The tune was so catchy that you could hear snatches of it sung or hummed around Singapore at frequent intervals. It played on the radio and on portable transistors. The song and its lyrics brought smiles to many faces. People started wearing garlands of flowers, or pinned them to their hair. The hippies and their culture were born. Hundreds, then thousands of them congregated in places like Woodstock and Glastonbury as they attempted to effect a wave of change. They were protesting against the Vietnam War, the structured rigidity of modern society and conventions and a huge imbalance between the rich and poor. To break out from societal restrictions and conformist attitudes, they advocated less focus on the pursuit of economic wealth. They believed in a return to nature where people could live in harmony in communes where no one owned anything, not even a partner, so that everything could be shared. They advocated that people should focus on their creativity, their art, music and literature. They took hallucinatory drugs to induce their latent creativity. But before long, their noble ideas morphed into indiscriminate sex and uncontrolled abuse of drugs.
Subsequently, ‘San Francisco’ became “the unofficial anthem of the counterculture movement of the 1960s, including the Hippie, Anti-Vietnam War and Flower power movements”, as documented by Wikipedia. From then on, it drew a strong reaction from the authorities here in their fight against drug-taking and the hippie culture. This sparked off a nationwide campaign against long hair for men. Pictorial posters of what constituted long hair were put up in all government departments, offices and service centres, like post offices and clinics, stating that men with long hair would be served last.
This wasn’t taken kindly by some of our young, especially Malay men, who had traditionally worn their hair long, in the style of their warrior heroes like Hang Tuah and Hang Jebat. Of course, the male Sikhs too wore their hair long but theirs was kept wrapped under their cloth turbans, so it did not become an issue. Other young men, singers and musicians, like our kampong boy, Karim, who wanted to emulate international pop stars, also wore their hair long. Suddenly, the length of a man’s hair, once considered a bohemian fashion, took on a different shade, and became associated with drug-taking and a licentious way of life.
However, the battle against long hair was not only targeted at locals. At Paya Lebar Airport, any man arriving in our country who sported long hair had a choice—to have his hair cut immediately by a barber provided by Customs & Immigration, or to get back on the plane! Of course, the world’s press reported this, and Singapore shot into the international limelight. Unfavourably. Pop stars who were scheduled to perform in Singapore cancelled their gigs, because they were told that they either had to have their hair cut or to perform wearing hair-nets, which they refused. In this same light of not condoning the hippie culture, officials tried to ban pop music and deemed it as “yellow culture” and unhealthy in Singapore. This provoked another murmur of rebellion.
On 30 August, an army truck rolled down our dusty village road. I imagined that other trucks must be doing the same in various other kampongs and housing estates around our island. It was a huge, heavy truck with gigantic wheels, not like the usual lorries we used for day-to-day goods transportation. This truck had a canvas roof and walls. When it stopped by our community centre near the ponds, a couple of soldiers dressed in green army camouflage fatigues jumped off lithely. The villagers had got together to provide a buffet of curry, mee goreng, bee hoon, chye tow kway, and a myriad of foods that they felt our young men would miss when they began their life in the army. I was one of the cheeky ones who had invited ourselves to the going-away party, availing myself of the delicious food, whose aroma made me salivate. I could never see the sense of going on a diet, or bear to see food wasted. Mr Yap, Suhaimi and Ananda from the PA had supplied some bottled F&N orange drinks. Muthu, our ice-ball man, who turned out beautifully round ice-balls coloured with swirls of syrup, provided some ice, which he chipped manually from a big block. It was always a treat to have a drink with ice in it, as this was still rare.
Together with Mr Yap, Suhaimi and Ananda, the soldiers mingled with the families, reassuring parents and grandparents, answering questions about what would happen to their sons or grandsons. This was new territory for everyone. After the feasting, the soldiers organised the new recruits by calling out names from their list, asking them to assemble on the concrete badminton court. My brothers were not affected as they were overage and of course Robert was a spastic1, so could not serve. The motley crew of young men in their pasar malam-purchased shirts and long trousers, carrying plastic bags of belongings, did not fit the image of military rigour or discipline. It would need a lot to knock them into shape.
“Don’t worry,” the soldier in command said to the families. “Your sons are leaving as boys but will come back as men!”
Weeping mothers bade their sons farewell and handed them packets of food, as if their sons were going to war. Fathers patted them on their backs.
