Durians Are Not the Only Fruit

by Wong Yoon Wah

  Tossing yusheng may sound like a Cantonese custom, but no one in Guangzhou or Hong Kong will have heard of it. It originates in Malaya and combines many cultures—acceptable to all, whether Malay, Indian, Arabic or otherwise. Nothing in yusheng could offend any particular group, as it consists mostly of local and imported vegetables and fruits, including shredded carrots and radishes, pomelo, fried dough sticks, and the fish itself, usually imported salmon or local mackerel. This has spread through the mass populace, becoming an important element of business, society and politics. The mixture of imported and local ingredients also symbolises internationalism, the arrival of people and cultures from all parts of the world. On 24 January 2004, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi celebrated Chinese New Year by the seaside in Johor, inviting a number of political leaders from Singapore and Malaysia, beginning the feast with yusheng.

  Transcending boundaries in this way and allowing various communities to celebrate together is one of the reasons yusheng has become part of standard Chinese New Year custom in Singapore and Malaysia, a practice seen in virtually every corner of both countries. We eat this dish during this period, tossing the fish high to wish for good fortune, particularly on the seventh day of the New Year, which in China is traditionally designated ‘Human Day’—the birthday of everybody on earth, a day to hope for a better year ahead together.

  • • •

  I believe the reason the Chinese from China and those overseas in Southeast Asia have different cultures and lifestyles can be represented by freshwater fish. Our fish-related customs naturally begin with what we inherited from China, but in the tropics, where it is summer all year round, and where it frequently rains, leading to the formation of rivers and ponds everywhere, the rainy season naturally brings about a greater space for inland fish to proliferate. Because Southeast Asia’s various countries are often made up of groups of islands, and because our lives are so intermingled with those of our piscine friends, our lifestyles gradually shifted as multi-culturalism came to predominate, with fish—and especially freshwater fish—helping to bridge the boundaries between religious communities.

  My childhood in Malaysia took place in two houses, one after the other. A dirt road ran in front of the first one, after which there was a stream; a pond stood just a few metres from the second one, so we could hear the splash of aruan leaping from the water day and night, the noise searing through sunlight and darkness. In my Form Six years, I frequently went fishing with friends or neighbours, and our most prized catch was always the ‘soon hock’ or marbled goby, a freshwater fish frequently seen on Southeast Asian dinner tables. My favourite entertainment as a child was catching fighting fish in the rice fields or marshes, and bringing them around to battle other people’s fish. Each time I drew water for a bath, I’d notice the aruan swimming peacefully at the bottom of our well, responsible for keeping the water clean and potable. Only after growing up did I realise the aruan also had an influence on ageing and illness.

  According to traditional Chinese fengshui, the Chinese word for fish, yu, is a homophone for excess, and to invite financial good fortune, homes were often designed to include a fish tank, where goldfish or Japanese koi were reared. Later the local paradise fishes became more popular, and they originated from the marshes, streams and low-lying ponds of the tropical rainforest. I remember how, each November monsoon season, the low-lying area of our rubber plantation would become a temporary lake, a haven for ‘paradise fish’ (scientific names Macropodus, Belontia, Cyprinidae, etc.). At the moment, these attractive freshwater fish are all the rage in Singapore, which has become one of the world’s largest exporters of ornamental fish. Another local species, the golden dragon fish, or arowana, which has an opulent appearance and a mystical aura about it, has become a status symbol that millionaires, high-society figures and politicians are all desperate to own.

  Tropical fish are an important brick in the construction of Singapore and Malaysia’s Chinese culture. In the aruan we can see a microcosm of our culture, whether in the areas of food, politics, sex, emotions, religion, or medicine, and how all of these are becoming localised, multi-racial and multi-cultural, creating a unique identity, so that the Chinese here are different in character from those in other regions.

  Aruan (shengyu) and yusheng are just two examples of this unique Singaporean and Malaysian Chinese culture. Our fish are a medium for crossing cultural boundaries and uniting religions, a force for healing and unity.

