Come Let's Go Makan! by Evelyn Ngui Ailing

 I never knew nyonya cuisine could taste so good.

Coming from a typical Chinese background with no baba or nyonya blood to be traced within ten feet of my bloodline, it is not surprising that the nearest I have got to the rich culture of baba and nyonya is when I last watched the Singaporean drama, “Little Nyonya”. To tell the truth, I kind of expected the food served that night to be spicy, sour, weird or to sweet. Or all at once. Which brings me back to my topic.

             To “experience” this culture, I went with my family to this famous restaurant that serves nyonya cuisine called Ah Tuan Ee’s place. While I do agree you all that the name of the restaurant is much lacking of creativity (I was thinking “All you babas and nyonyas can eat”, “little big nyonya”, or even translated into French or something), it makes up more than for it through the food that it serves.

            First up, ah Tuan Ee’s place is decorated quite lavishly—you can see artifacts or traces of heritage everywhere. The walls are adorned with pictures of nyonya outfits, framed authentic spoons, a patch of nyonya batik, and also wooden carvings. 

The floor is tiled with unique patterns, although not with marble, as the ancient baba and nyonya styled houses preferred. Ceilings were lighted with soft warm lights to introduce a feeling of coziness, while here and there some authentic lanterns swayed. There is no doubt this restaurant was designed to impress even the hardest critics. 

          The food arrived quite promptly, leaving us scrambling for our seats after walking around snapping the decorations. I wouldn’t mind exploring the decorations all day long! The Ah Tuan Ee’s Golden Tau Hoo arrived first. It’s a tofu dish that’s cooked ala house style—fried and served with delicious meat toppings. the texture was great, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, with the crunchy toppings adding some oomph to it. 

Ah Tuan ee's Golden Tau Hoo (RM20.80)

            Next up, the fried assam prawns. This is apparently one of the favored dishes in baba and nyonya cuisine. The prawns are marinated in tamarind sauce and then fried and served. It tasted a little like the butter prawns that the Chinese is quite fond of, although this prawns are more oyster sauce flavored. I couldn’t taste the assam though.

Assam prawns (RM32.80)

            The perut ikan freaked me out a little because it looked so spicy. However, I dipped a spoon in a tried a mouthful—and fell in love with it! This dish is a Penangite’s favourite, mixed with 12 different vegetables and herbs with prawns and pickled fish to produce a spicy, sweet, sour and soupy dish. the amount of times i kept drizzling the curry onto my rice is prove of how great this dish is.

perut ikan (RM20.80)

            When the pandan chicken came, it was a surprise to all of us that it looked like any ordinary fried chicken. We were expecting some chicken wrapped in pandan leaves, and the waiter promptly explained that chicken wrapped in the pandan leaves is actually Thai style, while the nyonyas cooked their chicken marinated in pandan juice and deep fried. Wow, the nyonyas really loved their food deep fried huh!

Pandan Chicken (RM20.80)

            The brains, or otak-otak came wrapped in banana leaves shaped pyramid style, a little like our very own Malaysian nasi lemak style. It is unlike the usual stick like wrappings, which was a very fresh difference. According to the menu, it is “fish pieces in spicy custard-like mixture with wild pepper leaves, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed”. The fish pieces were very much present, and when you cut the otak-otak you could see all the chunks of fish, unlike the mashed-up version Malaysian mamaks are so fond of.

otak-otak (RM8.80)

            For dessert we had ice-kacang, cendol and sago pudding. The ice-kacang and cendol were so-so rated from me, while the sago pudding was awesome to me due to the sickly sweet texture that came from adding coconut milk and gula Melaka.

ice-kacang (RM10.80)

cendol (RM 6.80)

sago pudding (RM6.80)

            After a satisfying dinner at Ah Tuan Ee’s place, I am proud to announce to the world terminator style that “I’ll be back!!” to this awesome restaurant again. And again. And again again again. 

Mysterious Peranakan Taboos by Kasie Foo

               Taboo is a prohibition resulting from social custom. It is also called “pantang-larang” in Baba Malay. We got the information of Peranakan taboos from a Baba at a restaurant in Malacca when he was having his lunch with his family, but he refused to take a picture with us. From him, we got to know that Peranakan taboos are almost the same as Chinese taboos. Here are some taboos that he mentioned:

Marriage taboos

1. Pregnant women are not allowed to attend any weddings and get involve in the preparations for the wedding ceremony.
2. A new born baby and the mother are also strictly prohibited to attend any weddings unless the baby’s “Full Moon” celebration is celebrated. Even the family members of the baby are not welcomed during the wedding as the groom and bride might think that they would bring bad luck to them.
3. Guests are not allowed to wear black or white attire while attending the weddings as these attires are meant for “sorrow occasion.”

