Roasting Chestnuts

I walked along the streets of chinatown, it was a warm sunny Tuesday afternoon. Across the hot tarmac, with the fruit vendors watering the piles of longans, mangoes and dragonfruit, keeping the moist and inviting. A group of elderly folk sat on the benches that were scattered on the pavement, next to the boisterous smith street market, trying to out do each other, wildly gesticulating with exaggerated tales of the exploits of their grandchildren.

I savoured the smell of freshly roasting chestnuts in a pan of coffee beans, mixed with a tinge of baked bread from a neighbouring bakery. With Portuguese egg tarts kept warm next to stacks of dim sum baskets, steamed char siew baoz and lor mai kai, yu-tiao and butterflies fresh from the pan, char kway teow with generous servings of see-hum, chee cheong fun and ba-zhang, hot and cold desserts that cost a dollar a bowl, just round the corner and up the stairs at one of the most massive hawker centres that I know.

Wandering through the maze of little shops with strange wares, toys I once knew, brought back memories of a time long ago, and how i took them apart to satisfy a childhood curiosity, and trinklets from days gone by; it’s like time had stood still, cassette tapes and an old opera tune playing, breaking through the banter of the aunty haggling over a rattan basket with the storekeeper.

I like Chinatown, with it’s rustic simplicity. I sat down on a bench next to an old lady peddling used currency-notes.