Life is Work
Produced for M. Arch course University of Strathclyde Other books in the M.Arch submission: A Town and Two Cities My City is Yours
09 September 2013 Tan Yun Ru tanyunru.strath@gmail.com All text and artwork, unless stated otherwise, is the original work of the author
Life is Work stories from a hawker’s family
In reality, social space ‘incorporates’ social actions, the actions, of subjects both individual and collective who are born and who die, who suffer and who act. For these subjects, the behaviour of their space is at once vital and mortal: within it they develop, give expression to themselves, and encounter prohibitions; then they perish ,and that same space contains their graves. H. Lefebvre, 1974
contents
i
ii
iii
introduction
index of places
family members
1
2
3
arrival in a new country
4
a hawker’s life
7
daily rountine: mornings
hometown
5
from A - Z
8
daily routines: afternoons
work then, work now
6
from day to night
9
daily routines: nights
10 11 12
childhood memories
places of life and work
our home
13 14 15 our home
16 life is work
improving life through work
life is work
i introduction where this came from
My maternal great-grandfather and grandparents were hawker in a small town in Malaysia. Similar to my paternal grandfather, who was a tailor, they went into a trade and remained there their whole lives. Their days were essentially fully occupied with labour and production as a means to a living. When I pressed for recollections of other activities and spaces, I was met mostly with blank stares. How much does your work define your life and the spaces you live in? This book is the culmination of a series of interviews I conducted with my family, in an attempt at understanding the way my grandparents worked and lived.
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ii glossary local terms and colloquialisms
Parit Buntar
Rural small town in the state of Perak, Malaysia. It was named after the irrigation canal built by a local leader called Tok Buntar.
Penang Island
A small island off the west coast of Peninsula Malaysia. More urbanised and developed than the surrounding areas, especially in the past few decades, and therefore draw for people looking for work or studies.
Shophouse
A common building typology in Southeast Asia. Usually terraced along a row, two or three stories high, with commercial activity and living spaces for the family on the upper floor(s). Traditional shophouses with Malay, Chinese and European-influenced ornamentation is still found across Malaysia but many are in poor condition.
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Kaki lima [Malay, literally ‘five-foot way’]
Shophouses typically have a covered walkway (arcade) within the property line—especially important in a climate with strong sun and often torrential rain. Considered public walkway, but sometimes occcupied by shopkeepers’ or residents’ goods.
Sungai Kerian [Malay, Kerian River]
A river in the northern part of the state of Perak, Malaysia. The Sungai Kerian tragedy happeneed on 13th September, 1972, when 27 people, mostly schoolchildren, drowned when the ferry they were on capsized. Previous to that there were no bridges servicing students, and students and workers travelling across the river had to use the ferry service. Following the tragedy, the ferry service was suspended and the Sultan Idris Bridge was constructed.
Hawker
Hawker in Malaysia and Singapore refers to a seller of food with a stall, occasionally mobile but more commonly set up in coffeeshops or ‘hawker centres’.
Kopitiam
Traditional coffee shop found in Southeast Asia, commonly found in residential area for affordable meals and drinks. The name is derived from Hokkien/Hakka terms for coffee and shop
Ah Gong
In Teochew, a respectful term for grandfather.
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iii interviewed family members
Teoh Ma Seo 1903-1998 Maternal great-grandfather of author
Teoh Mook Seong Born 1938 Grand-uncle of author (brother of maternal grandfather) Teoh Ai Ngor Born 1955 Aunt of author (sister of mother) Teoh Ai Cheng Born 1960 Parent of author Tan Teoh Guan Born 1957 Parent of author
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1 arrival in a new country as told by Teo Mook Seong
I am a second-generation Malaysian. My father— that’s your great-grandfather—came here from China. He was a peddler back in a small village in China, carrying around baskets of children’s toys to sell, bringing it from house to house. At 16 he migrated from China to Malaysia. When he got here he first had a small coffee and food shop, but it was unsuccessful. So he just started making his own food to sell as a hawker. He didn’t earn much really, just enough to live on.
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2 hometown as told by Teoh Ai Cheng
I was born where your great-grandfather settled, in Parit Buntar. We lived in one of the shophouses in a long row opposite the river, which was called Sungai Kerian. Naturally our street was called Jalan Sungai [literal: River Street]. That was where I grew up. It looks different now, though. When I was young there was a very large tree right next to the river. I remember how strong the wind sometimes blew, and when the tree started littering seeds all over the ground we would gather them up to play with. We used to tell each other they were ghosts’ shoes.
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3 work then, work now as told by Tan Teoh Guan
In those days we didn’t have this modern concept of work. People’s concerns were focused on the basic necessities: clothes, food, a place to stay and [necessary] movement, the simplest things. Either you were a tailor, or a farmer, or a shopkeeper; just a simple job with a simple identity. There were hardly any 9 to 5 office jobs like today.
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4 a hawker’s life as told by Teoh Mook Seong
At that time, being a hawker was a very hard life. The whole family had to be involved. It was very busy. You had to work 365 days a year, not even with a day’s rest. Even sometimes during [Chinese] New Year’s you would have to work. Your great-grandfather was a hawker till he was very old and gradually passed it over to your grandfather. I think it was very late in his life-- something like sixty or seventy? Ah Gong was very optimistic and cheerful. He never grumbled.
