Traders at Kampong Coronation

The Indians

In my last posting, I described about cattle breeding at Kampong Coronation. The cattle herders are all Indian and Hindus and therefore their cattle are meant only for milk production. I noticed that the other ethnic Indian villagers who are not cattle herders were engaged in trades closely connected to the cattle. After milking the cows manually, John the chief herder and his wife Pangemah, will transfer the milk direct into aluminum containers. They will bottle the milk themselves and John or sometimes others will distribute or deliver the milk on their bicycle.

   

Other ethnic Indian villagers of Kampong Coronation will collect cow dung. They will mix the cow dung with some earth to make manure or fertilizer. They will load the mixture onto the carriage of a small lorry, usually right to the brim of the carriage. The lorry was equipped with cangkul (hoe) spade and pungkis (rattan basket). About 4 or 5 men will sit on the heap of cow dung and they will make their rounds along the more affluent Coronation Road West and Bin Tong Park area with the horn blaring and continuously shouting ‘Cow dung! Cow dung! Taik lembu! Taik lembu!. On the days when there are strong wind blowing, the smell of cow dung from the lorry lingers even after the lorry was out of sight for a while. Children likes to imitate the lorry men shouts and make fun of them but after the lorry men threw several lumps and hit the kids, the teasing stops. The other ethnic Indian villagers work as grass cutters for the cow herders.

Another group of Indian villagers at Kampong Coronation are Muslims. The Indian Muslim operates provision shops or what we call ‘Kedai Mamak’ or Mamak Shop. They are Tamils or Malayalee ( Malabari) . On the latter, I recalled a limerick  ‘Di mana ada matahari, di situ ada Malbari’ (Where there is sun , there is a Malabar) which actually refers to the presence of the Mamak Shops in every nook and corner of a place.

There are 5 or 6 Mamak shops along Coronation Road about 20-50 metres apart from one  another. All the Mamak shops are known by the name of one of the shop keepers.All carries a Muslim name  such as ‘Kedai Mamat’ ( Mamat’s Shop), Kedai Abu ( Abu’s Shop), Kedai Karim ( Karim’s Shop) and Kedai Kaka ( Kaka’s Shop).Some Mamak shops are well stocked and like the Chinese provision shops, they also sell wet market produce like fish and vegetables.

Without fail all of them will close their shops from 12 noon to 2pm every Friday so that they can go for their Friday prayers at nearby mosque. All of the shop keepers are males and they wear sarongs with shirts or singlets while tending to their  shops. They live at the back of their shop which they partitioned as their living quarters. They sleep, cook and eat at their shop.  All of them speak fluent Malay with some even speak in Hokkien and Cantonese dialect. Every other day  they will receive letters from India in the form of aerogrammes. Whenever I run errands for my mother to the nearest Mamak shop to our house, Kedai Mamat , I will look at the the corner where Mamat or his partner, Abu sits to do their account and see whether there are any unwanted aerogrammes or envelopes with stamps and I will ask them to give it to me. I think since I was the only one who ask them for the stamps, they keep for me the stamps whenever they received letters from India and  overtime, I have a lot of India stamps in my collection.

Once a year, one of the shop keepers will return to India.Someone else will come and take over  his place and although  completely a new face but somehow the relief shopkeeper has no problem of communicating. I used to wonder how the relief shop keeper could pick up the villagers’ language so quickly  and not until I started work and my job brought me to Sembawang Malay Settlement at Andrew Avenue where I met Abu who was operating a provision shop similar like his shop at Kampong Coronation.Then only I realise the strong network that these Indian shopkeepers have among themselves.  

Being away from their family in India,  understandbly the shop keepers are lonely men.I heard many stories about the shop keepers obtaining sex favours from some female villagers in exchange for easy credit or some groceries but personally have not come across any but I observed one of them from Kedai Karim and it was Karim himself who took advantage on his young customers. Karim operates alone because his shop is  the smallest among the other Indian provision shops at Kampong Coronation and he is selling titbits, ice balls and other brics and bracs. Karim  likes to to touch and caresses young school girls who stop at his shop to buy ice balls or titbits. Karim also sells frozen plastic syrup drinks which we called ‘Ayer Batu Malaysia’ or Malaysia’s Ice Water. The frozen styrup drinks are called  such name  because at that time, Singapore was still part of Malaysia.Karim was the most lecherous among the many Mamak shop keepers as far as I can remember. Few others are equally as  ‘gatal’ or flirtitious by ‘accidentally’  exposes their private part when they lifted their sarong for easy mobility.