  Smelly Beans and Question Marks

  MALAYSIA’S INDIGENOUS POPULATION is, unusually, separated into two groups: the native and the aboriginal. The former group are known as ‘bumiputra’, sons of the soil. Under the Malaysian constitution, this includes the Malay people of the West Malaysian peninsula, as well as the indigenous populations of Sabah and Sarawak. The Malays make up 92 per cent of this group, and in West Malaysia the term is often taken to mean exclusively them. The aboriginal people of the peninsula, the Orang Asli hill tribes, remain absent from the constitution to this day. The first inhabitants of this land, they can be broadly divided into three groups: firstly, the Negritos, also known as Seman, a short, dark-skinned people generally regarded as the earliest people to live on the peninsula, with a history reaching back at least 10,000 years and a current population of over 3,000, about three per cent of the indigenous population, mostly concentrated in the north of the country; next, the Senois, the most populous at 54 per cent, living in the mountain ranges in the centre of the peninsula; and finally, the Proto-Malays or Aboriginal Malays from Southern Malaysia. According to the 2000 census, the total indigenous community numbers around 140,000, or half a per cent of the total population, and can be divided into 18 sub-groups based upon language and customs. Out of the total population, 113,541 of them are recorded as living in the primeval jungle or its fringes, while the remaining 20,000-plus have been moved into government-constructed residential zones in the foothills.

  The Orang Asli once thought all things possessed souls, and although modern religions are modifying their spiritual beliefs, they still refuse to eat the ducks and chickens they raise. They retain some practices that resemble the ancient custom of object-worship, and an early lifestyle and culture completely in tune with the natural world. Added to which the Malays, comprising slightly more than half the country’s population, are almost entirely Muslim, and in the earliest days of the country lived in villages, also leading an existence that closely embraced nature, living chiefly on vegetables and fruits with very little red meat. The designs on their decorative objects such as pottery are largely based on greenery, as graven images of people or animals are forbidden in Islam. Both corporeally and spiritually, these communities are close to the world of plants.

  The bumiputra love to eat pucuk paku, while the Orang Aslis favour the buah petai ‘smelly bean’. Both these natural foods have been closely intertwined with the lives of these communities from ancient times, and even today remain important elements of the Malaysian diet, having gained popularity within the other (Chinese and Indian) communities, and even transcending the country’s borders.

  • • •

  Raffles and Farquhar both left behind detailed drawings of tropical flora, from which we can understand that they, colonial officers, were so enchanted by local plant life as to hire artists to sketch each species—not only in order to identify the ones that might be commercially valuable, but also because they were mesmerised by the magical atmosphere of the tropical rainforest. The great structuralist thinker Claude Lévi-Strauss says in Tristes Tropiques that Western flavourings and aromatics are all artificial. Europeans greatly risked their lives, to say nothing of their ethics, in order to penetrate the jungles of Asia, seizing spices to bring new sensations to the jaded Western civilisation and palate. But the British colonisers did not have a particularly developed culinary culture, and what taste they had was entirely Eurocentric. They had no interest in the flavours of the East—demonising the often surreal foods of Asia, final
ly using technology to change the fragrance of the durian.

  The banks of the river outside my childhood home were thick with pucuk paku, pandan and other wild plants. Our dinner often included a plate of pucuk paku, picked by my mother or older sister and cooked simply, stir-fried with belacan, the local chilli-shrimp paste, or simmered in curry. We seldom had it unflavoured, because while its lightness was delectable, it also had a faint whiff of wild grass, a muddy taste. But when cooked correctly, this vegetable can be addictive—like the durian, such tropical plants contain complex flavours impossible to describe accurately, evoking a range of responses from those who taste them. I’ve been to many countries in the world and tasted cuisines from all over, yet each time I return to Malaysia, I make sure I taste some pucuk paku. Recently, I experienced this delight once again in Kajang, a small town outside Kuala Lumpur, and the texture and taste were as enchanting as ever. Many restaurants in the cities now offer this simple countryside dish, but Chinese establishments often try to push up the price by recommending you try it with prawns or meat, shoving this delicate vegetable out of the spotlight. The Malays, by contrast, simply blanch it in hot water and eat it unadorned, enjoying the earthy flavour. With great demand for pucuk paku coming at a time of environmental damage and pollution, it’s fast transforming into a staple of fine dining, costing up to 10 dollars per kilogram.

