Revisiting 1995.
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My childhood room is a black hole of memories, trash, and funky playthings.
My family and I moved to our house when I was three.
Prior to that, we rented an apartment, but I have no memories of this apartment life. Even when I see photos of my baby-self, I have no recollection of any sad or happy memories built around that small apartment.
I also have no clear memories of the first few years we spent in our new home. I guess toddler brains can be quite tricky…(but adult brains are much trickier)
I think my childhood memories begin at age five or six.
As an example, I could still vividly recall how I used to have a small green table paired with a small wooden chair, which I used as my laboratory — this was obviously under the influence of Dexter’s Laboratory (1995).
I pretended to be Dexter, while I thought of my older brother as Dee-Dee, my archnemesis (lol).
I also had a pretend-game where I was a farmer (I had a bucket of plastic eggs, some stuffed animals, and a small stuffed carrot) and my older brother was my pet pig, I aptly named Piggie.
This was probably partly influenced by Harvest Moon (1999), which I started playing at an early age.
I remember keeping a small notebook (my mother confirmed this), detailing all my “experiments” (i.e., what happens if I mix lotion with baby powder, what if I mix toothpaste and rubbing alcohol, etc.) that took place in that small green table.
I don’t remember my mom getting mad at me for wasting these toiletries, that was nice of her. I guess she was encouraging her kid’s play and imagination — which I now understand is very important.
The small notebook detailed the steps I undertook (I guess we were learning about the scientific method at school lol), observations, and results of my experiments.
It’s sad that I can no longer find this notebook. Perhaps it got lost over time or it’s just sitting somewhere deep into the thickness of my room’s junk.
In a separate notebook, I wrote down unfamiliar words I encountered in books, school, or the television.
My mom taught me how to use the dictionary and instructed me to write these words and their definitions in this special vocabulary notebook. I thank her for this.
In the same notebook, I passionately wrote very ugly poems (haha). I was in grade school and was a self-declared poet.
Playthings.
I love super small items that serve no purpose other than being cute. Some of them are functional, like magnets, but mostly I liked miniature furniture or tiny creatures.
Since they are essentially useless, my kid-self tried to find some use for them. I remember assembling a dollhouse kitchen furniture (three chairs & one table) into a small helicopter of sorts.
I like how children have the ultimate gift of entertaining themselves, purely out of their own (unique and universal at the same time) creativity and imagination — with no shame, guilt, or any complex adult feelings (lol).
As a kid, I only had one Barbie Doll and I hated it (the doll itself, not the fact that I only had one).
I don’t know why I had this Barbie, perhaps my mother bought it for me since that was what was expected of daughters to play with (it was the 1990s, toy companies weren’t as progressive as they are now).
If I remember right, my Barbie had a blue dress and a pair of blue shoes. I found her boring. Unlike the small random playthings I had, I cannot reassemble Barbie into something else aside from being an oddly-shaped human.
Out of curiosity, I often stripped Barbie off her clothes. I wondered what those triangular mounds in her chest were (they were boobs)…
Soon enough, I abandoned Barbie and immersed myself in the limitless world of Lego (most likely it was the fake kind from China).
As a kid, I spent hours playing Lego. Building, destroying, and re-building anything I wanted.
My favorite pretend-play was being mayor of a small lego town, I built establishments using the plastic lego blocks (i.e., banks, shops, restaurants, houses, hospitals, vehicles, roads etc.). My townspeople were made up of my small playthings.
I can no longer find this plastic dollhouse my parents got me from the supermarket, but I still somewhat remember the day I got it: My family and I went grocery-shopping and I was at the toy section, (groceries no longer have toy sections these days) looking at the dollhouse.
As a kid, I didn’t really ask my parents for a lot of toys (my mom might disagree, but this is how I remember my kid-self); so in my memory, I didn’t ask or beg my parents to buy the dollhouse.
I think my parents just noticed how much I liked the dollhouse because I kept staring at it, so they bought it for me. And of course, I was extremely happy!
