The Woman Who Breathed Two Worlds

by Siak Chin Yoke, Selina

  Besides fruits, hawkers plied every imaginable dish. We passed stalls where whole chickens, freshly steamed, were laid out on chopping boards, ready for hacking into bite-sized pieces. We saw men standing behind gigantic woks, braving flames from the open fires that rose high into the air. They worked furiously, a ladle in each hand, deftly tossing and turning noodles with both hands at the same time. Drinks stalls were marked by their transparent blocks of ice and the water dripping into bowls as it melted. Alongside piles of freshly shaven ice there stood tall jars of beans, coloured water and jelly.

  The whole of Leech Street was pervaded by delicious aromas. The smells made us hungry even though we’d had dinner. Succumbing to temptation, we ended up perched on wooden stools around one of the many circular tables dotting the place. Under the warm Malayan night sky, we consumed fried kuay-teow, our signature noodle dish, and also seafood Cantonese noodles, which we washed down with ice kachang.

  As I listened to the loud clanking of chopsticks around me, I realised that Siew Lan was right. People would always eat. The only question was what I should cook, and how to go about selling it.

  Days later the idea came to me. It was simple really once I had thought about it. The work would be hard, so it had to be something I enjoyed making. I realised it could only be the passion I’d had from girlhood: Nyonya kueh. I saw also that our kueh was not then available in Ipoh – on Leech Street or anywhere else.

  Father, ever the sceptic, doubted my ability to eke out a living from kueh. ‘Do you know any other woman doing this?’ he scoffed.

  Mother, on the other hand, liked the idea. ‘But the kueh Chye Hoon make so delicious!’ she told me with an animated face.

  It was only when I heard Mother’s encouraging words that I began to truly take in her presence. She looked youthful despite the passage of time; few lines graced her face, and her hair retained its jet blackness, thanks to her ingrained habit of regular dyeing. Mother’s lively mind, undiminished, invariably led our conversation down an interesting path. ‘Remember when you small that time, the things you collect?’ she asked. I scratched my head, not understanding what she was referring to. Mother started talking about the leaves I used to pick up, the brightly coloured cigarette packs, shiny pebbles and wings of butterflies – things from childhood which I had forgotten.

  ‘How is that important?’ Father asked with a sneer in his melodic voice. But Mother would not be put off.

  ‘Chye Hoon, she all the time know what the other children like. Remember? I said then she good at business,’ Mother continued triumphantly.

  I had forgotten, but I saw Mother’s point. Whenever Peng Choon had spoken to me about his business, I had listened avidly, and my reaction had sometimes surprised my husband. For example, after the surge in the price of tin in 1906 a deep slump set in. The next two years were terrible. We noticed the change in town: coolies who had lost their jobs in the mines flooded in. Many had no choice but to turn their hands to pulling rickshaws; some became vagrants, seeking shelter below Ipoh’s many bridges. Piecing the things my husband had told me with what my own eyes could see, I told my husband that I thought this whole mining enterprise rather risky. Peng Choon had looked at me in surprise. ‘That’s why it’s lucrative,’ he had replied. ‘Ai-yahh! Good heart,’ I said. ‘You spend so much on machinery, and the thing most important – the price of tin – you cannot even control.’ I told him I much preferred his type of business, with no machinery, no huge spending and plenty of clients. He fell back into his chair, laughing.

  Sadness filled me as I recalled this conversation. Yet once I knew I would start a business I tried to remember as much of it as I could – that and others like it. Make sure you can generate a profit, my husband had mentioned early on. Sales cannot be controlled, but costs can, so businesses should keep their costs low. When I reflected on this, it had seemed obvious: why would you not keep your costs down? Other pronouncements included one on the importance of pricing correctly: businesses which didn’t sell at the right prices would get into trouble. My husband was thinking about a client, one of the first mechanics in Ipoh, who at the outset had been able to charge anything he liked. Over time competitors arrived on the scene, men who to win business began charging a fraction of the price of Ipoh’s first mechanic. But Peng Choon’s client refused to reduce his prices. Even during the slump he claimed he provided better service and had no need to change. By the time he opened his eyes, his customers had gone elsewhere, and winning them back proved hard. The town’s pioneer mechanic never regained his early standing.

