A Nyonya mosaic : memoirs of a Peranakan childhood

A Nyonya Mosaic Memoirs of A Peranakan Childhood William Gwee Thian Hock

A Nyonya Mosaic



A Nyonya Mosaic Memoirs of A Peranakan Childhood William Gwee Thian Hock

Design by Adithi Khandadai Shankar Cover: The author’s mother, Mdm Seow Leong Neo, aged sixteen. (Artefacts courtesy of Katong Antique House.) All photographs used in the book are provided by the author. The photographs illustrating this volume do not show the family described in the story unless specifically indicated. © 2013 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Pte Ltd Published in 2013 by Marshall Cavendish Editions An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Requests for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: (65) 6213 9300, Fax: (65) 6285 4871. E-mail: [email protected] The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no events be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Other Marshall Cavendish Offices: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 10591-9001, USA • Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand • Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia. Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Gwee, Thian Hock. A nyonya mosaic : memoirs of a peranakan childhood / William Gwee Thian Hock. – Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2013. p. cm. ISBN : 978-981-4408-40-0 (pbk.) 1. Seow, Leong Neo, 1912- – Childhood and youth 2. Gwee, Thian Hock – Family. 3. Peranakan (Asian people) – Social life and customs. 4. Peranakan (Asian people) – Singapore – Biography. – Singapore. I. Title. II. Title: Memoirs of a peranakan childhood CT1578.S55 OCN824815400 959.57030922 — dc23 Printed in Singapore by Times Printers Pte Ltd

To My mother, Seow Leong Neo – thanks for your memory My wife, Rosie Tan Chwee Neo My sons, Gwee Boon Kheng and Gwee Boon Kim My daughter-in-law, Caroline Lee Kim Sweet My grandchildren, Marc Gwee Eng Meng and Joan Gwee Eng Neo My god-daughter, Carolyn Lim Swee Lian and all my friends – thanks for your inspiration.



Contents 8 11 NOTE TO 2013 EDITION 15 PREFACE 35 55 1 Family 73 2 Staff and Surroundings 89 3 The Birthday 112 4 The Preparations 132 5 The Big Event 150 6 At Leisure 168 7 The Tradesmen 185 8 The Inevitable 199 9 Growing Up 215 10 New Year Preparations 11 A New Beginning ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Note to 2013 Edition THE FLOURISHING SINGAPORE Baba community was dealt a heavy blow when the full force of the economic downturn brought about by the Wall Street crash of 1929 reached Singapore. Babas and Nyonyas of this community had hardly begun to pick up the pieces following world economic recovery after the early 1930s when World War 2 struck in December 1941, which eventually led to Singapore’s fall into the Japanese army invaders’ hands seventy days later. During the ensuing 3.5 years of existence under the harsh Japanese government termed the Japanese Occupation, the Baba community suffered enormous hardships, which gravely eroded their once elite status. Much of their colourful way of life failed to survive this setback. When world peace was restored in 1945, the postwar Baba community appeared on the brink of losing their very unique identity. Unexpectedly, when their culture was at its nadir, interest in their culture began to revive three decades later leading to a proliferation of Baba stage productions, pageants, exhibitions, lectures, media articles, academic papers and books pertaining to various aspects of the ‘Peranakans’ as the Baba were now widely identified to the masses. Around this period the 1985 edition of A Nonya Mosaic came into being which proved immensely popular with the postwar generation of Babas and

Nyonyas who found the long-searched background of their roots in this book. It has been 28 years since and two more generations of Babas and Nyonyas have come into existence. Due to the still ongoing interest in all things Peranakan, these new members of the community are regularly fed with doses of Nyonya recipe books, Baba cultural entertainments and static displays of their ancestral cultural artefacts as sources of sustaining their interest and connection with their glorious past. Thus, this 2013 edition of A Nyonya Mosaic with the word ‘Nyonya’ conforming to modern spelling is timely. This time round, it seeks to additionally guide the new Baba generation to discover and identify meaningful cultural gems in their foreparents’ way of life recorded in the book, with the hope that they will eventually tailor a modern identity which will be in tune with and not an anachronism amidst the changing times and values of 21st century cosmopolitan Singapore. William Gwee Thian Hock 2013

The author at a tender age, with his mother at their Cuppage Road home.

Preface A NYONYA MOSAIC is my mother’s story. It is a collection of reminiscences of her growing-up experiences, spiced with family anecdotes that she has, over the years, shared with myself, her son. These have now been retold here, backed by an intimate knowledge of the Baba cultural heritage. As it is basically a non-fiction, the identities of some of the characters have been disguised as a gesture to avoid any unintended embarrassment. The story is set about seventy years ago, in the house at Prinsep Street, a colourful cosmopolitan neighbourhood. One savours what life was like then, especially for the Nyonya, behind the doors of a Singapore Baba home. It is hoped that the majority of the Babas may experience, in the Mosaic the sweetness of nostalgia, and the identification of at least a part of themselves with these memories. I trust that despite the minor variations in Baba lifestyle encountered from family to family, the reader will not find too many moments when these are at odds with his own experience. The Baba is a unique product of the history of this part of the world. In him flows the blood of the pioneering Chinese migrants mainly from South China who had settled as traders

12 A NYONYA MOSAIC in fifteenth-century Malacca, and many of whom in the early period had taken the maidens of local Malay and Indian Baba (the Chetty Malacca) stock as wives. Their progeny subsequently became known as the Babas, and their resultant culture is a blend of their ancestral Chinese-Malay-Indian origin, the Chinese aspects being predominant. Along with the colonisation of Penang and Singapore by the British, (which with Malacca became known as the Straits Settlements), some of the Babas migrated to these territories. The language of the Babas, popularly known as Baba Malay, is Chinese in structure, but Malay in lexicon. Because of this blend, those familiar with correct Malay spelling may be disappointed by the distinct Baba spelling of words of Malay origin. The term ‘Baba’ itself has been used to mean either the singular for the Baba male, or as a collective term inclusive of the Nyonya. Today, modernisation and changing values in Singapore have exacted a heavy toll on the Babas as a distinct local ethnic group. However, the Babas have had their beautiful moments, which the Mosaic hopes to have captured within its pages, for history and for posterity. The Mosaic is the culmination of such diverse circumstances as a Nyonya mother, who could share so much with her son; a Nyonya wife who has been a pillar of inspiration and who keeps the Baba flag flying high; two young Babas, my sons, who are proud of their heritage; and the various friends and peers who have long urged that ‘it should be committed to paper’; to the following helpful supporters whose different contributions have resulted in making the Mosaic a reality: Messrs Gwee Thian Hoe, Cheo Kim Ban, Huang Tse Yen, Andrew Tan, William Tan, and Peter Wee of the Katong Antique House, Mdms Choo Chye Neo, Choo Huat Neo, Seah Siew Luang, Seow Eng Neo, Josephine Tan, Rahmah bte