Now that I think about it, I think I stood in front of the dollhouse for a long time without saying a word (too shy to ask, I guess), and my parents really wanted to go home already, so they decided to finally get it for me (lol).
The dollhouse had two floors, a blue roof, and white walls. I attached the red window frames myself and accurately placed all the furniture stickers. It had four rooms, plus tiny furniture for each area: bathroom (bath tub, toilet, sink); bedroom (bed, closet); living room (TV, two chairs); kitchen and dining area (island with sink and stove, refrigerator, table, two chairs).
The homeowners were a blonde woman (donning a white shirt and a pink skirt) and a dark-haired man (white shirt and yellow shorts).
I am amazed by how much detail I remember as I am typing this (I wrote all these before I unearthed any of these old pictures and actual toys).
I specifically remember playing with the dollhouse upside-down, pretending it was a spaceship. I think I had more fun with this version than the regular one.
My mom’s friend also gave me a folding victorian dollhouse (see photos above), it was like a book and everything was made of paper (i.e., accessories, furniture, homeowners, clothes, toys, pets).
I am proud of myself for keeping it in tact after all these years, I had so much fun with this dollhouse as a kid. I plan to turn over this toy to my future niece/nephew (haha), if any.
I did not play outside as a kid.
I think my mom was quite paranoid (i.e., I might get bitten by a stray dog, I might die). For these reasons, I never learned how to properly climb a tree.
But I did climb a small tree once, we had a Macopa in our garden and I sort of climbed it for about three seconds. The tree was only slightly taller than my dad, but my brain might be wrong. The tree is gone now, my dad chopped it down and I remember being so mad as a kid.
There was this one time I did play with a neighbor, she was a girl a few years older than me. We played-kitchen in their patio, she had all these miniature plastic plates and utensils. She served real cornballs in those plates (lol).
Other than that little neighbourly anecdote and a couple of badminton rounds with my dad, I have no other recollection of playing outside.
I only learned how to play tumbang preso, luksong baka, and luksong tinik (rough translations: taking down prisoners, jumping cows, jumping thorns) because of my cousins.
We mostly spent our christmas holidays together in our grandparents’ house (in the middle of nowhere), which had a big garden.
My cousins called me lampa (lame, loser) because I didn’t know or wasn’t good at any of their street/outdoor kid games (even the game names scared me lul). I hated these games, but I loved hide-and-seek, especially because I only got to play it with my cousins over the holidays! There was no one to play with at home…
At school, I learned how to play other kiddie games such as:
- Ice-ice-water
- A special kind of tag, I think, involving pretend ice-and-lava of some sort. - Chinese garter
- I was not a fan, I didn’t participate much.
- This is probably the reason why I never learned how to jump rope, I’ve always been afraid of tripping over and hurting myself (I guess my cousins had the right to call me a loser after all lol). Today, as an adult, I still can’t do it. My boxing coach said I can cheat and just skip to the beat of the rope, using one hand to fling the folded jump rope (haha). - Dragon Ball Z battles
- It’s like rock-paper-scissors, but you use both hands and your moves are changed to charge-block-kamehameha. Oh, so many memories. - Rubber band race
- You make a rubber band jump by hitting the floor with the palm of your hands, and then you race with your friends (lol). - Fortune-telling folded paper thingy
- You fold a piece of paper (into an origami-inspired form), with intricate folds and flaps. You say a number, then your friend will close-open the paper thingy, before proceeding to reading your fortune. It was a sacred ritual among classmates, the results were honoured. - Flames
- This happened in a pre-Tinder era, where the compatibility between you and your childhood crush was computed based on the letters making up your full names. It felt like witchcraft and science combined, with traces of our clandestine magic spells left behind in the back pages of notebooks. - A Dungeon & Dragons-esque kind of made-up tabletop paper game
- I’d like to believe that I popularized this kind of play in our grade school (lol). I acted as some sort of game master and had my classmates play along. The gameplay was like Dungeons & Dragons, but the story was more akin to Pokemon (haha). I came up with another game I called High Crimes, which had a similar gameplay and storyline as Grand Theft Auto, but more child-friendly (haha). I wish I kept those paper games — I drew all sorts of maps, menu boards, and characters. I loved my friends for playing with me and telling me they enjoyed the game so much. We played these games for years, maybe from third grade up to fifth (haha).
