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Singapore Pasar Malam
By Peace | January 23, 2008
This is a store selling socks, photograph badly taken.
Mentioned about Pasar Malam food in the previous post. Today went to Pasar Malam again, and this is another post about Pasar Malam when I was small, compared with Pasar Malam over the years to now current Pasar Malam.
The picture above is how a typical Pasar Malam shop in Singapore would look like. More pictures can be seen in the previous post. Pasar malam is a Malay word that literally means night market, “Pasar” being related to “bazaar” in Persian. A pasar malam is a market in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia that opens in the evening, usually in housing areas. It brings together a collection of stalls that usually sell goods such as fruit, vegetables, snacks, toys, clothes, movie discs and ornaments at cheap, reasonable prices. Pasar Malams often open only one to a few days of the week, as the traders rotate around different housing areas on different days of the week. Haggling over prices is a common practice at such markets. However, nowadays, Pasar Malam at heavy traffic area like Causeway Point, Jurong East or Bugis is a common sight during festive season like Deepavali, Hari Raya and now, the most recent one would be for Chinese New Year.
When I was young, at Pasar Malam are GeTai(song stage,歌台) Puppet show or Chinese Opera Show. There are tables and stools at hawker stalls which cook instant Fried Oyster, Fried Bee Hoon, The Ghor Hiang Hei Pia (wu xiang xia bin - spring roll and prawn crackers) and so on — Eat hot food, drink bird’s nest drink and watch opera or stage performance. You can see most of your neighbours and friends, young and old all gather together. That was good old time. Though I was young, I love those atmosphere. The floor was always wet, and ’smelly’(rotten bacteria smell) at times but the kind of ‘atmosphere’ is missing in today’s Pasar Malam. What is there to enjoy when there are no hawker stall where food are prepared in front of you, and there is nothing to watch. Nowadays, you want to watch Chinese Opera, you need to go theatre — pay money to watch opera singer Chen Chu Hui 陳主惠(Tan Chor Hui - Teochew). How many old folks who admire her can afford to travel far? Teach new generation arts? Arts culture? Where can we find cultural arts in neighbourhood now? What is really art when we learned arts but cannot find real arts around us, but everything is Money. Got Money than got art. Poor old folks, who love to watch Chinese Opera or Teochew Opera. They can only reminisce the sweet memories of the past. And what about the younger generation, what is Opera ‘man’, sleep better ‘lah’, earn money ‘lah’, have sex better than watch Opera!
Anyway, at Pasar Malam, there are so many things to shop. What is different from traditional Pasar Malam and the modern Pasar Malam, besides the Getai/Opera and the open hawker stalls with tables and chairs, the other different is the types of shops. Last time you will not see so many types of shops. Nowadays, you get to see selling cars, furniture, and even Real Estate Agent ’stall’. Everything is so commercialised, no more arts, but Finance(if I use the right word).
In the past, you may get cheap things out of Pasar Malam, but now it is not necessary so. Do you know that I can get cheaper goods at shopping stores than Pasar Malam? The modern Pasar Malam are no longer the traditional Pasar Malam! I would rather spend shopping in air-conditioned shopping centres and I pay slightly more than to walk in between the crowds with smoke-filled air, at the Pasar Malam.
However, the only thing I would go Pasar Malam now is just to buy food. Other things I would buy are things like stationery and some cheap children’s stuff. I would not get anything for myself, except food.
This Pasar Malam is for Chinese New Year Shopping. I was telling my children that my mother used to buy plants to decorate the house during Chinese New Year, every new year. After Chinese New Year, all the plants will withered and died. I am not going to waste such money.
Chinese New Year Goody Sale
Today, after returning The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran book, we went to the Pasar Malam, intend to look at school bags. We saw a few stores selling Chinese New Year stuff. There were electronic fire crackers being on for display there. Every store competiting against one another. It was so noisy and I could not wait to get out of the place. Out of the Pasar Malam, my clothes and my body smelled of ’smoke’(the cooking smoke from those Pasar Malam stalls).
Topics: Family, Money, Singapore, entertainment |
January 27th, 2008 at 9:42 pm
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February 8th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Ah.. Pasar malam… love to go with my mum. Missed those days.
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