FullReads

A New Year’s Day in Malaya And some of its Picturesque Customs.

My Malay syce came close up to the veranda and touched his brown forehead with the back of his open hand.

“Tuan” (Lord), he said, “have got oil for harness, two one-half cents; black oil for cudah’s (horse) feet, three cents; oil, one cent one-half for bits; oil, seven cents for cretah (carriage). Fourteen cents, Tuan.”

I put my hands into the pockets of my white duck jacket and drew out a roll of big Borneo coppers.

The syce counted out the desired amount, and handed back what was left through the bamboo chicks, or curtains, that reduced the blinding glare of the sky to a soft, translucent gray. I closed my eyes and stretched back in my long chair, wondering vaguely at the occasion that called for such an outlay in oils, when I heard once more the quiet, insistent “Tuan!” I opened my eyes.

“No got red, white, blue ribbon for whip.”

“Sudah chukup!” (Stop talking) I commanded angrily. The syce shrugged his bare shoulders and gave a hitch to his cotton sarong.

“Tuan, to-morrow New Year Day. Tuan, mem (lady) drive to Esplanade. Governor, general, all white tuans and mems there. Tuan Consul’s carriage not nice. Shall syce buy ribbons?”

“Yes,” I answered, tossing him the rest of the coppers, “and get a new one for your arm.”

I had forgotten for the moment that it was the 31st of December. The syce touched his hand to his forehead and salaamed.

Through the spaces of the protecting chicks I caught glimpses of my Malay kebun, or gardener, squatting on his bare feet, with his bare knees drawn up under his armpits, hacking with a heavy knife at the short grass. The mottled crotons, the yellow allamanda and pink hibiscus bushes, the clump of Eucharist lilies, the great trailing masses of orchids that hung among the red flowers of the stately flamboyant tree by the green hedge, joined to make me forget the midwinter date on the calendar. The time seemed in my half-dream July in New York or August in Washington.

Ah Minga, the “boy” in flowing pantalets and stiffly starched blouse, came silently along the wide veranda, with a cup of tea and a plate of opened mangosteens. I roused myself, and the dreams of sleighbells and ice on window-panes, that had been fleeting through my mind at the first mention of New Year’s Day by the syce, vanished.

Ah Minga, too, mentioned, as he placed the cool, pellucid globes before me, “To-mollow New Year Dlay, Tuan!”

On Christmas Day, Ah Minga had presented the mistress with the gilded counterfeit presentment of a Joss. The servants, one and all, from Zim, the cookee, to the wretched Kling dhobie (wash-man), had brought some little remembrance of their Christian master’s great holiday.

In respecting our customs, they had taken occasion to establish one of their own. They had adopted New Year’s as the day when their masters should return their presents and good will in solid cash.

At midnight we were awakened by a regular Fourth of July pandemonium. Whistles from the factories, salvos from Fort Canning, bells from the churches, Chinese tom-toms, Malay horns, rent the air from that hour until dawn with all the discords of the Orient and a few from Europe. By daylight the thousands of natives from all quarters of the peninsula and neighboring islands had gathered along the broad Ocean Esplanade of Singapore in front of the Cricket Club House, to take part in or watch the native sports by land and sea.

The inevitable Chinaman was there, the Kling, the Madrasman, the Sikh, the Arab, the Jew, the Chitty, or Indian money-lender,–they were all there, many times multiplied, unconsciously furnishing a background of extraordinary variety and picturesqueness.

At ten o’clock the favored representatives of the Anglo-Saxon race took their place on the great veranda of the Cricket Club, and gave the signal that we would condescend to be amused for ten hours. Then the show commenced. There were not over two hundred white people to represent law and civilization amid the teeming native population.