Street Hawkers

I have mentioned various street hawkers in my blogs before but I think it is good to recap them all in one place.

Perhaps I should start by describing the area I lived in then. My home was an apartment in a terrace block between Lorong 17 and Lorong 19 along Sims Avenue. Back then, Sims Avenue was just a narrow two-lane bi-directional road, with the occasional no. 70 or no. 71 bus rumbling along. Traffic was pretty sparse then. A kid could cycle on the road and not worry too much about being crowded out or hit by a passing car.

What is Geylang
Geylang is quite large, almost like a housing estate. In fact, it is a housing estate made up of three-storey apartment terrace blocks and two-storey shophouses. It is charming in that way.

Geylang has lorongs numbered from 1 to 41 with the even ones bounded by Guillemard Road and Geylang Road on the one side and the odd lorongs bounded by Geylang Road and Sims Avenue on the other. These three roads run parallel to one another. If you look at Geylang Road from an aerial point of view, the lorongs spread out evenly like vertebrates from the Geyland Road main spine. Geylang Serai is further down after Lor 41, where Eunos and Katong begins. If you head back to Lor 1, you'll find where Gay World used to be, right next to the old Kallang Airport (where Mountbatten Road starts). It is now a vacant field.

Geylang uniqueness
Two unique features of Geylang buildings are their spiral staircases and back lanes. In the past, these backlanes were accessed by lorries to collect rubbish and night soil. Once these activities stopped, low stone plinths were erected to prevent large vehicles from entering.

With a map, you can see that these back lanes form a kind of maze that connects one building to the next - crisscrossing the lorongs and main roads. As a kid, we had loads of fun cycling through these back lanes. But we had to be careful as the lanes were full of activity, from residents sunning stuff to small producers preparing ingredients. Sometimes aunties would sit around to chat cracking peanuts and kuah chee.

There were also the many hawkers selling food. But overall, there weren't anything too industrial or toxic to prevent a kid from wandering about on a bike as I recall. Light industries were into printing, ice/ice-cream making, g cheong fun/noodle manufacture, garment cutting, baking, laundry, metal pressing, etc. However, many of these light industries have been moved out since to industrial estates leaving behind only the hardware stores, finance, import/export businesses and other types of office-based enterprise. Maybe the reason why the bars still remain.

No more families
Families too have moved out, as did ours (although we did try to remain). So, after a while, the complexion of Geylang changed from one teeming with families and children to one with office renters and old folks. A recent walk through my neighbourhood saw many ground floor shops closed or shuttered up. Without the families, retail businesses like the sundry goods, provision shops and food outlets found it hard to sustain. After all, when office workers head home to elsewhere, who would be left in the neighbourhood to patronise these shops?

The red light district
The other side of Geylang behind my home, where the even lorongs are, still thrives. But it is all down to one reason: the red light district.

This red light district used to be restricted between Lor 2 and Lor 8, but a walk the other day revealed that they have now extended all the way to Lor 22 right where Aljunied Road splits Geylang into two. So, even when the back lanes are no longer occupied by residents, light industries and hawkers, they have now been replaced by street hookers. At a few places where residents object to such activities were placed police CCTV cameras. Still, at the other back lanes, I was surprised to find hookers soliciting for business right after lunch. After lunch??? Shouldn't they appear only after sundown? And how the hell can you have sex after a full meal?

In any case, this piece is not about hookers but folks of other mobile trades.

Plying hawkers
When I was growing up, various hawkers used to ply along this lorong-maze haven called Geylang. On weekdays, I was mostly in school during the daytime, so I could only encounter hawkers in the evenings. I remember the man who used to cycle along to sell bread. He would honk his squeeze-air-horn and we would know he is around. He had a wooden box behind his bike with a lid that he could flip down and use as a cutting tray. Ooh, I ate quite a few orange kaya slices from him. Back then, we could only buy "cheem joi meen pow" (local French loaf), cream buns and brown bread from him. The kopitiams only sold white bread, the one with the puff crust.

