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TODAY, 7 January 2013

Spreading The Word!

The final phase of our project after we completed the blog is to create a buzz in the community and get more people to know St George's. We truly appreciate the ardent support of the shops in block 3, which offered goodies and discounts to all who present our flyers at their shops till 31 December 2012. 

 

We printed T-shirts, aprons and cushions with our blog address and are pleasantly surprised with the overwhelming response in the sales of these items. All out of stock within a week! 

Our team and the products

On 27 November, we were distributing our flyers at various places in the neighbourhood to promote our blog. It was really tiring but we had lots of fun. We were indeed touched by the many people who stopped to ask about the project - their affirming words really made our day! Thanks! 

 

Overview of St. George's

St. George's Road links to St. George's Lane and St. Wilfred Road

Did you know the estate comprises 24 blocks of HDB flats and is divided into St Georges West (Blocks 1 to 8, including blocks 4B, 4C) and St Georges East (Blocks 9 to 23)? We have covered the boundaries marked by Sungei Whampoa in the West, private housing and condos in the East (Jalan Semerbak and St Francis Road), the Central Expressway in the North and Serangoon Road in the South. It may be a small estate but there sure is a lot of walking to do!  

The sign showing all blocks in St. George's East Garden

St George’s estate is in the Kolam Ayer Division of the Moulmein- Kallang Town Council and under the Central Community Development Council. The estate is currently undergoing an entire face-lift with the Home Improvement Programme and Lift Upgrading Programme going on at the same time.

We have a rather sketchy picture of the history of the place based on what we gathered in our interviews with residents who have stayed here for a long time. We were told, in the "good old days" there were rental quarters (where block 4B and the basketball court now stand) and residents would just sit and chat or play sepak takraw and football in the open area. Apart from Tee Hai Trading and P. Suppiah Laundry, all the shops in block 3 have changed tenants. There used to be tyres shop, rubber shop, hardware shop and even a florist shop. Unfortunately, none of these ‘long- time- residents’ could provide us with any old pictures of the place. So, if you have any old photos of St Georges, do share them with us to publish in this blog. 
 

Cupcakes Made With Love By Joy

Aunty Joy, standing at the back

What is TAKEHUAHee? Well, it means ‘all are happy’ in the hokkien dialect. A new shop at block 3 founded by Ms Joy Cheance (Aunty Joy), sells yummy cupcakes and cookies. She is a passionate lover of baking and arts. Besides selling in the shop, she takes online orders and does catering for special occasions too. 

Aunty Joy has been staying in this neighbourhood for many years and so her decision to set up shop in St. George’s is based on convenience and the fact that she is familiar with the place and people here. All the cupcakes are hand-crafted with love by Aunty Joy herself. She hopes to bring joy and happiness to everyone through her baking - just like the name of the shop!

The irresistable cupcakes baked by Aunty Joy 

Cupcakes are nicely packed in boxes when you buy them. Be careful when you transport the cupcakes - see the label below that can be found on every box. 

Label on the box

Cat Aunty

Cat Aunty, front row in center

She is affectionately known as Cat Aunty in the community as she can been seen feeding and tending to more than 10 stray cats in the neighbourhood. Cat Aunty is also no stranger to this place as she has stayed here for over 31 years! She shared an incident when a cat owner actually threw a cat from the fourth storey. Thankfully, it survived the fall! Cat Aunty has 3 grown up children who are very supportive of her cause and her daughter would help her feed the cats when she is away. 

Cat Aunty in action

She also has friends living here who share her passion for cats and once they even helped her search for a missing cat all the way to Geylang. She feeds all her cat two meals a day; five o’clock in the morning and five o’clock in the evening and spends almost $300 a month on cat food and supplements!     

Cat eating the food by Aunty Cat

 

Joggers' Paradise

We have the Whampoa Park Connector, part of the nationwide park connector network, just below our blocks at St George's West. The Whampoa Park Connector runs along Sungei Whampoa. It starts from Toa Payoh Town Park and joins up with Kallang Park Connector near the Kolam Ayer Waterfront. It takes you through Kim Keat, Whampoa, Bendemeer and Kallang. It will definitely give you a very good work-out! You can see many hardcore joggers and aunties taking their brisk walk every evening.

The park connector links to Whampoa Park

We caught a jogger in action
and an old couple enjoying the cool breeze



Family enjoying a leisure run in the evening

ZigZag Learning

Where students skip to classes! Ok some just stroll. On a bad day, they drag their feet. What parents find pleasantly unusual though is their kids’ desire not to miss any lesson.

Our team at ZigZag Learning

Started in end of 2011, the centre facilitates the learning of English and Mathematics (Science in 2013) for primary school children through incorporating social emotional learning in every session. Its unique approach is slowly but surely wining over many parents, who not only see improvements in their children’s grades over time but also positive change in their behaviour and attitude to learning. 

Interesting poem about Zigzag's vision of learning

ZigZag Learning also offers “Readiness-to-Learn” classes for pre-schoolers (Nursery to Kindergarten) focusing on its expertise in social emotional learning. We hope they will start classes for Secondary students soon as we will certainly miss coming here for classes.