PREFACE 13 Abdullah, Mrs Lim Cheng Choon, Rita Balachander and Miss Seow Kim Neo. To all these kind people and other well wishers, I express my deep and especial thanks, and humbly hope that this effort will do them proud. Gwee Thian Hock Singapore, 1985



chapter one Family I WAS BORN on an August morning in 1912 and was delivered at home by a Malay midwife. By present-day standards it would be totally unthinkable to have a delivery at home, much less by a midwife whose only claim to a professional qualification was her practical experience. But conditions and beliefs were vastly different then. It was customary in my parents’ family and in most Baba families to have one’s baby delivered at home. Full confidence in the modern ways had not come our way yet. Mother herself would never have wanted it any other way. She had absolute trust in this midwife who had on previous occasions efficiently delivered two of her children before me. In her mid-thirties the midwife was neither too young and inexperienced nor too old, when her eyesight and hands might be suspect for the job. In fact, she was in her prime. It was also desirable to deliver at home as one’s elderly folks could be around to boost one’s morale and lend a helping hand when the need arose. Thus, mother had the reassuring presence of her mother to grip her hands and wipe the sweat from her brow as she laboured to deliver me, her youngest daughter.

16 A NYONYA MOSAIC Like all expectant mothers of that era, mother did not go through much of prenatal medical care. It was roughly about a month or so before the expected date of delivery that grandma had invited midwife Kak Sapriah to examine mother. Kak Sapriah was not her actual name. Her name was Sapriah and the prefix Kak, an abbreviation for Kakak, meaning elder sister, was the polite form used while addressing a young Malay lady. Had she been older we would have addressed her as Wak Sapriah instead. Wak in this case would be the abbreviation for Wawak, a polite form of address reserved especially for an elderly lady. In response to grandma’s call Kak Sapriah had come, checked mother physically and confirmed that her next visit, in about a month’s time, should be to deliver the child. Generally, professional prenatal care was a simple affair of a single visit by the midwife. But prenatal self-care was a different matter altogether. Long before the midwife was summoned, from the day her pregnancy was confirmed by herself, mother had to observe several pantang or taboos religiously. For example, in order to prevent a difficult childbirth she had to avoid consuming cuttlefish head, most importantly, the tentacles. Another particular variety of seafood she had to avoid eating was the stingray. The taboo also indicated that both mother as well as father should refrain from nailing any object or using cement to patch up cracked or broken structures. Mother must exercise the utmost care to avoid a shock, take a whiff of smelling salt, or shift her bed or other furniture because a miscarriage could well be the unfortunate outcome. Playing with or being frightened by a monkey was probably the ultimate of pantang as it would inevitably result in a child born with strong simian features and characteristics. A pregnant woman was not expected to attend any wedding because her presence could adversely affect the future of the couple, resulting in a barren and an unhappy union for them.

FAMILY 17 All these taboos were strictly observed by mother for more reasons than mere obedience to tradition. She had witnessed for herself enough examples of the dire consequences that had befallen those who had, knowingly or unknowingly, defied the pantang, to be convinced that it did not pay to take them lightly. Similarly, she never missed her monthly dose of obat selusoh which she had to take from the fifth month of her pregnancy. Obat selusoh was not a specific recipe but a general term for several combinations of herbs taken to ensure easy childbirth. Some families preferred recipes from Malay sources while others found the Chinese versions more efficacious. Mother’s choice fell on a particular Chinese recipe given to her by an elderly relative whose family had sworn by it for two generations. In fact, during her last couple of pregnancies mother had used this same recipe which contained not less than eleven ingredients, one of which was glutinous rice. For this reason our family recipe was known to us as obat selusoh pulot, the last name being the Malay word for glutinous rice. Father patronised a Chinese druggist at Rumah Panjang, our name for Rochore Road, to have this prescription filled at the cost of 40 cents. Except for this medicine mother took no other tonic or vitamins during her pregnancy. Even if she had wanted to grandma would have put her foot down. She would have reminded mother that her normal diet was sufficient to supply all the nourishments necessary for the foetus. It would be further pointed out that, especially in this delicate state of health, she must not risk creating complications by taking unnecessary medicines. The fact that all my four elder brothers and one elder sister had been born healthy without the use of such medicines was proof enough. Perhaps it was due to her uncomplicated diet that mother did not suffer any troublesome symptoms when expecting me. She only had

18 A NYONYA MOSAIC the tendency to feel sleepy during the first couple of months. After that it was all plain sailing. On the day of my birth, the moment mother felt the first pang of labour pain a domestic help was immediately despatched to summon the midwife. At that time my parents were staying at Wilkie Road and the midwife’s house was just round the comer at Selegie Road. Within thirty minutes or so she had come, accompanied by an assistant, the anak dukun. The more important task of delivery and the bathing of the baby belonged to the midwife while the less important and more menial tasks fell to the lot of the assistant. These duties included the daily washing of soiled linen, the smoking of the patient and the massage followed by the tying of the cloth girdle round the patient’s waist. The assistant’s duties lasted a full month whereas the midwife’s responsibilities ended the day the baby’s umbilical cord dropped off. Immediately after I was born the placenta was collected and placed in a special container known as the periok uri. This was a round bottomed earthenware pot with a wide neck and a cover. The pot, with its contents, was placed near my head for three days after which father took it to the nearest river to throw away. At the riverbank he cracked the pot with the handle of a knife so that water could seep in to cause it to sink. The moment he had released the pot into the water he was required to walk away without glancing back, because if he did, I would have ended with squint eyes. The fact, that I had already been born with a pair of normal eyes would not have made any difference. If father had succumbed to temptation and looked back to check if the pot had sunk, I would have suddenly developed a squint. Happily father did not fail in this all important assignment. Every morning following the delivery, the two Malay ladies arrived at about eight to perform their separate duties. While

