A tale of survival
One of the last few remaining traditional soya sauce producers in the country, Thye Woh insists on doing things the oldfashioned way, writes
“THREE bottles of soya sauce please!” hollers an elderly woman, her voice shrill above the din in the decades-old provision shop. Despite being separated by no less than 15 shoppers, I can clearly hear her complaining to the counter workers about an obscure brand bought by her daughterin-law at a local hypermarket.
“The mass-produced product doesn’t do my cooking justice. Like my mother before me, I only use the superior soya sauce sold here. My daughter-in-law still has much to learn. The ones she bought are so onedimensional, lacking in depth of flavour and fragrance found in the ones which are traditionally fermented and brewed,” she attests strongly.
Her grouses are so loud that it eventually attracts the attention of a well-dressed man who happens to stride in via the main entrance. Judging from his demeanour and those of the shop employees greeting him, it’s obvious that he belongs at the top of the management hierarchy.
Realising his presence, the elderly woman immediately greets him warmly and repeats her complaints like a broken record. The man, who obviously knows her by appearance, offers a sympathetic ear and tries his level best to pacify her by personally attending to her needs.
Looking at the incident unfold right before my eyes, it suddenly dawns upon me that I’m witnessing the very reason why the company, Thye Woh, still enjoys the patronage of an enviable legion of loyal customers despite being one of the earliest establishments in Alor Star’s Chinatown, Pekan Cina.
INTEREST PIQUED
My interest piqued by the episode, I make my way towards a nearby shop assistant with a barrage of questions. He gives me a rather perplexed look and then, without saying even a word, walks up to his superior. The duo start conversing in what sounds like Cantonese.
Soon after, the assistant beckons me to approach. Before returning to his task, he introduces me to Tham Kwong Soon, who’s the joint director of the company with his younger brother, Tham Kwong Cheong.
Leading me upstairs and away from the hustle and bustle of the retail area, Kwong
Soon expresses his curiosity at my interest in his company. He smiles widely when I tell him of my high regard for Thye Woh’s long and illustrious history as generations of Kedahans have come to appreciate and trust its quality products.
Upon reaching the sparsely furnished office which he shares with the rest of his management staff, Kwong Soon reaches for a thick hard cover book chronicling all the Chinese businesses in Alor Star and begins flipping the pages. He stops at a page already bookmarked with a used envelope.
THYE WOH’S FOUNDER
“Can you please come and help?” he calls out to a woman who turns out to be his wife, Chuah Kim Eng. Speaking in fluent Hokkien, Kim Eng starts peeling back the years to the time when Kwong Soon’s grandfather and Thye Woh founder was growing up in China.
Born in 1879, Tham Chan Yong only had two brief years of formal education at a village school during his childhood years. Then, in 1891, he left for Guangzhou to work as an apprentice. Despite his tender age of just 12, Chan Yong was already determined to learn as much about business as he could.
Eight years later, in 1899, Chan Yong decided to broaden his horizons and traced the coast northwards to Hangzhou. There, he took up a clerical position at a shop dealing in ivory. The job proved to be unsuitable. Within three short years the ambitious young man made a life-changing decision to leave the shores of China and sail to Penang, at that time part of the British-ruled Straits Settlements.
ARRIVAL IN ALOR STAR
Chan Yong remained in Penang for 11 years before boarding a steamer destined for Alor Star in 1913. While the text doesn’t provide a reason for this move, it can be safely speculated that Chan Yong was attracted to Kedah’s growth potential after suzerainty of the state, together with those of Perlis, Kelantan and Terengganu, was transferred to the British upon the signing of the Anglo-Siamese Treaty just four years earlier.
Within weeks of his arrival, Chan Yong joined forces with several like-minded people and opened a sundry shop under the name of Chop Thye Hong in Pekan Cina. The company traded primarily in kerosene which was in demand as lighting fuel. Electrical supply had yet to be introduced in Alor Star at that time. Apart from that, Chan Yong also invested in the highly profitable tin mines in Perlis’ Kaki Bukit area.
SUPPORTER OF EDUCATION
Thanks to his strong business acumen, Chan Yong shot to prominence within a year of his arrival and was elected leader of the Cantonese community. At around the same time, Chan Yong, who had always regretted his lack of education, decided to focus his attention on the sole Chinese school in Alor Star which was located at the Cantonese Association on Jalan Penjara Lama.
During his two-year tenure as the school president, Chan Yong used his influence to raise funds as well as improve the classroom environment for the students who were all boys. He also worked tirelessly for the admission of girls into the school, an idea which he may have acquired during his time in Penang. By 1918, the first batch of female students began attending classes.
Chan Yong’s preoccupation with the school came at the expense of Chop Thye Hong. The wheels of financial ruin had already been set in motion by the time efforts were put in place to shore up the business by branching into the bread and earthenware trading.
BIRTH OF THYE WOH
Not one to give up easily, Chan Yong moved his family into another shop further down the street and started rebuilding his business from scratch by setting up a new entity making soya sauce called Thye Woh. He probably got the idea after recalling that families back home in China often brewed the flavourful condiment for their own consumption.
