Beating the Drum

No screen at Reaz Corner, and no music either. The only music at Reaz was provided by the calls and prayers from the mosque next door. Neither the mosque nor the Hindu temple or gurdwara here had been visited. Touristic inspections of places of actual worship simply went against the grain.

         A belated visit five years later had been made to the old Chinese temple in the morning. Interesting enough of course; as expected. This place was OK, its raw homeliness gave reassurance. The Johor Old Chinese Temple was a functional local hub without any pretense about it; apart from its Johorean worshipers it was mainly Chinese from the region seeking it out. A short half hour for introduction was sufficient.

        More than the altars and statuary, all the various old relics on the walls and in the vitrines out back, it was the building itself and the compound that held most interest.  A half-pie former builder was immediately caught admiring the structure, the fine pillars and trusses, the roofs and entry-ways. In all of these cases the sturdiness, the shaping and colour carried some kind of intrinsic, persuasive artistry.

        The guide was a pleasant, informative chap, comfortable in his role. There were rarely Western visitors here one could tell. The prospect from the street, from the outside of the perimeter walls, produced perhaps the strongest impression. It seemed in the years since the temple had been built funds had been lacking for any sprucing of the exterior. Possibly some of the roof tiles had been renewed; otherwise crumbling, discolouration and sagging of roof lines. Quite authentic.

         Nevertheless, despite the fact the building was worthy of support from any visitor, after the circuit the thought had been to creep off dignified and upright, nodding perhaps to the guide and slipping away without further ado. The chap certainly would not have said a word nor pulled a face. No doubt not all visitors here made a donation.

        There had been only one reason for the donation made at the end before leaving. Ultimately what drew the fiver from the pocket at the Johor Old Chinese Temple was the prospect of the drum-roll that would result from it. Ten minutes before the beating had sounded and the guide had explained the procedure.

         On the right toward the altar on that side an old grey office safe that stood over a metre high held a little wooden insert in the slit cut on top. This was a giant money-box such as might be used in some kind of wacky TV comedy of cops and robbers. With all the array of colour, the rich reds and greens, macabre figures of gods and demi-gods, it had not been noticed immediately.

         A tall Montenegrin in a fine panama this August day at the temple on the rise of Jalan Trus caused the taut skin of the drum on the other side of the floor to be beaten and its brief roll of thunder to echo through that quarter—three rapid strikes, the first slightly more forceful and the resulting note longer. From within the walls of the little cavern there on the rise the ancestors had been reached.

         The guide and his father had been born in JB; it was the grandfather who had come down from Fuzhou city itself it seemed (where they spoke a language distinct from Hokkien), roundabout the time of the founding of the temple a 120 years ago. Four or five language dialects had worshiped at the Johor Old Chinese Temple over the years, melding together their various local deities and practices. Down in Geylang Mr. Cheong the Cantonese had been meaning to go up to the temple for fifty and more years. Trips over to the badlands across the Causeway meant engaging a reliable and trustworthy driver and wits about you all the while. When he heard the old man would be a little pleased at the proxy visit.