Provision Shop

A tribute to traditional provisions in my home country of Singapore.

This August 9th, Singapore celebrated its 60th anniversary. My mother was born on October 4, 1957 — almost eight years before the nation declared its independence. Her life has always run a little ahead of Singapore’s, and the stories she tells me about her childhood — of provision shops on street corners, of Green Spot bottles clinking in glass crates, of the uncles and aunties¹ who seemed to know every child by name — feel like they belong to a country both familiar and half-mythical.

I was born in 2002 and grew up entirely in Singapore, surrounded by the rhythms of HDB estates, hawker centres, and the corner shops that were already fading by the time I came of age. In 2022, I moved to Australia for my studies. Since then, I’ve travelled back and forth between the two countries, carrying Singapore with me in fragments — the taste of kopi, the echo of Singlish in my head, and the stories my mother repeats as though she is pressing them into my memory for safekeeping.

She remembers finishing play at the field and heading down to the shop with coins hot in her hand. A Green Spot soda or a handful of biscuits was the prize. The uncle at the counter always knew who she was, and sometimes slipped in an extra sweet. His wife moved quietly in the background, refilling jars of peanuts, stacking packets of Tiger Balm, wrapping newspapers into bundles.

The details spill out of her like they happened yesterday: the rattle of a pulley tin can overhead, the menthol sharpness of Tiger Balm mingling with sugar, the sticky fingers from melted sweets. When she speaks, I feel as though she’s describing not just her own childhood but the heartbeat of a neighbourhood.

In her telling, the shop was more than just a business; it was a place where you could be known, where you could belong.

I found myself thinking less about the milestones marked in speeches and more about the corner shops that quietly carried generations forward. And in that thinking, I imagined stepping into one of the shops my mother described.
It was tucked beneath a block, a rusting zinc awning, a single bulb glowing inside. Shelves sagged with jars of biscuits and tins of Milo. On the counter sat a Green Spot bottle, its glass sweating cold. Behind it, an old uncle looked up but said nothing.

Then came the sound: coins sliding into the pulley tin above, though no hand moved.

The abacus on the counter began to click on its own, beads sliding into sums no one had asked for. A newspaper rustled open, its headline flickering from one decade to another — the birth of a new nation, the building of new flats, and finally, the present day.

I lifted the Green Spot bottle. Its cap popped like it had been waiting for me. The sweetness on my tongue carried more than sugar — it carried my mother’s laughter, her ten-year-old self pressing the bottle to her cheek to cool off after playing in the field. For a heartbeat, I stood beside her, a ghost in her childhood.

The biscuit tins whispered. One held the sound of children’s shrieks, another the warm scent of roasted peanuts. A Tiger Balm tin cracked open, filling the air with menthol and the image of a mother’s hand soothing a sick child’s forehead.

The uncle finally spoke. His voice was so low it seemed part of the hum of the fan.
“Every shop keeps its people. You think they leave when they grow up, when the shutters close. But they stay. They live here, in the jars, in the tins, in the air.”

I wanted to ask who he was, how long he had been there, and whether he was real or a memory. But he only smiled — weary, knowing — and returned to his silence.

The abacus froze mid-row. The pulley tin stopped rattling. The Green Spot bottle went flat in my hand.

“Not many left,” the uncle murmured.

And then the shop began to fade. The shelves dimmed, the jars blurred, as though memory itself was shutting its doors for the night.

Before I left, the uncle slid the Green Spot bottle across the counter. “Take it,” he said. “For remembering.”

Though I had drained it, it was once again full, condensation gathering on its glass. I carried it out into the night. Behind me, the shutters clanged down. When I turned back, the shop was gone.

I thought of my mother, now 67 going on 68. I thought of myself at 22 and the way our lives intersect in this small history. For her, provision shops were a part of daily life. For me, they are story and imagination, made vivid by her voice. And for Singapore, they are a fragile heritage — ordinary once, extraordinary now.

Perhaps that is the real magic of provision shops: that they continue to live inside us, even across oceans, even in the children who never truly knew them. A Green Spot bottle that never empties, a pulley tin that still rattles in memory, a biscuit tin that never loses its laughter.

The shops endure not in bricks or shelves, but in the stories we carry — reminders that belonging can begin with something as small as a sweet in a child’s hand.
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₁In Singapore (and in many parts of Asia), “uncle” and “aunty” are not limited to family members. They are respectful, affectionate terms commonly used to address older men and women — neighbours, shopkeepers, taxi drivers, hawker stall owners — signalling familiarity, warmth, and community.