“Next station, Ipoh,” the familiar pre-recorded male announcer spoke in professionally enunciated English. That would be my cue to grab my duffel bag and wait near the exit before the train stopped.
A strong musk of cigarette and engine smoke prickled my nose when the door opened to allow the passengers getting down the train. Yuck! I pinched my nose and fastened my steps into the station where I was supposed to meet Auntie Yan, whom I had not seen for three years.
It was a sudden invitation to stay overnight in Ipoh. Before the trip, she sounded excited when she narrated the wonderful places in her new home. The way she described the Ipoh station was as gorgeous as the KL Railway Station. In reality, the station was much smaller in size and the dim lights made it harder to see anyone else’s face. It took me quite some time to find my aunt. Instead of her usual brown LV and fine permed hairdo, she was standing near the ticketing counter in a plain t-shirt, jeans and slippers. Her bun was messily done, and she did not wear any powder on her face like she used to. She looked much younger than I remembered.
“It’s been a while, Lucie,” she hugged me tightly. The strong expensive wine scent was no longer there, but there was an unfamiliar smell that reminded me of the cheap coffee smell. “Have you eaten anything?”
“Other than early lunch, no.” The two and a half hour train ride was surely exhausting, I could feel my stomach moaning for food.
“Let’s go get some snacks. There’s a good place I've wanted to take you to.”
My heart instantly skipped a beat, “The usual? Cappuccino and tiramisu?”
Auntie Yan shook her head, “Somewhere better.”
We walked towards the exit where a row of cars was parked in between the station and a minimalist fountain plaza. Instead of getting into one of the cars, we walked through the trimmed grass and wooden benches to the main street full of moving vehicles. Their speed was considered slow compared to KL’s pace which everyone drove like they were late for the airport. One of the drivers halted his lorry’s break in a gentle manner, allowing us to get across.
We had not stopped walking for a whole five minutes; Auntie Yan had not taken out her car keys from her jeans pocket. How odd. Isn’t she someone who usually insisted on driving her beloved silver Volkswagen, even though the mini market was just three minutes' walk away from my home?
“Can I call a Grab?” The afternoon sun was causing sticky sweat to drip down my back, dampening my favorite hoodie.
“Don’t waste money,” she hushed. “We’re almost there.”
Auntie Yan then turned to a corner right at the end of the street where I began to hear the chatter and honks of the car. It reminded me of SS15, always congested twenty-four seven. There was the same coffee smell, coming out from a crowded kopitiam with a long queue of newcomers outside. Yet this was not the only hotspot of the area; people were flooding in and out from a little lane right at the opposite.
“Welcome to Concubine Lane,” Auntie Yan said with a prideful smirk.
As much as I wanted to believe her, I could not. It looked way too different than the photos I had seen from Facebook ads. I always thought it was somewhat similar to the Chinatown in Petaling Street, with street food and vendors. There was no massive and visible sign board around to show the way, but everyone seemed to know where it was. It took me a while to find a small wooden street sign with three Chinese characters written in a horizontal manner located right at the building near the entrance. The only word I could recognize was the Er before the other two incomprehensible words.
We blended into the crowd. Despite its simplistic exterior, within the narrow lane was full of chattering noises of visitors and vendors alike. There was a seductive aroma of the freshly baked pastries coming from different stalls, as well as the repetitive clinking sound of moving toys to gain the children’s attention.
“Ah Yan!” A plump lady in a faded red apron called out from a small soy drink shop packed with customers. My aunt walked eagerly towards her and they began to chat ceaselessly. It was my first time seeing Auntie Yan speaking Mandarin in public; a language which she only reserved for my grandparents. It was hard for me to understand what they were talking about, but from their tone I figured that they were somewhat close.
Auntie Yan arranged a seat near the counter for me and introduced the lady, Auntie Lian, as her old university course mate. She already learnt about me from my aunt, who had been talking non-stop for the past few days. Then, Auntie Yan wore a matching apron and proceeded to station at the counter, which she would be there until Auntie Lian’s husband returned from lunch break.
