EEvery year when the Chinese New Year is near I would think of the Hokkien man sitting at the corner of Tai Lung at High Street,in Sibu, quietly making popiah skins. In the 60\u2019s there were fewer people in Sibu , so there was not much of a queue. He would even have an admiring crowd of young people watching him patiently making the skins, one after the other and piling them up on a rattan shallow basket. I would be one of the young crowd watching him.<\/p>\n
He was our Hokkien Apek in a town of a Foochow dominant town. If he was a Foochow, we would have called him Ah Bak. Apek is not a derogative term for in Hokkien as Apek means an uncle who is older than your father and it is a very honorable way of calling a good man.<\/p>\n
Somehow in Malaysia the term has become a little loose to mean a shabby looking Chinese man, an uneducated man with poor manners, a poor looking man,etc. Can we restore a term to its original high standing?<\/p>\n
The Hokkien Apek would stack up the skins in the tray in tens or twenties. To me, his popiah skins, were elegant, thin, and perfect!! Years later, with a bit of research I found out that no one had inherited his skills and after his passing, that special corner of Tai Lung forever lost a nostalgic iconic Popiah Skin Man.<\/p>\n
The Chinese festive season would never be the same again to many of my friends and I.<\/p>\n
It is strange how one person like me can miss that social scenario. And it is stranger how I can never bring myself to make popiah with supermarket popiah skin. But then, it is only natural I would like to bite into a freshly made and fragrant popiah skin made at a familiar street corner. I would like to sink my teeth in the ingredients freshly and patiently prepared by my mother.<\/p>\n
I have not tried to make the popiah skins myself although I obtained a recipe recently. May be you could try to make some.<\/p>\n
The dough starts out as a thick batter. The ingredients for the batter are
\n1 kg flour
\n4-1\/2 cups water
\n1 Tsp salt
\n2 Tbsp tapioca flour<\/p>\n
You mix all the ingredients together until they make a lumpy batter. You can use a non stick frying pan.<\/p>\n
The Apek had a special flat pan, like that of a roti canai pan and he would sit in front of his stove on a stool which was the same height as his stove. Who had inherited his popiah making pan?<\/p>\n
Psalm 107:8-9<\/span><\/strong> May this spring festival bring you wonderful blessings from God the Almighty.<\/p>\n EEvery year when the Chinese New Year is near I would think of the Hokkien man sitting at the corner of Tai Lung at High Street,in Sibu, quietly making popiah skins. In the 60\u2019s there were fewer people in Sibu , so there was not much of a queue. He would even have an admiring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[183,194,10],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nLet them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for mankind, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.<\/p>\nBy Changyi<\/span><\/strong>
\nAgape Grace Methodist Preaching Centre, Miri<\/span><\/strong><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"