STS : Gay World no more
Uncle Yap
14 June 2004
Gay World no more
Its glitz and glamour once enthralled kids and young men alike, but it
lost its shine long before its demolition
By Goh Chin Lian
ALMOST like clockwork, Mr Steven Tang downed tools at around noon and
at 6pm or 9pm, and walked 100m for his daily fix: Teochew porridge
with steamed fish.
NOTHING LEFT BUT MEMORIES: The site where Geylang's amusement park
stood until three years ago. -- TAN SUAN ANN
The porridge seller became a friend and soon, a friend in need.
When Mr Tang's car repair workshop was short of money, he could always
rely on the boss of Soon Lee Teochew Porridge, whom he knew only as Gu
Gia, or young bull, to lend him $100 or $200, a hefty sum at a time
when a bowl of porridge cost only 20 cents.
That was 40 years ago.
Sitting now in his workshop in Geylang Lorong 3, Mr Tang, 56, recalls
with stoic acceptance how economic progress rolled into Geylang's Gay
World Amusement Park three years ago and took away the last decaying
remnants of the razzle-dazzle that had held so many, young men in
particular, spellbound.
Gay World was one of three huge amusement parks, along with Great
World in Kim Seng Road and New World in Jalan Besar, where cinemas,
cabarets and game centres throbbed with excitement from the 1920s to
the 1960s.
It occupied a 4.2ha plot that eventually became a quiet, grassy field
again. But recently, it was bustling when the Nicoll Highway collapse
on April 20 sent one of two concrete-making plants there into
overdrive.
SHOW TIME: Crowds once flocked to Gay World's stadium for
entertainment, such as this World Championship Wrestling bout in 1971
and a Holiday on Ice show in aid of the National Defence Fund and
Social Welfare Homes Fund in 1968.
The plant had to churn out mix to stabilise the huge cave-in following
the collapse of a temporary wall for the building of the new MRT
Circle Line - a far-cry from the shouting and hawking that was the
hallmark of the place before glitzy shopping malls, cineplexes and
game arcades with flashing lights took away its shine in the 80s.
Especially distinctive in the early days was its dance hall, which
could accommodate 300 couples and had 100 cabaret girls from China,
Thailand and the Philippines.
An octagonal stadium for boxing and other sports could seat 7,000
while the four cinemas, including an open-air one, were favourite
haunts of courting couples.
However, by 2000, Gay World looked almost abandoned. There was no
power or water, although about 40 tenants carried on using portable
generators.
Gu Gia's porridge still drew the crowds, with orders flying from 15
tables at lunch and three times as many at night, up to 2.30am.
The bulldozers came the following year, as the site was zoned for
residential development. Mr Tang is convinced that's why Gu Gia lost
his purpose in life. He died last year while in his 70s.
'He could have lived longer but he had nothing left to do. Old people
are afraid of having nothing to do,' says Mr Tang.
Today, the Gay World site at the junction of Geylang and Mountbatten
roads is abuzz with another kind of activity.
Three of Singapore's major tunnelling and construction projects use
the site. Engineers overseeing the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System have an
office there. Trucks shuttle relentlessly between the two
concrete-making plants and the Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway and the
MRT Circle Line worksites.
Truck driver Michael Goh, 57, has been ferrying concrete for the past
year. As a child, he rode his bicycle there from his home in the Upper
Serangoon Road area in search of a thrill.
'During the school holidays, we had nothing to do. We had no TV. Even
if we did, it was in black and white.
'We had no money, so we would wait at the entrance to the cinema and
ask the adults to take us in. They could take one child in for free.'
He was almost always successful and got to watch films starring Hong
Kong actresses such as Li Lihua and Ivy Ling Po.
A wrestling match he watched when he was 10 also left an indelible
mark.
'There were about 400 to 500 spectators. It was a small ring,
one-on-one and four-cornered fights. Whenever one fighter lost,
another would jump into the ring.
'I knew the moves were fake but the wrestlers were so huge and strong
and no matter how they landed, they were not hurt.
'I thought they were invincible and dreamt of becoming like them so I
wouldn't be bullied. I was small and skinny then.'
Mr Goh, whose two children are aged 17 and 30, thinks Gay World could
mesmerise only children of his time, as they were 'more innocent and
easier to satisfy, unlike today's kids with lots of TV programmes,
VCDs, computer games and school work'.
'My children didn't like going there when they were young, because it
was already outdated in the late 70s and 80s.'
Not for 25-year-old Kelvin Tan, however. He spent his childhood at Gay
World, having lived nearby since he was three. He now sells turtle
soup at Tai Seng Herbal Restaurant, in a row of newly-refurbished
shophouses opposite the demolished amusement park.
Mr Tan recalls running across the road to see a lion dance
competition, munching on kacang putih (peanuts) and watching movies in
cinemas that 'were $1 to $2 cheaper than elsewhere, had free seating
and, sometimes, we got in for free when nobody was looking'.
He would also play Pacman at the arcade for 20 cents, or catch
basketball matches at the Geylang Indoor Stadium.
He was 16 when he stopped going to Gay World. 'The place was getting
dirtier every year, as if nobody took care of it. The stadium was very
old, very hot and rats were running about. I went elsewhere.'
Madam Lim Yeok Sim, 83, who has lived in the area since she was 15,
remembers Gay World for its dance hall, where people 'paid $1 for five
coupons to dance with the cabaret girls, who wore a gown or a
cheongsam with a slit that goes high up to the hip'.
She adds, almost disdainfully: 'You know, all these men, sometimes
they gave only one coupon, but if they liked the girl, they gave two,
three, four coupons to dance longer with her.'
It was one of the cabaret girls who helped her out of her misery of
being a wallflower. Her husband would take clients from China and Hong
Kong there and they would often ask her to dance, but she did not know
how.
So, like the men, she bought the coupons and had a cabaret girl teach
her, as there were no men for hire. Her husband did the same.
They learnt the waltz, the swing and the foxtrot. Then one day in
1956, she discovered her husband had fallen for his dance partner.
'All the girls had numbers. She was No. 69. She was in her 30s, a few
years younger than me. She would always dance with him, stick with
him. She became his second wife within a year.'
++++++++++++++++++
THEN & NOW
1936: Happy World opens (it is renamed Gay World in 1966). Chinese
businessmen invest $350,000 to open the amusement park, the third
after New World in Jalan Besar (1923) and Great World in Kim Seng Road
(1930s).
1939: Venue of Singapore's first trade show: the Engineering and Trade
Exhibition.
1942-1945: Used as a military workshop during the Japanese Occupation.
1962: Fire breaks out twice in two months, destroying a theatre, part
of the cabaret and 26 stalls. More blazes happen: at least twice in
1972, once in 1976 damaging the stadium, and again in 1977 and 1988.
July 24, 1973: Government says it will acquire Gay World as one of the
venues for the 7th South-east Asian Peninsula Games.
July 8, 1987: Free admission fails to draw visitors; only one of the
original four cinemas remains.
May-July 2000: 150 tenants, including a Taoist temple, move out. Eng
Wah Organisation, the main tenant, terminates its lease. Power and
water are cut but 40 tenants carry on, with portable generators and
car batteries.
2001: Gay World and Geylang Indoor Stadium are demolished. The area is
zoned for homes.
May 2002: Contractors get permits for concrete-making plants for the
Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway and the Circle Line. A year later, a
permit is given for the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System site office.
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