Rounding back from a walk after
supper the evening of the first day the old Hainanese place with its dim lights
stood cavern-like open onto the street. Muar was another Chinese-dominated town
alright. Numerous Chinese eating houses from the early period could be found in
any Malaysian town, mostly of a kind. Here both the floor and walls were
untiled, the red plastic stools missing. The last lick of paint had been
applied decades before.
After all the high gloss of the Singaporean version, late as it was, it prompted a stop.
Minimal furnishings and decorations and on the left small cubicles in a row, small wooden enclosures.
The place was almost untouched, entirely escaping the renovator's fancy.
The wood of the cubicles had taken a different tone to the render of the walls, a discoloured oyster white it would be called on the present-day charts. Two, three…. Five tight spaces with single table and chairs. Four or five diners would leave little elbow-room inside those chambers. Soft pink for the frames of the paneling and angled cut-outs added some styling to the entries.
At that hour there were no customers. Five or six other tables sat in the main dining hall.
This was a large, wide room that these odd private compartments rather constricted.
In the days following lunches would be taken at Kedai New Eastern Restoran, the meal order invariably needing the chap to come out from the kitchen. First attempts by the wife were assayed from four feet distance leaning forward; the woman unable to venture any nearer and poorly accented Malay and Chinese left her flustered. The failing the woman felt all on her side.
A portrait of the old founder hung over the register. These reigning spirits commonly presided over the registers in both Indian and Chinese eating houses. The money they had brought into the family ensured these pioneers would be honoured for at least one generation.
The son still ran New Eastern—one of the sons at least. In his mid-sixties, over lunches and dinners in subsequent days, the man unfolded the main lines of the family tale.
Opposite the heavy, squat colonial-era building that was dated 1917 reminded of Rechabite halls back home. In the son's early days it had been a protestant church, latterly used only for funerals and in recent time badminton had been played there. Currently the place was undergoing renovation.
Thirty years later they had felt the shocks of the October Revolution in these streets of Johor and across the outlying jungle in particular in Malaya.
In front in the vitrine at New Eastern a frieze of red Coke cans from across the company's production of the last half century, almost perfect colour tone for the recent CNY.
It was the line of cubicles above all that intrigued. One was reminded of the restaurants in Indonesia. At Sinbad’s in Tanah Abang, Jakarta one had seen Arab families escorted into the rear room where screens were available for the womenfolk. The practice was common throughout the Arab world, they said.
In the Hainanese here there were portable screens too standing against the opposite wall, one with the fabric removed from the wooden panels. These were heavy old screens on blocks that would have needed two for transport.
If one recalled rightly there was a mention in the reading in Singapore of the importance of Muar for moon-sightings for Ramadan. Up on the Thai border in Kelantan State there was a conservative revival currently; a recent newspaper article had mentioned a proposed ban on unmarried mixed gender sharing motor-cycles. And of course Aceh up in the north of Sumatra in neighbouring Indonesia, where the first Arabian dhows had landed—Aceh the “Veranda of Islam” for the entire South-East Asian region.
Joining the dots for the sequestration at Kedai New Eastern. After five years almost one was not traveling completely blind in these parts.
A doctor brother had practiced in various Asian cities and his cardiologist son presently had a residency at Tan Tok Seng in Singapore. Another brother had passed on. The clan gathered at the Kedai in Muar each New Year, hosted by the uncle who had remained carrying on the enterprise of the old patriarch-ghost above the register. The old hearth in the European context blazing a light that illuminated the family circle.
Each afternoon the wife hesitantly approached attempting the order, before—finger pointing over her shoulder—husband was called out. Each afternoon brilliant, sumptuous fare fit for Sultan or towkay. The girl serving was not Vietnamese—Myanmar. With better hearing she gratefully caught the Thanks in her own language.
Five overhead fans had been added not long after the war possibly; fluro lights might have been deployed for banquets. New vertical shutters for the front in place of the handsome old patterned horizontal was one loss here.
