catching longkang fish and fighting spiders



my earliest and fondest memories are of those when i had a carefree time catching spiders and longkang fish. catching longkang fish was a natural thing to me, a kampong boy. when i was a toddler, i lived in a shop house at upper dickson road. subsequently, we moved to an attap house in kampong chia heng, which has ceased to exist. it has been wiped out from the singapore's street directory.

as a small boy, i would go about bare foot. i remember being cut by broken glasses a few times when i was catching guppies in the drains and canals. i did not have to use a net or any contraption to catch the fish; i used my cupped hands. i would keep the fish in a glass jar and feed them tubifex worms which were in plentiful supply in the same drain as the longkang fish. in those days, the fish was a not a diet for arrowana.

i was also a catcher of champion spiders. i sort of instinctively know where to look for fighting spiders. i did not have to go far. i used to go alone to the clump of bushes just beyond the jewish cemetery to catch these 8-legged creatures. you would know it was a male spider when you saw tiny streaks of white as you steathily parted the leaves of the spider's nest.

i kept the spiders in small metal boxes with some leaves in each box. although the female spiders are not fighters, i would still keep one or two for the carnal pleasures of the males. i knew about this although i did not have the benefit of any sex education.

to nourish the spiders, i would feed them with houseflies that i caught or killed. in those days, there was no dearth of houseflies. they were everywhere. the diet of the spiders can also be mosquitoes or bed bugs.