Of times gone by - Mum's unknown childhood story

It was a weekend afternoon of spontaneity for a change. No preconceived plans, no absolute destinations. Just driving around in the financial district at Raffles Place and decided we would swing by Central for dinner. This trip brought some pleasant surprises. Firstly, mum was totally wowed by nifty boxes of white fruity chocolates selling at only 50 cents per box in a basement shop stocked with Japanese titbits and food stuff. At closer look, the boxes had end-November 2008 stamped as expiry date. No wonder the cheap sale! Nonetheless, the bite-size pieces were delicious, according to mum who is a white chocolate fan. She had to return for more boxes because "I've never seen chocolates sold at 50 cents! So cheap! And they are very nice!" Rarely do I see her so excited about a food item! Like a child ;)

Meanwhile, what beckoned me were the numerous Japanese restaurants with attractive window displays of their menu items! It brought back pleasant memories of our trip to Japan. I could have drooled just admiring the clever, artsy and enticing displays. Alas, my sober other-half was highly rational that day. A hesitant look from his eyes told me he has not found the place that would sit well with his wallet that day. So we continued roaming the levels in the mall and finally, our - particularly, his eyes brightened and his head nodded when we came to the spacious, almost empty food court at level 4. To our pleasant surprise, it had a very good view of the Singapore River beneath. We quickly settled down for a comfortable, inexpensive dinner. No complaints at all because the food was accompanied with easy conversation among wonderful companions plus a great view of the River!

The men in our party started a discussion on whether the floating restaurants were 'real' boats or fake ones. "They don't seem to move at all?" "But you can hardly expect any waves here so could be why they don't even rock a little?" "But they must be real! See the ropes that secure them... prevents them from drifting away!" "Maybe it's just part of the decor?" "So your theory is they are structures built on the river bed?" The women joined in somehow.... well, no conclusion. Not that it mattered anyway.

Then, out of the blue, mum revealed an unknown episode in her childhood. "I lived in one of those houses at the far right hand corner when I was a kid!" "Looks like the yellow one." Admist my wows and disbelief, she went on to say that her God-aunty owned the house & she would visit for short stays. And she said the entire street had shops that sold all sorts of knick-knacks & the river was always bustling with men loading & unloading goods from boats that anchored. Immediately in my mind, like a black-and-white movie reel, I saw my mum, a young carefree girl, tender in age but mature and responsible, roaming the streets checking out the stalls selling titbits, getting excited like she did just a while ago, probably over a 5 cent item! I saw her playing hide-and-seek with her God-cousins, running up and down the stairways of that house, taking a well-deserved break from the back-breaking, grueling chore of fetching water from the well and preparing dinner for all her younger siblings. Here in that house, she was a child, not a little adult. A child who was allowed to have some fun, to dawdle her time away chasing spiders and scaring cats ... I saw my mum in her young innocence - and I wish I was there with her.

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My eyes popped out as I listened to her account, in between mouthfuls of food, a story that seemed to have come straight out of my Sec 1 history pages. Wow, never knew my own mother had an experience like that! I wonder when I reach her age, will I be able to look at a building facade and reminise about the times I had spent in there and accept all the changes that would have taken place - that threaten to erase my memory? The truth is no one can stop anything from changing - the old taken over by the new, the stale rustic past replaced by the contemporary, the edgy, the in-thing. Who still cares about history? Who really bothers to discover what it was like in times gone by? Maybe only in songs, in movies, in plays & poems and in the deep recesses of the human heart that we go back & relive our experiences of the abandoned, yet good old times.