Bee Lee Tan

from The Blue Lotus magazine issue 53

by martin bradley

Rebecca Haque

with elegance by Bee Lee Tan

Long before Marco Polo, there were already many Chinese traders visiting Southeast Asia. Some eventually settled.

Whilst many came by sea, others travelled overland to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Thailand. They blended their cultures with those of the Thai and Burmese etc. Most of the men were single and took local wives though many of them considered it as prestigious and fashionable to marry Chinese maidens from well brought up families. They adapted to local ways of life, and its cultural elements were incorporated into the mainstream ethnic Chinese culture. This evolved into what is known as the Baba/Nyonya culture in which the men came to be known as Babas and the women were called Nyonyas. Captain Francis Light first came to Penang in 1786, and under the British administration of Straits Settlement (Penang, Dindings, Malacca and Singapore), there was a great influx of migrants to Penang, for almost 40 years. For the next 80 years, Penang became a British Crown Colony, making Penang a strong magnet for trade, investment, and industry - more migrants came. The migrants inevitably brought with them the highly varied influences of their homeland's cuisines and taste expectations, into Penang. This helps explain the richness in variety of Penang Nyonya cuisine, and the languages ‘Penangites’ speak today.

Most ethnic Chinese Penangites, including the Baba Nyonya community, can speak a uniquely sing-song Hokkien dialect. Of course, modernisation in communication (and opportunity to travel) have enabled comparisons to be made with similar communities around this region, and some interesting observations have emerged. In Baba Nyonya culture one can find many love stories, folklore, and poems known as pantuns written about the Baba Nyonya way of life in the good old days. Many poems were sung as love songs in Dondang Sayang during Nyonya and Baba festivals. From this Penang Nyonya cuisine, by some strange destiny, has successfully evolved to become one the cultural star attractions Penang has to offer the world, but at the same time, many also feel that if left

unattended or uncultivated, Penang Nyonya cuisine could be assigned to oblivion faster than they ever dare imagine.

The art of Penang Nyonya cooking used to be compulsory learning for young girls.

They were taught to practise cooking to a state of perfection before marriage, failing which they would be regarded by their in-laws as not being properly brought up and therefore be considered as a disgrace to her family.

Intense training started in early childhood. Young girls were taught basic preparations, such as cutting pieces of onion and garlic, scraping coconut with the scraper, cleaning fish, peeling prawns, pounding chillies with pestle and mortar, and using a grinding slab to make curry paste. The second step would be cutting vegetables into floral designs, cutting meat and a gradual introduction to cooking. The beginner was always under strict supervision of the elderly members of the kitchen.

Nyonyas are known to be meticulous in their cooking

With the use of modern appliances, Nyonyas now admit that the work in the kitchen is less tedious and time consuming than before.

However, traditional Nyonyas believe that their old methods of grinding, pounding and cooking their food are the best methods in producing the full flavours from the ingredients - something that cannot be done by modern appliances.

The basic ingredients in Nyonya cooking are lemon grass, pink bulb flower, galangal, coconut milk, chillies and spices as well as palm sugar, rice flour and screw pine leaves - the list goes on inexhaustibly.

Marriage 'worthiness' or potential of a Nyonya girl was judged by good cooking skills, good looks and a sweet disposition. Privileges such as longer stays in the maternal family were extended for young Nyonyas who cooked well, and got along well with their husbands' household members.

Chinese wooden moulds

Penang Nyonya Cuisine With Elegance

This new book has nearly 280 pages of festive, achar, kerabu, vegetarian, comfort, replenishing, hawker of the Penang Nyonya Cuisine that anyone would love to cook and enjoy. The soft cover is 180 Ringgit Malaysia (approx USD 44) the hard cover is 230 Ringgit Malaysia (approx USD 55). A set of 2 is on promotion for 390 Ringgit Malaysia (approx USD 94). Postage extra

In Buddhism the lotus plant is symbolic of the struggle of the individual gaining an ‘awakening’. Each stage of the lotus’s growth represents a different stage towards ‘Nirvana’ (Nibbana in Pali) which means the end of desire and therefore the end of suffering (awakening).

First the lotus seed, fallen from the dried pod and grown in mud, represents humans born in ‘Samsara’ (the everyday world) a world where there is ‘Dukkha’ (translated as suffering, unhappiness, pain, unsatisfactoriness or stress), which is part of the human experience.

Martin Bradley’s latest chapbook concerns the growth of the lotus flower and quotes from the Buddhist Dharma (Dhamma). It is a combination of photos he has taken of the lotus taken in, India, Sri Lanka and Cambodia, over a period of 18 years.

authentic Dharma quotes....

https://issuu.com/martinabradley/docs/lotus

....original photographs

Martin Bradley

Martin Bradley is the author of a collection of poetry - Remembering Whiteness and Other Poems (2012) Bougainvillea Press; a charity travelogue - A Story of Colors of Cambodia, which he also designed (2012) EverDay and Educare; a collection of his writings for various magazines called Buffalo and Breadfruit (2012) Monsoon Books; an art book for the Philippine artist Toro, called Uniquely Toro (2013), which he also designed, also has written a history of pharmacy for Malaysia, The Journey and Beyond (2014).

Martin wrote a book about Modern Chinese Art with Chinese artist Luo Qi, Luo Qi and Calligraphyism from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China, and has had his book about Bangladesh artist Farida Zaman For the Love of Country published in Dhaka in December 2019.