Bread in those days came straight from the bakery as a whole loaf and with the top crusted. So, before the kopitiam uncle could sell it to you, he first had to shave off its top crust and slice up the rest for you. You could ask to buy half a loaf or full; in thick or thin slices. For me, if I saw that the discarded crust was not too burnt, I would ask the uncle to give me a slice. It was like eating toasted bread!

A slice of this old-style bread was shaped like a chef's hat. And with a little bit of crust remnant, it tasted great, like soft white bread with a little toasty aftertaste. But it all came to an end when square oblong loaves were introduced. They were evenly baked on all sides and no longer crusty. Also, instead of the uncle cutting it up for you, he would shove the loaf through an electric slicing machine. These days, we get bread delivered packed and precut to the supermarkets and even vending machines. If you want toasty bread, you just have to buy them from a specialist bakery. (I just discovered that such old bread (all sliced up) could be bought from 7-11 stores at $1.40 per pack).

Besides the roti man, the chicken porridge seller who lived never my home also went on his evening rounds. At a certain time, I would know he was parked near his home. We never ate at his cart but brought our own pot to tapow. If we wanted to add an egg in our porridge, we would bring our own along. It was common practice then, same when we bought char kway teow and Hokkien mee. His chicken porridge was rustic and full of ginger flavour.

There were two noodle hawkers. One came calling with the usual "kok-kok" bamboo knocker while the other guy, who also sold fishball noodles simply called out to make his presence felt. This latter fella would always come by the front along Sims Avenue. If you ordered three bowls or more, he would deliver to your place, else he wouldn't waste his time (having to collect back the bowls afterwards). Often we simply lowered our stainless steel pot with a rope through our front window (three storeys up!) and haul a serving up.

There was also an Indian man who came by on his tricycle to fry mee goreng. His noodles were really springy and the dry fry sort. Very excellent, according to my mom. We kids usually found the noodles a tad too chilli spicy!

My fave two lady hawkers
On weekends, the area around my house would have more passing hawkers. A pair of my favourites were these two ladies who sold "chee ma wu" and "fa sung wu" (black sesame and peanut paste respectively). They sold them from boxes they carried on a flat bamboo pole across their shoulders. These ladies also wore a blue cloth 'hat' across their heads, the same sort that Samsui women wore but of a different colour. They would call out "chee ma wu, fa sung wu" one after the other.

One thing they would do is stop by my neighbour g cheong fun maker shop to eat unborn mice. They swallow them whole wrapped in lettuce and gulped down with a little wine. This was a common tonic back then, meant for keeping fit, especially if you had to work in the sun and rain like these two resilient old ladies. The way they carried their boxes and walked their bouncing gait is forever edged in my mind. By the way, the mice were hygienic because they ate rice grains and were not lonkang rats. You need lots of rice to make g cheong fun.

Not aluminium
Before Sims Avenue was widened, the houses across my home had courtyards. A hawker who sold chwee kueh (steamed rice cake) used to park his cart there around 4-something in the afternoon. Chwee kueh these days are steamed in small aluminium cups, but back then, the cups were made of clay. I am very sure the clay imparted a different taste to the chwee kueh. And the man did not scoop the kueh off the cups with a spoon. He did it with a small flat bamboo stick Buying this chwee kueh would often come with a warning from my mom: "Sui sum kor ma lo" ("Be careful when crossing the road.")

Along Lor 17 would come the kok-kok mee seller. He sold fishball noodles. But we didn't have to go to his cart to buy because the boy (presumably the son) would walk around with his kok-kok instrument to take orders. You could give him a pot and he would come back with it steaming with noodles. Most times, we would just lower a pot to our g cheong fun neighbour downstairs to tompang an order.

