Yet another smell I remember from my Chinatown childhood days was that of cockroaches and squashed bedbugs, our co-inhabitants in the cramped quarters we lived in.
I wouldn’t say I liked or feared cockroaches, especially when they flew. The adults said that rain was imminent whenever we saw flying cockroaches. I feared their shape, colour, smell, and particularly those beady eyes and long feelers that were always moving. Their taste, too, for I had plenty of that. I was asthmatic as a child, and each time I felt like coughing, I would try to suppress it. I knew that when my grandmother heard me coughing, that black ABC beer bottle would come after dinner.
Whenever everyone cleaned up after dinner, the communal kitchen would be free of activities. That was when my grandmother turned predator, preying on the cockroaches, who came out hoping to find some food scraps. She caught them barehanded one by one and pushed them into her bottle, sealing the top with a wad of scrolled-up newspaper when she thought she had enough. The next day, she would boil them with herbs she bought from the medical hall across the street. What is still vivid in my memory was having to drink the decoction that resulted, washed down with plenty of tears from me and scolding from my grandmother, who believed that my asthma would be cured that way. Talk about child abuse.
But I suppose the brew must have worked to some extent, for I was asthma-free by the time I entered primary school.
As for the bed bugs, they were rampant in our beds and bedding because of the close living conditions and poor ventilation. Air conditioners and even fans were not household appliances we knew. Getting bitten was a nightly affair. Beds consisted of wooden frames that supported removable wood planks that were about six to eight inches wide. Over these would be rattan mats on which people slept.
It was time for the ‘catch bed bug’ exercise when the bed bugs became intolerable. The wooden planks were removed from the bed frames, knocked and shaken to dislodge the bugs. When these blood-sucking creatures tried to hide deep in the crevices and knot holes of the planks, sewing pins would then be used to dig them out. They end up in a bloody state as bare fingers are used to squash them dead, resulting in a characteristic odour being given out. This smell could not be detected when the bugs were still alive.
With few toys to distract us, the ‘catch bed bug’ exercise became a game for us children. We competed to see who could kill the most bugs for the day. We used pins to pierce through each dead bug and displayed them on cardboard, treating them like trophies.
Finally, the wooden planks were wiped down with a wet rag and rinsed in Dettol-laced water. That was as hygienic as possible regarding keeping our living environment clean.
Carena Chor
Carena Chor is a retired ITE lecturer interested in drama, reading, writing and craft work.
