THE PREPARATIONS

ONE DAY DURING the fourth lunar month of the new year, matchmaker Bibi Pendek came to see grandma to inform her that the wedding day had been decided upon. By tradition it was the prerogative of the young man's family to choose the date. They had again consulted sinseh Tan Boon Cheng who had chosen auspicious dates for the necessary pre‑wedding rituals and the twelfth day of the eighth moon as the wedding day. Needless to say even the day when all these dates were made known to grandma, had to be auspicious. With the actual wedding date fixed, all activities in preparation for the big day began in earnest.

Altogether grandma chose four gorgeous costumes. She was certainly seeing to it that although cousin Swee Neo was but a relative she was not being discriminated upon and was, in fact, being given the best. Grandma went as far as to arrange a wedding procession for cousin Swee Neo. The procession was actually optional and many had been married without it. A wedding without a procession was known as a kahwin dudok (a sitting marriage) probably because the couple did not walk in a procession.

At this stage of her career sangkek um Ah Bee was already much sought after. She was in her prime and had the gift of producing beautiful brides with her make‑up. Her professional fee included the loan of jewellery to adorn the wedding costumes but did not include the hiring of costumes and her assistant's fee. In gratitude for the help that grandma had rendered her she charged a very nominal sum for cousin Swee Neo's wedding. Not unexpectedly the young man's parents also made use of her service. Somewhat similar to the bride's needs, the groom required a costume for chianh lang kek, an optional costume of the same design but different colour for the hari kahwin and a final one for the procession. For the twelfth day ceremony modernisation had crept in by then and the traditional Chinese costume had been replaced by the western lounge suit.

Eldest sister‑in‑law came to her rescue with the curtains but due to time constraints she could not sew the dresses. They were eventually made by Indian tailors, the very ones who sold fighting kites as a side‑line.

Eldest sister‑in‑law was kept very busy sewing not only for the bride‑to‑be, but also for the other members of the household, for close relatives whom she could not turn down, and for herself. 1 really marvelled at her capacity to absorb work and her ability to complete the many tasks so quickly. Grandma was aware of the volume of sewing assignments that eldest sister‑in‑law was involved in and was not unsympathetic. She did her part by arranging for the bridal pillow cases to be purchased from a shop along Bras Basah Road instead of having them sewn at home.

Along this same road was our family dentist. He was a local lad unlike most dentists of the neighbourhood who were Japanese. An appointment was arranged for cousin Swee Neo to have her teeth cleaned and filed for the wedding. In the old days when girls were kept strictly indoors, they were not permitted to visit the dentist even though they might be suffering from the most excruciating toothache. The dentist would have had to make a house call instead. They often obliged and would call with dental tools, leg‑powered drilling machine and all.

The cutting of the cloth for the all‑important cheoⁿ thau ceremony (vowing ceremony) costume required a very auspicious day. Even the exact time to begin the job was carefully predetermined. This was the hari mengoyak, literally the day for tearing, when the avowal ceremony costume is sewn.  It was really a day when a tailor went through the symbolic gesture of starting to work on the cheo thau dress. So much importance was attached to this ceremony that even the tailor's horoscope had to be checked to ensure that he was not spiritually incompatible with the time of the ceremony or with the bride‑to‑be. I remember, in this instance, the time prescribed for the event was eleven in the morning. Long before the hour all the clocks in the house had been painstakingly synchronised, and as we waited for the tailor to arrive grandma became noticeably tense as time wore on. Luckily the tailor was on time and did not keep her waiting long. This was one unhappy aspect we had to go through whenever there was an important function celebrated at home. Everyone was so determined that nothing should go wrong but tension reigned and an exciting event was often marred by bickering and a show of tempers.

On the dot of eleven, a signal was given by grandma, and the tailor got up from his chair and moved to the table where the length of material and a pair of scissors had been placed an hour or so before. All the tailor did was to begin cutting a little of the cloth C with that the ritual ended on a successful note.

