1989 Baby
If you were born in the 80’s in Singapore, you would remember:
- You grew up watching He-man, MASK, Transformers, Silver Hawk and Mickey Mouse, Ninja turtles, Carebears, Robocop, My Little Pony and Smurfs. [Yah, I also remember watching Power Rangers every weekend morning!]
- You grew up brushing your teeth with a mug in Primary school during recess time. You would squat by a drain with all your classmates beside you, and brush your teeth with a coloured mug. [Yes, that activity was so dumb.]
- You hated or loved the school nurse (she was either pretty or mean).
- You know what SBC stands for. [Singapore Broadcasting Corporation, if I'm not wrong.]
- You paid 40 cents for cartons of Chocolate or Strawberry milk every week in class.
- Everyone’s wallet used to be the velcro type.
- It was cool to have pagers in primary school. [Yah, because it was soooooo expensive back then.]
- SBS buses used to be non-airconditioned. The bus seats are made of wood and the cushion were red. The big red bell gave a loud BEEP! when pressed. [Yah, and some of the seats are cracked, and the doors were very noisy.]
- There were still bus tickets and bus conductors would come up to check them. [Kids like to kope all the tickets from the machine and play with it, including me.]
- Envelopes were given to us to donate to Sharity Elephant every Children’s Day. [I always put in $1 or $2 inside - heart pain!]
- You’ve probably read Young Generation magazine.You know who’s Vinny the little vampire and Acai the constable. [Yes!!! Every month die-die-must-buy! I even persuaded my father to help me subscribe to it during a period of time.]
- You know what PETS are and the hidden animals in all the text pages. You hated penmanship. [Yah, we even had to tear out the pages from the workbook and submit them like worksheets. @#$%^&*!]
- Writing lines and caning hands were common, esp if you failed chinese spelling (caning was actually allowed. no shit).
- You were there when they first introduced the MRT here. You went for the first ride with your parents and you would kneel on the seat to see the scenery.
- Movie tickets used to cost only $3.50.
- Gals were fascinated by Strawberry Short Cake and Barbie Dolls.
- You learn to laugh like The Count in Sesame Street.
- You bought tidbits called beebee (20 cents per pack, 10 cents in MGS), and mamee (30 cents), that had a different sticker in it every time.
- You carried a lunch box to school but either threw away the food or brought it back home again. [NO!!! I very guai one hor, I finished everything in school!]
- You watched TV2 (also known as Channel 10) cartoons because Channel 5 never had enough cartoons for you.
- Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, The Three Investigators, Famous Five and Secret Seven were probably the thickest story books you thought you would ever read. [Yes, I gave up reading and continued my Enid Blyton's books, which were much easier to read.]
- KFC used to be a high class restaurant that served food in plates and had metal forks and knives.
- The most vulgar thing you said was asshole and idiot and THE MOST EXTREME WAS ‘chicken pie’…you just couldn’t bring yourself to say the hokkien translation. [Yah, kids were so disciplined then, unlike nowadays, you hear primary school kids scolding extreme hokkien vulgarities at void decks. Tsk tsk...]
- Catching and pepsi-cola was the IN thing, and twist was the magic word.
- Your English workbooks were made of some damn poor quality paper that was smooth and yellow. [Yes, and the papers were full of holes because I erased too much.]
- You came to school 15 mins before the bell every morning just so you could copy someone’s homework.
- CDIS was your best friend.
- The only computer lessons in school involved funny pixellized characters in 16 colours walking about trying to teach you math.
- Waterbottles were slung around your neck and a must everywhere you went. [Yah, so cute!!!]
- Boys loved to play soccer with small stones or tennis balls in the basketball court.
- Girls played five stones and boys played with marbles.
- Science was fun with the Balsam and the Angsana being the most important plants of our lives, guppies and swordtail being the most important fishes.
- Who can forget Ahmad, Bala, Sumei and John, immortalized in our minds from school textbooks.
- We conducted experiments of our own to get badges for being a Young Zoologist/Botanist etc. [My proudest project was Young Mathematician! Haha!]
- Every Children’s day and National day you either got pins or pens with ‘Happy Children’s Day 1993′ or useless plastic files with ‘Happy National Day 1994′.
- You wore BM2000, BATA, or Pallas shoes. [Yes, those shoes were so 'in'.]
- Your form teacher taught you Maths, Science and English. [All-rounder ah~]
- You went to school in slippers and a raincoat when it rained, and you find a dry spot in the school to sit down, dry your feet, and wear your dry and warm socks and shoes.
- There would be spelling tests and mental sums to do almost everyday (you hated them). [Yes, those mental sums in small blue notebooks we did weekly.]
- Your friends considered you lucky and rich if your parents gave you $2 or more for pocket mone everyday.
- You saw Wee Kim Wee’s face in the school hall. [I only remember Mr and Mrs Ong Teng Cheong's faces.]
- Boys liked catching fighting spiders, earthworms or tadpoles.
- Collecting and battling erasers was a pastime for boys.
- Class monitors and prefects loved to say, “You talk somemore, I write your name ah!” [Yah, so threatening!]
- You got booked for muddy shoes in class.
- There were at least 40 people in one class.
- You brought every single book to school, even though there was a timetable. [Yah, and weird thing is that we didn't mind how heavy our bag was.]
- There was a pro-yo/bumblebee, digimon craze at some point in time.
From the Facebook Group [if you were born in the 80's in Singapore].