I ate Tiong Bahru (second edition)

By Stephen J Black

The first edition of i ate tiong bahru sold out, largely due to word of mouth. Published independently, the collection of essays first struck a chord with the residents of Tiong Bahru, then with the nation of Singapore as a whole. The book's unusual combination of historical documentation, detailed observations of daily life and ly

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Black
• Release date: Apr 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9780578247465

Book preview

iatb_ePub_front-cover.jpg

i

ate tiong

bahru

Copyright © 2013, 2020 Stephen Black

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

Published by Book Merah

First published in 2013

Second Edition

ISBN 9780578247465 (eBook)

ISBN 9781637601754 (paperback)

Printed in the United States of America

Book Design by Kory Kirby

Dedicated to my mom and dad and my brother, as well as to all of those whom I have spoken to and eaten with in Tiong Bahru, especially the young lady who enjoyed the curry at Cheng’s.

At the time, no one wanted to live here. The brand new buildings were said to be too hot and only a few families had moved in. Before the war, there were maybe only five children in the area...

Private interview with Tan Mok Lee, civic volunteer and Tiong Bahru resident from 1939-2011.

Ah, art! Ah, life! The pendulum swinging back and forth, from complex to simple, again to complex. From romantic to realistic, back to romantic.

Ray Bradbury, The October Country

Contents

Author’s Note

i ate tiong bahru

About Tiong Bahru

Foreword

The Blue of an Edible Flower

Fa Fa Away

Dewali in Galicier

A Coffee Break with Chef Judy

Blue White Noise

I’m a Kway, You’re a Kway

Soymilk Blues

I am a Blue Ring of Fire

Blued Coffee

Ronnie and The Burns

One Christmas Day

Smoke and Mirrors

The Canal and the Blue Orchid

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About Book Merah

Author’s Note

July 3, 2013

Recently, Tiong Bahru has experienced changes which are not always reflected in this book. For example, the provision shop that was on Tiong Bahru Road is now a bakery. Kopi c kosong no longer costs eighty cents.

There are at least two spellings for the Chinese pastry known as kueh/kway. Both spellings are used, sometimes on the same page. These and other writing decisions are intended to make the reading experience more lifelike. For example, walking through Tiong Bahru, one can see yong tau foo spelled at least three different ways.

...

June 22, 2020

I am honored to say that the first edition of i ate tiong bahru became a bestseller. Thank you very much to all those who read it. What you are about to read contains a story, Ronnie and the Burns, which will also appear in tiong bahru mouth, the sequel to iatb.

Onward!

– Stephen Black

i ate tiong bahru

Unlike most of the island country of Singapore, Tiong Bahru Estate looks like it did when it was built over seventy-five years ago. Its distinctive Art Deco architecture and famous food have delighted Singaporeans for generations.

From swamps and kampungs to colonial public housing experiment to wi-fi’d cosmopolitan community, Tiong Bahru represents many of the changes which have occurred in Singapore and throughout Southeast Asia.

Stephen Black lived in Tiong Bahru for three of his eleven years in Singapore.

i ate tiong bahru is a fact-based, lyrical documentary.

...

On the Road meets the Food Channel in a kopitiam in Singapore. Art Deco architecture, Asian history, a Johnny Cash/soymilk mashup, Swiss visionaries, gangsters, and all kinds of great food... what more could you ask for?

Jamie Grefe, screenwriter/director, jamiegrefe.com

About Tiong Bahru

Although fashionable and contemporary, Tiong Bahru Estate still contains aspects of its rich Southeast Asian heritage, one shaped by Singaporeans, Malays, British, Japanese and Chinese. The area’s long-term residents, its Art Deco buildings and its food are living bridges between East and West.

As part of its effort to improve the colony’s public housing shortage, the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) began work on Tiong Bahru Estate in 1936. No construction occurred from 1942-1945, the years of the Japanese occupation. Completed in 1957, Tiong Bahru became Singapore’s first public housing estate. Its public market/hawker center is another Singaporean first.

In 2003, the Singapore government, working through the Urban Redevelopment Authority for Conservation, created the Tiong Bahru Conservation Area. The estate, of approximately 100 acres, is bordered by Yiong Siak Street to the west and Tiong Poh Road to the south. Tiong Bahru Road forms the northern and eastern borders.