Chinese New Year taboos

a.       Sweeping is forbidden during the first three days of Chinese New Year as they believe that good luck would be swept away. They also believe that it is considered “suay” which is known as “unlucky” when the broom touches their feet during the floor sweeping.

b.      Children are encouraged to stay up late during Chinese New Year eve as they believe this will help to prolong the life of their parents.

Funeral taboo

1. When one has just passed away, her/his family members are encouraged to cover their mirrors and reflecting surfaces as they believe that the death person would catch their soul to accompany it to the underworld.

Dining taboo

1.  Sitting at the corner of the dining table is a big “no-no” as they believe that the table corner is like a   sharp knife pointing at the person who is sitting there.

Picture Taking taboo

1. It is strictly forbidden for three person to take a photo together as they believe that the one who is standing in the middle would be the first to die.

Other taboos

a.  

1. Children are strictly not to be allowed to point at the full moon as they believe that the God of the moon would cut around the children’s ear.

The Nyonya's Wardrobe by Shona Wee

When it comes to clothing or fashion, every woman’s eyes would light up like a child that admires the new toy bear that is displayed at the toy shop window. No matter young or old, a woman’s wardrobe plays an important role in a woman’s life as every woman loves pretty cloths. Since we are living in a multicultural country, there are more choices of traditional cloths for us, girls. Now please remember to breathe when you read the following post as you are about to see the most breath taking baba nyonya traditional outfits that would take your breath away.

~Luscious Kebaya~

The first breath taking beauty that attracts not only the girls but also the guys is the Kebaya. The Kebaya is a blouse that the baba nyonya wear as a top which happens to be semi-transparent (now guys, hold back your wolf whistle, as a camisole will be worn inside of the Kebaya).  It is usually made of silk or cotton and is tight and body fitting so that a lady’s curves can be shown and brings out the design of the Kebaya.

Here, in the picture, is the Kebaya blouse, which has a Malay taste.

As you can see here, the Kebaya has embroidery flowers at both sides of the Kebaya. There are 2 types of embroidery, one is handmade, which will cost up to a thousand ringgit, and another is embroidery using the machine, where the price will be much more cheaper and will only cost around RM 80. The blue Kebaya is the Traditional Penang Nyonya Kebaya and it is around 40-45 years old, owned by a true Penang Baba Nyonya.

In this picture, the Kebaya here looks a bit different from the blue Kebaya that you have seen on top as it was owned by my great grandmother, who was an authentic Baba Nyonya from Terengganu. This Kebaya is around 50 years old and was given to my mother after my mother was married to her grandson, my dad. There are no buttons sewn on the Kebaya so a kerongsang (which looks like a broach) have to be pinned and serves as a button.

In those days, if you are rich, your kerongsang would be made of gold, pearls and precious stones. The kerongsang in the picture on the left was my great grandmother’s and the picture on the right is my mother’s.

~The Sarong and Sophisticated Beaded Nyonya Shoes~

The sarong usually consists of  various floral patterns that have a Malay design to it. It is a wraparound cloth that you have to secure it around your waist by putting pins on it. There is a certain technique to tie the sarong, but nowadays there are ready made sarongs where all you need to do is just zip and button up, which is much more easier than wraparound. 

The most amazing accessory in the whole outfit is the beaded shoes.

This pair of shoes is handmade and is sewn on bead by bead. I was told that when my grandmother got married, she had to make a pair of these beaded shoes before her wedding day to show off her ability of sewing skills and on the third day of the wedding, she will wear it for the first time. Besides sewing, cooking is one of the skills that is important as wife material too for the in laws.

The Nyonya culture is gradually going to extinction as most of the young people do not practice the culture anymore, mostly because they find it old fashion or they are being modernized by the current city life. So we should try to get close with our elders and learn more about our own culture before it extincts.

Get-to-Know Baba in SEGi! by Kasie Foo

In order to get to know more about the culture of Baba and Nyonya, I had decided to have an interview with one of the Peranakan from our college, SEGi University College— a pure Baba named Darren Ben who studies Diploma in Video and Animation. We get to know more about him through some interesting questions about him as a Baba.