The Chinese

Kampong Coronation Chinese villagers are mostly self employed working on their small plot of land planting bananas, tapioca,sweet potatoes and other fruit trees like rambutan, jackfruit,papaya and vegetables.Some rear their own pigs as well for the meat and almost all rear chickens and ducks. A few of them who own quite a substantial piece of land also operates provision shops.

Provision Shops Operators

There are about 8 to 10 Chinese provision shops at Kampong Coronation.Almost all of the shops are family operated.Similar to the Indian shops, the Chinese provision shops are also known by the name of the family leader or the eldest son such as Kedai Chu Toh ( Chu Toh’s Shop), Kedai Bok Seng ( Bok Seng’s Shop), Kedai Kee Ting ( Kee Ting’s Shop) and so on.

The Chinese provision shops are very well stocked with dried and canned goods, Before rice are sold in packets , all provision shops either the Indians or the Chinese will display several types of rice still in their big gunny sack. The gunny sack will be arranged in such a way as a prominent display which you can’t miss. Some of the Chinese provision shops also sell fresh vegetables and sea food which they bought every morning from the big market like Tekka or Batu Empat ( Si Ko Pasat- 4 miles stone Bukit Timah Market).

My family are regular customer at Kedai Chu Toh or its official name Ng Hoe Seng Provision Shop. The shop was located Coronation Road West and exactly opposite the junction of Jalan Siantan.The shop is run by the Ng brothers. All of them answer to their nicknames. The eldest are Chu Toh and hence the name of the shop known by the villagers. Chu Toh also runs a stall at Batu Empat selling pork. He will be around at the provision shop around noon everyday after he closes his stall. Before he attends to customers at the provision shop, Chu Toh who cycles, will go direct to the family’s large house about 20-30 metres away from the shops to wash himself clean first. I think he was quite sensitive that many of his customers are Malays and Muslims and they will be uncomfortable if Chu Toh were to serve them  if he comes direct from his pork stall.

The second of the Ng brothers is Ah Kow who is the book keeper and also handles cash.Next is Koh Yak but most customers call him Koyak who are responsible of bringing  fresh goods every morning. He was assisted by youngest brother  Ah Ter and his nephew whom the villagers call Botak despite his long and unkempt hair. Botak who is the eldest son of Ah Kow are the jack of all trades at the shop and although he is about 4-5 years older than me, he did not attend school while his younger siblings and attended nearby Chinese High or Nanyang Girls High.

Almost all of the provision shops either the Indian or the Chinese owns, extends credit to its regular customers. This is how the provision shops records their transaction on credit. At the shop there are always huge and thick book for the current transaction with several more on the shelf. Regular customers who are on credit will be given a small note book with the number 555 printed on its cover. The book is popularly known as Buku Tiga Lima’ ( Three Fives Book) .After getting the groceries , the customer will present the 555 note book instead of cash. The shop keeper will turn his big book to the page where the customer’s name and his/her records of transaction are recorded..Although the entries are in Tamil or Chinese for the items but the date and amount are always in Romanised. In the customer 555 book, the entries will be the date and amount  and sometimes one or two items from the list of groceries.Some customers will come everyday to the shop for the veggies and fishes but others like my family about once or twice a week. At the end of the month, Mr Ah Kow will ad up all the transactions for the month plus the unsettled amount from the previous months if any.Sometimes my family’s transction could reach up to a hundred a month. Upon settling all or part of the amount, the cycle starts again.At the end almost all villagers staying close to Kedai Chu Toh will be in debt with them.God knows how much interest they charges or how high they marked up the prices when customers buys on credit.

Mobile Vegetables & Fishes Hawkers

Another common sight at Kampong Coronation are mobile hawkers selling vegetables and fishes on motorcycles or bicycles. The hawker fixed a big basket on the carrier of his bicycle and two more rattan baskets hung from the handlebar of the bicycle.The basket is stock with vegetables, fishes, tau kwa, noodle and in the handlebar basket  dried goods such as onion,garlics , ikan bilis,dried prawns, dried chillies,assam and belacan.The hawker is a mobile provision shop. Two of such hawkers who come to my home compound daily is a man we simply call ‘Towkay’ and another one ‘Ah Bu Sayor’ or Ah Bu the Vegetables man.  Both of them are related and they also extend credit to the villagers using the same 555 book.

One hawker who is on a  motorcycle with a side car specialises in vegetables. He introduced himself as Bah Bee but the way the Malays pronounced it sounded as  ‘Babl’  or a pig.Well Mr Bah Bee will ride his motorcycle bare footed and he always wear black trousers or something like a trouser as actually it is a piece black baggy home made trousers with no buttons or zipper.Bah Bee will just tie a belt around his waist and the top of his so called trousers will just spread like flower petals.His white shirt which almost change to brownish is baggy as well.He smokes the self rolled cigarette or ‘Ang Hoon’ emitting terrible smell.Since Bah Bee comes always in the late afternoon, his leafy vegetables already wilted are not in the best  condition. He didn’t weight the purchase although he carries the weight scale of ‘timbang’  . He just look at the amount of the veggies and yelled 10 cents or 20 cents.