The bridal room was one of the focal points in a traditional wedding and grandma took great pains to make sure that nothing was left wanting in its decoration. It so happened that the couple who were to introduce father to opium later on had celebrated their daughter's wedding two months back. By then we were already planning cousin Swee Neo's wedding. So, when grandma sent her two granddaughters‑in‑law over as helpers, she instructed them to study the bridal room decorations closely so that when the time came for cousin Swee Neo's wedding, grandma could decorate the bridal room better than theirs. Both sisters‑in‑law were repeatedly reminded that they should not miss any detail of the designs on the bed curtains because grandma did not want to repeat the same pattern for cousin Swee Neo. In order to compete with others grandma bought nothing but the best for her.

About a week before the ann ch'ng (bed blessing) day, the bridal room was ready. 1 was rather taken aback when a few days before this 1 discovered that the beautifully carved wooden ranjang loksan would not be used for the wedding. I had always associated this bed with weddings and there were even people who knew it by the name of ranjang kahwin (wedding bed). It seemed that it was no longer fashionable to use this ornate bed and in its place a Victorian four‑poster brass bed had been chosen. This brass bed was as beautiful as they come, but to my mind it was not in character with the carved wooden cupboard and furniture in the room. However, all my misgivings about this modem four‑poster gave way to complete amazement and admiration the moment eldest sister‑in‑law had finished decorating it. The embroidered curtain round it, the embroidered bedsheet, the embroidered pillow cases and all the other trimmings that festooned the bed had transformed it into a most charming wedding bed. Close to this bed was a table which would play an important role on the marriage day but in the meantime was rather bare. Two chairs stood nearby. Both had embroidered covers on them and at the foot of each was a richly carved footstool with a velvet covering. The other chairs in the room were not as elaborately decorated but each of them had a piece of white lace covering the backrest and held in place with red ribbons tied into bows. During the Chinese New Year celebrations all the chairs in the sitting rooms were decorated in this manner. The windows and doorway of the room had new curtains on them. They had bows artistically folded into the shape of lotus flowers along their lengths. Hanging along the wall were square wooden shelves on which were put small China figurines for decoration.

At one comer of the room could be seen all the bride's footwear ranging from those for use at home to those for outings. There were several pairs of slippers and shoes all colourfully embroidered with gold thread. These had been so strategically placed that for anybody entering the room they commanded immediate attention and admiration. A large exquisitely carved teakwood cupboard stood in a comer of the bridal chamber. The doors were kept ajar to show off the bride's trousseau which was neatly arranged on the shelves. There were several piles of baju kebayas (kebaya dresses), sarongs, undergarments, and bolts of cloth placed quite deep in the cupboard leaving some space in the front portion of each shelf. These were filled with bottles of different brands and varieties of perfumes and toileteries.

After the furnishing was done, grandma meticulously inspected the room and after a few minor adjustments and additions she was satisfied that everything was perfect. She then ordered the room be locked until further orders were given.

About a fortnight before the wedding day, two experienced helpers were employed to deliver the wedding invitations. One of them was a lady whose racial background remains a mystery to me. She was a typical elderly nonya‑looking lady with her baju panjang (long dress) and a flawless Baba tongue. She was rather dark complexioned and her big round eyes frightened me at times. It was her name that cloaked her in mystery. Wak Chik Mak Sabtu: the word 'Wak' is our respectful term for an elderly lady, 'Chik' is probably the abbreviation for kechik meaning small in stature or youngest in a family, 'Mak' is mother and 'Sabtu' literally Saturday in Malay but also a common name. Therefore, she was Wak Chik, mother of Sabtu C clearly a Malay name. There were so many possibilities to her racial background but we never found the real answer. It was popularly believed that she was a Javanese Chinese who had married a Malay man. The second person employed to distribute the invitations was Ah Meng, another ubiquitous Hainanese who was part of the Baba scene of that time.

By the 1920s, western‑style invitation cards had already got a toe‑hold in our society. Father, however, preferred to stick to the tradition of hantar sireh (to send betel‑vine leaf), a form of invitation which involved a tiny thinly sliced piece of areca nut wrapped in a small piece of sireh leaf and folded into a small triangular bundle and held in place by a sharp stick. From this act of handing over the tiny bundle of sireh one indicated an invitation to a wedding.

