growing old – Shopkeeper Stories

Eating houses in Singapore | Our public living room

14 August, 2015 One of the most beautiful traits of the coffee houses (or eating houses) in Singapore is that anyone can come in and feel at ease over a hot meal or drink. There is no gender divide: women are just as welcome as men. There is little class consciousness: in fact, strangers across social…

Are you stationary?

The owner of Modern Book Store is Mr Tan. He has run the shop for the past 30 years. His stock has stayed the same despite the decades, reflecting a time capsule of objects that bring back tactile memories for students and office workers : highlighters, staplers, glue, and post-it notes. Mr. Tan shares how…

Expand your small business gradually

Turning a hobby into a retirement business “This is just a way to pass my old age.” Salim Buang is in his 60s and turned his hobby into a small business after getting retrenched during the 2008 economic crisis. His shop feels like a treasure trove of wooden crafts, jewellery, and collectable items that he…

Fruits of labour

Say hey to May! May and her brother work together selling fruits at the Clementi West market. “My mother is old, she stays home to rest.” In this dizzying array of fruits, her favourite is the avocado which she loves to “blend with milk to drink.” There are about 5-6 fruit stalls located in close…

Dry Season

Ah Xin began working in the provision shop as a sprightly 10-year-old, enthusiastically helping her parents. Fast forward fifty years, and her vibrant spirit still shines through as she stocks her cozy little store with an array of dried and preserved goods: dried red chilli, dried fish, dried mushrooms, dried chrysanthemum flowers, dried tofu… you get…

Housework

“This shop was started by my father-in-law. When I got married, I started working here with my husband. 38 years already. But now, no new customers, all from before.”

Intense & Intimate

I don’t always get a chance to chat with the traders. For instance, just as I took this photo, a flock of older Chinese and Malay women surrounded me on all sides and essentially nudged me from the scene so that they could pick through the vegetables while firing an endless bullet of questions to…

15 minutes in a hawker centre in Singapore [Part II]

Urban Runway The hawker centre in Singapore is noisy and spontaneous and the centre of gravity for much of our routine social action. In this post, I’d like to present 10 scenes of activity in exactly the same place. Far from the glitz and glamour of Marina Bay Sands, this is the ordinary picture of life that most of…

15 minutes in a hawker centre in Singapore [Part I]

Urban Runway While drinking a mug of sugarcane juice, I took out my camera to document the people walking by in the exact same spot. This set of photos captures the mix of the crowd from “suits” to “slippers” to “stylish seniors” on bikes. Welcome to the tropics of Singapore! You can see Part II of the…

Shopkeeper Stories

Tag: growing old