While I can easily subsist in any city, the historic, quite sleepy and always hot town of Melaka does have a special appeal to me. Unlike most of it's Malaysian counterparts there are nice people who will give you directions or even car lifts, nice and cheap eats, nice and cheap stays, or even expensive ones if you feel like it. Of course, there are downsides to living in Melaka. For one, not much good public transport back home so you definitely have to drive, and driving in Malaysia is quite a feat. There are no proper bookstores despite the two big malls so if you're a bookworm like me, you will find it utterly devastating. There's not many branded boutiques as well so if you are a fan of... Anna Sui skin care, or Coach bags for instance, good on you. In Singapore every other lady in the Mrt is carrying a Coach, Gucci, or the like. In Melaka, I'm the only one...
The most interesting thing, to me, about the city, even though I don't really like history, is about its heritage. You can see many interesting buildings and not only that, interesting mix of cultures. They have authentic Nyonya food and the Peranakan culture is strong there, hopefully, it will continue to endure. The Indian food is also very delicious and the chinese food like dim sum and satay celup is a must-visit. Food aside, the history makes for an interesting wiki-pedia journey on a boring rainy day. We were on the hill, 'Bukit Cina', a small hill to exercise. It was part of Ming Dynasty heritage with a supposed princess 'Hang Li Po' married to one of the Sultan. This is believed by the common townspeople for many years. Well, I think one reason why Melaka has so many chinese - the Jalan Bukit Cina is almost like a chinese neighborhood of Singapore in the 70s where the folk all were provision shop owners and the like and it's nostalgic and interesting to see their lifestyles. Most likely, the popular folklore of Malay hero 'Hang Jebat', 'Hang Tuah' , originated from this area... as Malay does not have this name, only chinese... so they could be the princess' brothers or offspring! Interesting... We went to the chinese temple at the foot of the mountain, and spotted a china tour guide going on, the tour guide gave interesting information, such as the well at the temple also known as Hang Li Poh's well, had different molecular properties, in fact, it has more potassium, and it's particles were bigger - when he held the cup upside down and a towel over it, the water did not drip out of the cup! How simply amazing. He also mentioned to the Chinese tourists that if you drank the water, you will 'nian nian bu wang', a chinese proverb for not being able to forget about this place, IE you will come back here again as this place is always in your heart. It did sound a bit scary when he put it that way, and I bet none of the tourists dared to drink the water! Rumors aside, it seems that there is some interesting history about the wells, and Admiral Cheng Ho, whose statue was also in the temple, though he was not being offered incense to, being a Chinese muslim. I guess all the chinese in those days, including the princess, had to be converted. There was also some interesting information on wikipedia stating she was not an actual princess... but a peasant 'sacrifice' of sorts. Nevertheless, all this makes for an interesting read and a walk up Bukit Cina to spot the Ming Dynasty graves, I was told there is some, although, I didn't manage to spot any... There is also the oldest church in Malaysia, in Melaka! That's quite significant historically.
We saw an article, about the strange Malacca crab with a cross on its' body, known as St Francis Xavier's crabs... legend has it that St Francis, the saint who established some good education centres around our region, had dipped his crucifix into the water, sea, to calm the storm, but dropped it into the water. When they reached shore, a crab came to them, holding the crucifix. There were eyewitnesses! And during certain seasons, there will be such crabs... the amazing thing is on the crabs' shells, there are unmistakable marking of a cross on its colored pattern, a red-orange and white. True or not, this was actually documented.
Well, after researching on all these online, I was tempted to research about my own heritage. The Peranakan culture seems interesting and strong and how about my very own culture? I'm Hainanese, surname is Li/Lee, but somehow, I can't find other Hainanese with the same surname, so far, in Singapore. They have surnames like Foo, all Foos are Hainanese... or other commonly known surnames. Most of the Lees I know are of Hokkien, Teochew origin and it is one of the most common surnames in China anyways. But apparently the Li ethnic group on Hainan Island is a rare minority Chinese group... almost aboriginal... which is what I found out today. Of course, I have no idea about what this means, although I do share a common feature of Hainanese, being the posterior flat head and the high forehead. It is said that Hainanese have to have the starting name of their children's name a similar character for all those born in the same generation, for us rare Hainanese to recognize each other I presume. My family being Christian did not follow in that clan tradition and anyway, it's not as if we can find out what's the character of that generation so easily... Also, it is known that Hainanese men cook well and that is true for my father, and his father was an actual chef for a colonial master, in a small town 'Bahau' in Negri Sembilan (also worth wikipedia-ing), the small town was a town of rubber tappers. He later went on to become a cook, a confectioner or small baker shop. Vague details here but I shall ask my father. Anyways in Singapore, like certain dialects work in certain industries, the Hainanese used to work in the food industry!
Most rich Hainanese became coffee shop owners, the one who collected the rental from everyone, and also making the coffee and selling the drinks. So in fact, most coffee is made by Hainanese, including our Ya Kun kaya toast and coffee and even Old Town coffee (if I'm not wrong). We also like bread, somehow... I always prefer eating bread to rice or noodles... so perhaps that's why we prefer to make our own than to buy from other dialects, haha.
But there really is a lack of information regards to some of the questions that remain unanswered, like why do we Hainanese have a really flat posterior head? We are some rare tribe? Or...? How did the tradition of choosing the name to be a similar character in every generation come about and what's the significance? Etc. I guess we have to make a trip back to our hometown sometime - thankfully for me, Hainan Island is now a happening place to visit, so I won't really mind visiting that part of China... I think it's nice to know anyway that my heritage is quite rare, and why I always seem to look that wee bit different from other Singaporean Chinese, or so I've been told.
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