I am helping out TPR to express her passion - her very own root, the Terengganu Chinese community and cooking. Old community, naturally close-knit and interrelated. A bit complicated but totally organized. Totally! Did I say totally again? Totally!
I met almost a dozen personalities who came from this community. Some very prominent, some are just kueh cina baking aunties. And they are all extremely attached and proud of their roots. Until today!
These Chinese people I met, like their Malay and Indian counterparts, are from different walk of lives. From a Tan Sri to Auntie Wee who bakes 500 apang kukuh (apam kukus) per day (and nite!).
Auntie Wee has been baking for the past 28 years! She’s is 52. Married twice, the second one was with a Malay man who apparently left her. I supposed she was a Muslim once. (Is this considered a murtad case? Lets get DZ to cover that part of the story for her IM2.
Auntie Wee has 2 sons; they are both in KL working. Unfortunately, her sons are not well educated. One of them is working to repair air-conditioners and install them. The other boy, I haven’t got a clue what he does in KL. Since the second son did help her to bake when he was growing up, she was rather hopeful the son will come back and continue what she does which she inherited from an old women who passed the recepe to her personally before the old lady died.
At 52, Auntie Wee still lives in a rented house in Jalang Air Jerneh, and she bakes to pay the rent. To her, when there are shortages of sugar or increase in the prices of flour or sugar or eggs, these will eat up whatever little profit she makes. She can’t simply raise the price of her kueh that she has been supplying to resorts in Pulau Redang.
She lives alone, works alone sometime until 4 in the morning to meet the order. If she can’t meet the order, she might not get future ones.
The second time I saw her, she was more cheerful. Later I found out her cousin was in town from Singapore which mean they are going to bake together for the next few days.
I tried applying my limited economic knowledge struggling to try to enhance the efficiency of her production line by suggesting her to get bigger steamer. She said it has to be custom-made and it will cost her RM60. And because of that she has to bake until really late!
I almost dropped my camera (of course I didn’t, are you kidding!). But, really I felt like crying when I heard her story.
She actually said to me in Bahasa Terengganu:
Nasib baik Tuhang bagi kita panda masok. Buleh kita cari makang.
(Nasi baik Tuhan beri kita pandai memasak, boleh cari makan)
(Thank God for giving me the knowledge to bake. At least I can ear a living.
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