FAMILY 19 I was getting my daily bath from the midwife, mother was attended to by the assistant who began preparing a charcoal burner. A special incense obtained from Indian grocer shops was then burned in this stove. We called this seng soo or by its other name kemenian serani (Eurasian Benzoin) for we believed that this preparation was burned in Catholic churches frequented by the Eurasian community. For this treatment mother had to stand with her legs wide apart and the smoking burner was placed on the ground between her legs. Since she was wearing a sarong the rising aromatic smoke completely engulfed her with its cleansing effect. Mother was required to stand as long as there were fumes rising from the burner. While she was being ‘smoked’ the assistant busied herself preparing a lotion for the ensuing massage. This was made up of roundish black balls of herbs, again obtainable from Indian grocers. These small medicaments were dispersed in brandy and slowly heated in an earthenware cooking pot known as a belanga. This lotion was used to massage the forehead, the stomach and the limbs. After this rubdown, a bengkong was tied round the waist. The length of white cotton material required for this cloth girdle measured no less than 10 metres (12 yds) with an approximate width of 45 cm (18 inches). It was wound round the body repeatedly and each time the ends met in front a knot was tied. The final outcome of this continuous encirclement of the waisdine and the tying of knots was a tight-fitting girdle which could not slip off. Following this operation the assistant proceeded to wash mother’s clothes and soiled linen before her chores were over for the day. One week after birth my umbilical cord dropped off. On that day Kak Sapriah performed her last two duties: one on me and the other on mother. The chuchi rantay ceremony was reserved

20 A NYONYA MOSAIC for me. Although the words mean ‘washing a chain’, there was no washing of anything at all. What she did was to place flowers on a plate together with grains of uncooked rice stained with seven colours and three differently coloured balls of dough. With this plate placed before me she muttered a prayer of thanksgiving and blessing over me. Her final duty to mother was to carefully push the womb back into position. This operation was called sengkak. After this the midwife no longer visited us. For all her services and that of her assistant till then, she was paid $10. In addition, she received a bonus of $2 as transport fee although she only had a five-minute stroll to reach our home. For the rest of the month the assistant was retained under a separate arrangement. In addition to her regular duties she was required to take over the bathing of the baby and she was paid $6 when her services finally ended on the thirtieth day of my birth. The post delivery period had its fair share of pantang too. Among the most important, was that mother had to be confined to the delivery room for thirty days. This was to prevent her from coming into contact with the elements. In order to minimise exposure, all the doors and windows of the room were shut all the time. During this period mother was not allowed to wet any part of her body with water. Her ears were plugged with cotton wool to further prevent any wind getting into her body and the brandy massage was her daily bath. To quench thirst, she was served ayer mata kuching. This drink is a sweet concoction made up of the dried pulp of the longan fruit boiled with fine sugar, a piece of old ginger and, optionally, some red dates. The ginger had to be specially prepared. It was initially wrapped in a coarse piece of paper, dipped in a little water and then buried in the hot ashes at the bottom of a charcoal stove while it was being used for cooking. When the cooking was done the packet was then taken out and the wrapping removed.

FAMILY 21 The ginger was mashed and added into the concoction which was decanted. Only the filtrate was drunk. As for her meals, mother was also put on a strict health diet. She was not allowed any vegetable or fish in her food. However, before my umbilical cord dropped off grandma permitted a little salted fish floss in her food. After that it was a diet of chicken or pork cooked in sesame oil and ginger for a whole month. One or two days after delivery mother was obliged to take a Chinese herbal preparation we called Bantal Budak (Child’s Pillow). This medicine was supposed to rid the body of any residual clotted blood not fully discharged after birth. About a week later it was the turn for a second preparation to be consumed. This consisted of two Chinese herbal pills steamed together. just before this liquid was drunk the urine of a young boy was added in. This was to assist the body in ridding itself of excess ‘dirty’ blood. It would be interesting to know how many mothers today would condescend to drink this mixture even for health’s sake. Mother drank it. So did the generations of mothers before her. Every Nyonya of old realised the importance of postnatal care: in fact, it was deemed far more important than prenatal care. Failure to appreciate this resulted in the dreaded bentan, any general ailment that came about after childbirth. Such ailments might not be a problem under normal circumstances but after giving birth, it would hit the patient hard and take a longer time to cure. Furthermore, bentan had a latent side effect which would surface in middle age as vague aches and pains all over the body. The name for this was angin beranak or ‘afterbirth wind’. Extreme care was therefore taken to avoid bentan, including such a bizarre one as to avoid hurting one’s big toes during the thirty days’ confinement.

22 A NYONYA MOSAIC A month after I was born, mother took her first step out of the delivery room. It was the day she had her first bath since childbirth. Ketumbar (coriander), sireh (betel vine) leaves, and red onions were boiled in water and the liquid strained before being used for this bath. From then onwards, she was given freedom of movement round the house but she was still considered not clean enough to visit temples or attend weddings. She had to wait a further fortnight before she was allowed to resume full social activities. Because I happened to be a girl and not the first-born child, father was not obliged to host a celebration when I was one month old. Otherwise he would have celebrated it on a lavish scale, especially if I had been a boy. It would have been nothing less than a popiah (spring roll) party and if it had not been possible to hold it on the first month then it would have been held on the fourth month instead. In any case, boy or girl, party or none, certain age old rituals had to be observed when a baby became one month old. Grandma shaved me bald to stimulate new growth of hair later on. A coconut was used as a receptacle for my baby hair. First, a hole was made in the nut to drain away the milk. Next, the shaven hair was placed in the nut through the hole and a sprig of spring- onion and a stalk of bunga siantan (the ixora flower) were used to plug the hole. This decorated receptacle was then thrown away. Dressed in beautiful clothes, I was taken before our household deity to pay my respects for the first time. With the help of grandma my two little hands were clasped in worship to give thanks for my safe delivery into this world. Grandma muttered the thanksgiving prayer on my behalf. Close relatives then came to congratulate my parents and to present gold ornaments to me. With my birth the total number of our family members reached ten. At the head of the household was father, who,

FAMILY 23 at the age of forty-nine was already a successful businessman. He had his own rubber trading firm in Robinson Road and a rubber estate of moderate size along Paya Lebar Road. In addition to our home at Wilkie Road he owned another house along Selegie Road as well as a bungalow at Cashin Road, now known as Haig Road. This bungalow was popularly referred to by all of us as Rumah Katong – the Katong House, and father christened it IOLA after the title of a popular song of the era. The four letters were prominently painted in bright red on one of the gate posts. Father was the youngest of three children. He had an elder brother whom I never met. Due to a family misunderstanding long before I was born, the two brothers had cut off all contact with one another. I never found out the reason for their life- long rift. Father’s eldest sister was a pint-sized kindly old lady who was a frequent visitor to our house. She was everyone’s favourite Mak Koh (the address for an elder aunt). Father was by nature a rather quiet person who wasted few words even with his immediate family members. However, beneath this apparently stern and retiring personality he possessed a jovial disposition, as a Baba usually did. He was popular with elderly ladies with whom he used to joke and laugh and be in his element. He had a passion for period furniture and used to patronise Frankel’s shop for the better quality stuff with which he tastefully decorated every room in the house. For some unknown reason, he abhorred photographs. As a result, there was not a single photograph of anyone hanging on the walls. Instead, Low Kway Song, the famous local artist was commissioned to paint a series of landscapes which were expensively framed. It was father’s privilege to keep short office hours and he was home either by noon or 3 pm at the latest. If he had a card