  Edible ferns such as pucuk paku can be found in many low-lying areas in Asia, such as the tropical areas of Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines or Indonesia. Sarawak’s midin, and Taiwan’s cat fern (also known as ‘crossing-ditch vegetable’) are very similar, probably the most commonly seen bracken used as food. These normally grow in moist conditions, by streams or the banks of ponds. The best time to harvest them is just before the tender fronds unfurl and spread, while they’re still delicate and jade green, oval leaves curled in the shape of a question mark. The shape is most apparent before the first tender shoots appear, when the fern is curled tightly—but even after leaves have sprouted all along the foot-long stems, a trace remains. The leaves grow singly along the stem when young, branching into pairs and then trios as they mature.

  Malay villagers and Orang Asli hill tribes originally foraged for pucuk paku, and even today their closeness to nature prevents them from planting it for commercial gain, because they believe the wild vegetable has a particular, mysterious taste, not to mention a significant place in their culture. Whether while picking, washing or cooking the plant, or even when it’s served at the table, you can’t help noticing its elegant structure, its intricate, enchanting patterns. Naturally, this fern has made its way into their artwork, especially their tribal handicrafts. In 1974, when I returned to Singapore from America, I noticed pucuk paku in the forest beside Nantah, in the vegetable market, even growing amongst the grass by the stream that flowed past my house. I’m always moved when I encounter the question mark of this fern, its interrogation of the earth and its inhabitants. I couldn’t resist composing a poem in its honour:

  1.

  As a child

  The December monsoons

  Brought daily storms.

  Ferns like children released from school

  Raised both hands high in question marks

  In valley and marshland

  Wading across water,

  Children anxious about the homework in their schoolbags,

  The ferns cling tightly to their queries of the earth

  Afraid the floods will wash them away.

  2.

  Before dinner

  A great pan of fried pucuk paku

  Reaches from the morass of Malay sauce

  Holding up giant question marks

  And the whole family

  Out of all the food before us

  Most loves to pluck the question marks with our chopsticks

  And devour them

  Because when the British or Japanese ruled us

  The towns and jungles of Nanyang

  Had too many tragedies with no answer.

  3.

  A legacy or revenge?

  Today ferns in the Botanic Gardens

  Still reach out hands like question marks

  Clutching at sunshine or moonlight

  Forcing it to bear witness to the massacres, those secrets.

  This poem was originally entitled ‘Ditch-Crossing Vegetable’, the appellation commonly used by farmers and agricultural experts in Taiwan, but after closely comparing the Taiwanese vegetable of this name and pucuk paku, I realised that the two plants developed differently, due to dissimilarities in climate and soil. The ditch-crossing vegetable, for instance, develops brown fuzz in its budding stage, a feature absent in specimens from the Malaysian Peninsula. Returning to the pucuk paku metaphor was more apt, after all.

  I find the fern’s knowing question mark most compelling, but to the Malay people, it is the changing leaf-structure that is most mysterious. I have seen this featured as a design on the black ceramic pots produced in Kangsar, Perak, demonstrating the journey of vegetation from nature into art, and thus a powerful symbol of Malay culture. Kangsar is on the banks of the Perak River across from Kampung Sayong, the world-famous home of Malaysian black ceramics. The particular clay found in nearby foothills, rivers and paddy fields is uniquely suited to moulding these handicrafts, which turn black and shiny after being fired in a kiln together with rice husks. After the addition of carved designs, these containers, known as ‘labu sayong’, are ready. They keep liquids cool, never leak, and are believed to have medicinal properties, endowing any water stored in them with the ability to cure coughs and colds. The most famous product of the Malay Market by the banks of Kangsar’s river are those water jugs which are shaped like gourds. As I’m a frequent customer there, I’ve had the Malay stallholders explain to me the origins of the designs carved on them—the most common being the tender stem of a pucuk paku just as it first puts out shoots, a graceful curve with a thousand variations, brimming with the beauty of natural vitality. Reading the histories of colonial-era Malaya, I noticed that the British were similarly captivated by these black ceramics, and loved shopping at Kangsar for gifts to bring back to England.