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5 from A - Z as told by Teoh Mook Seong
Your great-grandfather prepared everything himself: everything including all the condiments, except for the stuff you couldn’t make like flour, or raw cuttlefish, that you had to make by yourself. The sesame seeds, you had to roll yourself. Even the onion garnish you would have to fry yourself. He was famous for his popiah. Being a hawker at that time was really difficult; it’s not like now, when you can get pre-made things. You had to prepare everything from A-Z yourself before you could sell anything.
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6 from day to night as told by Teoh Mook Seong
He woke up really early, usually at four or five. He was so very hardworking. And he always worked till late at night. Usually he sold food in the morning, continued into the afternoon and late at night, even until one in the morning. At night, when the whole town would be sleeping, they would still be washing the plates and cutlery.
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7 daily routine: mornings as told by Teoh Ai Ngor
My parents, your grandparents, got married after they were introduced to each other. I think my mother was 16 years old at that time. She moved down to Parit Buntar immediately, and started to help with my grandfather’s hawker’s stall. Since my father was the eldest child, she also had the younger siblings to care for. She used to wake up as early as my grandfather did—there was a lot to do then, from preparing the food to selling it to cleaning, so she would help him in the mornings with the preparation.
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8 daily routine: afternoons as told by Teoh Ai Ngor
And then in the afternoon, she had the household chores. All the children needed taking care of— there were so many children in the house at that time, defintely more than enough to form a queue for whatever needed doing—bathing, tidying up and such. I can’t really tell you what she liked to do during her free time, mostly because she was always so busy all of the time.
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9 daily routine: nights as told by Teoh Ai Cheng
At night we would also have to help at the stall, and by that time it would be mostly business from the cinema-goers—the 9 o’clock show was usually the last for the day, and people from that show came out, maybe had a nibble, and that would be your day’s business done. All that would be left is the cleanup, and bringing home the tools.
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10 childhood memories as told by Teoh Ai Cheng
I actually don’t remember much from when I was young. Most of what I remember was having to help your great-grandfather sell his pastries. Every morning, us children would have to help them take the food to the shop where the stall was. After school, we took our homework to the stall as well, since we spent so much time there helping out. For some reason, we didn’t have running water at the stall— and you can imagine how much water a food stall would need—so all this water we carried over from our house in a bucket. I especially remember how my mother cried when I left for Penang to study because there was no one else to help her.
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11 places of life and work as told by Teoh Ai Cheng
When I think back on my hometown, the places I think of are the school, our stall; these were our family places. And of course the house... the room in which all of us used to live, plus the road to school, the one I walked down everyday. There is the house down the road, about 20 houses away I think—where we could get food sometimes. So our lives were very simple. Go to school, take our dinner afterwards, come back home, and study in our room. Occasionally we would go out for a stroll after dinner. Instead of walking straight back home we would take a detour to a park. That was it.
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12 our home as told by Teoh Ai Ngor
We lived in a timber house that had two storeys. It was quite a lot like the traditional colonial shophouses you still see around, with some ornamental elements and wood carving on the front—like classical chinese architecture. What you see now is a modified facade (from when we renovated the house) that is much simpler in design. We renovated it because as time passed the timber started decaying. I remember how you could actually walk upstairs and look through the floor, all the way to the bottom floor—that’s how bad the condition of the timber was. So we had to replace a lot of the flooring.
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13 our home as told by Teoh Ai Ngor
The whole lot was split into two, with a kitchen and corridor connecting the two. The front half faced the river and the main street, and the back half opened out into a back alley, which was where we socialised with the neighbours. There were plenty of rooms— the front half had 4 rooms upstairs and the back half had another four, and there were about 6 other families living with us. Everyone cooked in the kitchen, which had four or five stoves, and there was a skylight as well, where we hung our laundry even up to when we moved out.
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14 improving life through work as told by Teoh Ai Ngor
We were living hand to mouth. Being so poor we were looked down upon by the other families who lived with us, which motivated me and my sisters to study hard in school, and earn good grades to get into university. My parents didn’t place much importance on our studies—my mother was illiterate herself. My eldest sister and I forced ourselves to study hard and get into university because we experienced, firsthand, how hard life could be. So I wanted to escape.
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15 improving life through work as told by Teoh Ai Ngor
Our family started earning more money as our parents’ hawker’s stall was well-received in the area. My eldest sister and I started working, and after a few years my father and uncle bought the whole lot with my name on the bank loan. As for the other families, they all moved out at some point. By then everyone had saved some money, and one by one they bought their own home and left.
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16 life is work as told by Teoh Mook Seong
One good thing about your great-grandfather is that he really liked his job. It wasn’t just to earn money! If someone praised his food as delicious, he would be really happy. Wherever he went, he would go to see how other people did their pastries. he was happy with his job, that’s how he was. He was never someone who counted his pennies. That’s why he never saved anything. It was just enough to live, to eat. That’s how he was.
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