Transcript
[Music playing]
Jimmy
Before Impossible meatballs and oatmeal lattes were here, vegetarianism
in Singapore was promoted by Buddhist nuns through their restaurants, temples
and cookbooks. Through their efforts, they made vegetarian food more accessible
in Singapore.
I’m Jimmy Yap, and with me to talk about how these religious Chinese women promoted vegetarianism is Kelvin Tan. Kelvin wrote about these nuns in BiblioAsia and was a guest in an episode of the National Library’s cooking show From Book to Cook. In that episode he made vegetarian soon kueh using a recipe from the temple Hai Inn See. Welcome to BiblioAsia+, Kelvin. How are you?
Kelvin
I’m good. Hi, Jimmy. Thanks for having me today.
Jimmy
My pleasure. Nowadays, you know, vegetarianism is very popular. We have
dairy-free milk, we have tempeh burgers, we have lots of meat substitutes.
But it wasn’t always like this, right? Vegetarianism didn’t used to be
mainstream. And, you know, the first few Chinese vegetarian restaurants
were set up in the 1940s and 50s. But tell me about, you know, these restaurants
and the people who set them up.
Kelvin
So, in the 1940s and 50s, you’re right, you have a sort of – pioneers
of Chinese vegetarian restaurants that came up, but of course, we know
from records the earliest one was actually opened by South Asians, or Indians.
Jimmy
These are vegetarian restaurants?
Kelvin
Yes, vegetarian restaurants.
Jimmy
But the earliest Chinese vegetarian restaurants were in the 1940s.
Kelvin
Yeah. The earliest we can trace is 1946, at 25 Tanjong Pagar Road.
Jimmy
What was the name of the restaurant?
Kelvin
Loke Woh Yuen Vegetarian Restaurant or known as Liu He Yuan. Yeah. So
of course, the women behind these restaurants were actually prominent figures,
abbesses of vegetarian temples and nunneries. So, in religious studies,
in history, in historical studies, actually, it’s quite hard to define
the women of this generation. So broadly speaking, we could group them
as Chinese Buddhist women. They were a closeknit sisterhood of Chinese
women who practiced the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism, some of them practicing
a syncretic mix of Taoism and Confucianism. But there’s a long answer to
it; hence it’s actually a very complex but a very fascinating story.
Jimmy
But they were Chinese, and they were Buddhists, and they were women.
Kelvin
Yeah. So, actually, they sort of traversed between, like you said, the
three categories.
Jimmy
What do we know about that restaurant?
Kelvin
Loke Woh Yuen was actually set up by five Buddhist women in 1946, or in
the postwar period in the immediate years. They found it very hard to,
sort of, find breakfast items because they [were] vegetarians, unlike other
non-vegetarians who could easily sort of buy breakfast items, let’s say, kopi [and]
toast, from the nearby Tanjong Pagar area.
Hence, they came up with this idea of setting up a restaurant. But they had a find a place, so they actually saw this coffee shop, called Yi Tsi. Yi [refers to] Yi Pao, the Yi, that means Ipoh. And then Tsi is just a shop. So, Yi Tsi cafe. So, they got this premises from a fellow Buddhist – I think that they had connections with and then sort of bought over the rights from this fellow Buddhist – and then they opened this restaurant in 1946 at 25 Tangong Pagar Road.
So, what made this restaurant distinct from the others that came on board later? It was coined as the master of Chinese vegetarian restaurants. It was managed and owned by Chinese Buddhist women, in particular, not the vegetarian nuns that we know. It’s mostly householders or Chi Tze Buddhists. As well as Bhikkhunis, or what we call ordained nuns. So, these are usually nuns of an institutional order or monastic order as well as some non-institutional affiliation. They set up this restaurant and then even down to the cashiers, the cooks, they were all just women.
Jimmy
It’s very interesting. I guess not many women went into business. Yeah,
during that period. And then suddenly these women set up a business and
only employ women.
Kelvin
Yeah, they only employed women. So, the most famous one was a chief cook,
Madam Wong Sin Fong. She was quite well known in the local Buddhist circles
and the local Chinese community for her eclectic cooking skills.
Jimmy
Tell me about this restaurant. What was it known for? I mean, obviously
vegetarian food, but what kind of vegetarian food? Like is it Cantonese
style or…
Kelvin
The pioneers of Chinese vegetarian restaurants actually specialised in
Cantonese cuisines.
Jimmy
They were hungry, and there was no place to eat vegetarian food. So, they
decided to set up a restaurant. And how did they do? Did the restaurant
do well?