24 A NYONYA MOSAIC session arranged at home he would be back at the earlier hour. When he came home at the later hour the rest of the evening was spent visiting temples, mother’s grave, or Rumah Katong where he would spend the night and be back in town early the next morning in time to dress for work. Father could always afford the best. His family physician was a Dr Wilson, an Englishman. In those days it was grand for a local to have an orang puteh (white man) as one’s family doctor. Not long before his death, father turned to opium to cure his illnes. He was introduced to the narcotic by a rich couple who lived not far away from us and were, it seemed, addicted to the opiate. Father needed a helper whenever he smoked his opium pipe at home. My second sister-in-law underwent a short familiarisation course with the rich lady in order to assist father with his pipe. Tradition dictated that it was improper for a father-in-law and his daughter-in-law to be in the same room even though the doors were kept wide open. To prevent tongues wagging, I was stationed in the room as chaperone every time father smoked his opium pipe. Father only smoked at home. While at work he took the drug orally in pellet form also prepared by second sister-in-law. Unfortunately, I cannot remember mother at all. The fact that there was no photograph of her only served to aggravate matters further. She had passed away when I was three years of age. By then she was a mother of four boys and two girls, including myself. There was a big age difference between her first and her last born; eldest brother was already about to marry when I was born. When mother died, her last three children were very young and still needed motherly care and attention. Yet father never remarried. This was unusual as Babas were not known to remain widowers for long especially if they were financially in good standing. Either on their own accord

FAMILY 25 or through persistent pressure from relatives and friends they would waste little time in looking for a new wife the moment the mourning period was over. This same privilege was not accorded to widows. For them it was considered more virtuous if they remained widowed the rest of their lives. Anyway, for his show of faithful love father was highly regarded and often talked about in glorious terms by the ladies, naturally. On top of this he further enhanced his reputation as an epitome of a truly devoted husband by regularly visiting mother’s grave, which used to be situated just by the roadside along the twisty South Buona Vista Road, not far from the famous lookout point known as the Gap. This was the spot where Singaporeans came from near and far to enjoy. an unimpeded view of awe inspiring sunsets over the west coast. Next in line to father was maternal grandmother. Mother was her only child. As she never had a son of her own, she adopted a boy in her younger days. Unhappily, the boy did not reach adulthood. In order to perpetuate her late husband’s surname, grandma later on in life took a step she thought was next best. She changed the status of my second brother to that of her deceased son’s child. Thus, he became her grandson by her son and not by her daughter. By this unusual development second brother became a cousin to his own brothers and sisters and a nephew, instead of a son, to his own parents. Needless to say he carried a different surname from his own father. In theory this might appear to be a confusing state of affairs but, fortunately, everything did work out. Second brother continued to address grandma as Ma-ma as we all did and, similarly, he continued to address father as ‘Baba’. It was not unusual for Baba children to address their parents with other than the normal terms of Bapak (father) and Mak (mother). Grandma in her old age, adopted three more sons

26 A NYONYA MOSAIC and one daughter. They were grown-ups when she adopted them and it was for reasons other than the perpetuation of my late grandfather’s surname. Grandma was a most fortunate person. Father loved and respected her deeply. After mother’s death she took full charge of the domestic responsibilities and as father was generous she was able to manage the household with the minimal financial bother. Father loved jewellery. Some of it was bought ready-made but in many instances father bought only the precious stones and then commissioned Ceylonese craftsmen to do the setting Grandma, Mdm Low Tuan Neo, the matriach.

FAMILY 27 at our home. An elaborately designed piece sometimes required daily visits for about three months before it was ready. After father’s death all the jewellery went to grandma, who made very good use of it to keep the household running along the same standard of luxury as when father was alive. She also loaned out some of it as wedding costume accessories to a particular sangkek um (mistress of ceremonies). In the heyday of traditional Baba weddings the sangkek um profession was a lucrative and, naturally, a competitive one. The,popularity and reputation of a sangkek um depended largely on the quality of jewellery, wedding costumes and other paraphernalia she was able to offer the bridal couple, in addition to her skill, in wedding enquette. This particular sangkek um who had the monopoly of grandma’s exquisite jewellery made a name for herself for many years. Unfortunately, she chose to abuse that privilege by hiring out grandma’s jewellery to others, when it had been loaned to her for her own use only. On being informed of this breach of confidence, grandma immediately cut off every connection with her. At that time there was a lady in grandma’s employment who was paid to accompany the sangkek um and keep an eye over grandma’s jewellery. Through the years this lady had naturally seen enough of weddings to be able to practise as a sangkek um herself. Grandma offered her the loan of her jewellery and encouraged her to be a sangkek um. This proved to be the downfall of the older sangkek um and Ah Bee, the new sangkek um, rose to become the most famous sangkek um of them all for a good many years. There were few indeed who had not heard of her and who did not look back with pride at having had her for a sangkek um when they were married. Grandma had other investments which brought her regular and profitable dividends. One of them was a pawnshop along Arab Street.

28 A NYONYA MOSAIC Typical of a Nyonya, grandma found cherki, the Baba card game, irresistible. Her passion for this pastime was only equalled by her uncontrollable urge to cheat during the game. This side of her nature did not surface until after father’s death. Perhaps she had respected father too much to embarrass him. By the time she was given free rein to indulge in her cheating habit she was no longer young. Being old and slightly slow on the move she was naturally caught in the act on many an occasion. As a result, although her contemporaries tolerated her enough to continue to include her in their card sessions, the younger generation would have none of it and shunned her like the plague. In fairness to grandma she was by no means the rare one who cheated. It seemed to be the preoccupation of those around her age to do the same. This was a pretty well-known fact. Many such elderly ladies, including those associated with well-known and highly respected families, were reputed to be cheats at cards. Fortunately people tended to accept it and treated it as a big joke. Eldest brother took after father in his keen interest in business, but there the similarity ended. He did not possess father’s acumen and luck. Time and again he failed in his ventures and father had to quickly cover his financial losses before they became public and an embarassment to the family. Poor father had to endure this for many years. Born with a shorter right leg, eldest brother walked with a limp. He was a gifted musician who taught himself to play several string instruments like the violin, the guitar, the mandolin and the ukulele. During his frequent business trips to Betawi (Batavia, now Jakarta) he picked up the keronchong and stamboel and was able to play and sing them very melodiously. As a young child I was excited whenever the merchandise he ordered arrived. I willingly helped him to unpack them from

