Junk-food-consuming childhood is completely flawed without a history of bubble gum chewing (except maybe in Singapore where the sale, possesion and consumption is illegal!) since bubble gum is one of the most affordable pieces of candy; any kid could afford it. In my homeland of Malaysia, sepuluh sen (ten cents) could easily get you a stick or a tiny boxful of gula-gula getah (literally rubber sweet).

Nobody in Malaysia ever calls bubble gum gula-gula getah though (unlike how the Indonesians politically correctly refer to it as permen karet back in their country). Gula-gula getah sounded so darn uncool! We instead resorted to the Malaysianized English pronunciation of "ching gam" or "babel gam." Depending on how rapidly you chewed "ching gam", you could enjoy it for hours on end before you finally spat out the colorless and tasteless remnant.

And of course the most fascinating thing about bubble gum is that you could blow (duh) bubbles from it! For most 8 years olds, this was a skill that required weeks of practice to perfection. Who cared if you couldn't recite your math '2x2' tables correctly; blowing bubble gum was the way to make the younger kids ogle and gasp at you with naïve admiration.

Younger kids weren't really allowed to chew gum until they were older because of their misguided instinct to telan (swallow) the gum like it was a regular sweet. Swallowing rubber isn't exactly the healthiest thing around, so to scare my younger brother from the stuff, my mother told him that if he swallowed bubble gum, it would clog up his internal body system and that it would result in, err, interrupted bowel movement, to put it ever so mildly (tak boleh b-e-r-a-k, there I said it! Now leave me alone).

Intrigued by all this sudden impulsive memories of bubble gum chewing, I made a trip to the kedai mamak (Indian sundry shop) near my house to see if it still sold the bubble gums I ate, I mean, chewed, as a child. I was delighted when I found some of them, and the price has not increased in over a decade! I took some time to analyze the four different gums to bring you this exclusive childhood bubble gum feature.

MURAKAWA "Small Balls" Bubble Gum

These artificially fruity flavored gumballs were quite common back in my primary school days (circa. 1986-1991). It only costs 10 sen a box and still does today, which is great news for kids. I managed to grab some grape and strawberry ones; there is an orange flavor one too but I didn't find any at the shop. I'm not sure where this gum originated from; I'm guessing Japan from the sound of the name (the box only says Murakawa Conf. Co. Ltd). Let's open a box and see what's inside:

The gumballs are sealed in a little square cardboard box wrapped in plastic which is not difficult to open. Usually a kid would just rip the whole box open but I won't do that today. I'll open it ever so gently, like any civilized gum chewer. The red plastic strip around the box indicates where the plastic wrapping tears away. So grab hold on one red end and peel away. Easy does it....

Like most kiddies junk food, you often find toys inside the box. Murakawa instead gives away mind-numbingly cheap tattoo stickers complete with pictography tattoo instructions for those by-the-book kids who can't figure out how to use them. Funny, I don't ever remember getting these tattoos. Maybe back then the boys would always steal them from me while I was on the floor scrambling to catch the gumballs that fell out of the box.

This is the part where I (and countless of other kids) get bitterly disappointed. The box clearly has enough space for four bubble gum balls, but only three ever make it in there at any one time. Boy did we ever feel cheated. It's as though the manufacturers thought kids weren't bright enough to figure out that a box could usually hold an equal number of things. This peculiar arrangement has perplexed kids for many generations.

Just for fun I decided to try out the tattoo that came with the gumballs. To apply, just peel off the back strip of the sticker and place the sticky side on the surface where you want the tattoo to appear. Remember to apply pressure and smooth the sticker out with a finger so that the tattoo actually sticks to your skin, pencil case, dinner plate, cat's fur, wherever you desire lah.

Here is the end result of the tattoo task: a cartoon of a very sinister-looking purple grape. It didn't come out perfectly; the character looks a bit cacat (deformed). The remains of the grape picture must still be on the sticker. Gosh, that's one evil-looking grape. Mummy, make Mr. Grumpy Grape go away...

Murakawa bubble gumballs are ok for what I call kunyah main-main (lazy chewing), as the mass is quite small, even if you pop all three balls into your mouth. The mediocre bubbles they make are nothing to boast about; they're actually quite pathetic in size.

Girls would normally chew the gumballs without making much fuss. Boys would pop 3 boxes full (totaling 9 gumballs) into their mouths and still complain it wasn't enough to blow a big bubble. Which is why some kids opted for this other Murakawa bubble gum:

MURAKAWA "Bear" Bubble Gum

Now this is a mean cheap bubble gum if there was ever any: the Murakawa "Bear" Bubble Gum. I named it so because of its trumpet-playing black mascot. Occasionally you'd get the ones wrapped in paper that had on it an oddly drawn Red Indian character carrying a spear and sporting anchor tattoos like Popeye's.