Missing the stewed pig's ears
Around 5-something just before dinner would come the "lo g yuk" seller with his wide basket of stewed pork and duck meat. He would park himself outside the kopitiam. I loved eating his crunchy pig ears and blood cubes. This hawker actually came from a stall set up at the mouth of an alley in Lor 19. I think it is great that they still bother to hawk their wares around the neighbourhood despite having a fixed location. I believe I first learnt to eat hot stuff from dipping those succulent pig ears in chilli sauce, sauce that was not too different from those served with chicken rice.

Nuts and sweets
Another hawker was an Indian man who sold kacang puteh from a heavy round tray he carried on his head. He would walk through our backlane crying out "kacang puteh, kacang puteh". At other times, the "ting-ting tong" (chiseled flour candy) man would come by with his round tray too. Unlike the Kacang Puteh Man, he carried with him a collapsible stand for his tray to rest on. He got his moniker Ting-Ting Tong Man from the way he knocked his nickle chisel and hammer together to cut the quasi-hard candy into cubes. This pink candy was then mixed with icing sugar and edible flour. His hammer was more like a bent rod with a knob at the head. Near my school, we got a couple of fellas who sold mua chee and ting-ting tong together. But for some reason, mua chee survived till today but not so ting-ting tong.

Scoop ice cream factory
Another backlane dessert was scooped ice cream. At the time, I took these fellas for granted because their ice-cream supply shop was just a block away in the next backlane. When it was time to fill-up their tubs again, they would all congregate there in that yard. The best time was when they sold durian flavour. That alley would be filled with loads of discarded durian husks as well as uncles sitting one-legged on stools munching on that king of fruits. The whole place would be filled with that wonderful pungent fragrance. Hopeful children from nearby would hang around the uncles waiting for scraps. Another favourite ice cream flavour was the one with red bean and atap chee.

An antique market building
Lor 17 was also home to a small meat and vegetable indoor market. An uncle who sold "tau fah sui" (soybean milk), "tau fah" (sweetened beancurd) and "leong fun" (chin-chow drink) would station himself by the market. He was the extra incentive to go marketing with my mom because we would always stop by his cart on the way home, to eat a bowl of curd or drink a glass of soybean milk. Often I would have my soybean milk mixed in with my chin-chow, so the drink order was "hark-bak" (black-white). The uncle would oblige without missing a beat. We would sometimes tapow bean curd with a metal tin for my other siblings waiting eagerly at home.

At other times, the rojak man would come by on his tricycle with his mini-kitchen. I don't know why, but all these hawkers liked to stop along Lor 17. I think it is because there were more terrace houses on that side than Lor 19. Or maybe they were just working their way down the lorongs by the numbers. In any case, I am glad they stopped by. They made the place more lively and our diets more adventurous. They also provided a kind of teatime and supper service to the light industry workers there, something I've not thought of before.

Not just food but sundry
Apart from food, there was a hawker who sold brooms, feather dusters, pails, bamboo poles and such household items all stacked into an enormous pile on his tricycle. It was like the width of a bus! I sometimes wondered how he could see his way in front riding behind the whole thing! Maybe there were strategic gaps between his goods for him to look through. This man travelled far. I would see him along North Bridge Road when I accompanied my mom there on her shopping trips.

Losing character
I am sure if they bring back the families to Geylang, the hawkers would find it an incentive to ply their trades again. But this is just wistful thinking, like wanting the ability to travel back in time. It is enough just to remember them the way they were. And besides, many old buildings in the 30+ lorongs have been demolished to make way for apartment complexes, just like what happened to the Kembangan area near Still Road. Once that happens, Geylang will become a fortress of souless apartment buildings with no more two-storey shophouses, five-footways and even backlanes. Geylang would not be Geylang. It would indeed be alarming to our heritage, not to mention to both aged and new-school hookers. Geylang, after all, is Geylang.

Note: Check out the link to Ting-Ting Tong Hawker in the Anecdotal Links section. But I remember eating my ting ting tong pink and with sugar and flour. 

