You may be wondering if the old school cupboards still exist. Of course, some of it is still standing and not being dismantled and stowed away in a storage room somewhere. Some people prefer traditional furniture because it holds a sentimental value, while others choose to decorate their homes with antiques to create a rustic and beautiful atmosphere.
Ye olde cupboard still in style
I have a cupboard story I would like to share, and it is all because I came across it once too often in my life. It may seem funny to write about it, but I lived with that piece of furniture from the moment I was born till I finished secondary school in Kuching, after which I completely forgot about it until many years later.
It amazes me how I inexplicably connect with it when I bought a cupboard for my first home. Possibly influenced by the English cottage style, I found a great carpenter to build a cupboard for my kitchen upon my return from overseas.
He was amused that the modern me preferred an antique-looking cupboard instead of all the current choices. Yes, I wanted a ‘zhai too’ (food cupboard in Hokkien dialect) that our grandparents used to place our cooked food in, with a netting in front to arouse our sense of smell and whet our appetites.
Many of us have seen one, and it has coloured glasses on the sliding section of the upper segment that are rather pretty with the option of white, green, or yellow glasses.
An order for six was placed, and my carpenter in Kuching was perplexed as to why six were needed when one would suffice for storing our cooked food.
Three were for me, and the other three were for my friends who were excited by my idea.
Apparently, Li, my carpenter, was very talented as he came from a Shanghainese family of carpenters. His father had travelled across the South China Sea to begin a new life in Borneo where he had landed in Kuching.
He took in the little details that I like, such as the knobs I brought back from a dismantled home in southwest London, the colours, and a slight change to the original design of a traditional ‘zhai too’.
Reminding him not to charge me an arm and a leg for them as I insisted on solid wood, I also supplied my own paint from Murabond, a pleasant and almost odourless Australian paint with a varied choice of both dramatic and muted tones.
It was a relief when his price was perfect, and he promised to finish the work in a month. I had faith that he would try his best to honour his words.
After four weeks of not hearing from Li, I drove to his factory, which was located on a winding road in rural Batu Kawa. The ride surpassed my expectations of rural homes — tall plants cast shade on the road, chicks trailed their mother hen across the country lanes and gateless yards, and the houses were rather charming with landscaping efforts including flowering shrubs and a plethora of heliconia plants.
I eventually discovered a wood works factory where I was pleased to find the carpenter Li coating a cupboard that was exactly the design I had requested. I’m relieved that I wasn’t duped as a deposit had already been paid to him.
To cut a long story short, Li was a very decent man who was amused by my idea to use my cupboards to store all kinds of stuff from kitchenware to books.
My friends used theirs for displays and to store tablecloths, coasters, and other decorative items.
While eating in a restaurant in Malacca, I spotted a ‘zhai too’ being used as a display cupboard.
In Ipoh, I came across an old one in a recycled restaurant. The entire restaurant and its interiors were made of repurposed wood, and the ‘zhai too’ as a decorative piece fit in nicely.
I also know one lady in Kuching who uses hers far more than the built-in cupboards in her modern kitchen. A hand-me-down from her mother, she considers it to be the best way to set her cooked food to cool.
You might be wondering if our cupboards are still with us today. Mine are still standing tall in my Kuching home after so many years. A girlfriend made me promise that if I ever want to toss them out, her home is ready to take them in.
I recently visited my friend Elita Amin in her new condominium. Tucked inside her modern kitchen space are two of these traditional cupboards, purchased from Carpenter Street in Kuching.
That made quite a statement in her charming Dutch colonial-style home.