Aunty Joyce

A smiley Aunty Joyce

Aunty Joyce is a definitely a familiar figure to all present and past residents of St George’s as she was the proprietor of Kian Hua Coffee Shop at block 3 for 24 years before it was leased to Choice @ 3 in end of 2011. She was staying above the coffee shop with her 3 children before moving to another block in St George’s when she stopped operating the coffee shop. “I won’t move out of this area. It is so convenient!” Aunty Joyce quickly added before we could ask her why she did not move elsewhere. She is very happy with the changes in the environment over the years, “It was very dirty in the past but now it is so much better.” She is definitely the person to ask about the history of this place as she is able to tell us the different shops that were here in block 3 before they were taken over by the current tenants. We observed that she seemed to know all the patrons in the new coffee shop when we took her picture. They must be her customers then and now they have become friends!

 

St. George's Park

St. George's Park located behind block 3 offers the community a great place to chill out! Many grandparents bring their young grandchildren here as they could chat with friends while the young ones play at the playground.  



Nice walkway in the park

A common gathering place for the elderly

The playground at block 3 is just beside the park

 

 

 

Uncle Yap's Enterprise

As the shop’s name suggests, the owner of the shop is none other than Uncle Yap himself. The shop is manned by both Uncle and Aunty Yap. As a convenience store, they open their shop pretty late at 1pm. They go home at midnight. When asked why such odd opening hours, they claimed that’s when most of their customers come in.


Uncle Yap's Convenience Store at block 3

Uncle Yap offers many things in his shop. Besides the usual household items, snacks and drinks that a normal convenience store would sell, you can also find a good range of hardware items like screws, screw drivers, wire ties, even water taps and their spare parts! They have lots of stationaries; writing and drawing materials, all kinds of pens and pencils, even the complex features calculators we used in school are available. Young children love to go Uncle Yap for their variety of toys. They were even selling scary masks during Halloween!
 

Uncle and Aunty Yap

It's amazing how they can stock so many things and yet the shop space can look so spacious. They also offer other services like photocopying, printing and computer repair. Uncle Yap is definitely more than a convenience store!  

Taxi-Drivers, Break Time!!

You often find a band of taxi drivers gathering at Choice @ 3 Coffee Shop having their lunch break at about 11.30am each weekday. There are usually 6 to 10 of them and you may see a female taxi driver among them too! Most do not live in this neighbourhood, but come from other places like Hougang, Sengkang and Ang Mo Kio. 
 

Taxi uncles sharing their stories with us

We had fun chatting with them

 

They do not make any appointment with each other but will just turn up if they are in the vicinity around that time. “The big car park, convenient location and reasonably good food,” these were the reasons most gave when asked why they chose this place to gather. They prefer food that can fill their stomach, so having a mixed vegetable rice stall in the coffee shop is important to them. They have been coming here for more than 10 years and have become good friends, exchanging stories about difficult passengers. We are so glad we had the opportunity to interview them on one of our PSLE marking day as we would otherwise be in school at that hour on weekdays.    

 

Bridge Linking Two Communities

A bridge that spans over the CTE (Central Expressway)! Near Block 7, there is a very long pedestrian overhead bridge that links St. George's to Whampoa, connecting the two communities. It's quite a sight, seeing cars speeding pass us  from the top.
 

You can use the stairs or ramps to get up the bridge 

Not for bicycles or thrill-seekers!



It is definitely a long bridge



Tips for insomniacs: great spot for "counting cars"

 

Singapore's Last Dhobi Shop at Block 3!

P. Suppiah Laundry (Uncle Hari & his worker)

One of the longest standing shop in St. George’s is P. Suppiah Laundry – a dhobi shop at block 3. The family has been in this business for 45 years, originally from Somerset, passing down from one generation to another. Mr Hari (Uncle Hari) who is 48 year old, has been running the shop since his father was getting old and needed help. Uncle Hari’s father was the pioneer tenant of this shop space which is still currently under rental from HDB. The family stays upstairs of the shop which makes it convenient for Uncle Hari to look after the shop. Uncle Hari has 2 other brothers but they are not interested in the dhobi business. Their father who is now 85 years old, is still very much attached to the shop. Every day, you will see him sit at his shop front, rain or shine, without fail.  

 

A common sight - Uncle Hari's father sitting at the shop front

Being a traditional dhobi shop, they still rely on traditional methods in treating the clothes. Uncle Hari shared with us that the clothes are first machine washed, and then by hand, the clothes go through the blue dye and starch process. Blue dye is believed to make white clothes whiter and coloured clothes brighter. Starch is used for easy ironing and starched garments do not get creased easily, even if worn for a few times. They used special industrial washing detergent to get rid of grease and stubborn stains, especially bulk laundry from the factories. Uncle Hari also received bulk laundry from temples and weekly laundry from some regular customers living in the community. 
 

