by Yap Swi Neo
Coconut jam. ↵
In Search Of The Perfect Jambu Batu Branch
This is a true account of my husband’s brother’s thoughts after my husband passed away. Their visits to Ah Kong and Ah Por were regular and cherished.
I don’t know why I turned left, but I did. Perhaps it was driving into the sunrise; perhaps it was the silent whispers in the crisp stillness of dawn; perhaps I wanted to. It had been a long while since I turned left; too many years since Mummy passed away, since my grandparents passed away. Perhaps it was they who invited me to visit, perhaps I had wanted to but was too fearful to face … face what I was not sure, perhaps driving into the sunrise evaporated the fear. So I drove into Segamat district[1] over the bridge into town. I couldn’t remember the name of the river, Sungei something, a small river. Yes, the hospital was still there, the same hospital my grandparents, aunts and uncles were admitted to when sickness befell them. The same railway line on my left into Segamat Station, from where I had travelled many times to and from Kuala Lumpur, the city I was heading to. Squinting across that railway line, I got a glimpse of where I was born.
* * *
‘The train is coming!’ yelled the children. The rumble and whistle of the long black machine could be heard kilometres into the town. The kids scrambled to wave to the passengers; whether their welcoming waves were reciprocated or even noticed did not matter.
‘One day I am going to ride the train to Kuala Lumpur.’
‘I want to be the train driver and blow the horn. Then Mama and Nai-Nai will know I’m in Segamat. I’ll blow the horn three times for Nai-Nai, Mama and Papa.’
‘I want to be the towkay[2] of the train, so I can go wherever I like, to America, Japan, Penang!’
* * *
The train had pulled into the station about three kilometres away. Other dreams had to be expressed with the next train.
Both sides of the road remained the same: single-storey houses, probably lived in by the next or even the next-next generation of Ah Kong’s[3] time. Their rather large properties boasted rich harvests of rambutan, durian, local cherries, stalks of sugar cane, mangoes, papayas, and many other fruit trees that I could no longer recognize. Then there it was, glaring at me accusingly, the jambu tree. The jambu[4] tree. How could I ever get the jambu tree out of my mind, out of my conscience?
* * *
‘Ah Sam, next time you come, no need bring chocolates, towels, food. We can buy here. You only bring jambu batu branch, nice straight ones. Bring ten, about my arm long good, but short little bit also can. Bring nice ones.’
‘Sum-Ee, there are so many jambu trees. Behind Ah Kong’s house there are two.’
‘They not jambu batu. Only jambu. The floods take jambu batu trees. They take very long time to grow.’
‘OK, promise. I bring 100!’
‘Emkoi ni, emkoi ni, thank you.’ The promise to third aunty – broken.
* * *
Further up nearer to town, on my right a row of double-storey shophouses of small businesses. Then there was an open area, in its natural state of firm red mud clay. There was the lone cinema, the only entertainment centre. The cinema where I had immersed myself in ‘King Kong’, pounding my chest with loud bellows to frighten everyone; or I was an orang minyak, naked and oiled in black oil, ransacking houses to find goodies till I was caught by the police; or I was an Emperor’s warrior saving his kingdom from his enemies and I was a hero. But where was the cinema?
* * *
‘Ah Kong watch movie, ‘Pontianak Kembali’ showing. 40 cents only. Superman movie also showing. 40 cents only.’[5]
* * *
Weekends were movie days. It did not matter what movie, a movie was a movie. Ah Kong and I watched Shaw Brothers Hong Kong productions, Cathay Keris’ Malay movies and Hollywood movies.
Next to the cinema was another row of double-storey shophouses. Ah Kong’s house was the first one. He and his family lived on the upper floor, and the first floor was his storeroom, where he stored the sacks of rice, sugar, flour, milk and other sundry goods for his sundry shop business about two kilometres up the road. The present owner had turned it into an office. At the back of Ah Kong’s shophouse were two fine jambu batu trees.
* * *
That plea again. ‘Ah Sam, next time you come, bring jambu batu branch, long like my arm, very straight. Emkoi ni, thank you.’