FAMILY 29 the wooden crates and was invariably rewarded with a box or two of scented face powder which were among the commodities unpacked. My favourite brands were Violet and Melati, both manufactured by a firm called Toko Marie. Whenever he was not travelling eldest brother spent his time in the court house. He was very interested in the processes of the Law and hardly missed the good cases being fought in Court. We all thought that he would probably have made a better lawyer than a businessman. Of our immediate family members, I was closely attached to eldest sister-in-law. After mother’s death she took over the duties of bringing me up. She was a tall and beautiful lady, well-versed in our culinary, tailoring and embroidery arts. She was especially good at sewing the baju panjang, the long dress which was popular with both the young and old alike. All our friends and relatives came to her for their baju panjang. Products of her workmanship in embroidery were much sought after, especially the richly designed money pouches worn by bridal couples at weddings. Her cakes for serving at weddings were second to none. Her other dishes, too were just as superb. Eldest sister-in-law excelled in all the domestic skills, as a matter of necessity. Coming from a rather poor background, the only carrot the family had to dangle before a prospective groom. was the daughter’s domestic assets. Without these exceptional skills daughters from poor families faced the gloomy prospect of ending up as old maids. In spite of her obviously strict and proper upbringing eldest sister-in-law, surprisingly enough, turned out to be an inveterate joker, very prone to practical jokes. One of her favourites was to label people with appropriately amusing nicknames. Nearly all the visitors to our house earned themselves nicknames that originated from her. They became known to us as Itek Annam (Annam duck), Si-Janggot (the bearded one), Botak Gemok

30 A NYONYA MOSAIC (the fat bald one) and Botak Kurus (the thin bald one) instead of their real names. In the majority of cases there was no malice or intent to ridicule behind the giving of nicknames. My nickname was more of a pet name. When I was an infant it seemed that my nanny used to call me chik chik mak as she cuddled me. This was a term of endearment meaning more or less ‘mummy’s little one’. Gradually the term was shortened to chik mak, a name I am known by to this day by those closely related. Sometimes nicknames would be given for unusual reasons. A beautiful child might be addressed as Burok or Ugly in order to ensure that her beauty might not incur the envy of evil influences around. A child who survived a near fatal illness would have his or her name changed to Punggot to indicate not so much a ‘pick up’, as the word literally means, but ‘recovered’ for having pulled through a serious ailment. It is interesting to note that ladies of the era who combed their hair into a tight top-knot held in place by two to three thick hairpins normally suffered from a receding hairline in their later years. Sister-in-law herself had this hair style at the time when she labelled our less fortunate neighbours Botaks but being young, evidence of a receding hairline had not surfaced on her yet. A receding hairline was so rampant that in most ladies’ make-up boxes there was a piece of candlenut which had been roasted black. With the aid of this nut the bald patches were coloured black so that at a distance or a quick glance the painted areas appeared like hair. Second brother was two years younger than eldest brother. Though he carried a different surname from the rest of us due to grandma having changed his status, father treated him no differently from his other children and we were brought up to respect him as our own brother. In complexion he stood apart from us. He was the dark one and was addressed as Keleng, a

FAMILY 31 general term we attached to anybody of Indian origin. Like my pet name, this was one nickname that did not originate from eldest sister-in-law because it had been associated with second brother from childhood. An unusually dark member of the family was common in many a Baba home then. While the equally common presence of a retarded member in many Baba families could perhaps be attributed to the Babas’ fondness for marriage among close relatives, the answer to the mystery of the dark one must date back to the early days when the Baba community first evolved. What has been generally accepted is that the Babas were the products of Chinese traders and migrants in Malacca who married indigenous women of Malay stock. What has been less known is that in Singapore and Malacca there is a small Indian community known as the ‘Chetty Malacca’. These are the Indian Babas, who, except for their Hindu religion, are similar to us in many aspects. A majority of them cannot converse in their mother tongue, and their food, their cakes, their ladies’ mode of dress and their favourite pastimes ate similar to ours. Most of them are fairer in complexion than their Indian counterparts. Thus, the harmonious relationship between the Chinese, the Malays, and the Indians in Malacca four centuries or so ago had certainly extended beyond mere trade ties and spawned the Babas, the Chetty Malaccas as well as the dark Chinese Babas and the fair Indian Chetty Malaccas. Like his elder brother, second brother was a self-taught musician. He played the violin well. Whenever he was free he played his instrument for hours on end. Another pastime he pursued with the same passion was kite-fighting. During the kite-fighting season he and third brother teamed up to prepare to meet the challenge of other neighbourhood kite-fighters. They forfeited their meals to prepare glass-powder laced thread

32 A NYONYA MOSAIC for the purpose of cutting the thread of their opponents’ kites, thereby causing them to hanyot or drift away. The main source of these fighting kites were the Indian daljis along Bencoolen Street who sold them in addition to their tailoring trade. The most popular type was the layang nak, a type of kite especially good for fighting purposes. It was a thrilling experience to stand next to a kite fighter as he manoeuvred his kite to an advantageous position before executing the coup de grace by pulling back his razor sharp thread, which then severed the opponent’s thread. By swiftly pulling back and shortening the thread he caused the kite to dive with a whooshing sound and then shoot up again. This sound added further excitement to this thrilling but costly sport for boys. At every fighting session my two brothers had to be armed with not less than three to four dozen kites and several rolls of thread. In this sport the people who benefited financially were the kite sellers and the neighbourhood boys who chased after the drifting kites with long bamboo poles and sold them back to the kite flyers at a slightly reduced price. The glass-powder-laced thread was usually homemade by rubbing a gummy solution of fine powdered glass onto the thread and left to dry before use. Younger kite enthusiasts who had neither mastered the technique of kite fighting nor were allowed to handle the sharp thread that went with it, confined themseives to layang tokong, a long-tailed non-fighting kite flown with ordinary thread. Kite fighting was not confined to boys alone. It was the favourite sport of grown-up Babas and Malay men as well. Third brother was yet another musician in the family. Like eldest brother, he played most of the popular string instruments. Untutored in formal music, my three elder brothers formed a trio and their rendering of English and keronchong songs were

