Source 13: An interview with an early immigrant about transportation in Singapore.

Those days, we had rickshaws pulled by men with pigtails. I still remember the pigtails that they wound around their heads, which they covered up with a straw hat. I felt sorry for them as most of them were opium smokers, but I later learnt that if they don’t take drugs, they have no strength to pull the rickshaws. Their diet was mainly porridge and sweet potatoes. On most days, they sat down by the road eating their porridge, and if they earned a little more money, they will have rice, hard cooked rice, not porridge. However, if they did not earn much that day, they would have nothing to eat.

Source Origin: Oral History interview with Mohinder Singh on 05/08/1985. Accession number 0000546.

Use Record: Ang Mo Kio Secondary School, 2016.