* * *
I yearned for second and third aunties, to tell them how sorry I was not to have kept my promise to get them the jambu batu branch, not that I couldn’t find one, but that it was a lack of trying and not taking their pleas seriously.
I was still not clear why I was left to stay with Ah Kong in Segamat. My two uncles and my elder brother had left to board in Saint Francis Institution, Malacca, so I was brought up and loved by my grandparents, Mummy’s parents, as a son. I still remembered how often I had asked them if I should be a Pang instead. I stayed in the shophouse, where their love and attention to me overcame any discomfort of living in the working conditions of the sundry shop. It was my home.
* * *
‘What are you doing Sum-Ee?’ I asked every morning.
‘Grinding hum-cha for lunch,’ the same answer from Third Aunty. She was the hum-cha Queen.
The ‘cha’ was a paste of black tea leaves, peanuts, sesame seeds, fresh basil and coriander leaves. The oil from the nuts and seeds gave it a rich flavour, the herbs exude the aroma of the paste.
‘Why use this stick to grind?’
‘This not stick. This jambu batu branch, nice smell nice taste.’
* * *
The ingredients were ground in a hum-cha pot. The inner side was grooved, to help in grinding everything into a smooth paste. That was a Hakka pot, a pot to cherish. It was many years later I recognized the importance of hum-cha to our family. Sometimes Sum-Ee allowed me to help her grind. But the peanuts ‘jumped out’ of the pot, and I ate them. Ah Kong liked a strong mint, coriander and basil flavour. I didn’t like the taste of mint very much. When Sum-Ee was not looking, I threw out half. But she had compound eyes all over her head, just like a fly’s. I suspected she had eyes on her neck and shoulders too. She need not look at me to know what I was up to. This stick, this special stick, this jambu batu branch.
* * *
‘The stick good, I hold grind cha. When you grow big you give Sum-Ee jambu batu branch, OK? Like this one good, very good.’
* * *
During the three years I lived with Ah Kong, aunty had ground down three jambu batu branches. The flecks off the jambu batu branch added flavour to the tea. It was also believed to have medicinal value.
In Grandfather’s house, as in most Hakka homes, lunch was hum-cha, a much-loved Hakka meal. Hum-cha in Hakka means ‘salty tea’ and that is what it was. It was ‘salty tea soup’, served with rice and several finely chopped vegetable dishes fried with lots of garlic. When I was not grinding the tea, I was busy helping Nee-Ee, Second Aunty, in the kitchen, chopping the garlic and vegetables finely with my kiddy plastic knife. Three bowls of garlic to fry the ingredients for the hum-cha lunch. Several pieces of taukwa were cut into small cubes[6], to be fried with finely sliced leeks; there were long beans, finely chopped pickled radish, and pounded dried prawns. And the topping was rice puffs.
Hum-cha is now a popular meal in food courts. But it can never be the same as that made by Nee-Ee and Sum-Ee. The commercial hum-cha was colourfully advertised Thunder Tea for whatever reason I could never understand. The cha was not the hum-cha, cha as I knew it. The meal was served with additional choices of chicken wings, omelette, sausages and whatever else the stall keepers chose to offer. What a shame that within two generations, our Hakka food culture has changed into something else.
* * *
‘Lunch ready. Lai, cher. Cha very hot!’ Nee-Ee called out.
* * *
We ate with Grandfather’s five employees. We had a rice bowl, a pair of chopsticks and a Chinese spoon. Nee-Ee poured the boiling
water into the hum-cha pot and stirred the soup with the jambu batu branch.
* * *
Ah Kong always sat me beside him. ‘Ah Sam, cher, eat.’ He scooped the first layer of rice into my bowl. ‘Ah Sam, this taukwa and leeks, very good for you, long beans green vegetable, good for you, chaipoh slightly salty[7], good taste, peanuts in the soup rich flavour. How cher, very good to eat. Careful Ah Sam, Nee-Ee scoop hot hum-cha for you. Now take rice puffs, see rice puffs float on soup? Rice we eat we live, so boiled rice at bottom of bowl our stomach always full. Rice puffs float, this means we stay up always.’ We ate heartily and drank the ‘cha’ off the bowl.