Rich kids in my class would sometimes bring cool toys for everyone to share:
- Pokedex
- I never got to play with it because there was a long line of kids waiting for their turn. Alas, I enjoyed watching them from afar. Just like in the anime series, the Pokedex was color red.
Anyway, I was more of a Digimon (1997) kind of kid than a Pokemon (1996) one — evidenced by the fact that I had a few Digimon action figures, which were probably freebie toys from a well-known ice cream brand during the ’90s. But I did enjoy watching the Pokemon series more; in fact, I think I had a crush on Misty (and was jealous of Brock).
- Bop-it thingy
- The same girl who had a pokedex brought a bop-it-toy-thingy to class. This time, I got to play with it. My classmates and I played during snack and lunch breaks, breaking into laughter (or blame) every other second. I liked this toy, but did not ask my parents to buy one for me since it seemed expensive and I would have no one to play with at home anyway.
Meanwhile at home, my brother was slowly getting sucked into the world of Playstation. But before we both got addicted to video games, we had our fair share of old-school toys too:
- Beyblade
- Yes, I was from that era. Yes, it’s that toy (billed as the modern version of the classic wooden spinning tops) with its own manga and anime series (2001). I don’t know why, but my dad seemed supportive of this hobby — I remember him buying my brother and I beyblades, the latest cool thing kids got to have (lol). My dad even surprised us with a beyblade arena, which is basically a round plastic structure where you conduct beyblade matches. I think some of our beyblades were original, while others were fake.
- Zoids
- Before my brother discovered Gundam models, he played with Zoids. Yes, it’s that other toy with its own anime series (1999). Zoids are like Transformers, but I think they don’t transform, they just have one form — a giant wild animal robot of sorts. They come with batteries and they can walk! I liked this better than those creepy baby dolls that can also walk (like a zombie) and swallow fake baby food (so scary!). - Tamiya
- Yes, another toy with its own anime series (1996). These are cool race car models, which come with their own little engines, batteries, and race tracks. My dad was once again supportive of this hobby, even taking us to a local race event (to watch, not participate). If my memory serves me right, my Tamiya was red, while my brother’s was blue. Like Beyblade, we had some original models and fake ones too. I think I envied my brother’s Tamiya because his had these small side-wheels attached to the car’s bumpers— allowing his Tamiya to swiftly bounce off walls or corners, ultimately beating me in races (lol)! - Yo-yo
- An oldie, but a goodie. Yes, the yo-yo has been around for hundreds of years, but my brother and I really got into it because of…yes, an anime series (1998)! We watched it to learn tricks and I think we even got kids’ magazines teaching yo-yo enthusiasts some world-class moves. - Pretend-House and Pretend-Spy
- Yes, it didn’t happen separately but simultaneously. We were spies and we had a cardboard house too, incidentally. I played this with my brother. We crafted telescopes and bazookas (spy things) by combining long kitchen paper towel rolls with smaller toilet paper rolls — our very own invention! - Other times, I would pretend to be a spy on my own. This is largely influenced by Harriet the Spy (Fitzhugh, 1964), which is my all-time favorite book from my childhood. I had a small flashlight, a magnifying glass, a yellow pair of binoculars, a pen and a notebook. Some years later, I also watched Nickelodeon’s film adaptation (1996), starring a young Michelle Trachtenberg and Rosie O’Donnell (slight lol). In both book and movie, I had a crush on Harriet’s best friend, Sport.
- My brother also taught me how to play pog and teks. We were really into these games, I’d say I was a competitive little girl.
As a kid, I had a lot of Hello Kitty dolls.
My mom introduced me to Sanrio and gifted me with various Hello Kitty items, including dolls (some of it were part of McDonald’s Happy-Meal’s toy collection at the time).
