What is Tay Wan or Teh Wan or Sng Wan in the 60's

Ice Ball at 10 cents in the 60s
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Ice ball — straight from the hands
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During the 60's in Singapore and in Malaysia (I know Penang is one place), the most popular thirst quencher at that time was to go to a roadside push cart stall that sells cendol, ice kacang, bobo chaha and ask them for this. 5 cents at that time for a syrup coated 4" round ice ball. That's what it was.

Read this in the hokkien chinese dialect. tay or teh is "To Press" and wan is like heeh wan (fish ball) or bak wan (meat ball) wan means "ball". In Malaysia, the name is more direct. "Sng" is ice in hokkien. So Tay Wan or Sng Wan is "pressed or ice ball".

It's finely crushed ice shavings with inner fillings of kacang (red bean) in the middle and rounded up into a 4" round palm sized ball with 3-colored syrup coating. During those days, where's hygiene?.. you pay 5 cents and you eat the ice ball with both hands and literally suck the ice to quench your thirst. In the end, you got yourself a sticky wet pair of hands after eating it but in a very hot climate like Singapore and Malaysia, that's a big relief thirst quencher.

My childhood kampong days in the 60's.

My childhood kampong days, my family lived in Jalan Paya near Da Qiao Primary School, Kallang River (currently KPE Ventilator Building area) Opposite Lorong Tai Seng (now Tai Street Street), Airport Road and Paya Lebar Road area that has a nature reserve of coconut tree plantation at that time.

July 1964 racial riots happened in the vicinity of my kampong when I was just 13 years old in Sec 2, witnessing gang fights with open wound injuries running down the street next to our house. Weapons used were long parangs and sharpened edge long bamboo sticks. I remembered they were the secret society gangster feuds between the malay kampong with kampong tai seng, lor tai seng groups. Gurkhas in red trucks (big bells ringing) have to be called in because the local police force could not handle the riots at that time and have curfews imposed. During those days, kampong activities includes kite-flying at the coconut plantation area as well as community work of gotong-royong grass cutting and cleaning up of drainage as we got overgrown tall lallang and clogged canals that flows down to Sungei Kallang.

What did our family do for a living?
My dad (now deceased) and mum runs a push cart selling cendol, bobo cha-cha, 4" (10cm) round syrup coated iceball, ice kacang (red beans ice shavings) and made a name for it being the most popular in the 60's. Our regular patrons were primary school children from Da Qiao Primary School, the neighborhood and some come from as far as airport workers from the old Paya Lebar International Airport that never fails to patronize our stall that is situated at the junction of Jalan Paya and Airport Road facing Lorong Tai Seng and that was like orchard road shopping to us and there was also a big wet market there for our fresh meat and vegetables.