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Hallo everyone |
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The advertisement in The Straits Times today
reads: |
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"Today & Tomorrow only, 7 & 8 Feb - Free Fresh
Eggs 30's" |
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Yes! Giant, Shop-N-Save and G'Value are offering a
free tray of fresh eggs today and tomorrow for the first 100* customers each
day spending S$30 and above in a single receipt. |
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A line in red reads, "Hurry, When It's Gone! It's
Gone." |
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Giving away free eggs is a good way of rewarding
the customer for his patronage. The tray of eggs featured in the advertisement
jolted my memory. I found myself staring blankly at it, for in an instant, my
mind had been transported back to the Singapore of the early 70's. |
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I remember I was in secondary school then, and
living in a three-room flat in Toa Payoh. Back then, with every new Chinese
New Year, each household, whether in an HDB flat or a private residence, would
receive free eggs. Some received a tray, others were given more trays of eggs.
It was the pig farmers' way of thanking the households for contributing swill
to the pigs the farmers were rearing. |
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You see, each day, my mother would pour the
leftover food into a small bin which she would then leave outside the flat, in
the common corridor, for the pig farmers to collect. It was the same thing
happening with every household in our block, and in other blocks in the neighbourhood. |
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At the end of each year, usually just before
Chinese New Year, the farmers would pile tray upon tray of eggs in the lift
landings and then go from flat to flat to distribute the trays of eggs to the
flat occupants. Some received two trays. My family was given one. The number
of trays of eggs given depended on the amount of swill contributed during the
previous year. We received less because ours was a small family and had not
much swill for the farmer to collect each day. |
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There are no farmers going around HDB flats
nowadays to distribute free fresh eggs to HDB dwellers. This is because the
pig farming industry was phased out of Singapore in the 70's. The only thing
left are my memories of the whole affair. In fact, I had plain forgotten about
the whole thing, till, that is, I saw the advertisement in today's newspaper. |
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I am sharing this with you so you have an idea of
what people did at home way back in the 70's. In case you are wondering how it
is possible for pig farmers then to have such big farms to consume the amount
of swill dished out by so many HDB estates such as Yishun, Bedok, Tampines and
Ang Mo Kio, let me tell you this - such estates were not even built then.
There were only two HDB towns then -Queenstown first, and Toa Payoh later. If
memory serves me right, the next HDB town built was Bedok in the late 70's,
followed by Ang Mo Kio. |
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But, it's all history now. Memories of the old
ways come back when the mind is jolted. It is times like this that I yearn for
the old days, of a time when I was much younger. Can we turn back the clock?
Obviously no. But, we can have a good time reminiscing the past. And this
advertisement did something that money cannot buy - it brought me back to the
past, albeit in my mind. |
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I look at the advertisement again and read aloud
the line in red: |
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"Hurry, When It's Gone! It's Gone." |
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It's true. When that time has gone, it has gone,
never to come back, except in our reflections. |
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So what is the message I have in mind for this new
Year of the Rooster? It is this: |
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Live each new day to the fullest, for it will
never return. What you do today decides whether it is good memories or bad
nightmares you store in your mind's bank for you to conjure up in your
twilight years. |
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Have a good day! |
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*500 for Giant |
Monday with the Editor: Reliving new year memories
