You called on the way to the hospital. Your sister had suffered a stroke the night before.
"I was up till 2 am last night," you said.
"How is she?" I asked.
"Not too good, but doctors have not confirmed anything," you whispered.
"Should I go? Are you okay?" I asked.
"No, don't come. I'm fine."
There are two fishhead steamboat places along Jalan Sultan, one at the junction with North Bridge Road and another at the junction with Victoria Street. Both have the name of "Nan Hua Chang" on their signboards, but the former has the words "Ah Qiu" added behind its name (in brackets).
"Are they the same?" queried my bewildered sister.
"No," I answered.
"Are they different branches?"
"Not really," I said as I heard you chuckling. So I began to tell sis the story of Ah Qiu.
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The original Nan Hua Chang fishhead steamboat was started by Ah Qiu and his wife at Sims Avenue near Aljunied MRT station. We are not sure if the recipe of the flavourful soup was Ah Qiu's or his wife, but it was very popular. On an average night, patrons wait for about 45 minutes before they are served.
Unfortunately, Ah Qiu and his wife ended their marriage. Ah Qiu gave up Nan Hua Chang at Sims Avenue to his wife and attempted to start a new branch. He found a partner who was willing to support him financially and started another Nan Hua Chang at the junction of Jalan Sultan and Victoria Street.
Soon, the same flavourful soup at the new branch started attracting attention and business flourished.
Ah Qiu's partner decided to expand the business and opened another Nan Hua Chang branch at Jalan Besar. However, he did it without Ah Qiu's knowledge, likely without offering Ah Qiu a share in the new branch.
Ah Qiu was furious. But what was he to do? He was financially too weak to end the partnership. Yet, how could he continue to work with such a partner?
It seemed too much of a coincidence, but just when Ah Qiu was pondering about the future of his business, he struck the lottery. Now he was financially abled and he decided to break the partnership to start his own branch of Nan Hua Chang diagonally opposite to his partner's branch to challenge his partner.
Thus the Nan Hua Chang at the junction of Jalan Sultan and North Bridge Road came into existence. Ah Qiu added his own name to the now famous brand of "Nan Hua Chang" so as to differentiate it from the other branches.
With such direct competition, Ah Qiu's ex-partner soon gave up the branch at Jalan Besar.
And so it is today that there are three branches of Nan Hua Chang in Singapore, the original one at Sims Avenue and two later branches along Jalan Sultan.
We were having breakfast at Da Lian again.
Again the tissue lady came. We rejected her offer to buy her tissues by pointing to a packet of O'Darling 3-ply on your side of the table and she left.
"How did you manage to find this old brand? I haven't seen it for a while," I said, picking up the packet and studying it for a while. There was a starkness in the anime girl's face that I don't remember and the colours appeared deeper.
"I bought it off a man with one leg," you replied. "He looked really pitiful so I bought some packets from him."
"It looks different."
"Perhaps it's made in a different place now. Malaysia?"
It was your first birthday present to me. It came with its sister in a little cage. When I opened the cage door, its sister immediately jumped out to greet me. It, however, was smaller than its sister and was hesitant of leaping the 3 inches from the cage to the kitchen floor. I wrapped my hands around its little tummy and carried it out from the cage.
Once out, it was more curious than its sister. It rushed about the kitchen, exploring and sniffing away.
"Give it a name," you said.
I was stumped and couldn't come up with a name for a long while.
"Name it after the place where we met," you suggested.
It was 7:00 PM at McDonalds. I secured the table nearest to the toilet and sat down. The table allowed me a direct view of the queue of customers waiting to order. "Here is good," I thought. "I'll just do my marking here while keeping an eye on the queue. Then when the queue is shorter, I'll walk over and buy a drink." I took out the stack of essays and began to read intently.
It was 7:30 PM. You called telling me you would be late and would not be able to join me for dinner and that I should go ahead and eat without you. "The fish and chips from the western food stall at the coffee shop is good, why not have that?" you suggested. I couldn't stop myself from sighing after you hung up.
It was 8:30 PM. The fish and chips WERE good. Eating alone, however, was quite sad.
It was 9:30 PM. You finally came back with a box of fried bee hoon. You transferred some of the bee hoon into a bowl and handed it to me and we settled in front of the TV watching Shark's Tale. We laughed at the Robert De Niro shark with the mole. "Who's the fish?" you asked. "Will Smith."
