Meet the Kadir family (of the “Abdul Kadir Mamakshop” mural) and the Lee family (of the “lion dance head maker” mural). This mural gives a glimpse of how different tenant families, regardless of race, language or religion, once lived together in the same shophouse. This was how I lived during my childhood days until 1983. My family was one of five tenants co-living in a second-storey shophouse in Chinatown Sago Lane. We shared long wooden double-decker beds or lived in compartments in the long hall. We rented the floor from the Arabs who owned many of the Chinatown shophouses. The tenants sometimes squabbled but always cared for one another like a big family! I remembered a co-tenant bought me a yellow toy tortoise, try find it in this ‘story’ mural at Mohamed Ali Lane:-)
