Meet the 80-year-old joss paper seller who fled Chinese Communist in China for a life in Singapore
The hungry ghost festival is marked in red on Nan Seng Chan’s calendar. Every year, the 55-year-old shop stocks up on joss sticks, incense papers and candles at least 30 days before the seventh lunar month starts.
Once the goods arrive, hard work ensues. Ng Cheng Hun, the shop’s 80-year-old founder, starts work as early as 4am. The residents of Macpherson had asked that he synced his hours with the wet market vendors.
Even in “off-peak” seasons, the shop opens for business by 7.30am without fail. It runs like clockwork daily, only stopping to catch its breath during the lunar new year break. That gives Ng a grand total of three rest days every year.
Asked if the past decades had taken a toll on him, he smiled and said: “The darkest time of my life has passed”.
ENDURING THE GREAT CHINESE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION
Ng was born in Fujian, China, and his journey to Singapore started with a passport and one US dollar.
In the 1950s, Mao Zedong’s newly formed People’s Republic of China was underway. Ng’s father took off with his entire family and left him, the eldest son, behind to guard the family altar and care for his grandmother.
“Being left behind in the raging Cultural Revolution was gruelling,” he recalled. “Life was brutal. For three years, my grandmother and I had nothing to eat.”
The duo survived on a measly diet of potatoes, and their substitute for vegetables was cow and pig feed. As far as supplies went, the authorities would issue each family a large barrel. It contained one bowl of rice grains and the rest was all water.
In school, Ng attended physical education classes on an empty stomach. After dismissal, his journey home took hours on foot. He knew only two things for sure – that he could reunite with his grandmother in the evening, and she would have saved him the entire bowl of rice.
