Back in the 1960s, in Kampung Lorong Sungkai in Aljunied, young girls Thangah Koh and Fatimah Mohidin were not only neighbours, but they were the best of friends.

They would play five stones or teng-teng, spending after-school hours together. Thangah would even accompany Fatimah to her Quran-reading class.

It was only when she was 12 years old did Koh, who was raised by an Indian-Hindu couple, found out that she was of Chinese descent. She had taken her birth certificate to school to have her identity card (IC) made.

Fatimah, who was a year Koh's junior, was adopted by a Malay-Muslim family.

"I did wonder why Thangah was fair-skinned, unlike her adoptive family, but I never bothered to ask," said Fatimah, now 70. 

Koh told Malay Sunday newspaper Berita Minggu that their biological mother was advised by a fortune teller that Koh would bring misfortune to the family, so she should be given away to a non-Chinese family.

"Fatimah was born with her big toe smaller than her other toes, which was deemed a bad sign, so she, too, was given away," said Koh, who asked her adoptive parents about her biological parents only years later, when she had to renew her IC.

She looked up her biological family and found out she had many siblings, including Fatimah. The family had moved out of the Aljunied village as their mother could not bear the daily reminder that she had given away her daughters.

The practice of Malay or Indian families adopting Chinese babies in Singapore started in the early-1930s. Factors leading to the adoptions included financial situations, death of the mother or the old wives' tale that the baby would bring bad luck.

The differences in ethnicity, language and religion were not an issue back then, family and gender anthropologist Theresa W. Devasahayam told Berita Minggu. 

"Children were given away arbitrarily, undocumented, but the family taking them in would give them love and a good life. There were even families that adopted other children to become companions for their own children," said Dr Devasahayam, whose own mother was given away by a Chinese family.

Adoption in Singapore was regulated only in 1972, under the Adoption of Children Act.

The story of Koh and Fatimah, as well as other similar stories of adoption in olden Singapore, have been compiled by Dr Devasahayam in her book Little Drops: Cherished Children Of Singapore’s Past ($29.30 on Amazon).

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