The backstory goes like this: My mom’s family was too poor back then, so her parents could not afford to buy her Hello Kitty toys even though she wanted one so bad.
When she got her first salary after college, the first thing she bought (if she was telling me the truth lol) was an original Hello Kitty wallet. My mom said this was the height of Hello Kitty’s popularity, and all young women just had to have this said pink wallet (she told me to add this part lol).
So when I was a kid, whenever my mom saw Sanrio/Hello Kitty items, she would get some for me (but I think by doing this, she was actually subconsciously fulfilling a long-lost and unfulfilled childhood dream of hers).
I’ve always loved this story from my mom, it makes me both sad and happy.
Back to the dolls: I had all sorts of Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel dolls in various costumes (i.e., astronauts, kimonos, wedding attires, etc.). I say this with no shame at all (haha).
As a kid, I also had good times with:
- Walky-talkies
- I got this from Jollibee, a local fast-food chain (lol). Back in the day, they had a happy-meal of sorts which included toys. - Hula hoops
- I think I learned this at school, for a dance performance! At school, I also built a kite for the first and only time in my life (lol). - Train sets
- Only the small and inexpensive kind, but it was cool because it blew smoke, had lights, and made that chuga-chuga-choo-choo sound. My mom bought one for my younger cousin as a christmas present — but I liked it so much, she ended up giving it to me (I may have thrown a tantrum or two). - Fishing game
- I really wish I still had this, it would be such a cool throwback. It’s this small plastic toy with a revolving body, containing small holes. In the holes are the fish with small magnetic balls inside their moving mouths. Your goal is to catch as much fish as possible! - Cooking
- My grandmother gave me a kitchen toy set, it was a hand-me-down from a relative (i.e., included an oven, pots and pans, etc.) My grandma even threw in a small clay pot (palayok) for a more dramatic playing experience haha. - Clay
- I guess playdough wasn’t a big hit in my country, but we had other clay brands. I have this vague memory of being so attached to one clay creature I made (my brain is saying that it was a small red snowman of sorts), and crying after the creature got lost or destroyed (I think it was accidentally squished by one of my parents lol). I could have re-made the creature, but my kid-self thought it just wasn’t the same.
- I was going to include marbles, but I remember my brother warning me not to touch his marble collection. He also had a small box of so-called kisses (aroma beads), which I was also banned from touching. But I had my ways… for some reason, I had unlimited access to his stuff as a kid (haha). It seems I was more of a Dee-Dee in some ways…
During the first decade of my life, I made sure to carry out all my important activities (i.e., playing, homework, reading, drawing, writing, scheming) in my bedroom — but come bedtime, I would crawl into bed with my mom. My brother did the same and slept next to my dad on a mattress laid out on the floor (my mom and I slept in the real bed, ha!).
Maybe it was because the master’s bedroom was the only place that had airconditioning at the time (haha).
I decided to sleep in my own bedroom at age 7, according to my mom. But I do not trust her estimate; in my mind, it happened a bit later…maybe at around age 9 or 10.
Back then, I was sort of scared of being in a dark bedroom all by myself, so my mom would accompany me until I fell asleep. She would sometimes play tapes in a big cassette player until I dozed off. Her song choices are quite questionable now though — she played Lou Vega’s Mambo №5 (LOL).
My mom also put up glow-in-the-dark thingies (i.e., sheep, stars, planets) in my room to make me less frightened. She strategically placed them in my room’s ceiling and the corners of my wardrobe mirror.
Some have already worn off, but a few are still in my room until today.
My family wasn’t big on board games. Ours was limited to the basics: chess, scrabble, snake & ladders, millionaire’s game (a local version of monopoly), and pick-up-sticks.
In fact, I only properly learned how to play chess at around age 24, after my then-girlfriend taught me. I am quite bitter how my dad took his time teaching my older brother how to play chess, but never did the same for me when I was a kid.
I also wish I learned how to play sungka (mancala).