Backlane Fun

One feature of Geylang (made famous by a red light area) is its many backlanes. They were built when clearing rubbish or night soil buckets was still in practice. The lanes allowed collection of such foul stuff away from the main road.

When sanitation improved, these backlanes were 'shut' and a single low and lone concrete pillar was erected at the ends of the lanes to prevent traffic from ever entering. They thus became safe playgrounds for children to loiter in. Kids only needed to worry when crossing the lorongs (Malay word for street) when to get from one backlane to another. Back in those days, the lorongs were indeed parked with cars on both sides, many climbing the kerbs to avoid the congestion. Kids usually did not have to worry about a fast car zooming along. The narrow lorongs were indeed less than ideal for two-way traffic. It was only much later when the main roads were converted to one-way that these narrow streets followed suit.

In our backlane, many games flourished. Because it was T-shaped, we often played a three cornered soccer game. It sounds like fun but in reality it tested everybody's patience. When is that ball ever gonna come back this way?! we often wondered in exasperation.

Besides football we played basketball as well. There was no proper court so the young workers who worked at a corner welding shop below my home put together a backboard and ring (with net) and hung it on the fence above the alley wall. 

In the evenings, these workers would have a game of three-on-three with one another; I learned quite a few nice moves from watching them. At the time basketball was a big thing in Geylang and many international games were often conducted at the nearby Gay World Indoor Sports Stadium. I am sure quite a few of these young workers were fans of the games there.

The corner welding shop worked only half-day on a Saturday, so on weekends, we kids had this makeshift  basketball court all to ourselves.

There were a few hilarious moments playing basketball in that backlane.

It was all due to a large metal plate the workers had used to cover the floor with. This was to prevent the ground from being further chipped and uneven when metal was beaten or drag over there. This metal plate, lying on the already uneven ground, gave a good "bonk" each time a ball was bounced on it. So a basketball game would come with sound effects. It also came with uncertainty as the ball would bounce away each time it hit the edge or corner of the thick plate. We would also slip on the well worn surface. Overall, it was a fun game of basketball. It was also the only game where the older kids would play with us younger kids - mostly to help make up the numbers. But the older boys were never mean or were bullies.

Being called to play with the older boys was special: it meant you were grown up somewhat. Our chest would swell with pride. But that soon came deflating back down really quickly because basketball is rather a physical game. I still remember the elbow knocks to my head for being a little too short. To get to play, it also helped if you had an older brother. I had one. So I think being a single child back then was realy sucky!

For some reason, another backlane connected to this T-shaped lane was not paved; it remained a sandy patch. It was well and good as we needed a place to play marbles on. With marbles you need to dig a shallow hole in the ground with the heel first - something that could not be done on concrete floors. However, some of us did not like playing in that sandy lane; dog owners would always bring their pets there to poo-poo and wee-wee, causing a stink and fouling our marbles with stuff that was less than charming. 

At the head of this sandy lane was a metal workshop that cut small E-shaped tranformer plates and washer rings. They would dump the excess in the lane. But we would fashion a sakulei-like game (a kind of tossing game) out of those waste washer rings. Sometimes, we used coins instead. But that game soon became a kind of gambling which I didn't like.

At one arm of this T-shaped backlane, we played badminton on a makeshift court. We also played crackers there during Chinese New Year.

With our bicycles, we would race from backlane to backlane - at times being splashed by folks who threw their laundry water out. We slalom around clothing lines or around wooden stools with mattresses left out to dry. Often times we had to duck our heads from makeshift awnings put up to shade trays of drying herbs or swerve to avoid a portly uncle snoozing away on a nylon-stringed deckchair. Yup, the backlanes had a life of its own and we had miles of it as a playground.

