My dad used to own a stall in Chinatown when i was young, selling "Ham Chim Beng" ( chinese fried doughnut, sweet - with redbean filling, savoury - with chinese five spices powder), therefore i was grew up there. Have been wanted to take pictures of the "Old" Chinatown but never have time to do so until today. I wanted to take some pictures for memory sake, but sad to say that Chinatown has lost it "flavours". It is no longer the Chinatown that i used to know. Of course, i know that Chinatown has changed long ago. But it was not so "new" till the recent renovation took place for the market and the hawker centre. I wanted to take some pictures of the market scenes, but unable to find any "feeling" to take the pictures. Because the new market is just another market that you can find else where. I was so disappointed... I went up to the hawker centre to look for food that i used to eat (20 years ago) and to my surprised, some are still there. For example the "economic" bee hoon with porridge, which is located not far from the front entrance escalator. The food they sell is still the same as before, and so are the people selling them, except for the portion of the food have skrunk.
Than i went to look for this "Yong Tau Foo", which was sold by my father's friend (whom the daughters were my childhood friends). I found it! The stall was having very good business, there was a long queue at 11:20am on a thurdsay morning. As i really wanted to taste this memorable "old food", i joined in the queue. It was my turn after 20minutes wait. It was worthwhile, because not only do i get to taste this "old flavour" again, i saw this childhood friend of mine! But i did not acknowledge her, because they were too busy. And i do not know if she can still recognise me.
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After the tasty meal, i continue the search of the old Chinatown. I managed to find a few places with"old flavours". The first one is the "Big China" (大中国), they were very famous for their mooncakes (during my childhood days) and chinese cakes. My favourite was their redbean cake. The shops still look like it used to be, so i snapped a few pictures. Next, is this shop selling medicated oil. I do not have much memory of this shop, because which kid will enjoy visiting places that sells medicine. But i can "smell" the old flavor of this shop. You will be able to tell when you see it too. Next, it's another of my favourite shop, "Lee Tong Kee Hor Fan". They used to sell the best Chicken Hor Fan, with the smoothers hor fan that you cannot find elsewhere, but i do not know for now. I would love to try it, but just had my Yong Tau Foo... so got to be next time.
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I went to look for Kreta Ayer People's Theatre, a place where my dad used to bring me when i was young. Whereby the price for a movie only cost $2.50. It has now became a community centre.
The Chinatown Project ended very soon, it took me around 3hrs. Since i could not find the old flavours anymore, i moved on to another project - The Little India Project.
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