Muhyuddin the brave local who had recently been deposed as Deputy Prime Minister for his criticism of Najib was photographed with his wife on a visit. Plastic brown chairs with backs had steadily replaced the wooden originals. A calendar and wall-clock. The retro sea-shell light shades over the cubicles were originals, one could tell by the dull discoloured brass mounts.
After all the high gloss of the Singaporean version, late as it was, it prompted a stop.
Minimal furnishings and decorations and on the left small cubicles in a row, small wooden enclosures.
The place was almost untouched, entirely escaping the renovator's fancy.
The wood of the cubicles had taken a different tone to the render of the walls, a discoloured oyster white it would be called on the present-day charts. Two, three…. Five tight spaces with single table and chairs. Four or five diners would leave little elbow-room inside those chambers. Soft pink for the frames of the paneling and angled cut-outs added some styling to the entries.
At that hour there were no customers. Five or six other tables sat in the main dining hall.
This was a large, wide room that these odd private compartments rather constricted.
In the days following lunches would be taken at Kedai New Eastern Restoran, the meal order invariably needing the chap to come out from the kitchen. First attempts by the wife were assayed from four feet distance leaning forward; the woman unable to venture any nearer and poorly accented Malay and Chinese left her flustered. The failing the woman felt all on her side.
A portrait of the old founder hung over the register. These reigning spirits commonly presided over the registers in both Indian and Chinese eating houses. The money they had brought into the family ensured these pioneers would be honoured for at least one generation.
The son still ran New Eastern—one of the sons at least. In his mid-sixties, over lunches and dinners in subsequent days, the man unfolded the main lines of the family tale.
Opposite the heavy, squat colonial-era building that was dated 1917 reminded of Rechabite halls back home. In the son's early days it had been a protestant church, latterly used only for funerals and in recent time badminton had been played there. Currently the place was undergoing renovation.
Thirty years later they had felt the shocks of the October Revolution in these streets of Johor and across the outlying jungle in particular in Malaya.
In front in the vitrine at New Eastern a frieze of red Coke cans from across the company's production of the last half century, almost perfect colour tone for the recent CNY.
It was the line of cubicles above all that intrigued. One was reminded of the restaurants in Indonesia. At Sinbad’s in Tanah Abang, Jakarta one had seen Arab families escorted into the rear room where screens were available for the womenfolk. The practice was common throughout the Arab world, they said.
In the Hainanese here there were portable screens too standing against the opposite wall, one with the fabric removed from the wooden panels. These were heavy old screens on blocks that would have needed two for transport.
If one recalled rightly there was a mention in the reading in Singapore of the importance of Muar for moon-sightings for Ramadan. Up on the Thai border in Kelantan State there was a conservative revival currently; a recent newspaper article had mentioned a proposed ban on unmarried mixed gender sharing motor-cycles. And of course Aceh up in the north of Sumatra in neighbouring Indonesia, where the first Arabian dhows had landed—Aceh the “Veranda of Islam” for the entire South-East Asian region.
Joining the dots for the sequestration at Kedai New Eastern. After five years almost one was not traveling completely blind in these parts.
A doctor brother had practiced in various Asian cities and his cardiologist son presently had a residency at Tan Tok Seng in Singapore. Another brother had passed on. The clan gathered at the Kedai in Muar each New Year, hosted by the uncle who had remained carrying on the enterprise of the old patriarch-ghost above the register. The old hearth in the European context blazing a light that illuminated the family circle.
Each afternoon the wife hesitantly approached attempting the order, before—finger pointing over her shoulder—husband was called out. Each afternoon brilliant, sumptuous fare fit for Sultan or towkay. The girl serving was not Vietnamese—Myanmar. With better hearing she gratefully caught the Thanks in her own language.
Five overhead fans had been added not long after the war possibly; fluro lights might have been deployed for banquets. New vertical shutters for the front in place of the handsome old patterned horizontal was one loss here.
Muhyuddin the brave local who had recently been deposed as Deputy Prime Minister for his criticism of Najib was photographed with his wife on a visit. Plastic brown chairs with backs had steadily replaced the wooden originals. A calendar and wall-clock. The retro sea-shell light shades over the cubicles were originals, one could tell by the dull discoloured brass mounts.