* * *
I stopped to eye Ah Kong’s and my shophouse home, long past. I saw Ah Por’s ducks scampering around the back lanes. Grandmother had reared some ducks, as there were plenty of spilled grains from the sacks of rice to feed them. Her special Hakka-style duck was duck stewed with fermented red tofu. She slaughtered the ducks and refused to let me watch, claiming that small children would suffer a pain in the neck forever. At four years old I believed her.
Ah Por prepared a large wok, poured in two tablespoons of oil, added a bulb of smashed unpeeled garlic, three to four pieces of fermented red tofu and mashed them into the oil, coated the duck with the marinade, added enough water to cover the duck, added dark sweet sauce and simmered it over a low charcoal fire until the duck was tender, about two hours. It was a duck dish no three-Michelin-star chef could compete with. When I was an adult working in Singapore, Ah Por still prepared it for me when I went home to her and Ah Kong. There were two additional ducks prepared for me to take home, one for me and one for my brother Pin. Ah Kong and Ah Por loved us both in the only way they knew how – completely, selflessly, unconditionally.
I crossed Segamat River. The river that had caused such great sorrows to so many businesses too many times. The river looked wide and deep, but the water, not given enough width and depth in the river, was revengeful and having consumed the banks was still hungry and went on to rampage the town. Something could have been done to widen and deepen the river to engage and overcome the waters, but nothing was done.
At the end of the bridge, on the only main road, was another row of shophouses. Ah Kong’s sundry shop was third from the end of the row. He had a small office he shared with his bookkeeper. The shop was stacked to the ceiling with his stock. Extra stock was kept upstairs, where he slept. The present owner had turned the shop into a Chinese medicinal shop.
* * *
‘Ah Kong I want to sleep with you tonight.’
‘No, you sleep at home, on your bed.’
‘Ah Kong, people say upstairs you keep python to eat rats. Rats eat your rice.’
‘Who say? Python eat me and you no more, Ah Kong! Don’t believe story!’
I still did not know whether Ah Kong had kept a python there.
‘Ah Sam, eat your breakfast. You will be late for school.’
* * *
That was my very own Ah Por. She walked me to play school every morning and fetched me home. Ah Kong lunched with me and the workers, on Nee-Ee and Sum-Ee’s freshly brewed hum-cha. After lunch, Ah Kong held my hand and we took a short walk to the fruit shop in the back lane and shared a li, a Chinese pear with me. We ate in silence in a world of our own. There was nothing more we needed to say. I was his son, he was my father. What I cherished most living with Ah Kong and Ah Por was their love and attention to me, a love I had never felt before. The shop with sacks of rice, sugar, milk, cooking oil, various sauces and biscuits was my home.
The big floods came unannounced. The river had swollen past the red ‘DANGER’ sign marker. It scooped up everything that stood in its way. Everyone was in fear, the fear increasingly darkened like the clouds. Before sacks of rice could be carried up to higher ground, the clouds burst open releasing another of its load. It appeared then that not every cloud had a silver lining. It frightened me to see our whole town half submerged in violent, gushing water, carrying with it Ah Kong’s tins of Dutch Baby milk powder, sacks of sugar and flour twisting in a frenzy and leaving a trail of white as the flour dissolved, and the shards of dozens of bottles of sauces, together with other residents’ chairs, rubbish, some animals, all fighting for breath and space in the watery beast. In a few short weeks, it would be our gentle friend again, and children would be happily fishing for fighting fish.
Ah Por wanted to save her ducks for her special red fermented bean paste duck stew. She suffered a nasty cut and gangrene set in. In her usual ‘don’t inconvenience anyone’ philosophy she did not tell anyone; everyone was busy salvaging what they could, cleaning the mess and debris. The gangrene had spread. We brought her to Singapore General Hospital and, as she was a severe diabetic patient, her leg had to be amputated. She was never the same again, her movements were restricted, her fuss over her grandchildren tapered. The matriarch she was, her presence and influence in the household of son, daughters, in-laws and grandchildren were still felt, without her being present.