Kelvin
It was a success, at least from the earliest newspaper article that I
saw in Nanyang Siang Pau in 1948, so two years after its inception.
There are a few signature items that they sort of describe in the article,
but I think one was vegetarian shark fin, made of, interestingly, maize
as well as asparagus. So, I think it was popular. It was said that the
restaurant was occasionally quite packed, for example, during of course
traditional Chinese gatherings, weddings, banquets, to the extent that
they had to set up tents outside of the five-foot-way onto the main road
along Tanjong Pagar Road.
It was quite popular among tourists, among the local Buddhist circles, that they coined it the master of Chinese vegetarian cuisine.
Jimmy
Subsequently other restaurants came up as well. Fut Sai Kai, right?
Kelvin
Fo Shi Jie is the translation in Mandarin.
Jimmy
Okay. So how was this restaurant different from Loke Woh Yuen?
Kelvin
So interestingly, Loke Woh Yuen was known for the restaurant standard.
The traditional bearer of Chinese vegetarian cuisine. So Fut Sai Kai came
in in 1953, aiming at a more price-conscious clientele.
Jimmy
Just like me.
Kelvin
In one of the articles that I read in Nanyang Siang Pau, in 1953
the menu offered dim sum, noodles and some other dishes. They were
actually priced quite cheaply, like a few cents to a dollar plus. So, it’s
actually aimed at street food prices compared to the more… In the words
of Violet Oon, a food reviewer for Straits Times and [writer of]
some of the newspaper articles, Loke Woh Yuen was quite expensive in terms
of the menu, in terms of the banquet. But Fut Sai Kai came in with a more
price-conscious mindset. It was actually set up by a group of vegetarian
nuns led by Kao Tian-gu, or Gao Tian Gu.
Jimmy
Who was she?
Kelvin
She was quite an interesting figure. So, the restaurant opened, let’s
say at 11 a.m., she would wake up early in the morning, go to the markets
to buy the freshest ingredients and then when she came to work, she’d work
an entire day.
From what I read, she only started having her meals at 3 pm. So, imagine how hectic and how passionate she was about her career. She started her vegetarian diet at the age of 16. So, she came from Guangdong province [China] She later founded Fu Shan Tang, this temple, in Guangdong.
Jimmy
Oh, so before she came to Singapore?
Kelvin
Yeah, it was said she came to Singapore at the age of 20, so I’m not quite
sure. But we know that she founded this temple, and then when she came
to Singapore, she was working. It was said that her business fortunes failed,
and then she had to recoup her losses or savings again. Then she ventured
with the other vegetarian nuns to open this restaurant in 1953, when she
had enough savings to open this restaurant.
Jimmy
And where was this restaurant located?
Kelvin
Kitchener Road.
Jimmy
So, in having these restaurants, obviously, it serves the Chinese Buddhist
community because they want to eat vegetarian food. And, you know, it’s
now available in these restaurants for them to eat. But that helps obviously
to spread vegetarianism. But apart from restaurants, they published cookbooks
as well, which of course makes sense. Maybe you can tell us a bit about
that.
Kelvin
I hoped I could find cookbooks from the three restaurants that I [mentioned]
earlier but unfortunately none [that I could find]. But yes, cookbooks
by Chinese Buddhist women who were abbesses of the temples. So, one prominent
one I can raise is Top 100 Vegetarian Delights.
Jimmy
Who was it by?
Kelvin
By Venerable Ho Yuen Hoe. He Ren Hao.
Jimmy
And which temple was she from?
Kelvin
Ling Chee Cheng Sia in Kovan. So Venerable Ho, like I said, joined the
ranks of Chinese female pioneers in Singapore. She was known as Singapore’s
grand dame of charity. It means that she advocated for charitable causes.
And she actually came up with the idea of Man Fut Tong nursing home. Man
Fut Tong was a temple, but she came up with this nursing home concept in
1969. She was known for raising funds from selling vegetarian food at dharma
assemblies in the Phor Kark See monastery on Bright Hill. When the nursing
home needed to expand in the 1990s, I think she raised about S$10,000.
But if we open the cookbook and see the foreword she penned, her main purpose
was actually to share the secrets of living healthily and longevity to
as many people as possible in her own words, because she believed that
renewed concentration and vitality helps healthy aging.
Jimmy
So vegetarianism wasn’t just a question of religious principle, but also
it had health benefits as well.
Kelvin
So interestingly, she wrote another book, which was an account of her
life, A Life for Others.
