Remembering our paternal youngest aunt at our Bedok kampong house - our 'Nya Nya'

This weekend we remember our dearest late paternal youngest aunt (her rightful title in our Peranakan/Straits Chinese world was Ko Chik but we brothers called her ‘Nya Nya’). She would have been 85 years old this weekend but left us 8+ years ago. Part of the original family who moved from their Kampong Soopoo home in Kallang into our Bedok kampong house, she can be described as someone who was fearless, but also extremely kind. Fearless in the belief that things that had to be done should not be avoided but embraced, for eg, she was bold to buy a fresh chicken from the market, then have its neck slit to drain out the blood (yes we were with her with she did it, no trauma), pluck out the feathers then cook and serve us steamed chicken rice for lunch! Very hands on and even able to plant tapioca plants in the house garden, pull them out of the soil when ripened , steam them and have it for tea (dipped with sugar) and for the entire family to enjoy. She was also a kind person in nature. Each time it began to rain at the kampong, she would be among the first neighbours to yell out ‘Rain has come!’ (lor hor lai liao in hokkien) across the kampong so everyone can scamper to collect their mostly already dry laundry! She was also friendly with so many neighbours there – and this characteristic continued long after she and her immediate family moved out of the house into HDB dwelling, bringing the kampong spirit into modern living. She was all these but so much more.. The accompanying photos with captions will help illustrate the spirit of this woman and we are so proud of her. Missing her very much.

1957 - posing by her eldest brother's newly purchased second-hand Morris Minor car, just outside our kampong house's lower section

1958 - all dressed up and posing in the garden of our kampong house

1959 - skilled in sewing and other crafts, stopping for a camera smile

1959 - enjoying the breeze at the Sungei Bedok bridge that links our kampong at Bedok Laut with Padang Terbakar / Koh Sek Lim areas

1964 - seated extreme left and with the family in the garden of the house, with immediate neighbour Kak Min's beautiful house behind

1967 - with the eldest of her 3 children (just 2 years of age here) in the evening before bedtime

1969 - busy feeding her second child as it's dinner time. The drain she is across also was the place where she was fearlessly slaughtering chickens for our chicken rice meals

1969 - enjoying a walk at our nearby wet cum dry goods market at Bedok kampong (this 'kiosk' but only exist in the mornings and dismantled by lunchtime was selling clothes and textiles)

1970 - enjoying some durians with her brother and nephew at the foyer of our kampong house, with the open door behind, between the main house on stilts and the lower portion where the kitchen, toilets and other bedrooms are