“Cheng! Cheng! Cheng!” – Chinese street medicine men of 1960s Penang

Tunglang takes us on another journey to the past in old George Town, Penang, this time recalling the street performances put up by Chinese medicine men in Magazine Circus in the 1960s.

I am reminiscing about the good old 1960s when people could enjoy an evening of open-air roadside displays and performances by Chinese medicine peddlers with all their ‘wow’ magic shows and kung fu stunts.

The sudden clash of cymbals attracts and heightens my six senses to great anticipation of yet another evening of exciting roadside entertainment – the sifu medicine men have come to town. It usually starts right after dinner time at about 7.30pm (present time 8.00pm) when most George Town folks are off work and at home ready for leisurely activities. The crowd starts to gather at a slow but steady sixties pace, with me being the early ‘bird’ to hop and skip with total glee towards the bright kerosene pressure lanterns and bamboo-poled bannerets decorated with brightly coloured Chinese characters and dragon motifs. As if welcoming my minute presence, the drum starts to beat in unison with the cymbals pushing my kung fu adrenalin to extreme high exhilaration.

My front seating (squatting) affords me a first-class view and ‘3-D sense surround’ of all the stunt actions and sleight-of-hands magic – and not least, the free small samples to be given out at the end of the show. Notwithstanding the heavy air of medicine oil and animal parts, I can see on display the well worn, riveted travel boxes of equipment and medicine, martial arts weaponry, the acupuncture dummy and poster, and testimonial black-and-white photos of gory treatments for all sorts of ailments including skin, wind, broken bones and even tooth ache.

The well worn faces accustomed to travelling the towns and kampongs to sell their ‘magic’ healing formulas suddenly brighten up with Chow Yun Fat-wide grins, Kwan Tak Hing-alias-Wong Fei Hung typical Canto slangs and big-eyed facial gestures to welcome the impromptu crowd. My guess is they must have once been apprentices in a Teochew opera troupe to act, talk and walk like the classical Chinese stage actors. There is no loud speaker, so they have to speak, clap and sing at the top of their voice to grab the crowd’s attention. The vocal training of an opera apprentice comes in handy, I guess.

The stunt acts are the highlights of the evening using spears, swords, daggers and even mallets. The chopping with bare hands of seven layer of bricks, fire eating, bare body rolls over broken Guinness Stout glass, sword swallowing and even a bloodied face and body shroud cover-up magic show are truly unforgettable to witness.

My small jaw drops 45 degrees the entire show making my mouth thirsty and dry from amazement and wonder. Even the nearby heavenly street food aroma of the famed Magazine Road cannot distract my riveted attention. The ‘3-D sense surround’ is genuinely better than what you would normally get in Rex or Cathay cinemas decades later. The enthusiastic clapping and the “wows” in unison of the simple folk pepper the suspense-laden night. Squatting tor he entire free show with the occasional shifting of numb buttocks is no torment as the entertainment more than compensates, what more I get to take back a free sample which I keep dearly in my pocket for a whole week.

The show ends at around 10.00pm with many eager cash-in-deep pocket customers (mostly males) buying the ‘magic’ healing formulas for their relatives, mistresses, wives or children. The well worn faces of these medicine peddlers reveal great satisfaction after a profitable night of dangerous stunts, talking at the top of the voice and sweating it out in the warm but breezy tropical night of inner city George Town.

As I stand up with a pin-poking sensation on both my numb feet, I see the neon-lights of the Philip’s robot saluting from the roof top and silhouetting the master sifu peddler, who is wiping off dancing beads of sweat with his “Good Morning” mini China towel. The Magazine Circus, an open-air parade ‘square’ at the ‘Goh Pha Teng’ of Macalister Road/Penang Road/Magazine Road junction is now quiet except for the sound of monsoon drain crickets and the occasional trishaw bell ringing.

Hurriedly, I skip and hop back to my father’s shop before he shuts the folding iron grill door through which only the slim, sexy dancing black cat of the Eveready battery commercial can squeeze through.