Tiong Bahru is a short taxi ride from Sentosa, Chinatown and the city center.

Foreword

Tiong Bahru is a great place to eat, talk and listen. I enjoyed living there.

Interviews and research shaped i ate tiong bahru. Like certain types of blogs, this book aims to be casual but informative. Its structure is loosely based on the route of the Hock Lee #6 bus, which entered the estates at Tiong Poh Road and passed through Yong Siak St., Moh Guan Terrace, Lim Liak St. and Seng Poh Road before going near the Great World Amusement Park and returning to Chinatown. The trip cost 5 cents.

The title, i ate tiong bahru, is meant to suggest that I internalized Tiong Bahru; the place became a part of me. The title also plays on ‘ate’ sounding like ‘eight’, a lucky number to the Chinese. To suggest that the title is a subtle dig at the heartless gentrification of the area (i.e. I Hate Tiong Bahru) is nearly completely wrong.

Regardless of where you live, I hope you enjoy the following pages.

Stephen Black

Tiong Bahru

May 8, 2013

i

ate tiong

bahru

The Blue of an Edible Flower

Mr. Chew describes great food as being beautiful. He’ll close his eyes and slowly sculpt the word with his lips and mouth. His beautifuls can easily be three seconds long. When he was a boy, there was a stall on the corner of Tiong Poh and Eng Watt. An old man made prata in the morning and, after 11am, biryani. Mr. Chew and his friends would come before the biryani was ready and wait. ...the spices, the chicken, the smell and the taste: Beeeauuuuuttifuullll.

I bite into my lemper udang. Inside the roll of glutinous rice is a mildly hot shrimp paste. I like it, but what will the Chews think? Mrs. Chew’s from Hong Kong, where, according to her husband, people don’t usually eat pigs’ organs. Before they were married, he took her to the Tiong Bahru Market, to Koh Brothers for pigs’ organs soup. Wow! She loved it!

Mr. Chew and his wife smile as they describe the couples that ran the two stalls in the coffee shop on the corner of Tiong Bahru Road and Eng Hoon Street. It was like watching two TV shows at once, funny because both couples always quarrelled among themselves. Sometimes plates flew. One stall served carrot cake, the other prawn mee. Both foods were Beeeauuuutifullll.

For thirty years Mr. Chew has tasted the changes in the food of Tiong Bahru. Sugarcane juice, for example.

The canes were about as tall as you. They’d chop in the morning and then grind it on the spot, skin and all... beautiful. Now, sugarcane is cut and cleaned in Malaysia. Nice neat bundles. Easier, but the taste isn’t the same. The boxes say ‘Keep refrigerated’. Do you think they do that?

There are no more beautiful foods. "Before, they’d make everything right in front of you. Cook the meat, then add it to the soup. Now, they just precook everything and drop it in. No one wants to do the hard work. It’s just about turnover. Prawn fritters, sausages, fishballs, wanton mee and tandori chicken. The herbs, the spices, the care. They were all so... beeeauuuuuttifuullll."

A young couple, possibly civil servants or bankers, shows up with something to eat. A yellow cardboard box of French fries is set on the table, next to a small container of yellow and brown sauce. The pale French fries are all the same size. Help yourself, she says, smiling. I thank her and offer her a lemper udang. Oh, no thank you, she says, again with a smile.

Mr. Chew is pulling back the banana leaf wrapper of his lemper udang. He studies the misty blue of the glutinous rice, then takes a bite. His eyes close.

Beautiful, he says, very very slowly.

Fa Fa Away

Coconut, mango, durian, sour plum, sweet corn, chempedak, red beans and chendol: these are the flavors of the ice creams within the small freezer outside of Mr. Boo’s fruit stand. Diagonally across the street is Tiong Bahru’s famous market. On the other corners are white Art Deco blocks of flats. The streets are clean and the area has charm; the perfect place for an ice cream stroll.

Not a bad opening, but I’m afraid the list of flavors is dull. Lifeless. A portrait is what I want. Not just documentation of foods, places and people; not just essays on topics like the hard work required to make pigs’ organs soup. Not a literary snapshot