Belom Mati Belom Tau - Gunung Sayang Association Wayang Peranakan 2005

Belom Mati Belom Tau

Its the time of the year again when Gunung Sayang Association produce its annual Wayang Peranakan stage at The Victoria Theatre this year production titled Belom Mati Belom Tau.The playwright GT Lye will provide the audience with a glimpse into a typical Peranakan household of the 60s. Also anthroplology affcionados will get a glimpse how Peranakans of the old days mourn their love ones, along with the fashion and culture of their time.

The poster of the play shows a black and white sarong worn during mourning periods also pearl kerosangs and silver chocok sanggul (chignon hair pins).

Press Review for Belom Mati Belom Tau

A Peranakan's progress Veteran playwright passes on customs of his culture in his latest play

By Hong Xinyi

PLAYWRIGHT G.T. Lye finds himself getting nostalgic each time the annual drama production put on by Peranakan association Gunong Sayang comes around in September. After all, the stage is about the only place where Peranakan culture is the most vibrant these days, says the renowned female impersonator. For the past 20 years, the 67-year-old has been directing and scripting this annual event, as well as acting in it, for Gunong Sayang. Founded in 1910 to promote Peranakan, or Straits Chinese, culture, the association has put on a Peranakan production every year since 1985.

This year, Lye, a retired businessman, wrote a play titled Belom Mati Belom Tau (You Wouldn't Know Because You're Not Dying). Set in 1960s Singapore, it tells the story of a sickly Peranakan matriarch and her scheming family. Lye, who is also the director, plays the role of the matriarch's eldest daughter-in-law, who tries to hoard the family's wealth. The two-hour-long play will include scenes where the Peranakan rituals of mourning are re-enacted for the audience.

''Peranakan women wear attire of different colours for different phases of the mourning period,'' he elaborates. ''They are also not allowed to wear gold jewellery, and they can't attend weddings, birthdays or any joyous occasion.''

His exhaustive attention to such details is a rarity in the Peranakan community these days.''The younger generation also finds practices like ancestral worship too tedious and time-consuming,'' Lye says, with a tinge of wistfulness in his soft voice. He tries to keep Peranakan culture alive by including such rituals in his plays, and also by ''creating stories where I can educate the younger generation, and remind the older generation of things they have forgotten''.

For Belom Mati Belom Tau, his message, not surprisingly, is the value of filial piety. But in the field of female impersonation, at least, the bachelor need not be worried. Kelvin Tan, a Peranakan, has been learning the ropes from Lye for the past three years, and the latter pronounces the 36-year-old quite a competent successor. ''It was rather rough in the beginning to get the hand movements and way of speaking right,'' says Tan, a civil servant. But what keeps him going, he says, is his fascination with the play's recreation of a 1960s Peranakan lifestyle. ''It gives me a chance to experience an era I never had a chance to live in,' says Tan.'' It's really an eye-opening experience, and it gives all of us from the younger generation a lot of pleasure.

Traditional Nyonya Curry Chicken with Homemade Curry Powder

Here in Singapore every race (Malay, Indian, Chinese, Eurasians and Peranakan) have thier different versions of Curry Chicken. Each with slight differences in the cooking method and ingredients use but no matter what we always start with the basic rempah paste of shallots, garlic and ginger.

Traditionally each Nyonya household have thier own recipe for home-made Curry Powder. Due to the change in life style and the demands of modern life most households have resorted to commercially produce Curry Powder.




The home cooked version of the Nyonya Curry has the addtional ingredients of hard boiled eggs. So if you are invited to share a meal in a Peranakan home do not be surprise if you find eggs in the curry.

Tengkats aka Mangkok Tengkats

The word Tengkats or Mangkok Tengkats mean Tiffin Carriers.

The word tiffin means Lunch, or any light meal.Tiffin is a word that perhaps more than any other evokes British India. It entered the language at the very beginning of the nineteenth century, perhaps because the fashion for eating dinner mid-afternoon was giving way to a main meal taken later in the day, requiring a lighter midday meal and a name for it. Why the much older luncheon or lunch wasn't used isn't clear. Instead, the English in India borrowed tiffing, an old English dialect or slang word for taking a little drink or sip.

The use of Tiffin Carriers is still very much alive in its traditional heartland of India. Lunches are still cooked at home by workers’ wives and then transported, often by train, perhaps 20 or 30 miles to their places of work by tiffin-wallahs, each three-tiered tiffin-carrier probably passing through several hands in a highly sophisticated and efficient cooperative process.

The use of tiffin carriers spread down to South East Asia. They come in all sorts Kow Tik - Enamel type ones embellished with flowers and some even with words wishing the recipents Happy Feasting on it, but the most unwieldy and unpractical table-ware made to Straits Chinese specifications is the Porcelain Tengkats. The tengkat dishes (usually four) are stack one over the other, they are so loosely fitted that a slight tilt will send them and thier contents tumbling down imagine the difficulty of transporting food. I was told that to help in the transportation some of the older tengkats have two circular wooden boards, one on top of the other and held by three post, one of which is detachable so that the tengkat can be fitted into the carrier. To facilitate carrying a brass or iron handle in fitted on the top of the wooden board.

Now if only i can get to see one of those carriers and dine using one of the tengkats :-)

Rose Pink Tengkat

Rose Pink Tengkat consisting of four tiered dishes with a slightly domed cover. The design consist of trailing branches of peonies is typical of Peranakan taste come from Tung Chih period

Perot Rumah 2

In the kitchen there will be three stone implements. They are used for the grinding and pounding of ingredients before the arrival of electrical appliances.

Batu Giling - Grinder

Batu Lesong - Motar and Pestle

Batu Boh - Mill

The pots and pans of the day would be eatherware objects which included water jugs, belangahs - Indian style pots use for cooking curries. Utensils use for cooking would be made from coconut shells.

"Cooking was done over a concrete fireplace using firewood for fuel. When one tried to get the fire going by blowing through a foot-long, hollow, iron pipe, the ashes would fly into one's face and hair. It was hot, perspiring work. Common utensils used were the kuali or curved frying pan, and the belanga for cooking curry, besides the usual metal pots and pans these utensils were always black with soot and smoke from the firewood"
Rainbow Around My Shoulder - Ruth Ho

Another item found is the Nyiru - Bamboo Trays of varied sizes and shapes. This trays are use to sun-dry spices as well as vegetables, keropok - fish crackers, belachan - shrimp paste and other items.

Rice is stored in a tempayan - glazed earthenware jar while sugar, salt, kapor are kept in small porcelain containers.

Another indispensable tool would be the Parutan Kelapa - Coconut Grinder and in some households there would even be a ice cream maker.