[cheekopekman]

I only talk as a Singaporean who grew up in that era.

38OXR was a palace compared with the houses most of us grew up in, in Lim Chu Kang, Choa Chu Kang, and even Ang Mo Kio up till the 1970s which was nothing but a jungle.

Today, many PGs if they are alive and ambulant, and MG, still go back to where it was once a kampung.  Yoomers and zoomers see HDB flat or condos, but these old peepur see a kampung.  For them, memories of an era gone would flood back from the subconscious.  They could hear their mother, wearing samfu, screaming at them to stop playing and come in for home-cooked dinner.  They could visualize Ah Seng, Ah Kow and Ah Sim catching grasshoppers and spiders with them in the jungle part of the kampung.  They could even hear Observer's mother moaning as unknown men piak piak her every night.

To each his own. Some grew up in Bo Bo Tan, Tiong Bahru, and others in shophouses on Orchard Road.  For the Lees, it was 38OXR.

I would pay two million dollars to buy back my childhood house if it still exists.  But a condo now stands on the land, and I cannot afford to buy up the entire block.  

You sound very old lah Uncle!