Both Wak Chik Mak Sabtu and Ah Meng had moved intimately in our society for so long that they became a walking directory of the Baba community. There was even no need to provide them with a guest list. They were so familiar with so many families that they knew who to invite when called to deliver the invitations.

On the day for the distribution of the sireh bundles Wak Chik Mak Sabtu, who also prepared them, passed about half to Ah Meng. She placed her portion in a small round silver container which she wrapped in a red handkerchief. Thus equipped, she was ready to go inviting.

Ah Meng and Wak Chik Mak Sabtu took separate routes to cover different parts of the island but their modus operandi was the same. On reaching a particular house they announced that they had come to hantar sireh on behalf of so-and-so whose son, daughter or dependent was to be married on such-and-such a date. Having said this a sireh bundle was handed to the person who had received them at the door. Their parting words were another reminder to attend the function. Their choice of words differed somewhat. Ah Meng usually said 'towkay mak mesti pergi., tau' (mistress of the house, you are expected to go, you know). In contrast, Wak Chik Mak Sabtu was brief with her >Pergi, tau' (do go). I know their exact words because on those occasions when other families had employed them to go round issuing invitations they had come to our house to invite grandma using these very same words. Both of them monopolised this profession for many years. In the case of cousin Swee Neo's wedding they were employed by the groom's family as well to convey their invitation. Travelling on foot and by rickshaws they took two days to cover our guest list.

In the years past, the majority of families did their own cooking for wedding receptions held at home. Special days were set aside for preparing the spices and other raw ingredients for cooking on a large scale when relatives willingly came forward to volunteer their services. We did not observe this ritual for cousin Swee Neo's wedding as we had contracted a caterer to prepare the food. Unlike the sangkeh um who had to be booked early, there was no hurry where a caterer was concerned. A caterer could cope with many contracts because it was a simple matter of hiring more hands to work under his general supervision. A sangkek um could not do likewise. The dressing up of a bride needed her very special personal attention.

There were several well‑known Hainanese caterers, but the two most popular ones were Ah Kew and Ah Seow. The former was the older of the two and had been in the business for a long time while the latter was an up and coming addition to the profession. There was little to choose between them but on this occasion grandma's choice fell on young Ah Seow.

On arrival, the group bearing the four large brass trays were entertained to a simple tea. I squeezed myself as unobtrusively as I possibly could to the front in order to get a good view of the gifts. Three of the four trays were each lined with a beautiful embroidered cloth. On one tray was a wedding dress to be worn on the twelfth day. It was a green coloured costume of the same design as the pink one grandma had hired from the sangkek um for the chianh lang kek ceremony. The next item on the tray was a pair of shoes which matched the green dress. The second tray contained two diamond rings and two ang pows (red packets with money inside). This tray was lined along its circumference with silver coins with a red dot on each of them. Eldest sister‑in‑law subsequendy explained to me that one of the ang pows contained wang tetek and the other, wang belanja. The wang tetek (breast money) was a gift expressing thanks to the bride's parents for having weaned her and this ang pow was graciously accepted by the bride's parents or guardians. The wang belanja was a pure offer of money. It was not expected of us or any parent for that matter to take this red packet. To take it was tantamount to selling off one's daughter. The third tray had two pairs of candles on it: one pair with an intricate paper‑cut

In the light of our old tradition when girls were kept virtually under lock and key, most of them would have remained unmarried had it not been for the existence of amateur and professional matchmakers.   Unfortunately,   in   later   years   when   we   were discarding our old ways some of us not only totally rejected the matchmaking concept for our children but even went as far as to condemn the matchmakers as an unscrupulous lot who were out for nothing else but monetary reward. While admittedly there were failures in a few of the arranged marriages, in general the accusations against the matchmakers were unfounded. Their monetary gain was in fact not much. After a wedding was over a matchmaker was