Day 1 in Malacca

Monday 21st May.

Menu: Lunch was at the Peranakan Restaurant,which served food that was familiar to the Singaporeans but not the Canadians. The difference in spice tolerance made me realize how much I used to take for granted the types of food I usually eat. At home the food I usually get cannot be classified into a particular type of Chinese food- unlike, for instance, the distinctively “Cantonese” or “Hakka” dishes we had in Hong Kong and Guangzhou. It’s been localized and even the dishes which are Chinese in origin have had spices added to them. I remember in London I couldn’t find any of the usual chili that I ate–not even in Chinatown. Now I know why-it’s not exactly a Chinese ingredient. Spices were introduced by traders and migrants from India and Indonesia. As the venue of congregation of migrants from various parts of the world and are geographically further away from the influence of mainland China,Southeast Asian ports like Singapore and Malacca have menus that are a lot heavier on spices.

Destinations: We visited Malacca’s shopping mall, which was built at the site of an old cemetery, and had a far less glitzy and glamorous air to it than those we had seen in Hong Kong and Singapore, and contained few tourists despite being sufficiently close to Chinatown. It is odd that the mall is situated here, near Chinatown, whereas most of Malacca’s population lives further away. Its huge carpark and wedged-between location (between touristy Chinatown and local residential areas) makes it look like it was meant to be an attraction of some sort for both locals and tourists. It is amusing to that most authorities feel that the presence of a shopping mall will help tourism in some way, while tourists who visit Malacca are probably searching for the quiet, exotic Peranakan vibe of preserved Chinatown.

Destination: A rickshaw rider whose vehicle was garishly decorated with plastic flowers which seemed to be symbolic of nothing except that it reminded me of a Chinese funeral took me on a short tour of Chinatown. The sleepiness of the place, I reflected, was probably not so much a result of being abandoned by the local Chinese, but because Malacca didn’t so much bask as it baked in the sun, and in a place preserved as it was with no air-conditioning to cool the streets, a lively atmosphere in the afternoon was probably too much to ask. My tour of Chinatown brought me to a store which sold shoes for bound feet, each of which costs about RM 200, testifying to the allure of exotic history to tourists.

Destination: Harmony Street, where the Cheng Hoon Teng Temple (the oldest Chinese temple in Malaysia),Kampong Kling Mosque and Sri Vinayagar Temple (among the oldest mosques and temples in Malaysia) stand almost side-by-side.

The Mosque had both Chinese and Arabic script, and some Chinese-influenced architecture. This being one of the oldest mosques in Malaysia, shows how early the Chinese had arrived in Malacca. Certainly the arrival of Chinese in the 1500’s (a Chinese Princess sent to marry the local Sultan, and her entourage) has paved the way for further migration later, which would explain the growth of the Chinese population in Malacca despite the absence of tin, which is the reason for Chinese migration to other parts of Malaysia like Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur.

Menu: Dinner was a desperate affair, seeing as to how nobody expected Chinatown to shut down after 6pm. There was little choice so we settled at a Chicken Rice Ball eating house. Which was interesting because this tasted somewhat similar but also very different from the Chicken Rice we had on the first day in Singapore.

Glutinous rice was used, and the rice was the highlight of the dish, not the chicken (which could also be replaced by duck or pork). If this was the original Hainanese style of chicken rice, as the eating place claims, then Singapore can claim its Chicken Rice as its own! Tracing migration patterns has never been more fun – clearly, the Hainanese who settled in Malacca and those who arrived in Singapore were from different origins and did not mix very much after settling in their respective places. Styles of stir-frying vegetables and cooking soup however, did not differ. It could also be that the different Chicken Rice styles had been artificially created such that each dish would be a unique one for Malacca and Singapore.

- Yinghui