She also gave cooking classes to housewives. It was written that she even
downplayed religion, but more to focus on conserving her temples, cooking
techniques, recipes so that they could be shared widely.
Jimmy
Okay, so I mean that’s very important because cookbooks and cooking classes
are ways in which people can spread knowledge and get other people also
to start cooking vegetarian food, right?
In the episode of From Book to Cook, where you were a guest cook, you made a vegetarian soon kueh, which was originally produced by abbess of the temple Hai Inn See. So, tell us about it.
Kelvin
First of all, Hai Inn See was a Minnan vegetarian hall.
Jimmy
Where was it located?
Kelvin
In Nam Sam village area.
Jimmy
Is it still there?
Kelvin
Yeah, it’s still there. So today it’s run by monks mostly. Yeah. Because,
I think, the third abbess passed on, and then it was transferred to the
monk community.
Yang herself found that her backyard had plenty of this ingredient called bamboo shoots. So, bamboo shoots translate into the soon term for the soon kueh. The devotees would sort of send offerings, or what we call the xiang yu qian. They would make donations to the temple, then they would have the soon kueh at the same time.
In 1960s, a nearby coffee shop owner approached her and then asked her if he could set up a stall, you know, in a nearby coffee shop and then she agreed. Then interestingly the soon kueh was sold at the coffee shop at a price, quite cheap, at about 5 cents.
So, soon it became a hit, not just as a business opportunity for her, but a hit with the local residents. So, from the records in the periodical, it was said that the former devotees and customers always have fond memories of this kueh. A taste of nostalgia.
Jimmy
Those three vegetarian restaurants you talk about in your article in BiblioAsia,
they're not around anymore. What can we say has been the legacy? Now that
you've studied them, we know what has happened since.
Kelvin
One for sure is that the most important legacy will be their strong beliefs
in Buddhist philanthropy, in education, not just Nantah, but in Buddhist
education. They were proponents of reforming Buddhist education in Singapore.
Hence, the two restaurants Fut Sai Kai and Loke Wo Yuan actually teamed
up with other vegetarian nuns in Singapore as high as other prominent Buddhist
institutions, like the temples of some of the abbesses that we mentioned.
Chen Ta Tsien, Ling Ta Tsien. So, they actually helped to organise fundraisers together with, like I said, the other vegetarian nun community, to help the founding and expansion of two prominent Buddhist educational institutes in Singapore. First was Maha Bodhi School. Maha Bodhi School was Singapore's first Buddhist [school]. I mean, according to this, today’s context, primary school, the other one was the first female Buddhist seminary in Singapore for higher education, Buddhist education, which was the Singapore Girls’ Buddhist Institute, or what we call xinjiapo nüzi fo xueyuan.
Jimmy
Where was that?
Kelvin
Maha Bodhi School was opened in 1946, due for expansion in 1958. For the xinjiapo nüzi fo xueyuan,
or the Singapore Girls’ Buddhist Institute, it was opened in 1962.
Jimmy
Tell me a little bit about your research process. I mean, obviously you
managed to interview the nuns and all that. What resources did you use?
Kelvin
The Mapping the Female Religious Heritage project was quite difficult
because some of the temples and nuns were quite hesitant. They were in
their old age, the surviving vegetarian nuns, and some of them preferred
not to be disturbed by others.
The easiest way was to do archival research. I went to NLB’s repository first. One is actually NewspaperSG, the best resource that we could trace, in fact, the most important one. The repository itself is very good in finding the earliest records of vegetarian restaurants, their menus, advertisements, etc.
I [also] went to the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library and that opened another new repository for me. Cookbooks, like I said previously, Top 100 Vegetarian Delights, Venerable Ho’s accounts like A Life for Others by Uma Rajanand also some other vegetarian temples in Singapore.
Jimmy
Oh okay.
Kelvin
We already found cookbooks, we found temple periodicals, which could help
to map the heritage of Chinese female, sort of, religious heritage in Singapore.
What about we hear personally, from the surviving nuns themselves? Then
I went to look at the National Archives. So, oral history records. There
was a very prominent one by Venerable Seck Cheng Charn or Jing Chan Fazhi.
She was a disciple of Venerable Ho Yuen Hoe, in terms of artistic culinary
skills.
She opened the restaurant in 1984, along Changi Road, called Ru Yi Vegetarian Restaurant, which was one of the last surviving traditional restaurants that was opened by Chinese Buddhist women. So, inheriting her legacy from Venerable Ho. You could park the Ru Yi Restaurant as part of the heritage of Chinese female restaurateurs of a Buddhist tradition.