Chan Yong was fortunate that his new venture ticked all the right boxes and he regained much of his wealth within a short period of time. The 1920s was an era of rapid growth for Kedah and the population in its capital, Alor Star increased many folds. People clamoured for Thye Woh’s soya sauce to flavour their food as soon as news of its launch reached their ears.
“And that was how Thye Woh came into existence,” Kim Eng quips as she reaches the end of the last paragraph. “Is that all? Chan Yong’s story has been nothing short of amazing so far but surely there must be more. What happened after Thye Woh was established?” I ask the couple.
OPPORTUNE DISCOVERY
A pause and Kim Eng confesses: “We’re unsure about the rest as it all happened such a long time ago. What we know is only through oral history told by the older members of our family. Anyway, there are some old photographs in one of the bedrooms in front which may help.”
Her words are like music to my ears and over the next hour, we embark on a truly enthralling journey back in time. Apart from vintage photographs, we also found various other memorabilia related to Thye Woh’s history. Fortunately for me, these items managed to successfully jolt Kwong Soon and his wife’s memory and before long, the Thye Woh story resumes.
In his lifetime, it seems that Chan Yong had three official wives. The first was a girl from Guangdong province, Loke Fong Sin, while the second was Chow Fong Qing, a Peranakan Nyonya. Between them, Chan Yong was blessed with five sons with Kwong Soon’s father, Tham Kok Pon being the youngest.
The revival of Chan Yong’s fortunes at the new premises was primarily attributed to his third wife, Ho Fong Ming. Despite being barren, she was the driving force behind Thye Woh’s early success. Fong Ming’s presence at both the sales counter as well as the soya sauce factory in Jalan Kampong Perak, together with the invaluable help of Kok Pon and his second eldest brother, was enough to ensure that the company ran like a well-oiled machine.
Things went on smoothly for Thye Woh until the arrival of World War 2. Like the rest of Malaya, life took a turn for the worse in Alor Star when the Japanese Imperial Army arrived in December 1941. Food shortage became a common occurrence and hardship prevailed.
REQUEST FROM JAPANESE SOLDIERS
At this juncture, Kwong Soon interjects: “During the early days of the Occupation, several Japanese troops turned up without warning at our factory premises. They brought provisions and ordered Fong Ming and her servant girls to cook for them. She obliged, thinking that it was just a one-off incident. But fate had it that the soldiers liked her cooking so much that their presence became a daily occurrence.”
The soldiers, he adds, were surprisingly generous and always brought along extra provisions which benefitted the employees immensely. “Furthermore, it was beneficial for Thye Woh to be in the good books of the Japanese soldiers during those uncertain times,” continues Kwong Soon before relating an incident that clearly showed the better side of the aggressors.
“A few days after news of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki broke in early August 1945, the same soldiers arrived at our factory with two lorry loads of soyabeans. They thanked my stepmother for her hospitality, handed over the unexpected gift and left, never to be seen again.”
NEW GENERATION TAKES OVER
Chan Yong died in 1952, just three years after Kwong Soon was born. While juggling between their studies, Kwong Soon and his brother slowly learnt the ropes of the trade from their father.
“Soyabeans, flour, salt and water. These ingredients when properly processed, all come together to form a sum much larger than its parts. Right from the beginning, my brother and I learnt that soya sauce offers much more than mere saltiness. Thanks to a painstaking process of fermentation and ageing, our product has umami, fragrance and a slight hint of sweetness in the aftertaste,” shares Kwong Soon.
He proceeds to explain the laborious production process which is still used today. The soyabeans are first steamed and allowed to cool before being coated with wheat flour and left on trays for a few days to start the initial stages of fermentation. Then, the mash is mixed with brine in large covered earthen jars and left to sit in natural outdoor heat for about three months.
JARS WITH MEMORY
During the wait, dozens of processes are taking place in the pre-soy sauce mixture. The starch from the flour breaks down into sugars while the soyabean protein changes into various organic compounds which give the darkening brew its unique identity.
“The ancient jars at our factory are priceless as they have a ‘memory’ and become more seasoned with each passing batch. As a result, the sauce that they produce also becomes better,” adds Kwong Soon before drawing a parallel with the way Chinese chefs treasure their old woks.
Before leaving, Kwong Soon proudly shows me the various products sold at Thye Woh’s retail area. “Discerning customers favour the premium light virgin brew soya sauce which is marketed under our Three Goats and 666 brands while those from the middle income bracket and hawkers go for our cheaper 333 and 444 marque,” he explains before sharing that these brands have been around ever since Chan Yong’s time.
“A lot of people were illiterate in the past so my grandfather resorted to these easy to remember numbers and pictures on the labels to help customers identify Thye Woh’s products easily,” adds the third generation owner.
Towards the end of my visit, our conversation inevitably drifts to questions about the future. Drawing a deep breath, Kwong Soon eventually admits that the number of traditional soya sauce makers in the country is on the decline.
“We’re one of the last few remaining traditional soya sauce producers who insist on doing things the old fashioned way. Holding dear to our heritage and knowing that generations of our loyal customers appreciate our products are already more than what Thye Woh can ever ask for,” concludes Kwong Soon, his voice low.
Holding dear to our heritage and knowing that generations of our loyal customers appreciate our products are already more than what Thye Woh can ever ask for.
Tham Kwong Soon