  I recalled all this as I asked myself how I should best sell Nyonya kueh. I was in the enviable position of having no competitors and felt confident despite Father’s cool response. Father tried one last time to make me see sense. ‘Chye Hoon, why are you so stubborn? You know nothing about business. How will you make money? Find someone to employ you. Even a cleaning job would be better – you would get guaranteed income.’

  Seeing my pursed lips and smouldering eyes, Father reluctantly conceded defeat. Our first challenge was to find the best way of getting kueh to likely customers. We looked at setting up a stall on Leech Street and discovered that each stallholder had to pay a licence fee, which would drive costs up. I would also have to hire a helper, since a mother-of-ten could hardly stand at a stall night after night. For a new business, the costs of Leech Street were intimidating. Then there was the small problem that I didn’t like the place itself. Its popularity meant I would attract customers, but I wasn’t sure they were the type of customers I wanted. Not that I had an exact picture of what my customers would look like. I only knew there would be many women; I would somehow have to find a way of reaching them.

  While I was mulling this over, Ah Boey unexpectedly came back into my life. I was walking to the market one morning with Mother when we heard a shout behind us. ‘Peng Choon Sau, Peng Choon Sau!’

  Turning around, I saw a sticklike man waving. His other hand held a rickshaw that he dragged along the road. I knew at once who it was and said excitedly to Mother, ‘Remember the ting-ting man? That one is him.’

  I have never seen Mother as astonished as she was then. She stood at a loss for words until Ah Boey came closer and she could see him clearly, at which point Mother said breathlessly, ‘So it is!’

  We were both dressed in the black clothes of mourning, which Ah Boey must have noticed from afar. Huffing even more than before, he grinned. ‘You both good?’ he asked. ‘Sorry you have mourning clothes.’

  ‘We good,’ I replied. ‘Only my husband passed away recently.’

  ‘Oh no!’ Ah Boey responded with genuine feeling. ‘So sorry, so sorry.’

  ‘You remember Mother?’ I said, lifting my hand towards Mother.

  Ah Boey had given no indication of recognising her, but he proceeded to make a good show of it, telling her, ‘You look so young, I no think can be you!’ Mother’s face flushed with pleasure.

  We ended up having coffee at one of the eating shops on Leech Street, where Ah Boey sat in a pose typical of the rickshaw puller: sandals off, one leg stretched out on a stool and the other leg folded, with the right knee up against his chin. Ah Boey mixed three spoonfuls of sugar into his coffee. Then, lifting his cup, he slurped its contents noisily.

  He was reluctant to tell us much about himself. ‘Nothing to say-lah!’ he replied diffidently.

  Having waited months to bump into him again, I was not going to let him get away that easily. ‘Cannot be, Ah Boey. Mother not seen tin mine, I also not seen tin mine. Of course must have things to tell. Exciting, no, working there? Was where, your mine?’

  And in that way, by peppering Ah Boey with questions, I began to find out little by little just what the reality of tin mining was. Ah Boey told us he had worked in two places. The first, located a short distance outside Ipoh, was a piece of land flooded with water, where men like him were given no implements other than changkols, the ubiquitous Chinese backhoe, and nothing more than two bask
ets and a yoke pole each to carry their treasure. They would lift their changkols high in the air and then fling them into the ground, until they had dug up enough to fill two baskets. After that they had to wash what they dug up, and they did this with bare hands, sifting carefully for the ore. Once they had filled their two baskets with ore, they would place a basket on each end of their poles. Then, slinging the pole over their shoulders, they would carry the baskets a short distance to a large box.

  The men did this for six hours a day in two shifts of three hours each, with a three-hour break in between. I was overwhelmed with pity as I listened to Ah Boey talk about such hard back-breaking work, but I could feel burning excitement at the same time. In the midst of thinking how best to sell my Nyonya kueh, a solution presented itself before my very eyes.