  In 2002, a new crossing was built over the Perak river joining the Malay handicrafts market, to Kampung Sayong on the opposite bank. The golden-yellow Sultan Abdul Jalil Shah Bridge is carved with stylised strands of pucuk paku; I was pleasantly surprised to see how the engineer had sensitively incorporated native elements into the design. This fern used to adorn both sides of the Perak River, and grows as luxuriantly as ever on the banks away from urban areas. It has become a totem of Malay culture, specifically the fern at the instant of extending itself, its leaves unfurling—rendered artistically, so many non-Malay people unfamiliar with its mythos may not immediately recognise it. But once you know, you can see the strong resemblance to the humble pucuk paku plucked from the riverside by kampung girls, displayed on the ground or served on the table.

  The pucuk paku’s leaves radiate a kind of primitive energy, a strong life force contained within elegant shapes that enrapture most people. In Shen Congwen’s story ‘Gathering Ferns’, the bracken is maturing well, so Ah Hei spends her whole day up the mountain harvesting it—and Ah Hei, also maturing well, makes love to Wuming in the hilltop wilderness. Another story, ‘After the Rain’, tells the tale of Seventh Sister and Fourth Dog, who go picking ferns on the hilltop after it rains, and cannot resist a tryst in a thatched shed. Shen Congwen’s narratives are all of the Miao tribespeople of Xiangxi, and the fern for him represents life force, as well as the world view of the indigenous hill tribes—echoes of how the Malay peninsula has taken pucuk paku into its cultural bosom. This motif can be seen in Malay handicrafts from embroidery to pictures, as well as in the metalwork of windows and doors, but has ascended into a realm of mystery, becoming an important totem in Malay culture, while most other people are unable to recognise the fern in its new guise.

  • • •

  The ori
ginal inhabitants of West Malaysia, the Orang Asli, have remained intimately bound to nature up to the present day, rejecting a wholesale entry into materialism and so-called civilisation, still living far from the cities, in the deep jungle or its fringes. The foraged food they most enjoy is the smelly bean, or buah petai (scientifically known as Parkia speciosa), also a native of the forests of Southeast Asia, and found in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. This bean grows on a tall tree with long, thin leaves, its pods growing up to a foot long when mature. Searching through colonial botanical sketches, only Raffles’ collection features the buah petai, and even then only a blackened, dry seed pod. The artist, likely to be a recent immigrant from China or India, had presumably only seen such a preserved specimen. Raffles himself may never have ventured deep enough into the hills to see the smelly bean trees for himself, nor the magical process by which they flower and fruit. If he were aware of this mysterious phenomenon, surely he’d have insisted his draughtsman capture it.

  Outside the flowering season, the buah petai tree is unprepossessing, its leaves feathered and complex like those of the flame tree, its trunk slender and tall, growing up to a height of 30 metres, with few branches lower than 10 metres from the ground, making it hard to climb. Most of the year, it looks unexceptional, a typical tropical tree. Yet when it blossoms, the reason for its other name, ‘the beautiful cone-flower bean’, becomes apparent. Surreally colourful bulb-shaped flowers light up the dark jungle, each one at the tip of a long stem, dark green at first, then deep orange or brown, while the blooms themselves go from white to pink. The effect is one of gaudy lanterns brightening a dim room, and naturally attracts the beasts of the jungle. Bats and other volunteers, drawn by nectar, help to spread the flowers’ pollen. After germination, long pods appear, twisted and translucent, seven or eight beans in each. At this juncture, monkeys love settling on a nearby branch and chewing their way through pod after pod of smelly beans.