Chinese-style discipline: 03 (Swatting flies)

The two children living in the same courtyard in the mainland Chinese drama series (set 1979–92) that I've been watching are given tasks by their teacher to eradicate pests.

    The girl is scrubbing out the sink in the courtyard, so that mosquitoes don't settle and breed.  It's standard practice by the Singapore government to send out health inspectors regularly to check that people don't have stagnant water collecting in the bottom dish of house plants, say.

    The boy is swatting flies, and counting them, to collect bonus points.  (Not sure what he'll gain by the bonus points.)

    This seems to be a common enough Chinese practice, getting children to kill flies.

    I was aged 7 or 8 when the two siblings immediately above me were tasked by my uncle with swatting houseflies, but for pocket money in return.  I'd seen American children in films being paid by their parents to do housework, like taking the rubbish out, which shocked me, as my upbringing says it should be part of their duty as a member of the family.  Yet, my uncle was doing the same with my two siblings to give them something to do during the school holidays once they'd done their homework and revision -- to kill time by killing flies.  

    They were living on grandma's coconut plantation (out in Tampines, near Changi Airport) at the time, which means more flies than in a suburban house.

    In Singapore, we use a kind of broom made from the main veins of coconut leaves.

    Remove the leafy bit on both sides of the main vein.  Tie up the top of a bunch of the main veins, usually about 3ft long, with the untied ends being thin and wispy.  One could leave it like this, for gentle sweeping (e.g., a dusty floor; cobwebs just under the ceiling).  Or chop off the wispy ends, to make a shorter bunch (about 1.5ft long) of thicker woodier twigs, for tougher sweeping (e.g., fallen leaves; blocked drain).  Put a big stick through the middle of the bunch for ease of handling (from a standing position) for things like sweeping litter in the street -- it's a common sight in Singapore, the road sweeper using a broom made out of coconut leaf main veins.  I see from googling that it's called a stick broom or coconut leaf broom stick (among other things).

    The longer version is perfect for swatting flies, because the wispy strands are spread out enough to stun or kill a fly without squidging it and making a mess on the floor or the wall.

    Back to the task set by my uncle:  I think the payment was something like 1 cent for every 10 flies.  Don't forget, I'm talking about Singapore of the 1960s, when something like 2 cents would buy 3 sweets.

    Anyway, at first the counting was done fairly conscientiously, but after a while, even my uncle couldn't be bothered with the details, and just gave a cursory glance at the collection before handing over the sweet money.

    I think that it's a good way to raise children's awareness that money doesn't come that easy, and also that they have to contribute to the workload (free of charge, in my opinion).

(Singapore, 1960s)