak”. We
checked the egg but lo and behold, it was crushed and stained
the pillow! Mum is gonna be pissed and Ah Liong was practically
crying like an Ah Kua. Soon we did a thorough investigation like
a bunch of CSIs. We were determine to bring justice to the egg
killer. That egg hatching pillow idea was from the brain child
of me and Ah Liong and nobody destroys our unborn chick and gets
away with it!
Millisecond
passed and we realized that the prime suspect was my little
sister Aisha, cause she was with us all this while and now she’s
gone. So I rushed back to my place and sure enough Aisha was
napping. I woke her up and after a couple of CID air con style
interrogation techniques, she confessed that she can’t
resist sitting on the stack of pillows and when she did, she
heard a crunch sound.. She saw the yolk and she ran back and
pretended to nap to avoid being blamed. An ingenious foolproof
plan, but too bad, Ah Liong and me are not fools.
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the story short. Mum come back work from factory – found dirty
egg pillow – nag a long time at us – nag some more –
nobody cried – Ah Liong went back home unscathed and didn’t
even tell his Mum – I ate and watched cartoons – Mum
washed pillow and casing – its bedtime- tomorrow restart another
adventure. Where
are you now Ah Liong?
Evil Bunny! |
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