Ashes Of Sim Lim Tower’s Ice Cream Uncle Scattered In Garden After Send-Off By Charity Volunteers
The elderly man, whose ice cream cart was a longtime fixture outside Sim Lim Tower, died last week at 92.
Just an hour before the send-off for Ng Teak Boon was due to take place, it started raining heavily. The rain didn’t deter a small group of about 15 people — most of them charity volunteers — from showing up for the late Mr Ng, who was a famous longtime fixture outside Sim Lim Tower with his old-school ice cream cart.
Uncle Boon, as he was affectionately known, died last week (Jun 21). He was 92.
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Worked till his 90s
The sprightly Uncle Boon lived alone in a one-room rental flat in Geylang Bahru. Around three months before his passing, he stopped working as he started feeling very weak. He was looked after by a group of charity volunteers and chicken rice hawker Chia Siew Tin, 65, who befriended Uncle Boon as he frequented her stall at Jalan Berseh Food Centre.
“He always came to my hawker centre. We became friends after I saw him alone looking pitiful, and I took care of him,” she tells 8days.sg.
One of the volunteers was Melvin Chew, 46, the second-gen hawker-owner of Chinatown stall Jin Ji Teochew Braised Duck & Kway Chap. He recalls bumping into Uncle Boon at Jalan Berseh Food Centre just two weeks before the elderly man’s passing.
“He was walking very fast towards Auntie Chia’s chicken rice stall. I still ‘disturbed’ him by asking him why he was walking so fast,” recounts Melvin. “Later the charity group told me that Uncle had fainted and was hospitalised. The hospital got in touch with Auntie Chia because Uncle carried her name card in his wallet in case of emergencies. They were all afraid of him falling down.”
As he scattered the ashes, Uncle Boon’s nephew could be heard calling out in Hokkien: “Have a good journey Ah Boon!” The group gathered and were handed watering cans to sprinkle water over the ash-covered garden bed.
In a 2017 interview with CNA, Uncle Boon recounted a cheeky conversation he had with Auntie Chia, in which he reckoned that he could probably live to a ripe old age of 106 years old. “She said, ‘You will live longer than Lee Kuan Yew’. I said I will live longer than Lee Kuan Yew,” he chortled.
When asked if he would continue selling ice cream till he was 106, Uncle Boon smiled and replied: “Yes, I will sell ice cream until I die. Then I stop.”
Photos and video: Yip Jieying
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