As a grown-up, I had access to board game cafes and a girlfriend (at the time) who also loved tabletop games. Together, we enjoyed games like Pandemic (2008), Sherlock Holmes (1991), Civilization (2010), The Pursuit of Happiness (2015), Dead of Winter (2014), among many other titles. We sometimes played with friends; other times, it was just the two of us — playing for around three hours or more!
I also started a small board game club at my previous job, where my friends and I pooled together our own personal game collections (i.e., Jenga, Sushi Go, Organ Attack, etc.) and played once a week, for an hour or so after work.
Sadly, the board game cafe we frequented has already closed, and my girlfriend and I have long broken up… Such is life.
It’s quite ironic how I only got to fully enjoy board games as an adult, and completely missed out on the fun as a kid.
My childhood room has changed over the years, undergoing paint jobs and frenetic (and unsanctioned!) rearrangements care of my mom.
But my most treasured keepsakes are still in there somewhere — some serve as decorations, while others are simply left untouched (freely collecting dust over the years). These untouchables serve a noble cause: To make me feel good and welcome whenever I come home.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, I rarely went home except for long weekends or special holidays. Now, I have been spending over seven months in my childhood room and it has been a nostalgic quicksand.
There are trinkets that are forever lost, but my mom swears they are just tucked away in some closet… I guess I’ll never find out unless I make that deep-dive (I would need a lot of energy to do this, which I currently do not possess lol).
Over the years, my small precious playthings were replaced with books. Stuffed animals were passed on to younger children, as I grew taller and disinterested. Then gaming consoles arrived and my toys were literally forgotten.
Still, my room is peppered with traces of my childhood sillies. I hold on to certain items, not out of materialistic hoarding, but for the memories they once held.
I also like to keep my room’s childlike wonder alive, perhaps in the same way that I’d like to preserve my own.
I am a kid at heart, although my face says otherwise (I have been told multiple times by both friends and strangers that I have a scary-looking face i.e., I look mad all the time, I look uninterested).
Together, my room and I are growing old. We both have a lot of things piling up over the years, excess baggage perhaps. And we both lost a couple of things too — some intentional; others, with regret.
Even now as an adult, I am still fascinated with the idea of play and imagination. I love video games and DIY miniature models. Sometimes, I overthink about the toys and games I am to gift my future niece/nephew, if any (lol I am overexcited, okay).
When I think about my childhood, I think of simple toys, makeshift playthings, a bottomless well of curiosity, and a brewing fondness for writing and reading.
My mother is a central figure in my childhood, helping me discover the things I passionately care about and things that anger me — an ever-evolving binary that is still useful to this day.
When I hear the word childhood, I instantly connect it with everything that is good and wholesome. And it breaks me each time I am reminded of the reality that not all kids have this kind of childhood…I guess this is among the reasons why I ended up in the development sector.
As cliched as it may sound, I want every child to have a truly happy childhood — a strong foundation they can rely on for their transition into adulthood.
It’s not about the toys or material possessions, but about the participation and presence of central caring figures during a child’s early years (these are very crucial years).
A few days ago, I ordered the following online:
I ordered them alongside a book.
My friends laughed when I told them, and my mom told me it’s a waste of money (each only cost around $3 or Php150).
I used to own these toys, but have since lost them. I guess I just wanted to get them back…I want them in my childhood room, overtaking the ghosts of my forever-lost-trinkets.
Or maybe I just wanted to experience an old-school kind of play, after being so sick of technology for the past several months (i.e., laptops, emails, internet, game consoles, smart phones, social media, cable television, Netflix, realtime online news, etc.).
Maybe I am yearning for the simpler lifestyle of yesteryears.
Or maybe I’m just craving for silly playthings — as a way of reminding myself to never take life too seriously.
This week, I am patiently waiting for my online orders to arrive: a yo-yo, a springy, and a non-fiction book about the Cultural Revolution — a phenomenon which stole and destroyed the childhood of thousands.
Tonight, I shall give my childhood room one more thorough inspection (and appreciation) before I go to sleep. Tomorrow, I’ll surely notice some slight changes or cracks in my shelves and take note of anecdotes attached to each and every item.
Good night.
