PART 2 - WEIRD PETS

PART 2
other fighting insects that cousin peeleepian and i caught were crickets, scorpions, dragonfly, greenish jade beetle (we called KIM KU) and yes how can i forget the memorable cute stick insects.
crickets, i believe most know. only the males fight. this one we actually turn it into an enterprise. many kids also started into this cricket craze. every boys were busy catching the dark colored crickets and pitted the insects against each other.
mind u! we bet our meagre allowance of 5c or 10c against each others during the cricket match. some boys were so fedup when their cricket lost that they stamped on the defeated insect squashing all the juices and flattening the poor dead loser....;9(
crickets were interesting insects. beside fighting, the males sing quite a cricketty song....i just loved to listen to them during the night. i got a whole lot of them males and females. breeding them was so easy. just fed them with newspaper or leftover rice can already....
dragonfly was another interesting insect i reared. but this one normally after a brief moment of fun, it either ended up dead or i would set it free.
i had to go to the big longkang that ran through my kampong to catch this fast hovering flying majestic insects. there were the dark blue and the bright red. then there were the smaller thinner more colorful bright bluish damselfly.
watching the dragonflies darting and skimming above the gently flowing stream was a very relaxing sight to behold. once a while they would rest on the slanted concrete of the longkang. that was my chance to catch it by grabbing hold of it's wings.
caution here. the dragonfly also has nasty biting jaws. u have to back fold the 2 pairs of wings to render it powerless.
next step. i would tie a thread to it's tail. after that setting it free. so it's like a remote controlled insect linked by a long thread. very fun!
after awhile either the insect tired itself out and dropped dead or i tired myself and set it free.
the same was done to the bright greenish jade beetle which once a while would fly into our hall during the night attracted by the flourescent light.
the beetle was a bulky critter. it flew clumsily and usually nosedive turn-turtle and went into a frenzy spin. when it fell onto the floor, i would grab it. again, i would then tie a thread to it's hind leg, then walah! a remote controlled flying beetle.....hahahaha.....;9)
scorpions were notoriously dangerous. this one i left it to my bolder cousin peelepian to handle. again u put 2 scorpions together, they would slut it out, sometime ending death of the other.
this poisonous fella hid in damp dark places in the forested area of mt faber which was then the hilly range that surrounded bansiewsan. (it had since being cut into 2 hills: mt faber and telok blangah divided by henderson rd which cuts in between the original hill range.)
..to be cont'd.....

MY COLLECTIONS OF WEIRD PETS

i ve to start this narration from my kampong days in BANSIEWSAN which was located at this obselete road called JALAN BANGSI.
ve any of u heard of this road.
the new name is called HENDERSON from telok blangah leading all the way to bt merah.
BANSIEWSAN was the kampong where i was born and spent my most enjoyable primary school childhood days.
my attap home then was spacious with 2 rooms, a big hall and a super long, dark and narrow kitchen. this kitchen was the scariest of the whole house cos it was always very dark and eerie....it never failed to give me the creeps!
this was also our toilet where we could only pissed but cannot shit. to do the big time business, i had to walk a few houses though dusty clayey path to what we had PUBLIC LAVATORIES.
these are wooden holey shacks with a zinc roof. it simply had an oval hole where u squatted and dropped ur bombs into a black container aptly called the nightsoil container.
every wee hours of morning, the nightsoil collectors would come and replace the overflowing stinky yucky containers. the 6 lavatories were shared by the whole kampong. could u imagine every morning there would be a queue to use them. yes, first come first serve!
the lavatory stink like hell! when u finished ur business, the stench sticked onto ur clothing and followed u for hours!
now after intro u this, we get on to the real business....the kind of pets i used to have.
kampong kids, what could we have?....practically nothing. so we had to improvish and catch our own pets.
DUNG BEETLES - yes the shit feeding crawlies were among my pets. why? so gross!...yes, gross but very interesting.
u put the male rotund beetles together and they would start fighting. natural. males are always fighting over females....hahahaha....;9)
from beetles, together with my cousin peelepian (who's now a power pastor), we would equip ourselves with plastic bags n go to some barren sandy or clayey land to catch TIGER BEETLES.
these were very nasty beetles with threating monstrous biting hooked jaws. they were really fun insects and are very rare to find now.
u put 2 of these beetles in a closed jar and they would fight to its death! very fun to watch. in the open space, they fought too. the loser would just fly away. but in a jar...hehehehe...they killed each other mercilessly.
.....to be cont'd