FAMILY 33 popular at the many social gatherings at home. Third brother’s other love was kite fighting and in combination with second brother they formed a formidable pair as they cleared the sky of other people’s kites. I was one of their most ardent fans and was always in the thick of their battles, urging them on and helping them in whatever way I could. As a result, I could tie a kite string as fast and as efficiently as any boy of my age. There were many unusual aspects of our culture which we accepted unquestioningly and without protest. When third brother was young he was made to wear an earring in his right ear. He did not protest nor was he ever ridiculed by anyone. Just imagine, none of his peers found it strange to have one among them with an earring on. Actually this was not an uncommon occurrence. Some boys were made to wear single earrings starting at different ages and for various reasons. There were cases when this was done early in their lives after a temple medium had prophecied that the sickly male child would be difficult to bring up and might not survive till adulthood and had advised this move as a remedy. In other cases, it involved those boys who bore a strong resemblance to their fathers. It was believed that such a boy would always be overshadowed by his father’s luck and personality. In order to break this spell, the boy had to be made different. Thus, the single earring again. Fourth brother and elder sister were closer to my age so we shared the same interests and were close playmates. Fourth brother was another member of the family with a minor physical defect. In his case, it was an additional digit that grew out of his left thumb. For some unknown reason eldest sister-in-law took a dislike to him and never hesitated to berate him for the slightest wrong he might have intentionally or unintentionally committed, using the most foul and unflattering words on him. We called this unfortunate incompatibility of characters by the

34 A NYONYA MOSAIC general term cheong. Unlike his musically gifted elder brothers, fourth brother did not take to music. A sharp contrast to dark complexioned second brother was elder sister. She was so fair that she answered to the popular name Puteh (white or fair). Her fair complexion made her grandma’s favourite because a fair maiden was everybody’s idea of the ideal girl. When sister Puteh was very young second brother spent a lot of time looking after her. Eldest sister-in-law informed me that he had a devious motive for this. At that time we were staying at Wilkie Road and there was a girl he adored who lived a couple of doors away. Since young maidens were rarely to be seen out of doors, the only avenue for a desperately love- struck youth to see his hearthrob was to find a way of getting into her house. Second brother devised a cunning ploy to get into the girl’s house by coaxing elder sister to run straight into the neighbour’s kitchen every time he was looking after her. He would then dash in after her to ostensibly drag her out. In so doing he had a look at his favourite girl who ultimately became his wife. This was one of the exceptional cases at that time where the bride and groom had seen each other before marriage. Compared with elder sister I was considered ugly for the simple reason that I was not fair in complexion. I was not worried about this. Father favoured me above elder sister because his business had prospered after my birth. In addition, eldest sister-in-law treated me as if I was her own daughter for she never had a daughter of her own. In later years she adopted a daughter but the baby was fostered out. So she showered all her motherly attention on me and taught me all the domestic skills she knew and protected me as she would her own.

chapter two Staff and Surroundings I WAS ABOUT seven years old when we moved into our new home. Father had sold our Wilkie Road and Selegie Road houses and bought a larger house at Prinsep Street. Although I was born at Wilkie Road my recollection of that house is hazy. It was in the two-storied Prinsep Street house that I grew up and remember well the days of learning, laughter, and tears spent there. Our house was made up of three adjoining units. The one on the left was Rumah Abu (House for Ancestral Ashes), the central house was known as Rumah Tengah (Centre House) and the right one we called Rumah Hylam because the previous owner was Hainanese. On entering Rumah Tengah, one immediately saw the household altar dedicated to Hood Chor (Goddess of Mercy) against the back wall of the front hall. A door in the left wall led to Rumah Abu. On each side of the altar was a door that led to the second hall, which was our sitting room. An air well lit the whole area while close to the left entrance a stairway led to the first floor. We called this main stairway tangga besar. A partition separated the sitting room from the spacious dining room. This screen was highly decorative and had glass panels set in a wooden base. Just before this was a

The room where our ancestral t

36 A NYONYA MOSAIC tablets once stood.

STAFF AND SURROUNDINGS 37 door which led to the second hall of Rumah Hylam. Along the left wall of the dining room were two doorways: one led to the second hall, while the other led to the third hall of Rumah Abu. In between them was a stairway that led upstairs. Along the right wall of the dining room was another doorway, which led to the third hall of Rumah Hylam. There was also an air well in the dining room where we used to dry salted fish, shrimp paste, prawn crackers and grandma’s jewellery after its annual wash. At the end of the dining hall were three rooms. In the one on the left was kept the generator, which supplied electricity to the three houses while the room on the right was our male domestic helpers’ sleeping quarters. In between these rooms was father’s personal bathroom. The rest of the family had to make use of the one in Rumah Hylam. It was only after his death that we were able to use his bathroom. Mother’s ashes were kept on the ancestral altar in the front hall of Rumah Abu. This hall was also utilised as my tuition room. Both elder sister and I were originally students of the Methodist Girls’ School in Short Street. Unfortunately, both of us tended to fall ill practically every morning before going to school. Gradually father became convinced that we were not spiritually compatible with the school and decided to have us privately tutored at home. We had our tuition daily, Monday to Friday, from 2 pm to 4 pm. The first of our tutors was a Eurasian lady whose name I have long forgotten. She was followed by a Teochew lady who styled her hair in two buns. Our last teacher was an Indian, a Miss Thannai. She was a full-time teacher at Nind Home, which was a boarding school for girls at Sophia Road. Her sister, a Miss Satham, also taught in the same school and was a close friend of second sister-in-law. Our education came to an end when Miss Thannai decided to get married. It is interesting to note that our tutors had all been ladies for no

The Short Street Methodist School, where we had our (Courtesy of Mrs Lim Cheng Choon)

38 A NYONYA MOSAIC very short sojourn.

STAFF AND SURROUNDINGS 39 male teacher would have been allowed anywhere near us even though we were mere children at that time. There was no access to the second half of Rumah Abu from the tuition room. Father had made this part of the house his private office and nobody was allowed into the room. Our telephone was put there but since the room was out-of-bounds, the phone was only used by father. There were, however, two entrances to father’s office from Rumah Tengah; one was from the sitting room near the stairway and the other was from the dining room. From father’s office there was a door that opened to the last portion of the house, the kitchen. There was a doorway from the dining room of Rumah Tengah to the kitchen next door but during heavy showers it was not possible to get across without getting wet because of the open air well. Only under these circumstances did father permit passage through his room from the dining room, to the kitchen. The section of the kitchen opposite the entrance from father’s room was the cooking area. To the left were three rooms. One was the domestic helpers’ bathroom in front of which was the area for washing clothes, the next was the household toilet and the last was another toilet for the domestic helpers’ use. The first hall of Rumah Hylam was hardly used at all. A collapsible partition separated if from the second hall, which, in sharp contrast was a busy and much utilised area. It served mainly as a dining room for guests. We were never short of visitors who stayed for meals, nor occasions for having guests in the first place. There was a reclining armchair in this room and grandma often rested in it whenever she wanted to relax. While she rested in this part of the house most of the activities which she strongly disapproved of would take place in Rumah Tengah and Rumah Abu out of her hearing. Typical of the elderly old-fashioned ladies of her era, grandma was a garang (fierce)