Kasie:    Do you know the history of your family?

Ben:      My dad is a Baba with Hainam origins. My grandmothers from both of my parent’s

             family started a long way back actually around the 1500s. Haha! My mom has

             an interesting story for the Peranakan heritage. According to her, the Chinese

             never married with the Malays to begin with, they just adopted to the Malay

             culture and made it there.

Kasie:    So, do you speak Baba Malay?

Ben:      Oh yes, I’ve been speaking it for 19 years.

Kasie:   What are the differences between Baba Malay and Malay?

Ben:      We use the word “pakay” instead of “pakai” and “guna”. We don’t use “guna.”

             We also refer oneself as “Gua” and refer to second person as “lu.” Table cloth is

            called “kain tokpoh.” “Ju” means ‘wash’ in Baba Malay. When we ask someone

            to use the table cloth to clean a table, we say “ambil kain tokpoh ju meja.”

Kasie:   How about your religion?

Ben:      I'm a Buddhist, but we use the term “Allah” a lot. For example, we say “only God

            knows” as “Tuhan Allah saya tau.”

Kasie:   Since you are a Baba, do you wear traditional Baba clothes?

Ben:     *laughed* No, it’s heavy and hot. But the Nyonyas still wear Kebaya and beaded

             shoes. Kebaya is very expensive as a lot of Peranakan back in those days worked

             with the British and was considered as high brow people.

Kasie:   There are lot of Peranakan food, which one is your favorite?

Ben:      Rempah Udang. It’s a kuih. There used to be an old Nyonya who sold it and the

            kuih-muih she made were delicious, but now I can’t eat the kuih-muih anymore

            because she passed away.

Kasie:   You are a Baba, what race do your friends think you are?

Ben:     Strangers often ask me about my race, I always tell them I’m a Chinese and they

            actually believe it because I look like a Chinese. But, when I speak Malay, they

           have the second guess, I look Chinese but I don’t speak Mandarin.

Kasie:  Do you have any particular marriage rules in your family?

Ben:    No, not necessary to get married with the same race. The funny thing is my mom

           told me that Nyonyas are very hot tempered and I shouldn’t get married with one

           of them. Actually, I think she is talking about herself. Haha!

Kasie: What do you think of Peranakan nowadays?

Ben:    We are dying out due to our culture integration with another modern way of life. If

           you want to learn more about our culture, the Peranakan in Singapore or Indonesia

           know it better.

Babas and Nyonyas by Fiona Loo

Malaysia is a country of extremely rich and colorful cultures. Tracing back history, a fusion of cultures takes place when a sub ethnic group forms from migrations of recognizable different traditions. Adopting social beliefs, borrowing words and adjusting food and clothing happened at various times and places. In this piece of assignment, we were to look into a special culture in a group of five. The Babas and Nyonyas is chosen as our topic this time because it is a unique, and even rare ethnic community that is born within Malaysia.

The Babas and Nyonyas—also known as the Peranakan community or the Straits Chinese—is one of the fascinating culture hybrids from the good old days. Dated as far back as 5 to 6 centuries, the Malay Peninsula had been a meeting point for traders across continents. Malacca was known for its strategic location and unique spices, bringing to the evolution of the Babas and Nyonyas around the fifteenth century; the Chinese came to Malacca and intermarried with the local Malay women. Furthermore, the cultures of the Chinese and Malay were intermixed with Javanese, Batak, Thai and British. For centuries, the Babas married among each other, becoming an exclusive ethnic group.

Baba is the term for males while Nyonya is for females. The Baba language is the Baba Malay, which is the Malay language with words blending from Chinese (hokkien), Portugese, Dutch, Tamil and English.

Today, traces of the Babas and Nyonyas culture can be found throughout Malacca, Penang and Singapore. Baba Malay is fast fading today, with many of the young ones not able to speak it, and concentrated more on Chinese, English or Malay. They lost the tradition of practicing special Baba customs and Nyonya cuisines. With the Western modernization, the Babas and Nyonyas culture will eventually weaken and slowly disappear.

Look out for more interesting posts when we delve deeper into the Babas and Nyonyas world. Be sure to follow us when we trip down to Penang and Malacca in search of the roots of Babas and Nyonyas.