Calling friends out to play was not a problem even though we did not have mobile phones then (or residential phones for that matter). All we had to do was to ring our bicycle bells a few times and a familiar head would pop out from behind a kitchen blind or rear door. It's our not-so-secret call to signal that it's playtime now and for our buddies to come join the fun! That chorus of youthful voices still echoes in my head. But if you visit Geylang now, there's nothing but deadly silence. It has been like that for a long time since we moved out. My future eye can only see the old buildings giving way to mulitplex condos and the backlane becoming parking spaces. My childhood times would indeed become a bygone era. 

Next story: A Medium in Changi

A Start in Badminton

As a young man, I played badminton pretty well. Well enough to qualify as a national player judging by the competitive matches I used to play against Malaysian and Indonesian state players. But because I had moved to the north of Singapore, coping with the resultant long travel to town and Pre-U studies meant joining a hectic national training scheme (such as the F&N one) was out of the question. (This is an example how a decision to relocate to ulu-dom can affect a person's interests and sporting progress!) But even with all the talent in the world, if it hadn't been for my Geylang neighbour, I would only be good at swatting flies.

My neighbour lived downstairs in that shop that distributed those Ken-Ken cuttlefish snacks. He was one of the sons of the owner. I think he was 15 or something but in our youthful eyes he appeared much older. He was strong and well toned. Each day, I would find him loading the many bundles of goods into those signature VW vans (with the giant cuttlefish signs) that the family owned. The vans were always parked outside the shop along the road at the end of business day.

This young man had younger siblings and all the kids in the neighbourhood loved going to their place for birthday parties. Being in the snack business, there were for sure a variety of snacks and sweets. And despite being busy, they were a very open and friendly family and I recall the many times I would pop into to their shop to play. Their shop was lined with several large shelving rows of cubicle boxes painted green that reached into the ceiling. Into them went giant bags of snacks and sweets. Tall bamboo ladders were used to reach them and I especially loved to climb up on them to hear them creak.

I don't remember the name of this young man but his badminton skills must have been quite considerable at the time. I recall he was once featured in a newspaper competing in a tournament. When we saw that pix, we were all impressed and asked him to teach us the sport. He did not hesitate and proceeded to set up a badminton court outside his home in our common backlane. Our backlane was not as wide as a normal badminton court but that did not matter - we just included the side drains as the court double tramlines. We later drew visible lines over the area with pale blue paint. It was quite fun working together as we kids pitched in. To hold the net, this young man knocked a couple of nails into the opposing walls. When this was done, we were all set to play.

Our parents bought us kids racquets and a net from that Chinese Sin Wah Emporium in nearby Gay World. The net was of dark brown cotton strings topped with a white cloth trim; it was made in China. I think the brand was either Aeroplane or Double Happiness - the same fellas who made those ping-pong bats (and nets).

Whenever we had time, we would go down to our self-made backlane badminton court to play.

I remember this young man teaching us how to serve, hit the shuttlecock, and smash. My brother who is four years older, learnt quickly. He proceeded to play for our primary school team. I wasn't far behind and became the school's youngest member even though at P2, I was deemed too young to compete. Nevertheless, I would follow them to competitions just for the experience.

I remember one time making my way back from the Singapore Badminton Hall in Guillemard Road on my own after a competition. It gave me a sense of accomplishment crossing the unfamiliar lorongs to get back to my home along Sims Avenue. I also saved the 20 cents of bus fare that I usually had to spend.

Around our neighbourhood, we had a bunch of kids who were very interested in badminton, so this young man would come and play with us whenever he could. It was his attitude (a better player taking time to play with novices) that inspired me to train others later. The racket we used then were the wooden sort and I remember mine as having a wooden shaft as well. It was decorated with decals that later peeled. One time I was so excited to play that I didn't bother to go home to get my racquet. Instead, I shouted up to my house on the third floor for someone to throw the racquet down. I'll catch it, I said. Someone did throw the racquet down. It bounced off the floor once before I managed to catch it. I then checked. No cracks. Great!