40 A NYONYA MOSAIC woman with very strict and uncompromising ways. She ran the household with a firm hand. Although Nyonyas of her era were generally thought of as meek and submissive creatures, they could, when it was required of them, shoulder responsibilities far above what they had been brought up for. They proved that they could be capable, efficient, and ruthless too at times. Grandma’s dining cum restroom boasted of a spiral stairway that led to the first floor, in addition to yet another air well. It took me a while to get used to this stairway, as I felt nauseous climbing it. A doorway close to the air well linked this section of the house to the sitting room of Rumah Tengah. The third hall of Rumah Hylam was divided into two sections: a bath area and a narrow garden. This was the bathroom, which the family used when father had sole monopoly of the bathroom in Rumah Tengah. After his death we rarely made use of this bathroom and it became the bathroom reserved for guests during special events like Chinese New Year or grandma’s birthday celebration. On such occasions, a square wooden platform about 61 sq cm (2 sq ft) standing on legs about 10 cm (6 ins) high was placed in the room. The platform itself was perforated with many square holes. Female guests using the bathroom were expected to squat on the platform when they urinated. I have never been able to fathom the actual reason for the platform but some claimed that it was to prevent shoes from getting wet. Oddly, grandma only brought this platform out on special occasions where in other homes; it was a regular feature of every bathroom. This particular bathroom had no roof and there was a deep cistern that partly jutted out of the bathroom to collect rainwater. Those were the days when modem sanitation had not come our way. We used the bucket system, where human waste was collected in oval shaped metal buckets, which were removed

STAFF AND SURROUNDINGS 41 daily or every two days and replaced with clean empty buckets. As we had no backdoor or a back lane there was no access to the two latrines from outside the house. Therefore, in order to get to these closets in Rumah Abu the daily route of the ‘night-soil’ collector took him through Rumah Hylam’s first hall, through the guests’ dining room, the third hall into the dining room of Rumah Tengah, into the kitchen of Rumah Abu and through the opposite route before leaving our premises. The one consolation was that the night-soil carrier came early in the morning before most of the household was up. The other half of the third hall had a rectangular pond, which was fringed by a narrow path. In the centre of the pond was a fountain in the shape of a lotus, made of aluminium. Once a year during the New Year celebrations the fountain was turned on. It was not much of a decorative object really, but it never failed to attract a lot of attention from our guests. We children were very proud of the fountain and took great pride in conducting guests round it. Our neighbourhood was a cosmopolitan one. Facing our house, the building immediately to the right of Rumah Hylam had a large compound. The owner was a Cantonese businessman who was an acquaintance of father. To the right of this house lived Dr Salmon and his mother. He was a well- known and popular gynecologist at that time. Immediately to the left of Rumah Abu was a Japanese hotel. The proprietor’s daughter, Sako, was my age. The two houses next to this hotel belonged to the Hodstadt family. Mr and Mrs Hodstadt had a son Henry (I called him Henry Boy) and five daughters. If my memory serves me right, the girls were Annie, May, Grace, Nellie and Alice. The youngest, Alice, was also my age. She used to come to our home along with her niece Flora (Annie’s daughter) to join Sako and me at play. Mr Hodstadt was an

42 A NYONYA MOSAIC undertaker and he used one house to store imported marble. He employed Indian workers to work the marble into tombstones. The Japanese hotel and the two Hodstadt houses did not stretch back as deep as our house but extended only up to our kitchen. As a result, they had a back lane that ended at our kitchen wall. Directly behind Rumah Abu and sharing part of our back wall was the Bencoolen Street home of a Baba family. We knew the lady of the house as Bibi Bulat. Next to their house was another Japanese hotel that shared the same back wall along part of Rumah Abu and Rumah Tengah. This hotel had a roof garden with three rooms at the top floor. Facing Bibi Bulat’s house was yet another Japanese hotel. Among our neighbours facing the house were a Japanese hotel, a large building occupied by several families of Chinese manual labourers, and a large Chinese school attended by mostly Hainanese children. There were regular basketball matches in this school and I enjoyed watching the games from the vantage point of our rooms upstairs. By the time we moved into Prinsep Street, our family had increased in number. Among the additions were Auntie Chye, grandma’s niece, and her husband, Uncle Hong Kee. They had three children, two boys and a girl, but they stayed with a foster mother because grandma was not particularly fond of children and had told them that their presence would not be acceptable in the house. Second brother by this time too had already married his neighbourhood sweetheart and they stayed with us. However, father had not moved into this house just because we now had a larger family. He had bought this larger house in keeping with his social and financial status. Our sleeping quarters were all upstairs. Grandma occupied the front room of Rumah Tengah. However, whenever there was a wedding in our house this room was utilised as the bridal

STAFF AND SURROUNDINGS 43 chamber and grandma gladly moved to another room. The hall after this room was the card room where almost daily sessions of card games were held: This room led to the last hall, a portion of which was partitioned into father’s room. There were two stairways outside this room; one led to a roof garden while the other was connected to the dining room downstairs. It was on this roof garden that I was an active witness to many a thrilling kite battle between my brothers and the neighbourhood boys. Next to grandma’s room was second brother’s room in Rumah Abu. Outside his room was a spare room and along its corridor was a stairway that led downstairs and another that led to the attic. Here we stored pots and pans that were used on certain festivals and other items such as candlestands and brass spittoons for use during Chinese New Year. They were all thoroughly cleaned after use before being kept neatly. In the spare room were two large beds. One was the richly carved wooden wedding bed or ranjang loksan and the other was a similarly designed but uncarved bed which we called ranjang China (Chinese bed). Grandma made use of this room whenever her room was utilised as a bridal chamber. At other times, this room was turned into a maternity room. Anybody who had just delivered a baby stayed here during the one-month confinement period. A passageway divided this room and the back room where Auntie Chye and her husband slept. Grandma did not permit sister and I to be seen anywhere near our uncle or be seen talking to him. He was deemed more than less an outsider who was merely a relative by marriage. Therefore it was not thought to be in good taste for young girls like us to fraternise with him. Uncle Hong Kee was actually a pleasant person whom we liked but every time we talked to him we had to make sure that grandma was not anywhere around.