  I peered closely at Ah Boey. Would anyone buy kueh from him? He looked as unprepossessing as ever, with his pockmarks, his missing teeth and that hair-infested mole beneath the lower lip, which still drew my eyes. Recalling the first time we met, I realised that his appearance had never stopped us from buying his ting-ting sweets. Of course, if there had been another ting-ting man, things might have been different. For as long as I remained the only Nyonya kueh maker in Ipoh, Ah Boey would suffice. If we placed the kueh into two sets of baskets suspended from the ends of a bamboo pole, Ah Boey could carry the pole on his shoulder, much as he had done in the tin mine, except that the kueh would be lighter than tin ore, and he wouldn’t have to work as hard. He could take them for sale from one neighbourhood to another, and we would all benefit.

  I didn’t immediately tell Ah Boey what I was thinking, because doubts remained in my mind. I baulked every time I set eyes on him, this man with fingernails patched in black who spat out heavy globules every now and again. Ah Boey’s teeth – the few he had left – were prominent inside his mouth, yellowed and crooked. I would have to tell him to clean up and fit him into a new Chinese suit. I tried to imagine what he would look like spruced up and neat. Somehow my mind couldn’t get there.

  As I sat weaving a solution to my kueh-selling problem, Ah Boey continued with his story. He hated the work, he told us, and the life that went with it. There were many times when he would have gladly returned to selling ting-ting sweets in Penang; only he couldn’t have left, because like most coolies he had fallen into debt. If he had escaped, ‘they’ would have come for him. ‘Who?’ I asked quickly. I had only been half listening, but my ears pricked up at the first mention of trouble. ‘The contractors, the towkay’s men, many people,’ Ah Boey replied absent-mindedly.

  ‘How you become rickshaw puller?’ I asked.

  Ah Boey told us the first mine he worked at ran into trouble. He couldn’t remember the exact year, but it had happened probably fifteen years ago, around 1895. People who must have been the owners – white devils – appeared one day and he lost his job, as did many other miners. There was little he could do, so he ended up pulling a rickshaw until he found another job in a mine. The new mine sounded similar to the one Peng Choon had visited, with its deep pit and men running up and down ladders all day. It was clear Ah Boey had once been strong, and a troubling question came into my mind. I went straight to the point, while Mother squirmed in her seat.

  ‘Ah Boey,’ I said, ‘you smoke opium-ah?’

  Mother shot me a telling glare, which I ignored. Ah Boey struggled to answer. His face took on a foolish expression; he tried to look away, then laughed in embarrassment before finally nodding. ‘You must not think bad of me, Peng Choon Sau.’

  Ah Boey told us everyone at the mines smoked. Smoking opium helped him feel part of the group. It was easy, he said, as natural as breathing. He made it sound as if the men were encouraged to smoke – which was what Peng Choon had told me – and I remembered how angry my husband had been when he spoke of it. Ah Boey was even advanced money for both food and opium. His wages were so meagre that those daily advances swallowed up almost all that he would receive; by the time payday came he was left with little. Nonetheless he and men like him visited the gambling halls on paydays.

  ‘But, Ah Boey, you no need to go.’

  ‘Peng Choon Sau . . . ai-yahh, have pity-lah. Coolie life very hard,’ Ah Boey muttered. He described how the gambling halls, brightly lit and festive, provided a contrast to their dismal living quarters; it was hard to resist the lure, if for nothing other than the solace of being somewhere cheerful for a few hours. The place he frequented had a band and beautiful singers, all women. Besides, the halls always smelt of delicious food – whole roasted ducks and chickens hanging up, so different to their normal bowl of white rice and a few miserable vegetables, if they were lucky. Gambling proved to be Ah Boey’s undoing. He fell into debt and was unable to extricate himself until the second mine, too, fell upon hard times. At that point he lost his job and turned once more to pulling a rickshaw to survive.

  ‘I no gamble since,’ he said almost proudly. ‘Good,’ I replied. ‘You must stop smoking opium too, Ah Boey. Now got places can help you,’ I told him, repeating something Peng Choon had once said to me.

  Ah Boey looked out doubtfully at the street. As Mother and I rose to take our leave, I requested that Ah Boey call at our house the following week. We fixed a day and time. ‘You want go somewhere-ah?’ he asked. I nodded. I would have to discuss my idea first with Siew Lan and my parents.

  ‘Hmm,’ Mother said, her eyebrows knitted into a frown. Siew Lan too looked at me as if she had not heard correctly. ‘Right idea, wrong person,’ she pronounced.