Jimmy
Right.
Kelvin
Because for Chinese Buddhist women we know that they led a very pious,
celibate as well as a very autonomous life. The late 19th and early 20th
centuries were a time of female oppression. So, the lack of female voice
in a gendered space, actually, these women were able to access the autonomy.
And in this case, the closest comparison is actually the majie, because for vegetarian nuns and majies, they observe a sort of hair-combing ceremony, the So Hei ceremony, whereby they observe a vow of celibacy. So, they vow not to have any marital relations. Hence, some of the majie actually converted to become vegetarian nuns.
Jimmy
I see. There’s a very strong Cantonese element in all of this. Why is
that? Because the majie are Cantonese also, right?
Kelvin
Yeah. Hence, like I said, to give you some possible explanation. One is
that some of the majie eventually became Cantonese vegetarian nuns.
And then we know the majie came from Guangdong province in the 1930s.
The second part: most of the earliest female restaurateurs were Cantonese.
They came from Guangdong province, and then they eventually subscribed
to the householder tradition. So, since they hailed from that province,
they also got some of the Cantonese heritage and infused it into the cuisines.
So, there’s actually a stark comparison to the restaurant halls that were
part of the Minnan or Hokkien heritage.
Jimmy
That’s very interesting. What are you doing now?
Kelvin
Well, I’m a researcher at the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre researching
Singapore’s Chinese history. But in my free time, I’m aiming to contribute
a piece to BiblioAsia again. Hopefully the readers will like it.
Jimmy
What will this one be about?
Kelvin
So, I was doing the research for the first article. Then I thought about
it, I read the newspaper articles of Fut Sai Kai, Loke Woh Yuen, Bodhi
Lin, and interestingly, in the 1980s, they faded away in popular memory.
I was wondering to myself, well, why is this the case and who were the
successors? So of course, one successor, a clear lineage, was the Ru Yi
restaurant opened by this disciple of Venerable Ho.
The second one is about 150 hawker stalls that opened, sprung up across the island and then that added to the mix. And then where did they get their supplies from? From foodstuff suppliers and supermarkets. So, it was a vibrant scene actually driven by a pent-up demand because we know in the 1980s, soaring incomes, fast food chains, A&W, McDonald’s, KFC, as well as affluent lifestyles.
So that that prompted a shift in consumption patterns and, of course, sort of lifestyle changes in Chinese Singaporeans and also the Singaporean community at large.
I hope the readers will like it.
Jimmy
I’m sure they will. Okay. We’ve come to the end of the main interview.
We always end our interviews by asking, you know, light-hearted questions.
So, let me ask you now that you are a soon kueh expert, what is
the next vegetarian dish that you are planning to make?
Kelvin
I’m thinking of vegetarian chicken curry.
Jimmy
Okay. Why vegetarian chicken curry?
Kelvin
I was inspired by another cookbook again from Madam Lew Nyok Thye, a proponent
of nutritive vegetarianism. So, like I said you know in the 1980s we had
a generation of vegetarian converts or, what you call practicing vegetarians.
They left a legacy for women to take on vegetarian culinary skills and
to fit into the landscape.
So, Madam Lew was that proponent, and she compiled her recipes into two cookbooks. One was Imperial Chef, one was vegetarian confinement recipes that you can find in NLB’s [collection]. One of the recipes was vegetarian curry chicken. So, I thought, “Hmm vegetarian curry chicken. What would it be made of?” I suppose soy will come in; I suppose gluten flour will come in. I just wanted to see, to try my hand in the future.
Jimmy
Yeah, well, not just the expectations of Madam Lew. Your mother also.
Yeah, well, we’ll be expecting you to make something delicious.
Kelvin
Beyond soon kueh.
Jimmy
Because she’s sick of soon kueh.
Complete this sentence. Food is…
Kelvin
Eclectic.
Jimmy
Eclectic. Okay. All right. Well, it is because especially in Singapore,
we have so many choices that we can go to.
Kelvin, thank you for joining me on BiblioAsia+. So, read his article on these restaurants and these women in Asia. And don’t miss watching Kelvin make the best ever vegetarian soon kueh ever made, on From Book the Cook on YouTube. All links and all the information about the show can be found in the show notes or on the BiblioAsia website at biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg.
Okay, So Kelvin, thank you once again.
Kelvin
Thank you. It’s my pleasure.
Jimmy
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