Bear gum is a bargain for its price, also a mere 10 sen and is simply packed with endless chewing time plus it has a contagious sweet flavor. Just smelling it was enough to make your mouth water. Best yet, the gum made terrific and big bubbles. Serious gum chewers who were not ready to waste 10 cents on 'girly' Murakawa gumballs invested their hard-earned pocket money on macho Bear gums.

Opening a Bear gum wrapper certainly isn't rocket science; just tear the damn paper away if you're on the verge of a gum chewing frenzy. If it happens to be an especially hot day, the second silver wrapping would sometimes stick to the gum, so if you really didn't care, you'd chew the gum with bits of wrapper and all.

Ah, would you look at that. Plump juicy bubble gum for the taking. Bear gum is one of my personal childhood favorites, such that I got really economical about chewing it. I'd first tear the gum piece into two equal halves and eat one half at a time. If I were feeling particularly rich day and had actually bought around 5 pieces, I'd pop a whole piece into my mouth at once, chew into bubble gum state of ecstasy and blow my giant bubbles away. Fuh.

KIKI Bubble Gum

Now this is one bubble gum that I have not seen around for years, so I'm assuming the company that made it closed down. But I'm sure junk-food-loving Malaysians from my generation will remember Kiki Bubble Gum. I drew it out roughly to show you what it looked like.

Kiki bubble gum balls were twice or thrice as big as the Murakawa ones and were thicker in density. They were packaged in simple clear plastic with its logo printed on it; the gums came in groups of three (what is it with bundling sweets in bunches of three?) There were three different gumball colors: orange, red and yellow.

I remember the TV commercial for it; it was a cartoon in which a boy dressed in red overalls blew a Kiki bubble gum so huge that it made him float above all his friends. The kids then all went crazy chasing the boy and his floating bubble gum. The boy in the air then, like some kind of bubble gum god, started showering the kids with supplies of Kiki bubble gum so conveniently stored away in his pocket. Any 4 year old was bound to be mesmerized by the the commercial (I know I was). I mean hey, who wouldn't want to munch on candy that could make you fly through the air?

Again, these Kiki gumballs were only ten cents, and I'm sure if it still existed today, it'd still be 10 sen. I miss Kiki.

WRIGLEY'S, "The Elite" Chewing Gum

Kids who had Wrigley's gum in their pockets were of a different class altogether; suddenly they become the elitist of rubber candy munchers. For the average 7-year-old whose daily pocket money in the mid 1980s is between 20 and 50 sen, buying a pack of Wrigley's meant saving for two and a half days, or sacrificing a significant amount of their allowance in exchange for the candy experience: 45 sen.

Needless to say, Wrigley's was a relatively pricey chewing gum for kids. I remember how carefully I'd spread my days out consuming my very precious pack of Wrigley's so that I'd prolong owning it as long as possible like I was exercising some sort of bubble gum darurat (contingency plan). My favorite flavor was beyond a doubt the sweet Juicy Fruit that came in yellow. Simply yummy-licious. Nowadays a pack of Wrigley's is going for 70 sen, a 25 sen inflation since a decade ago.

Take note that Wrigley's is not bubble gum; it's chewing gum. While you could attempt to blow bubbles from chewing Wrigley's, it really won't expand into a very magnificent one. The gum's only good for, well, chewing!

On a more practical and mature level, Wrigley's mint gum acts as a breath freshener (great face-saver if you forgot to brush your teeth before going to school). Wrigley's also had a strong ad campaign in Malaysia that promoted the gum as senaman muka (face exercises) aid. Very creative product motto, if not bizzare.

Bubble Gum Reflections

At the end of the day, bubble gums will reach the end of their lifespans, lose their flavors and end up in the trash. The proper way to discard used bubble gum is to, of course, wrap it up in the original gum wrapper before tossing it into the wastebasket. Please ya, don't spit your gum into your sister's hair, no matter how much you hate her. It is extremely hard to get chewing gum out of one's hair, particularly long hair. Removal of the gum will most likely require cutting a portion of the hair!

Satu sen coins, Malaysians' number one choice for shoe-sole-gum-scrapers.

Bubble gum certainly has its more mischievous potentials. I've had my share of prankster boys sticking used gum on my seat in primary school (a bruised eye on one boy ensued; I've never seen gum on my chair since). And who hasn't occasionally stepped onto a wad of old gooey gum and have it stick onto the sole of their shoes, only to discover grains of sand and dead ants stuck on it when they finally picked the gum off with a syiling satu sen before flicking the used coin away (shows you how much Malaysians value one cent coins in this country).

Here's a handy tip: if you ever get bubble gum stuck on your shirt, skirt, pants, jeans, or any type of clothing, try this removal method (I read this from the Reader's Digest household tips encyclopedia). Get an ice cube and rub it over the contaminated gum area so that the gooey gum hardens from the cold. Once the gum has solidified, you can gently scrape it off with a spoon before you wash your clothing in hot water to remove the remaining bits.

So what are you waiting for? Take a minute away from your busy life, pick up a pack of gum today and chew into your childhood memories.