SIMPANG RENGGAM: Two elderly women are keeping a century-old family tradition alive – selling Hainanese noodles at their family’s coffee shop in Renggam town here.

       Yhin Yok Kin, 72, and her sister-in-law Sion Ah Moi, 76, have been running the business for a few hours in the mornings, despite the town not having many visitors since last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

       Sion said her father used to be a cook preparing local and western dishes for estate managers at a nearby rubber estate in the 1920s.

       “In 1928, he decided to open his own food outlet. Since then, we have been selling Hainanese noodles and also baking our own cakes,” she said, adding that their business was good with customers from the Klang Valley and even Singapore.

       “Those days our shop was busy as there were many people working in the rubber estates around the area.

       “However over the years, many people, especially the young, started moving out to bigger cities while rubber estates were also replaced with oil palm,” said Sion.

       She said many moved to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

       “Even some of our family members moved out too. My brother continued the business until he passed away a few years ago,” she said, adding that before the pandemic, they still had customers frequenting their outlet especially on weekends.

       “These days most of our customers are locals who want to have the noodles and catch up with friends,” said Sion. She hopes more outsiders would come to the town and their shop now that Johor was in Phase Four of the National Recovery Plan.

       Another senior resident of the town, Chong Lin Kiam, 70, who has a watch repair shop in the area, said he learnt the art of repairing watches and clocks from his father, who migrated from China.

       “I repair all the old and manual watches and clocks. I started repairing when I was 15,” he said, adding that his customers came from various places including Kuala Lumpur, Johor Baru and Melaka.

       “To be a watch repairman, you need to have a lot of patience and sharp eyes.

       “Besides my father, a lot of my ideas of repairing these items comes from books,” he said, adding that he charges between RM500 and RM1,000 of repair cost depending on the availability of spare parts and the time it takes to service them.

       Chong said old watches and clocks were priceless and were often sought after by collectors not just from Malaysia but also abroad.

       He said some of the timepieces that he had fixed included those which were more than 100 years old.

       Chong, who was born in Renggam, said he had no plans to move elsewhere despite all his children living outside the small “cowboy” town.

       “Renggam is a town with a lot of history, especially during British time,” he said.