Uncle Teong, the ‘Karung Guni Man’!

It was 22 May 2017, Monday, at 10.30 am. Undeterred by the wet weather, the ‘Karung Guni Man’, Uncle Teong paid a visit to Zion Bishan Kindergarten. The K1 children were thrilled to see the ‘Karung Guni Man’, clad in his casual faded short-sleeved shirt and black shorts. Uncle Teong pushed his ‘Karung Guni’ cart and shouted in Singlish and Hokkien, “Karung Guni…. ‘pho zhua’ (newspapers), ‘gusakor’ (old clothes), ‘paileh-lio’ (spoilt radios), ‘diansiki’ (televisions)……” He was all ready to buy our old newspapers that the children had been diligently contributing to school since the beginning of May.

Uncle Teong, the ‘Karung Guni Man’ told the children that the price of old newspapers was 0.12 cents per kg. He placed the old newspapers onto his big weighing scales and announced loudly that the total weight was 115kg. The children were excited and took turns to look at the weighing scales.

The children were ecstatic when they saw how Uncle Teong and his wife lifted the heavy piles of old newspapers from the weighing scales onto their metal trolleys. They also waited patiently when Uncle Teong whipped out his calculator to calculate the amount due “$13.80!” the ‘Karung Guni Man’ exclaimed. The children clapped and were elated to see the money collected. Hurray….the money will be used to purchase vegetables seeds and compost for gardening! There was a sense of achievement on the faces of the K1 children.

There was also a ‘Question and Answer’ time for the children. They were curious as to where the ‘Karung Guni Man’ would bring all the old newspapers to. Uncle Teong explained that he would sell the old newspapers to the recycling companies which later would be made into cardboard boxes. He even told the children that the used white papers would be made into toilet papers. The K1 children had a wonderful learning journey from the ‘Karung Guni Man’.

Uncle Teong, the ‘Karung Guni Man’ encouraged the children to continue bringing the old newspapers to school and he promised to be back to buy them all!