It was not lethargy
and disregard that was responsible for the lack of progress and modernization
here; in their mid-sixties husband and wife continued pacing the concrete floor
in the usual earnest way. Energy and spirit had not been lacking. Active filial
piety was nearer the mark, something more substantial than the ritualized
worship.
On the inner wall of each private booth the row of hooks had failed to give a clue. Wall hooks on a rail like in a European restaurant for umbrellas, bags and songkoks perhaps in the Tropics. The question was never posed for the current host.
One evening chatting after dinner the man himself drew attention to the hooks.
Yes, yes, smiling. The British soldiers liked to sup in privacy. You see where they hung their coats.
It was a curve ball pelted at speed and impossible to defend.
On the inner wall of each private booth the row of hooks had failed to give a clue. Wall hooks on a rail like in a European restaurant for umbrellas, bags and songkoks perhaps in the Tropics. The question was never posed for the current host.
One evening chatting after dinner the man himself drew attention to the hooks.
Yes, yes, smiling. The British soldiers liked to sup in privacy. You see where they hung their coats.
It was a curve ball pelted at speed and impossible to defend.
One of the
bags under the host’s eyes, the son who had remained retracing the steps of his
father over the floor here, looked as if it had been blackened. (There was a good
deal of skin complaints in the Tropics.) The wry smiling cast back to many
years before.
The date on the pair of buildings this side was 1936. Father out from Hainan had bought the one on the left from Indian chettiars—the famous South Indian community bankers of the region.
The communist menace had of course gripped the region with some force. Not until 1964, a couple of years before the Australian Aboriginal peoples, had the former Chinese coolies been granted the franchise in Malaya. The Americans in Vietnam had learnt lessons from the British in Malaya: Agent Orange, jungle warfare, hunting out sympathizers in the rural areas, resettlement and collective punishment—the Brits had written the textbook. The old Forward-Scout met in Ipoh three years earlier returned to mind with these cubicles and coat hooks mounted on the wall of Kedai New Eastern Restoran. If only the British had been in charge in Vietnam!...the Forward-Scout had lamented.
Shy young British lads ill-at-ease under the eyes of the Yellow people they were fighting in the jungle. (Like in Vietnam, identification of individuals was terribly difficult and resulted in numerous errors.) Weary lads here in the heat put off their tucker. There would have been drapes over the entry-ways to the cubicles at New Eastern back in the day.
One was reminded too of reports from other far-flung colonial outposts where the impressive, lordly newcomers in their smart uniforms and carrying glinting iron seemed some kind of superlative beings from the realms where the departed ancestors had journeyed. It was only when the men unzipped that the whisper went out of the shared humanity.
The date on the pair of buildings this side was 1936. Father out from Hainan had bought the one on the left from Indian chettiars—the famous South Indian community bankers of the region.
The communist menace had of course gripped the region with some force. Not until 1964, a couple of years before the Australian Aboriginal peoples, had the former Chinese coolies been granted the franchise in Malaya. The Americans in Vietnam had learnt lessons from the British in Malaya: Agent Orange, jungle warfare, hunting out sympathizers in the rural areas, resettlement and collective punishment—the Brits had written the textbook. The old Forward-Scout met in Ipoh three years earlier returned to mind with these cubicles and coat hooks mounted on the wall of Kedai New Eastern Restoran. If only the British had been in charge in Vietnam!...the Forward-Scout had lamented.
Shy young British lads ill-at-ease under the eyes of the Yellow people they were fighting in the jungle. (Like in Vietnam, identification of individuals was terribly difficult and resulted in numerous errors.) Weary lads here in the heat put off their tucker. There would have been drapes over the entry-ways to the cubicles at New Eastern back in the day.
One was reminded too of reports from other far-flung colonial outposts where the impressive, lordly newcomers in their smart uniforms and carrying glinting iron seemed some kind of superlative beings from the realms where the departed ancestors had journeyed. It was only when the men unzipped that the whisper went out of the shared humanity.
It was an insight that took some while longer on the other side.
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