44 A NYONYA MOSAIC Eldest brother and eldest sister-in-law occupied the front room of Rumah Hylam. Outside their room was a hall with a spiral stairway which led down to the air well. The back portion of Rumah Hylam was another hall, part of which was partitioned into a room with screens made of a thick cloth stretched over wooden frames. It was a rest area but those who wished to lie down had to be content with lying on a mattress on the floor because there was no bed in this room. Our female domestic helpers were not given a fixed room to sleep in. At times they could be found using this room as their bedroom while at other times they could be found asleep anywhere along the several wide and spacious corridors upstairs. There was a bathroom nearby which was rarely used. To the best of my knowledge only elder sister’s husband made use of it. With a house as large as ours the number of domestic helpers required to maintain it was proportionally large. We had nine. In Baba homes, Hainanese domestic helpers were almost mandatory. We had three of them at anyone time. The most senior was Ah Wan Tua (old Ah Wan). I remember him as a wizened old man with two buck teeth. He had been in our service for so long that he did not have to address father as Towkay (Boss) as the rest of his workmates did. He was privileged to use the term Baba instead. Similarly, he addressed grandma as Nyonya in place of the traditional Towkay Mak. This was a clear indication that he had been accepted as part of the family. Although he was a harmless and tired old man, I was, in my childish way, scared of his aged appearance. His skin was scaly, particularly the palm of his hands which were roughened by many years’ washing duties. In his old age, he was assigned light duties like polishing the children’s shoes, putting up and lowering the sunshade daily and occasionally, the simple act of exorcism known as lalu lalu or buang buang.

STAFF AND SURROUNDINGS 45 Before the advent of bamboo chicks (blinds) a piece of thick cloth the length of which depended on the frontage of the house, served as an effective sunshade. Metal rings were sewn along the edge of the cloth at regular intervals and nails were partially driven into the beam along the frontage to hang the shade up. Every morning old Ah Wan put up the cloth along the beam by hooking the metal rings onto the nails with the aid of a forked wooden pole. It was necessary to have the sunshade because our house faced the rising sun. After sunset the cloth was lowered and neatly folded for the next day’s use. The act of lalu lalu in which Ah Wan had much experience was a quick remedy for simple ailments brought about by malevolent spiritual influences. The items required for the ritual consisted generally of three joss-sticks and a thin bundle of ‘gold’ paper. The paper is still made: a bulky, rough textured rectangle of paper measuring approximately 165 mm (6.5inches) by 120 mm (4.75 inches) with a square of very thin ‘gold’ foil in the centre. When an ailment had been self-diagnosed to be not serious enough to consult a deity for specific advice, the lalu lalu involving the joss sticks and gold paper was sufficient to effect a cure. Otherwise a variation or an increased number of items involved might be called for. On many occasions when I felt out of sorts, Ah Wan was delegated to lalu lalu me. I was made to stand at the main entrance facing the road at dusk. Ah Wan Tua then lit three joss sticks, placed them with a bundle of gold paper, and swept them, barely touching me, from head to toe, twelve times in all. While performing this rite he muttered a prayer softly under his breath for my speedy recovery and for the malevolent influence to leave me in peace. After completing the sweeping strokes he immediately left the house with the bundle as I walked into the house without glancing back at him. Ah Wan had to go a couple of doors away where he stuck

46 A NYONYA MOSAIC the joss sticks in the ground after saying another prayer. The gold paper was then burned. Poor Ah Wan was not spared from being the butt of eldest sister-in-law’s practical jokes. Normally after he had finished his chores Ah Wan took a quick nap anywhere he found convenient. Grandma never objected to this as long as he had done his work. Domestic helpers in those days needed no prodding. They knew their duties and tried to finish them early. Whenever Ah Wan was found asleep and grandma was not around, eldest sister-in-law would rudely interrupt his sleep in several ways. If it was not an exploding firecracker close to him it was by crying and wailing at his side as though he had already died. Strangely enough, the old man did not seem much bothered by it at all. His only reaction was to mutter with apparent disgust, ‘Ini sudah gila’ meaning ‘This one’s gone mad.’ This did not deter eldest sister-in-law the slightest bit as she continued to conjure up various methods of interrupting Ah Wan’s naps. I have never stopped feeling sad whenever I recall Ah Wan’s last few months with us. One night he suddenly collapsed in pain during dinner. The next morning father wasted no time in summoning a doctor to treat him. The doctor came every two days but Ah Wan continued to moan loudly because of pain. Father changed his treatment to traditional Chinese herbs which seemed to relieve matters somewhat. He was then able to leave his bed and move about slowly. As his ailment had obviously drained him of his strength, he was no longer required to perform any work in the house. One day he approached father and expressed his wish to spend his last days in his country of birth, China. Father could not refuse the request as Ah Wan had served our family so faithfully for so long. All the necessary arrangements for his early departure were quickly made and Ah

STAFF AND SURROUNDINGS 47 Wan was rewarded with enough money to see him through the rest of his life. He richly deserved this. Such faithful devotion as his died with his generation of domestic helpers. On the day Ah Wan walked out of our house for the last time, tears rolled down our eyes for we were parting forever, not with a domestic help, but with a member of our own family. Ah Pok the cook was also Hainanese. He was a moody and temperamental man but, as a domestic help, he was worth his weight in gold. A multi-talented man, there was no task he could not perform well. He worked wonders with his hands and seemed to be able to repair anything. His main duties were marketing and cooking. In the days when the Baba’s eating habits were fastidious Ah Pok had to do marketing twice a day in order that every meal was made with fresh ingredients. In the kitchen he was king. No one could tell him what to do there – even grandma thought it more prudent not to cross his path there when he was in one of his black moods. She merely chided him under her breath as she beat a hasty retreat from the kitchen. Prior to his posting as cook, he was father’s personal valet. He helped father dress for work and it seemed that he went as far as to comb father’s hair. Father’s breakfast was prepared and served by him. His table setting had a touch of class. Being a cook in a Baba home was, to say the least, not a simple task. Methods in the preparation of our food were elaborate and laborious, and Ah Pok had to prepare meals twice a day. Conditions worsened during festivals and other social events. During these occasions Ah Pok had to prepare a more varied menu and in large quantities too as grandma was fond of giving substantial quantities of food to friends and relatives. An example of how laborious and difficult it was in preparing food for a Baba family can be seen in the preparation