Things we take for granted: bath time

Posted by noelbynature under Lifestyle, Reflections, Traditions
(1) Comment • (2215) Reads • Permalink

Living in Singapore, it’s common for us to take a shower or two a day to beat the heat - and these days it’s a simple matter of twisting a knob. Of course, there were no showers, heating of piped water back in the kampong days. So how was bath time like back then? yg shares his experiences.

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yg writes:

bathing in the kampong generally meant bathing with cold water, no matter what time of the day. we did not have this option of warm and cold waters, that is available (nowadays) by merely adjusting a knob. nevertheless, on warm days, when the metal pipes got heated up, we did get warm water gushing out of the tap, provided we bathed with the water right off the tap. during the rare times when we had to bathe with warm water - like when we were feeling under the weather - we had to boil a kettle of water and mix it with water from the tap or water from the container. on such an occasion, we would use a metal or plastic tub to hold the lukewarm water.

Read about bath time during the kampong days in ygblog.