The Chinese (or Lunar) New Year is here. As part of the celebration, families and friends visit each other to exchange well wishes for the New Year, meet seldom seen relatives, or simply to chill out and gossip. Of course, one cannot expect to visit others empty handed. The typical practice in Singapore (not the case in Indonesia, and I heard also not practiced by Chinese communities in other countries) is to bring a pair of oranges and give it to the host. This signifies good luck. The host, in return, will also give a pair of oranges to the visitors. Therefore you can probably survive many house visits just carrying a pair of oranges – I sometime bring spares in case someone give me a pair of badly squished oranges.
Back to the topic of this post, the host will offer visitors a spread of snacks and drinks. Bakkwa (pork jerky) is one important ingredient of this buffet. It is so important, that some people will actually queue for many hours to get their hands on them. Despite the long queue and quota restrictions put in place to prevent hoarding (reminiscent of scenes from the times when the Soviet-bloc just crumbled) there is actually no shortage of the item, it’s just that as prestige goods some brands are more desirable than others.
The store with super-long queue
I will not be writing this had I not been a part of this whole affair, but I shall explain the madness later. This year my girlfriend wanted me to try and get bakkwa from a store called ‘Lim Chee Guan’ at Chinatown. In case you’re wondering, their main shop is close to Smith Street. They have been increasingly popular in the last few years, and as one newspaper article put it: be prepared to wait for at least an hour before you can make your purchase. Well, an hour is not short, but I can live with it. Besides I can queue in early afternoon, when others are stuck in their offices and can’t compete with me. Let them queue in the evening, I thought.
That Tuesday morning my friend Brendon asked if I’m going to queue early, and if yes his friend might also need some bakkwa from the same store. I told him I can only go around lunch time, so his friend decided to go down to Chinatown and get it himself. At about 11.30 I received sms from Brendon saying that the store has run out of the pork bakkwa (there were other meat types: beef, chicken, even fish, but these won’t do for my purpose). Not discouraged, that friend decided to pay another visit to the store in the evening, after hearing that there might be a second batch coming in at 6pm (in hindsight we are not sure if there was another batch). This time Brendon came along because he also wanted some for his family. At 6pm I received another disappointing sms saying that again there is no more stock. In the end I decided to make it to the store very early the next morning, before the shop opens at 9am. My friend was even more ambitious, planning to reach by 7am. I thought that if he started queuing at 7, he should probably be the first few to reach the store; I just need to be there before the store opens and join him in the queue. That should save a lot of time. Well, I was wrong.
The man sitting on the stool is sitting next to an alley,
where the queue line continues. Store is not visible in this picture.
This is the view from our starting point, man on stool (prev. pic)
is sitting right at the corner in front
When I reach the store at about 8.30am, I see a long queue, but don’t see my friend anywhere near the store front. I eventually found him, number 60 or so in the queue. Yes he came early, but 60 other shoppers came before 7am (no he wasn’t late, in case you’re wondering). In any case, looking at the many – possibly hundreds – of people behind him, I still think that I’m better off to stick with him. Thanks again, Brendon. =)
A short while after the shop opened one of the employees started counting towards the back of the queue, carrying a placard on one hand. You don’t want to guess what’s written on the placard, it said ‘No More Sliced Pork Bakkwa’ or something to that effect. You see, he counts the number of persons in the queue, and assuming each person will maximise his/her quota of 6kg, he calculate how many persons (let’s assume N numbers of persons) are guaranteed they can buy bakkwa when it comes to their turn. He would stand next to this N-th person and hold out his placard. Anyone else who queued behind him would be forewarned that they may or may not get what they’re queuing for.
This brings us to the next part of this madness. Now that I was already in the queue, how long does it actually take for the 60th person to get his bakkwa? Don’t read on first, make a guess.
I was personally hoping that I can settle this in an hour or so. One hour later the queue had barely moved, so I stretched my expectation. Maybe one more hour (from then). Two hours in the queue we moved only half the distance. So I keep on stretching my expectations, even as the store seems closer.
The advantage of being stuck in a situation where there isn’t much to do for a long period of time is that one start to notice the surrounding. My observation is that buying bakkwa is a highly social affair. Many shopper come in groups, which is a useful thing because talking to your friends helps to prevent boredom (and preserve sanity). It is also highly useful when you need to visit the toilet, since your friend can help to stay in queue. Some shopper will talk to those around him/her, asking if they are underutilizing their quota. My other observation is that you don’t have to queue if you don’t want to. A replacement will do. This comes in form of your employee or friends, someone you can ask a favour from or order around. In fact, I realized this because about one out of five people in the queue are Indian, who naturally shouldn’t be interested to queue for hours for bakkwa during Chinese New Year period.
In the end, we finished ‘shopping’ at about 12.40. That is 4 hours of queuing for me, and 6 hours for Brendon and his buddy. And we were already at the front when the queue started. What about those at the back, I wondered.
I actually wanted to blur the name of the shop in the picture and/or disguise its identity in this post (in fear that someone reading this would decide to get the same brand and next year the queue will get even longer), but decided that since it is a festive period anyone who want to ‘join the fun’ should not be deprived of the opportunity to be part of a snaking queue to buy snack.
For now I am glad New Year comes only once a year.
PS: Happy Chinese New Year everyone! Gong Xi Fa Cai.
