JOHOR Baru teenagers used to refer to my hometown as Kulai-fornia, and briskly add on Masai-chusetts, back in the 1960s. We were good sports about such teasing, because yes, Kulai and Masai were then specks of peopledom compared with the state capital.
But today, it’s a parliamentary seat, and Johor’s ninth and the smallest district. Kulai-fornia now covers a host of communities surrounding the main town including Senai, Saleng, Sengkang, and Sedenak. It is within the Iskandar Malaysia economic zone (that includes the Johor Premium Outlet, woohoo!), and now has three golf courses and its fair share of malls.
A far cry from when, as a child, the town had one main road, with rows of double-storey pre-war wooden shophouses on either side, and no traffic lights. Distance was marked by the milestones, and people referred to the town being at the 19th milestone (to JB).
Everybody seemed to know each other. A walk to the wet market on Jalan Pasar, through gravel backlanes, drew greetings from “aunties” and “uncles” asking where you were going, and so on as they swept the porch with lidi-stick brooms, or sat on rattan chairs, with hand-held fans.
Local historians claim the town cropped up around the 1890s, settled by the Hakka community.
The town, which local legend says was named for the tortoises (ku) that came out (lai) with heavy rains from Sungai Kulai, was to me filled with heavenly pau and dim sum family-run coffeeshops, bicycle shops, sinseh shops, tailors, hairdressers, fresh provision suppliers with biscuits in glass bottles and tins, seafood, pork and frog’s legs eateries.
Chinese fare was abundant — from mua chee, to banana-leaf wrapped bachang (Chinese glutinous rice dumplings) and bittergourd soup. I liked mua chee so much that my school friends took me to a house near the wet market, off Jalan Pasar, to show how it was hand-made. In that long, dim wooden house, the glutinous rice or millet had to be steamed until cooked, then pounded in a stone mortar by a pestle. The dough was spread over rattan baskets to dry before chunks of it were divided. Strips of it were cut and rolled in peanut bits to be popped into hungry mouths.
Along with the gustatory delights came olfactory memories, like the outhouse and its malodorous bucket below the kidney-shaped hole. It was set at the back of the shophouse, within a concrete courtyard that we shared with a neighbour’s family whose son was my earliest best friend. The zinc sheet fencing kept us kids from running off to the railway tracks at the back, and blocked the view of dusty brown lanes and the sight of the night soil carrier who would lift a flap from the back of the outhouse to remove the bucket with blue-bottled flies buzzing, and replace it with an empty one.
Life in a pre-war shophouse then meant water was drawn from a well and clothes washed on a wooden washboard. They would then be run through a handwringer before being hung out on lines in the courtyard. We kids had our chores like turning the handwringer.
Indoor plumbing came with a brick house at Batu 21, just in time for the start of school at the missionary-run English Primary School, with lay nuns Miss Richard and Miss Lovell and headmaster Mr Swanston. Kulai didn’t have a secondary school until 1965 or so. Before that, kids had to go to JB’s Infant Jesus Convent or English College.
Before the advent of TV, my friends and I spent our time visiting the tikam hawker whose folded bits of paper on a board held such promises for 5 cents. Money or a whistle. Pastimes included playing five stones, shuttlecock kicking, and eating the hard candy from the “ting-ting” man. The latter would break up the sticky, sweet white rock candy with a hammer and chisel.
One forbidden pastime was walking along the railway tracks. But we went anyway, waving to passengers as the train whizzed to Singapore’s Woodlands checkpoint or the other way. We would end up at Sungai Kulai to fish or jump into the water. Along the way were vegetable farmers, whose muddy patches had fish like guppies (the cheap variety), tiger barbs, cat fish and the common silver drain fish.
Special visits by dignitaries saw marchpasts by the local Chinese clan houses’ brass bands on the main road, on which end sat Bright Cinema, the first in the town. Sentosa Cinema came about a decade later, near the Kulai International Club, as the town expanded. That club hosted parties, karate classes, and gambling sessions.
The rubber estates and surrounding forest were then rife with flying foxes and wild boar. Sometimes we kids followed the adults on their hunting excursions. Flying foxes and wild boar ended up in the cooking pots. Occasionally, the hunting trips were family outings to the Pulai Waterfalls, near the exit to the North-South Highway.
When the outdoors didn’t call, Singapore TV had its pull. It was black-and-white TV sets which soon gave way to colour screens.
While Radio Malaya improved English with its BBC World Service programmes, good antennas brought in Singapore TV’s afternoon enjoyment of soap operas for adults with The Bold And Beautiful, and General Hospital. For the kids, there were non-violent shows like Lassie, The Waltons, Talentime that revealed the likes of Rahimah Rahim, variety shows with Anita Sarawak, and quiz shows like Science Challenge, Shakespearean plays and documentaries. I got to learn Negara Ku as well as inadvertently from TV, Majulah Singapura.
When the island republic separated from Malaysia in 1965, I had to bid farewell to a school friend in Std 3 (today’s Year Three) as her family returned to Singapore. As tragic for me was the flood of 1967 whose waters had risen to the first floors of the shophouses.
Growing up in Kulai meant fortnightly visits to Woodlands and Singapore’s amusement parks like Gay World and Haw Par Villa cultural park. With our blue restricted passports, the Causeway ride led to a magical world, and a memorable Billy Graham rally in Singapore’s old National Stadium, with a 4,500-strong choir.
Today, the island republic offers lots of job opportunities. The eateries have made a name for exotic food, and weekends keep the coffeeshops bustling, while golfers seasonally keep the 27-hole greens busy.
The trains still stop at the small railway station.