Tau Kwa Maker

A large compound and and house along Coronation Road  next to Karim Shop belongs to a Chinese family whose patriach is known as Gi or Ji. Mr Gi or Ji and his family produces tau kwa or tofu.The Malays called it ‘tauhu or ‘tahu’ I recalled Mr Gi’s tau kwa is orange or yellowish in colour. I could not recall Gi produces soft white tofu, beancurd or soy milk but I believe he does. I came to know about Gi tau kwa production when I was in primary 1 or 2. My school is located just across the road fronting Gi’s big compound.  One day, my friend and I strayed into Gi’s compund where I saw a large hoarding of waste timber or planks and a huge pile of saw dust. The pile of saw dust is the most interesting as I can see it everyday from my school. Someone later explained to me that the scrap timber and sawdust were used as firewood to boil the soybean . Gi also owns a lorry and in 1966 when my grandmother peformed her Haj, my father hired Gi’s lorry to bring our family to Keppel Harbour where the Kapal Haji or Haj ship  berthed. The ships SS Rajula and SS Malaysia Raya ..

The Noodle Maker at Jalan Lim Tai See

Another Chinese family whose house is located at Jalan Lim Tai See  produces yellow  or Hokkien noodles and other types of noodles. I don’t know the name of this family as we seldom buy direct from his home or kitchen where he produces the noodles. I made several trips to this noodle manufacturer to buy  big quantity of yellow noodles of about 5 katis ( Before the introduction of metric in Singapore in 1981, weight measurement known as kati and tahils and for distance distance- yards and miles stone or batu)  when my family had ‘special’ meals of mee rebus or mee goreng on certain Sundays.

The tempe maker, Jalan Lim Tai See/JalanTuah ( Kampong Tempe)

The Malays at Kampong Coronation were inaccurately associated with ‘tempe’ or a fermented soy cake, a popular food originated from Java. A large majority of Malays at Kampong Coronation came or descendants of Javanese immigrants and therefore it is not a surprise that one of their favourite food is tempe . A large cluster of Malays live in Jalan Haji Alias, Jalan Lim Tai See,Jalan Tuah  and Jalan Siantan. This area is known among Malays in Singapore then as Kampong Tempe. Actually only several families at Jalan Lim Tai See who produces tempe but the name somehow stuck to this day.

From my friends who are children of tempe making families, I was told that it was quite easy to make tempe. First you soaked and boil large amount of soy beans. After boiling until the beans soft enough to be split tossed the water and let the bean to cool. Sprinkle right amount of yeast and mix it right. Some people don’t eat tempe then as they feel ‘geli’   or squeamish because they were told that the process of making tempe requires someone to step and walked around the cooked soy beans to make it split. I personally have not seen it but what I saw the cooked beans were spread in large square made of planks and the maker used something like a rake to turn and spread the bean from outside the square. Even if the process requires stepping on the beans, I am sure the Wak Tempe (The Malays reference to the tempe maker) will wash his feet first before stepping into the square. Compare it to the wine maker who also steps on the grapes in the big vat. I never heard the wine drinker complaining of being squeamish but they enjoy it more.

Well back to the tempe making process ,once cool, the mixture of cooked beans and yeast will be scooped in a right amount into a kind of large leaf known as  daun tempe  or tempe leaf and fold into a  rectangular shape and tied it with the banana hemp. The wrapped mixture will become hardened in a few days and sold as uncooked tempe.

It is common sight that every morning vendors or distributors on bicycles will come to the tempe manufacturer’s house to collect the ready for sale product. They will pack the tempe in rattan basket of gunny sacks and sent it to the Batu Empat market. Among the distributor who I remember is Wak Salam who speaks in thick Javanese accent. Apart from tempe.  Wak Salam also carries some of my favourite kuehs in his tempe basket mounted on his bicycle. My favourite kueh is the tepong gomak or boiled and pressed glutinous rice balls with green bean paste in the inside and cover with kind of flour. Another favourite kueh is kueh nangka or similar like the Chinese ang kut kway but the difference is kueh nangka is coloured yellow and made into a shape of a jackfruit meat and placed individually on banana leaf before it was steamed.  

    In Kampong Coronation, the villagers were blessed with harmonious living among despite their different ethnic, religious and cultural background. There are many examples which I can recalled and write about it the next time but meanwhile look out for my next posting where I will describe more about Kampong Coronation and its prominent  villagers..