  ‘You don’t want an opium addict taking kueh around,’ Father said with finality. I studied him, surprised by how little his views had changed through the years. Outwardly Father had aged, and he walked with a stoop he’d never previously had; inwardly, though, he was the same man I had known as a child, ironclad beliefs intact.

  At the end of the day I took the risk because I was impatient to start. Desperation had seeped into my bones, and Ah Boey happened to be conveniently there. I didn’t even know whether he would agree, though I suspected there was a good chance he would. At the time part of me naively wanted to help a man who had hit a streak of bad luck.

  When Ah Boey turned up at our house, I invited him inside. The coolie seemed surprised, as did my eldest son, Weng Yu, who was returning from school just then. The boy, unable to take in the sight of a rickshaw puller entering our house as a guest, stopped in mid stride, his deep-set eyes becoming rounder with each passing second. He stared like an owl, and his whole face curved into a smirk. My little prince had become silent after his father passed away, withholding words as if to punish me, but on that afternoon I had little time to worry about this, because Ah Boey gratefully accepted my offer.

  I can never forget the morning we made our first batch of kueh. It was only four when we woke, but our excitement was palpable. Hui Fang and Hui Ying stood alongside Siew Lan and Mother and me. With a heavy heart I had roused them from sleep, because we sorely needed the extra pairs of hands. I decided we would make two types of kueh every day, one savoury and one sweet. For our debut we prepared savoury yam cakes and pulut tai-tai. The latter was to be accompanied by the coconut and egg jam we call kaya, which meant plenty of coconut milk was needed. Within minutes of waking, Ah Hong was in full flow, squeezing milk from the grated coconut out of a muslin cloth she had wrapped into the shape of a bag, while her younger compatriot Li-Fei busied herself grating the fruit.

  Siew Lan had insisted on coming. She stood at a kitchen counter chopping garlic, chillies, spring onions and dried shrimp. Mother too had wanted to help, but I had firmly refused. Nyonya cooking was too strenuous, too taxing, so Mother was forced to sit in a corner, rising now and then to check on the steaming baskets of glutinous rice and yam.

  As I pounded butterfly pea flowers in a heavy mortar bowl, my heart was filled with lightness. I loved the hard work, had loved it ever since I stopped fighting with Mother over whether I would learn to cook. On that first day of kueh making, I was so glad I
had embraced tradition. I breathed in those familiar smells and gave thanks to my Nyonya heritage, convinced it would save my family.

  When at last the kueh were ready, I surveyed the room. Our pulut tai-tai looked truly delicious. Their grains of shiny glutinous rice were streaked blue by the dye we had mixed in from the violet petals of butterfly pea flowers. They sat beautifully layered on slices of banana leaves, almost too heartbreakingly pretty to cut. Siew Lan spooned some of the kaya, the thick coconut egg jam, on to a small piece of kueh and nodded in approval. ‘Very good to eat!’ she exclaimed.

  And it truly was. The yam cake too turned out exquisitely – garnished with Siew Lan’s handiwork of bright red chillies, spring onions and finely chopped toasted peanuts. My mouth began to water as I looked at our kueh in their baskets, ready for Ah Boey.

  When he turned up, I could not recognise him. Wearing the new suit I had purchased, Ah Boey brought with him a bamboo pole and two lengths of rope, which he proceeded to knot tightly around the ends of his pole. My Nyonya kueh business had commenced.

  All went well at first. I was then the only Nyonya kueh maker in Ipoh, so it’s hardly a surprise that our kueh sold easily. Which is not to belittle our efforts, because even after other Nyonya women began to compete with us, everyone said the Wong family kueh were the best in town. In the early days Ah Boey told us that the people who came to take a peek inside his tiffin carriers were invariably awed by the colours they saw. ‘Wahh! So blue-ah!’ they would say about our pulut tai-tai. Many were converted when they saw the subtle olive green of our seri muka and the telltale orange-red tint of our angkoo skins – ‘Very different,’ they said, ‘from Chinese angkoo!’ Most of Ipoh’s townsfolk bought our kueh without knowing what to expect, but at the rate they devoured what Ah Boey carried around, I was convinced there was a future for Nyonya kueh in Ipoh.