“Try this tau fu fah,” Auntie Lian offered me a small bowl of hot wriggling tofu pudding drenched in glazing light brown syrup along with a white ceramic spoon. I was not a fan of street food, as I was lectured about the dangers of dust and fly marks that had contaminated the food quality. Yet it would be rude of me to refuse such a kind offer. When the spoon pierced through the soft silken surface, it broke into little bite pieces which I scooped one up and delivered into my mouth. I could feel the sweet and spicy ginger-taste and the warm tofu running across my taste buds; the fragrance smell energized my spirit. A huge thumbs up in the air was my approval for such a belly-warming dessert, winning a gleaming smile from Auntie Lian.
“How long have you been selling tofu hua...fuah?” I tried to imitate her but the heavy English-accent was still there. I had not spoken a single Chinese word since I graduated from primary school and I had forgotten how to pronounce most of the words.
“I think around fifteen years. After I married my husband and I start learn how to make tau fu hua and tau zhui from my father-in-law.” she wiped her wet hands on the apron before handing a bottle of soy drink to a young Caucasian couple. “Before that I worked as an accountant.”
“Then why did you stop accounting?” I could not help but notice the sweat falling from her forehead. “I don’t mean to be rude but… just curious.”
“Don’t mind,” Auntie Lian took out two empty plastic cups before skillfully filling them with iced milky soya drink. “Your aunt ask the same thing before. She think living in Ipoh won’t make me happy.”
There was a brief feeling of deja vu coming to me. A sad memory of a silver Volkswagen driving away from the car porch before I could properly say goodbye to her. Visiting the cafes was not the same anymore, the cappuccino had lost its aromatic smell and the tiramisu became too bland to eat.
“Ah Yan was partially right,” she continued. “Ipoh back then was very quiet. Nobody even heard about Concubine Lane and its history.”
“So when do you start working here?”
“Try this,” Auntie Lian gave me a cup of soya milk mixed with dark brown syrup. “We only opened this shop about six years ago, after the government renovate this lane for tourists. It was only that time Ipoh become popular than before.”
She went on with the history of Chinese settlers and the mining industry in the nineteenth-century, then the local Buddhist temples and the old-school confectionary stores. As she was talking, I drank the fragrant soy drink which tasted as sweet as the brown sugar boba milk tea that I loved. I had never had any handmade soy drink in my life before except the ones that were factory manufactured with preservatives and artificial sweetener.
“Your aunt came here about four years before for a business transaction,” This soon caught my full attention. “There was some complicated procedure that make her company lost some money. Then she got blamed by her superiors. She’s very sad.”
“Oh,” I felt my palms were as cold as the iced drink I had. “I didn’t know.”
“Ah Yan’s like that,” said Auntie Lian. “So I take her to have this tau fuh fua, want to cheer her up.”
“I thought Auntie Yan doesn’t like street food?”
“Ah Yan before cannot even buy one dan tart from the roadside.” Auntie Lian chuckled. “I gave her the same tau fuh fua like the one I gave you. Some next door friends even belanja us loh poh beng. That day, Ah Yan finish eating this ‘low-class’ food. She don’t even complain a word. For the next few months she keep coming over to taste more of the street food. I think she moved all the way from KL because she wanted to eat more food, ha.” Auntie Lian chuckled at her own joke.
From the corner of my eyes I saw Auntie Yan wiping the sweat with her arms, yet she still continued receiving the red, blue and green cash with a bright smile. It was still weird for me to see her working part-time in a small shop and speaking her mother tongue casually to strangers, but it was obvious that she seemed more relaxed than her uptight urban woman persona.
The city had been offering so many top-notch delicacies from all over the world that we had forgotten how the local flavor tasted like. We were drunk in such luxuries to the point that any food that was not made in a cafe or restaurant was considered low rate and unsavory. I did not expect that all it took was a small bowl of cheap, non-organic soy pudding to win over Auntie Yan’s heart. The local smell had successfully convinced her to stay.
I was sure one day I would miss Concubine Lane. By that time, I would think of the fragrant tofu huah and the sweet tau zhui, as well as the constant loud and passionate promotion calls in Chinese shouted by Auntie Yan and Auntie Lian into the busy street.
Completed by 8th Nov 2020
Submission for Prose Assignment