Uncle Haris suns the laundry in the open

Clothes are ironed and hanged to cool before folding

The shop has attracted lots of media attention as it is the last dhobi shop in Singapore. It has been featured in a Vasunthum drama series, chinese documentary programme and the newspapers. Uncle Hari recalled the past in St. George’s when he used to play football with his brothers and a group of friends at St. Wilfred. The community in the past was more closely knitted. Everybody knows everybody and would say loud hellos waved at each other even from a distance. It is a pity that these are not common sights anymore. The place and people has changed that now everybody knows nobody. Even staying in the same community, some will ‘act blur’ to avoid greetings. Though some of Uncle Haris’s ‘kakis’ have moved out from St. George’s, they still come back very often to catch up. Uncle Hari has 2 children – one in the army and the other studying. When asked if any of them will inherit the business, he laughed and said he will let his children explore their interest first. He will run this shop for as long as he stays fit.  
 

Uncle Hari with his younger son

Our group in conversation with Uncle Hari

 

Mr Yeo Wee Hong

Mr Yeo, 2nd from left

Mr. Yeo is 39 year old and has a cool job - he works for a gaming company that develops computer games. He grew up in this area but moved to Sengkang when he got married. A father of two primary school going children, he decided to return and make his home here as he wanted to be near his parents. “In Sengkang, I see a lot more young people. Here, there are more elderly people” commented Mr Yeo. He thinks the children in this neighbourhood, though more rowdy than children in Sengkang, would benefit from the diverse community here. Growing up here, he shared that in the past, there were many suicide cases at blocks 26 to 28 in Bendemeer as they were the tallest blocks around here then. Though he is very happy with the new facilities in the area, like the Boon Keng MRT station, he wished the St Wilfrid Sports Complex could have a swimming pool. Mr Yeo sent us a text message after the interview about an incident that happened more than a year ago. A boy was swept into the canal during a heavy downpour and it created quite a buzz in the community when Civil Defence personnel were searching for his body along the Sungei Whampoa River along the park connector.  

 

Residence @ St. George's

Residence @ St. George's

Located at St. George’s Lane, where Methodist Welfare Services’ (MWS) Home for the Aged Sick back in the 80s was located, this setup is now a girls’ hostel, meant for girls aged between 16 and 21 years old. It is the first specialised hostel for older girls in Singapore with the mission to provide the residents a place of safety and a conducive environment for emotional, social and psychological development, bringing about transformation and positive changes in their behaviour using a holistic and therapeutic framework.



Would you like to be a volunteer in RGS?

Residence @ St. George’s is a joint community outreach of Methodist Welfare Services and the General Conference Women’s Society of Christian Service, supported by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth & Sports. 



St. Georges Clinic And Surgery

Everyone in the neighbourhood ought to know Dr. Lee Siew Khim of St. George’s Clinic and Surgery, who has served the community for the last 17 years since 1995. A confident and friendly lady, Dr. Lee invited us to her consultation room for a chat when we requested for an interview. 

St. Georges Clinic And Surgery

She felt drawn to set up a clinic here when she first visited this place as it was like a ‘kampong’ estate and there were no clinics nearby. She has encountered many different types of patients over the years and was even threatened by drug addicts who demanded prescription drugs to get high. Dr. Lee was very touched and encouraged by the care and concern shown by some of her regular patients who even boiled soup for her when they noticed she was losing weight and looked drained during a stressful period for her. "It really warmed my heart!" she exclaimed.

She commented the environment has now changed quite a bit; with people shifting out and new residents coming in. There are more foreigners and young families now. With the Boon Keng MRT station in operation, the place has become more accessible. Dr. Lee is positive she will continue her clinic in St. George’s till she retires.

Dr. Lee Siew Khim, 2nd from left

Mdm Suria

Mdm Suria has been staying in St Georges for the last 15 years. When she first arrived, there were only a few blocks of flats and no facilities; except for a few ‘Mama shops’ (small Indian convenience stores). Just like a kampong village. Now the place has been transformed when old houses were torn down and replaced with new flats and the addition of exercise corners and playgrounds for children. She is particularly glad to have the Boon Keng MRT which has made the estate a lot more accessible.

She had lots of fun when she took part in some of the community programmes and is very impressed with the many elderly people in the community who are active in these programmes. 

Mdm Suria, 2nd from left

“The people here are very friendly, they always say ‘hello’ to me when they see me,” said Mdm Suria. Recently, she has been seeing neighbours whom she can’t recognise and thinks that there may be many new people moving into the estate. Despite that, she still feels it is a very comfortable, calm and quiet place to live in. 

 

St. George's West Community Garden

St. George's West Community Garden

 

Gardening is one popular hobby in St. George’s. What is it about gardening that gives this group of  people so much satisfaction? Guess for some, nothing quite compares to the satisfaction of watching a seed germinate and grow into a mature plant. It doesn't matter whether they are flowering plants, plants grown for their foliage or plants grown for food. They are well taken care of by our committed group of volunteer gardeners.  

 

 

 

 

 

It must be a great challenge for them to turn an area that consisted of nothing into this beautiful community garden for us. You can often see this small group spending time in the garden; weeding, planting and watering - just enjoying their labour of love. 

 

 

 

Stealing of fruits has never been a problem in the garden

 

Thumbs up to this gardening group for their dedication! We respect their decision to not have any of their pictures posted since they are shy. One of the gardening enthusiast is our Cat Aunty!