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From Tianjin to Woodlands: An Immigrant’s Journey To Be a Singaporean Minimart Owner
by
Kimberly LimJuly 21, 2023
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Singaporean Enough delves into the captivating tales of immigrants weaving their identities and lives into the vibrant fabric of Singapore. We shed light on their journey of assimilation, bridging cultures and finding a shared sense of belonging in a new country they call home.
All images by Stephanie Lee for RICE Media
C & H Minimart sits at the foot of Block 605 on Woodlands Drive 42. It’s been there for 26 years, and it shows.
Bright yellow gachapon machines flank the entrance to the shop. Step through an entrance sporting yellowed, faded posters, and it’s as if you’ve been transported back in time.
Narrow aisles are packed full of everything you could think of—organised chaos. The concrete floors are marked with worn-out paths. The store configuration clearly hasn’t changed in years.
Some items, like the cheap wireless earphones hanging near the cash register, are obviously of this decade. Others, like the neon-cloured plastic sand play sets, could have been plucked straight from my childhood in the 2000s.
At the helm of this institution is perhaps an unexpected character: China-born Zhao Hui, who only became a Singaporean citizen in 2018.
It’s a Friday when I arrive at the minimart to speak to him—his only rest day every week. He ushers me into the empty store, opened up specially for me, and settles naturally at his post behind the counter.
He looks the part of a local mama shop boss. But his younger self back in China would never have foreseen how he would eventually become a prominent fixture in Woodlands.
A Different Time
The 45-year-old was born in rural Gansu, but grew up in the city of Tianjin.
The ‘60s and ‘70s marked China’s Cultural Revolution. Thanks to Mao Zedong’s
Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement, an initiative to combat pro-bourgeois sensibilities, Zhao Hui’s city-dwelling parents were sent to the rural grasslands at the tender age of 18.
It was there that they met, married, and had Zhao Hui and his elder brother.
He tells me in his native Mandarin, however, that he only remembers his childhood in Tianjin.
“I was always extroverted and on the lively side. In fact, some might say I was too lively,” he says, revealing that he was scolded and beaten often.
He gets a mischievous glint in his eye as he recounts, “I was always moving and never stopped. I did a lot of dangerous things in my childhood. I wouldn’t walk properly on the pavement. Instead, I’d balance on the walls of people’s houses.”
His mother once brought him to a mental hospital because she suspected he had attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). But she didn’t get an official diagnosis. Instead, the doctor just confirmed that Zhao Hui was simply “very playful”.
