INDRANEE Nadisen
Social Sector,
Accession Number 003429
- Oral History Centre
Source
- 4
Total Reels
- Nur Azlin bte Salem
Interviewer
- 02:53:19
Total Running Time
- English
Language
Copyright Notice
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Reel/Disc 1 of 4
Metadata
- 9 Nov 2009
Recording Date
- 00:58:11
Running Time
- MP3
Format
- Open Access
Conditions Governing Access
Synopsis
*Family background. Kampong life. Father did not allow interviewee and sister to go out to fetch water from the standpipes. Hired an Indian man to deliver 20 tins of water everyday. Did not mix around with the village children. Family was not financially well-off. Mother helped by selling food to the neighbours. Father was very strict. How he would throw the food at his wife if it were salty. Father was pampered when he was young. Interviewee had to wash her father’s clothes again if he was unhappy with the way they were ironed. Interviewee was closer to her mother. Lived in a mixed kampong in Geylang but did not interact much with neighbours. Descriptions of her kampong house. Kept mainly to themselves in their own room. Interviewee and sister could only walk round the kampong if accompanied by their mother. Shared kitchens. How her mother helped support the family. Interviewee was not told that she was adopted but she knew because of the difference in skin colour. Why adoption was common in the 1940s. Interviewee has no intention of looking for her biological parents. She sees herself as a Chinese and is very frank when people ask her about her background.
Interviewee and sister enjoyed watching film shows with their mother during the weekends. Interviewee’s mother became a foster mother in the 1950s. Interviewee was partly influenced by her own mother to register as a foster mother herself in 1976. How interviewee raised her own children. Her mother signed up with Social Welfare to be a foster mother. There was no set criterion to be a foster mother. All a person needed was experience. Unlike today where MCYS sets strict criteria for those interested to be a foster mother. They would need to produce husband’s payslip, medical check up, and need to be educated. Surprise checks by the Welfare Officer to the house. Interviewee’s father was very supportive of her mother being a foster mother. No trainings were required before unlike today where foster mothers have to attend workshops and trainings. Today, foster mothers also need to be able to understand English so that they would be able to read the instructions on the prescribed medicine. Foster mothers then and now cannot express their preference for the child’s gender, race or religious background. Monthly allowances then.
Why interviewee did not pursue secondary school education. Account of her elder sister who was match-make and got married at 15. Her husband died of heart attack a few years after marriage. Her father had a shock when he heard of the death and was temporarily paralysed. Use of fresh pigeon blood to cure her father’s paralysis. Father had to eat the pigeon meat after applying the pigeon blood on his knees. Interviewee’s sister was depended on welfare service to support her young children. However she was humiliated by some of the elderly several times when she went to collect her welfare benefits. With her father’s permission she went to look for a job. Sister could embroider well and taught the daughter of a Sikh policeman at the police headquarters twice a week. Then she found a job as an amah at a Kandang Kerbau Hospital and worked there until her pension. Because she was good at sewing, she was transferred to the Linen Room.
Other kinds of traditional remedies. Pigeon blood, baby bats to cure asthma. Interviewee’s mother was bitten badly by a dog. Applied traditional Indian medicine over the wound which dried up and left no scars. Unlike today, one would go to the doctor and receive jabs and oral medication after being bitten by dogs. Tolisee leaves to cure cough and get rid of phlegm. How she used stingray (ikan pari) tail to cure her daughter’s asthma. Interviewee’s father told her to drink bitter jamu (Malay traditional herbs) after she gave birth. Her opinions on traditional medicine today. How interviewee felt about not continuing her education after primary school. How she spent her time helping her mother at home. Her mother sold nasi lemak outside their house by setting up a table every morning. Neighbours and passersby would buy. Interviewee felt that her mother did not profit from the sale. No inspections by the environment ministry then.
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Reel/Disc 2 of 4
Metadata
- 9 Nov 2009
Recording Date
- 00:57:51
Running Time
- MP3
Format
- Open Access
Conditions Governing Access
Synopsis
* Interviewee’s marriage. Her conversion to Catholicism. Her husband is the first child of eight siblings. Why life was miserable living with the mother-in-law. Using bar soap to do the laundry. No electric rice cooker or stove. Interviewee had to learn to do the hard way. Her mother-in-law forbade her from visiting her own parents. Interviewee and husband moved out after two years. Description of the PUB quarters in Block 25, Balam Road where she lived for 20 years. How she raised her children. Did not allow them to mix with the neighbours’ children. Her reaction one day when her children broke a statue when they played inside the house. Values she taught her children. No talking at the dinner table. Interviewee finds that today’s children are different.
Circumstances leading to her joining MCYS Fostering Scheme in 1976. Reactions from husband and children. The mother of her first foster baby refused to leave the baby alone. She slept and ate at interviewee’s home for two days. MCYS later warned the mother that she could not sleep at the house. From then on interviewee refused to allow parents to visit the child at her home. Visitation would be at the MCYS office. Registration to be a foster mother was very simple then. Waiting time to get a foster child. Interviewee’s own children were helpful and they loved having the foster babies in the house. Received monthly allowance of $80 from MCYS which interviewee felt was sufficient for the child. She observed that today’s foster parents complain that the $700 monthly allowance is insufficient for them. What happened when the child fell ill. Free treatment at government clinic. There were no training or sharing sessions in the 1970s. Majority of foster parents today are Malay unlike before.
Interviewee’s opinions on why less Chinese couples take up Fostering Scheme. Qualities a foster parent should have. What she did when a child could not stop crying. A child would stay with her for about two and a half years old before he/she would be sent for adoption. Backgrounds of children she looked after. How a parent tried to trace her house. Interviewee shared how a foster child came to stay with her permanently until today. More abuse cases today than before. Reasons for baby being abandoned last time.
Interviewee was given three babies to take care at one time. How she collected the babies. How she felt when it was time to return the babies. Sometimes she was given siblings. Interviewee shared how a childless friend of hers adopted a child and this child brought her much luck. Varied background of foster children. Some had fathers who were drug addicts, some were abandoned in the park, some had sick mothers, and so on. Siblings were not separated in those days unlike today. Pre-adoption of babies, the adoption parents would come to interviewee’s home for about a month everyday so that they baby would be familiar with their faces. This was to ensure that the transfer would be easy. Why interviewee does not keep in touch with the children. Parents were allowed to see the children under her care only once a week. A foster parent can give up on the foster child if the child is difficult to look after. Incident where a child could not stop crying with his own foster parent and was sent to interviewee.
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