- Tina Pascual
- Mar 29, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 31, 2020
I was staying with a Chinese family in an old HDB* corner flat. My landlord was on his early forties, single and works as a taxi driver. The house matriarch is his elderly mother who still runs her hawker business just right down our HDB flat.
I shared my spacious and windy room with a Chinese lady from mainland China. She works in the same hospital as I do. We never talk much except every time she tells me her favourite English word, “wash”. That word actually signalled me that she is going to sleep and that I should also take a bath before I do.
Like the landlord and his mother, it was frustrating to communicate with my roommate for she speak little English. Though we often tried our best to understand each other through body language, it was challenging.
A couple of months after, the language barrier complicates our harmony inside the house. Unfortunately, cultural conflict rose as well and everyone in the flat decided for me to leave.
Always available, always willing to help. With him, I am confident I won’t worry his support.
Soon after, I found myself calling my boyfriend. I don’t know why but I see him reliable. Always available, always willing to help. With him, I am confident I won’t worry a support. I see him as my knight in shinning armour. My saviour. Few days after, he found a decent apartment for me to stay in the city. He arranged everything and readied the requirements for my transfer.
Few days after, I found myself in a messy move out. It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and I was sitting at the edge of a neighbour’s door right in front of the elevator. All my things encircled me and I was counting time to 6 pm, counting people going in and out of the lift and counting money for the remaining days before payday.
Finally, my bae arrived as promised. My relocation had been easy. He served as my hunter and porter. I was able to save labour and sweat throughout the process. My knight had also established friendship with my new roommate.
At 11pm, right after all my stuffs had been settled, my now roomie invited us to have some late night food tasting in a hawker centre just across the apartment.
I enjoyed my 2.50 sgd seafood hor fun, I paired it with iced lemon tea in my regular no. 82 table.
Little that my new roommate know, she actually introduced to us into what became my favourite local noodle dish, Hor Fun. It is mainly a fried flat and dried rice noodles with egg gravy and garnished with delightful seafoods like shrimp, fish cake and/or chicken fillets. Spinach is also added and chops of jalapeño is optional but necessary for my tastebuds.
The stall was owned by petite and hardworking elder Chinese couple. It was only open late in the afternoon until midnight. Each time I enjoyed my 2.50 sgd seafood hor fun, I paired it with iced lemon tea in my regular no. 82 table.
To date, it was still my best hor fun dish that I kept on sharing and talking about with family and friends. My then boyfriend, who had helped me settle down in a peaceful household still gets a treat of this from me. Now, I am married to this man who had built a good food tradition in our relationship.
*HDB (Housing and Development Board) - A common term for Singapore's public residential building that houses 80% of its citizen's.
