AT WHAT COST, A FAIR PRICE?
Remembering Pin Pin Piau Kay & Co.
By Marc Nair, 10 December 2021
It’s the song that drifts down the street every now and then. Another confectionery is closing… for good. Another hawker is shuttering and taking their magic recipes with them. Another building is denied conservation and has been marked for demolition. Never mind the decades of customers served, never mind the big-name architects who have poured their genius into the concrete pillars. Everything must go.
Change is inevitable. So goes the clarion call of this country. Change is foreseeable, comes the echo. Change is how we evolve. And so perhaps we are left in eternal mourning, forever picking over memories; every sigh a eulogy, every reportage a remembrance raised for something that is quickly replaced by the next ‘better’ iteration. Except that it isn’t always the case. Modernity isn’t necessarily better.
But it is always good to remember, to lay down markers that say, this is where Pin Pin Piau Kay & Co was; these are the famous blue-painted doors at the corner of Seng Poh Road and Seng Poh Lane.
Pin Pin was the go-to convenience store before 7-11 and Econ Minimart. It was the original Tiong Bahru Estate convenience store, proudly standing since 1938 when the estate came into being.
Rodney Goh, 66, is a third-generation storeowner. His grandfather started the provision shop in 1938. After WWII, in 1949, Rodney’s father was asked to move from China to help run the business.
The photo above shows Rodney and his father while the photo below is that of Rodney’s grandfather.
Rodney left his banking job and took over Pin Pin in 1982. Nearly 40 years later, he, along with his wife, Audree, are calling it a day for the shop. Their children don’t want to carry on with the business. Rodney reminisces about the early years:
When I just got married, we were staying in Tiong Bahru. My three children were also born in Tiong Bahru. When they were babies, the next door neighbour would babysit them for us when we were busy. So, we had very good neighbours.
The original signboard, now hanging inside the shop, was painted by Wu Wei Nuo, who was considered one of the three best calligraphers in Singapore. The signboard is also the only thing Rodney isn’t selling. The lettering has not faded one bit over the years.
Pin in Chinese is Pin An, peace,
Piau Kay is piau chun, that means ‘fair price’
I don’t know who named the shop, but it must have been my grandfather.
“Pin pin” can also mean ‘reasonably’ or ‘inexpensive’ (hat-tip to Lai Chee Kien for this), so PPPK can also mean ‘reasonably priced’, which is an attractive name.
What’s the most unique thing in the store, I ask Rodney. “Sapu lidi” (traditional Southeast Asian broom), he replies.
Then he pulls out a Bengawan Solo kueh lapis box.
Here’s my Pandora Box. Sometimes I have leftover bits and pieces. So sometimes, people are short of a screw. They come here and look, look, look. See what they can find.
It certainly isn’t something you’ll be able to find at a supermarket. And that personal aspect, that idea of the neighbourhood, is what is so embedded in stores like Pin Pin Piau Kay & Co.
Provision shops are slowly dying. The only ones that survive are those that the children want to take over. Like the Econ minimart franchise. The only one that still exists are those that are run by the children. Last time we could work from 7.30am to 7.30pm but not anymore.
Whatever can’t be sold off or returned to suppliers by the time the shop closes for good will be donated to foreign worker dormitories: Instant noodles, 3-in-1 coffee. But friendship is a commodity that cannot be replenished.
What I’ll miss most are my friends here. Like curry rice, I can just go behind and cut queue. They’ll just pack for us because they know us. Sometimes we go buy chicken rice, the fella sees us and we just indicate two packets, and we’ll come back later and it’ll be ready. These are the fringe benefits lah.
There’s no marker on Google Maps for Pin Pin Piau Kay & Co, although there is one for the dubiously-named Elephant Massage two doors down, which has since closed down after less than two years of ‘operations.’ One comes upon the provision store as a matter-of-course. Provision stores, after all, continue to proliferate in Singapore, although their numbers have definitely been affected by supermarkets and the rise of online shopping. The little extra that these owners charge to keep their profit margins is cruelly judged as too expensive by hawk-eyed customers who will not abide anything but the lowest prices and are willing to travel much further to save just a little more. The convenience store, then is no longer as convenient in an age of doorstep delivery, of app-based order fulfilment. But the real reason is actually far simpler. It is a LOT of work to keep a store going. And it’s not just the long hours, which are a given. Rodney has a phone book of suppliers built up over the years for all of the goods he carries. A quick phone call is all he needs to stock up.
When Pin Pin Piau Kay & Co shuts at the end of January 2022, it will be a significant loss for Tiong Bahru. It’s the last of the original shops in the estate, at least, the last in its livery and generational ownership. But it’s also a dark reminder that about the only heritage left in Tiong Bahru is in its conserved blocks, but in this age of rampant do-overs, who knows how long that will last for.
I ask Rodney if he has any parting words of wisdom.
If one day I wake up, and I have no motivation to work, then I should call it a day. Life is short. We won’t be here forever. Enjoy while you can.
If you would like to drop by Pin Pin Piau Kay & Co., you can find them at Block 71 Seng Poh Road in Tiong Bahru Estate.