BABA RAYMONG WONG OF THE KIM CHOO KUEH CHANG FAMILY HAS LIVED AND BREATHED BAKCHANG ALL HIS LIFE HE SHARES STORIES OF HIS PIONEERING GRANDMOTHER.

It all started with one determined Nyonya who did not want to lose a child. Angry with her son-in-law for wanting to give his daughter away in faraway Terengganu, she instructed her son to make a trip there and bring her grandchild to Singapore. She adopted the girl as her own daughter, passing on the finer points of making nyonya bakchang, or dumpling, to her. That child was Lee Kim Choo.

Kim Choo was born in Terengganu in 1933 to a dried seafood trader surnamed Lee. He thought she brought bad luck because his business did badly, and he fell into ill health. Fortunately for Kim Choo, she had a stable and happy childhood under the care of her grandmother, Tok Siew Neo, in Singapore. “She had a strong bond with my great-great-grandmother (who we referred to as our Cho Cho).” Said Kim Choo’s grandson, Raymond Wong.

Kim Choo Dumplings

The Dumpling Festival was one of the four main festivities of the year for the Chinese, Peranakans included. Great-great-grandmother would buy lots of glutinous rice from the market about a month before the festival,” and task Kim Choo to pick out the white rice grains. “kueh chang abu(Kee Chang) made with glutinous rice will be very lembut, or soft. It will spoil easily if there is any white rice in it.”

The Dumpling Festival takes place on the 5th day of the 5th Lunar month at the beginning of summer, known as the Summer Solstice, the day being the longest and hottest of the Lunar year. Great-great-grandmother would hang a bunch of keechang from the first batch at the front door to herald the coming of the festival, plus a bunch of dried daon aroda (rue herb).

20世纪80年代初，金珠在如切坊60号店屋售卖娘惹肉粽照片由金珠的孙子Edmond Wong提供）

In the 1960s, many nyonyas in Katong made Kueh for sale from their homes to earn precious income. Kim Choo was the only Nyonya on the streets, selling Nyonya chang under a banyan tree. Raymond feels fortunate that his grandma stayed 15 years with his family at Telok Kurau until 2013, during which she shared many interesting stories about her past. Kim Choo died in 2015.

The family business prospered in the 1970s after Kim Choo moved from under the banyan tree to the shop unit beside it at 60 Joo Chiat Place, where they have stayed since. Raymond’s father spent his childhood in Kampong Joo Chiat helping Kim Choo “to cut wood for the fire. She would throw Chinese coins into the steamer water so that when it came to boiling, the coins would jiggle with the bubbles and make a tinkling noise. Then she would have to tambah ayer panas or add water. It was her timer. My dad remembers because he had to help her top up the water.”

When Kim Choo married, her grandma’s family did not have the luxury of giving a dowry for her marriage. Thus, when she was hawking bakchang, she envied the nyonyas who wore kebayas because she could not afford them. Perhaps to make up for the deprivation, Kim Choo wore two kebayas on the same day, for the first time in her life, at her eldest son Sin Min’s marriage to Helen on 1 April 1976–one at tea ceremony and the other at the wedding dinner.

In 2011, “my grandma asked me, to make a kebaya for her,” remembered Raymond, who was fast gaining a reputation as a kebaya designer. “It was her first and only kebaya sulam (embroidery) made by me. She said she wanted to be dressed in the kebaya when she died.” Raymond was taken aback, but when the time came, “we fulfilled her wish.”

（Source: Linda Chee, Her story in the making, THE PERANAKAN Magazine Year 2021 Issue 1））