Mummy loved all her children equally. She kept her family close, always reminding us, Family Is Family. She had saved enough to purchase a piece of rubber estate, somewhere in Segamat, I was not sure where. Mummy explained to us.
* * *
‘I have 25 acres of mature rubber trees estate. This is because I have five children and each of you will have a one-fifth share of five acres. There are only five of you. When you look at your hand, there are five fingers, all linked together in one hand. To separate you must cut and that is very painful. Same for this rubber estate, five acres each, all in one property. So everything in fives. All five of you stay together.’
* * *
Mummy was happy with her purchase, her rationale, her life, her family. When my brother and I have families of our own, and looked at our hands, we see Mummy. I have been told the estate has been sold. Period.
Three years passed, and time for me to re-join the harsh reality of leaving home. I left Segamat, with lots of tears, to join my elder brother, two uncles and a cousin in Saint Francis Institution Boarding School, Malacca.
* * *
‘Ah Sam, tomorrow your father take you home. Now we eat li.’ I felt like it was the Last Supper.
‘Ah Por, don’t cry. Every holiday I come home to you. My home is here.’
‘Ah Kong, why is the holiday so short? I want to stay with you!’
‘Ah Sam, you are a young man now. No need to cry. We grow up, we work, we marry, raise a family. This is life.’
* * *
My brother and I had successful careers in Singapore. Then the call came.
* * *
‘Ah Sam, you and Pin come, Ah Kong had heart attack.’
* * *
That was uncle, one short sentence.
The news shattered my life. Every Friday, after office, my brother and I drove from Singapore to sit beside him in Segamat hospital, as he had sat beside me when I was a child.
* * *
‘Ah Kong, Prof Toh is here to check on you, a second opinion. We take you to Singapore for treatment.’ Ah Kong, my Ah Kong, please Jesus please.
‘Sam, the damage is severe. I’m sorry,’ was Prof’s diagnosis.
‘Ah Sam, Ah Pin, last night one angel show me five fingers on right hand and two fingers on left hand. I live seven weeks, seven months, seven years I don’t know. Ah Sam, Ah Pin, we live we die. Jesus is my friend, I am happy.’
* * *
Those were the last words my Ah Kong said to my brother and me. I was consoled. I had been prepared.
Seven weeks after his heart attack, Uncle called and told me my Ah Kong was with Jesus. My world collapsed – for the first time. I was on auto-mode to return to Segamat with my brother. On arriving, my brother broke into tears and kissed Ah Kong’s forehead as he laid on his small bed. I couldn’t move or even cry. Though my brother and I were prepared, when it came, it hit us intensely.
I relived the same bad dream when I kissed my brother’s forehead o
ne more time. When we buried my brother, I thought I lost my soul mate. I soon had to face another reality, that I lost my soul not my soul mate. Pin Kor, my only brother, the best brother a man could ever have.
I drove on to Uncle’s house. After the two demonic floods, Uncle had moved his family further away from the river. No sound was heard. Everyone was asleep, it was still dark. I sat in the car across the road. The house was larger than the shophouse. The kitchen was large. I saw aunties on their stools and me running around.
‘Sam don’t play with dough! You make it dirty, then you eat!’
Another Hakka staple was choy-pau-pan, vegetable dumplings. For Aunties, making choy-pau-pan was child’s play, but not for Ah Sam to play with. Sum-Ee kneaded rice flour with dribbles of water over a very low charcoal fire. Experience guided her hands on how much water to add. Don’t ask her for exact measurements, she had no answer, only, ‘Aiyah, just knead and knead, you know ready with your hands.’
I was never allowed to knead the dough over the fire; Ah Por never allowed it. But I helped a lot in making the dumplings. We pinched a ping-pong-ball-sized dough, flattened it in our palms. Why didn’t we use the rolling pin? Sum-Ee summed it, ‘Aiyah, that way ang moh[8] do, we Hakka do Hakka way.’ As the dough was uncooked I could not eat some as I did the peanuts in the hum-cha tea.