My father later bought my brother a Yonex racquet. Amazingly, Yonex is still a popular brand today. That first Yonex racquet my brother owned had a wooden frame and a steel shaft - an innovation at the time. I believe it was the B-9100 model, brown with the old logo still. In those days, racquets like these had to be kept in a wooden press to keep them from warping. We sometimes had to clean the strings too as playing in that backlane court meant having shuttles fall into dirty drains. We often had to knock them on the floor first to get the black, icky muck off!

As we got older and busier at school, we saw less of this young man. I wished I remembered his name or that he was around when I last visited Geylang. In badminton I went on to represent my junior college in singles, something I think he would have been very proud of. And we almost won the National Championships if not for a slight technical hiccup. But that's another story!

Previous story: A Firecracker Fight; Next story: Errands

A Firecracker Fight

If you were a regular visitor to the National Library at Stamford Road during the late 70s and early 80s, you might have noticed a rather strange fella hanging outside the place. His hair was wiry, unkempt, and his face was dirt-stained. In fact he was altogether quite unwashed. But he wore a business suit still and carried a small black briefcase - something you don't see people do nowadays. It's all about smartphones or manbags now.

When you see this man, he is often mumbling to himself in Cantonese. I often could not make out what he said, but he was my neighbour. He lived on the ground floor in a small staircase cubicle a few doors away. Every morning he would leave his "home office" taking care to latch and lock up the place first. No one was quite sure how he got that way. Some said he lost his business in a fire; others said his family left him. Going home from my neighbour's after dark was sometimes problematic; we often had to tiptoe around his body as he usually slept on a mat on the upper staircase landing. In the dim light, we took care not to disturb him. To us, he was a mad man. What if he woke up, grabbed a chopper and hacked us to pieces? Initially, we were on tenterhooks. But as time passed, we gradually learned that he was quite harmless.

An uncle of mine might be clean shaven, hair neat and well combed but he was also quite mad. So it came as no surprise that he later joined the intelligence services of the the local army (i.e. the SAF). Most certified nut jobs ended up there, according to NS lore.

My dear uncle had this piercing look that could be interpreted in two ways: 1) He was going to beat you into a pulp unless you confessed; 2) He was going to beat you up no matter what. Either way, it's best not to make eye contact with him for more than a microsecond. My other uncles told me he was brilliant in chess. I get it, I'd probably run away too before my king got taken by him!

The problem was, he's the only uncle who liked to play with us kids. The rest were older and into 60's stuff. It was quite unnerving at first playing with this uncle and we would hide or give some excuse. Some of us boys resorted to playing tea with our sisters. Yes, we got that desperate!

The turnaround came one Chinese New Year. We were playing fireworks in the back lane of our home when he came and joined us. He had brought along cans, sticks and a rather big bag. With these, he taught us how to blow stuff sky high. He also taught us how to improvise firecracker poppers with stone and paper and how to make an even bigger firecracker with the smaller ones. Of course, in that big bag out poured some of the most gobsmacking firecrackers ever seen - stuff that we kids all wanted to buy but had not the money. Stuff that whirled, rocketed and yes, even screamed!

The ones that whirled spun on the ground with tails of flint-fire. Those that rocketed either had a long stick that you could hold or plant into the ground. The other rocket kind you simply aimed and pulled on a string behind. Either one would scream like a banshee towards its intended target (to which you would point at). During firecracker time, all the boys and girls carried with them a joss stick each. You took care to light the firecracker properly and you also took care also not to poke each other's eye out with that glowing point. (This was especially important when clambering up and down those tight spiral staircases at the back of our houses.)

That year, our firecracking shenanigans ended up in a firefight between homes. Imagine the setup: Three back lanes of houses facing each other with two levels of staircases and landings (forming a 'T'). Include the homes right across the lorong and you have at least four battling sides! The whole firefight became something of a Shock & Awe campaign in Iraq. Streaks of light flew back and forth as we traded fire with one another with those handheld rockets. Of course, the combatants across the road were lower and at a disadvantage. They also had to fire from behind their narrow window grills. We on the other hand were on superior ground at the back landing of our apartment. We just had only to stoop below the staircase landing parapet to avoid being hit. However, since our parapet was balustraded in places leaving gaps, we had to use our mom's kwali (frying wok) as a make-shift shield.

