i brought mum for a haircut and perm this morning. and after dropping her off, i went to the market nearby for my breakfast. i had a lot of time and thought i'd take a walk around the wet market. this was the market that i had visited since i was a kid in the mid-70s. then, my mum would drag me out of bed at 5.45am daily. and i would be tasked to help her carry the things she bought. it was through these daily visits that i learned how to recognize the different produce, how to select fresh ones and so on. that was how i got grounded in my basics of cooking. these moments made marine terrace block 50a market special to me. it defined parts of my childhood. and despite moving out of marine terrace in 1998, i would still visit her ever so often. she is like an old friend. but today, i decided to do more than just visit her. i should experience the whole visit - the sights, the sounds, the smells, and savour every bit of it. and i was overwhelmed.
as i entered the produce section, i was greeted by the fresh smell of the produce. walking around the wet market in the early morning was so unlike walking around the meat sections of a supermarket. instead of the stale smell of a combination of different meat, fish, and their products, you can actually distinguish the different smell of these produce in the wet market. and on top of that, you can actually see the freshness of the produce! you see fishes with shiny clear glassy eyes, meat with fresh red blood serum oozing...
talking about sights, nothing can beat nature's ability to bring joy to one through colours. once i walked towards the vegetable, fruits and freshly cut flower section, i was overwhelmed by the burst of colours. it screamed freshness! and the neatly stacks and rows of red, orange, green, yellow, purple, and so on was simple amazing. and as i approached the stores, these orderliness gave way to a chaotic but more interesting resolution of different hues of colours, and of different sizes and shapes! and i was further energized by the wisps of sweetness of the produce. nice! and as i walked further in, nature gave way to culture, a multi-cultural one too. curry powder, rempah in the process of being grounded, kiam chye, szechuan pickled vegetables, salted fish, etc... all exuded their own distinctive smell and colours. the colours, of course was a tat paler and more artificial than that of what i experienced earlier. they were pickled after all. what could i expect right? but certainly, the familiarity of the smell and the richness of the culture it reminded me of more than made up for the lack of colours!
throughout the walk, i heard the humming sounds of people buying food, knives chopping meat, wet squishy sounds of feet lifting off the wet floor... but distinctively, i also noted the constant bargainings between the aunties/ domestic helps and the store owners... and they were trying to bargain over differences of 10cents and 20cents. heh heh... life is certainly a lot simpler and things are certainly much more interesting in wet markets.
but apart from the all-rounded sensory experience, there is one more thing i must pen down. many of the ah soh, ah chek, mak-cik and pak-cik storeholders i knew since years ago have disappeared. but a few were still there. for those who were still there, time have robbed them of their youth. for those who have gone, their children (who are of my generation) have taken over. and despite not knowing them personally, being around people who have co-existed with me over the years created a sense of deep familiarity. and this has been, and will be, the single factor that will continue to bring me back to marine terrace blk 50a wet market. and for that moment, i was a little boy again.
i left the wet market with a silly grin on my face.
:-)