That was a delirious time and even the adults joined in. Midway through the firefight, a crash of glass was heard. Someone's ba gua above the window had been smashed! A ba gua was something houses put up to ward off evil, and so it was a taboo thing to touch, let alone damage! More retaliatory rockets flew, as did colorful profanities in Hokkien. We kept low and quiet hoping one of the other sides would take the rap.

In the morning, people awoke to assess the damage. The back lanes were typically littered all over with red smithereens of firecrackers having exploded with the smell of gunpowder still acrid and pungent in the air. Incredibly, no one was hurt in our little CNY Shock & Awe campaign. Since it was Chinese New Year, all hostilities the night before were forgotten, even if a ba gua was broken!

I have never forgotten that fantastic night of how we huddled under a kwali with crazy rockets exploding all around us. Or how this uncle directed the firefight. For a moment, I glimpsed his mad, playful genius. In the following years, I became more interested in his comings and goings as he slowly became a kind of hero. The family today remains amused by his eccentric choice of girlfriends over the years. However, even as he got more social, he never once told us what he did in the Army. I can imagine him saying "If I tell you, I would have to kill you" - same as how James Bond would react. That glint in his eye hasn't totally gone away. Hmm, it is better not to chance it!

Previous story: A Start in Badminton; Next story: A Start in Badminton

The Backlane Wu Ladies

The two desserts I've loved since I was a kid have to be black sesame paste and peanut paste. In Cantonese, BSP is called chee ma wu, PP is fa sung wu. A couple of skinny old ladies used to hawk them in the backlanes of Geylang. When nearby my home, they would drop by my downstairs neighbour who ran a factory-shop making egg noodles and g cheong fun (a steamed white roll often seen as a breakfast food) to gather an ingredient for a particular tonic.

You see, to make g cheong fun, you need rice. Specifically, you need rice flour and lots of it (plus wheat starch and corn starch). When you enter my neighbour's factory-shop, the first thing you'll notice on the left are the huge rice sacks stacked to the ceiling. With rice, you'll attract mice. (I call them mice because they are the clean cousins of your lonkang (drain) rats.) And they were the reason why these wizen old ladies turned up at my neighbour's establishment.

To keep fit hawking through rain and shine, these old ladies needed tonic. This was how they made it: Take a newborn mouse, wrap it in salted cabbage and swallow it whole. Follow that with a swig of brandy or Chinese wine.

I guess these ladies were the living, walking proof of what they imbibed. They carried a heavy load on those skinny shoulders (two food boxes hanging from a flat bamboo pole same as how the Samsui women carried their soil baskets.) Besides the bowls and spoons, the desserts also needed to be kept warm, so they would lug along the necessary fuel (charcoal) as well. I never found out more about these old ladies or where they lived, but their wus were very delicate and appetizing. Served in small enamel bowls with similar color trimmed metal spoons, I would often hope for seconds. It is a dessert that must be made and served just right. (The modern day instant ones are a poor imitation and needs to be prepared in a special way different from what they say on the package. I found out through experiment.)

There are still a couple of places that serve this traditional dessert right. A recent find is Sugar Granny Cafe in Chinatown near Outram MRT. Another one is at the junction of Geylang Road and Lor 11 (Gong He Guan, No. 253, a few doors from the Klang bak kut teh stall). I like both flavours so I would usually order a mix looking like some yin-yang symbol. In a way, the twin swirls remind me of the two old ladies: one selling the peanut flavour, the other selling the black sesame! I don't remember them calling out like the kok-kok mee fella, only that I just know when they are around.

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