“SAYA JUAL.” I’m selling. “Saya beli.” I’m buying. This verbal exchange, the akad muamalat, was once a key feature of transactions at the pasar malam. But it is now fading away, part of a cadence of a world that no longer exists.
I am a millennial, a member of “the bridge generation” that grew up in an analogue world, which had to adapt to the digital revolution. My core childhood memories were formed in 2002. It was the year I truly fell in love with football, starting with Brazil’s World Cup campaign and Penang lifting the Football Association Cup after beating Perak. This era of tapes, CDs, football sticker books and strong local pride was entangled with my nostalgic trips to the pasar malam. Each visit was always an opportunity for me to learn about human connection, community and local trade, which I now recall as I walk down familiar lanes today.
AN ECONOMY OF RECIPROCITY
Before the time of QR codes, contactless cards and smartphone e-wallet transfers, the night market was a local economy built entirely on physical cash, mutual understanding and neighbourly trust. Thus, going shopping required some conscientious planning. My parents would always stop at an automated teller machine to withdraw cash first. If the machine dispensed RM100 notes, my father would head straight to a nearby grocery shop to buy a small item, just to break the large bill into smaller notes. After all, passing a RM100 bill to a vendor for a RM2 item was looked upon almost as a sin. If this was unavoidable, we would politely apologise first. If not, a vendor who ran out of small change would then have to walk over to a neighbouring stall to exchange big notes for smaller ones.
Vendors’ shouts filled the air, sometimes calling back and forth in funny, playful tones, ending up laughing together as they competed for customers’ attention. “Kak, mai lah sini, murah!” (Sister, come over here, it’s cheaper!). “Satu tiga ringgit, dua lima ringgit!” (One for three ringgit, two for five ringgit!). But as for the akad muamalat itself, this traditional exchange seemed redundant when I was younger. Why state the obvious, when money and goods had already exchanged hands? Only later did I understand its relevance.
Traditionally, Malay-Muslims followed the Shafie school of thought, which requires an explicit verbal agreement to complete a transaction. You can think of it as an analogue to the handshake in business deals. But as modern business exchanges grow faster and more complex, many local Islamic scholars tend to adapt local practices in line with the Hanafi school, where the act of exchanging goods and money seals the deal without the need for speech.
While I understand the pragmatic side of this adaptation to a fast-paced world, I cannot help but feel that something is being traded away. We have lost direct eye contact, quick verbal acknowledgments and simple human connections between two strangers.
IN PRAISE OF FLAWS
Pasar malam may have become faster-paced, more modern and, in many cases, quieter. One of the first things I miss is the loud roar of electric generators. As evening approaches, a familiar routine would take place on the streets. Vendors raced to pull-start the petrol generators stored at the back of their vans. Most brought two, so if the main unit stopped working, they would quickly pull the cord on the backup. As you can guess, the experience of visiting was not always a smooth one. But as humans, are we not drawn to the flawed and the imperfect: to the things that feel unde-niably real?
Take piracy, for instance. In the early-2000s, an original music CD or DVD cost RM29–50. This was a lot to pay for entertainment; the pasar malam therefore became the primary place to buy bootleg media, where you could get the latest film releases for just RM5–10. This was also the peak era of professional wrestling, dominated by figures like The Rock, John Cena, the Undertaker, Rikishi and Stone Cold, whose exploits were also pirated.
However, buying these tapes and discs was always a gamble. Films were often recorded inside cinemas using handheld cameras. This sometimes meant that just when you were deeply transfixed by an intense, action-packed scene, you might be thrown off by a dark silhouette of someone standing up to go to the bath-room. In some cases, the covers featured one movie, but the discs contained a completely different film. Other times, the subtitles were translated literally: “You are very cool, man” became “Awak sangat sejuk, lelaki”! Despite their poor quality, catching these flaws brought us genuine joy.
LESSONS IN HUMANITY
Things have changed significantly since, but the pasar malam still retains important memories. I recall the houses by the market, for instance, where specific pasar malam routes were set up right in front of residential houses. As a child, I used to think that those house owners were the luckiest people alive, because they could step out of their front gates and instantly be surrounded by endless food options. The reality was that these options actually offered an illusion of afford-ability (see also “Between profitability and affordability” in this issue). Whereas people used to say that if you wanted cheap food, you should go to the pasar malam, I do not think that this is true anymore. Sometimes, things are actually more expensive here.
Maybe the best thing about the pasar malam is not its commodities, but rather, its function as a gathering spot. It is, for instance, a site for bringing publics into being, such as by serving as an informal arena for grassroots democracy. For example, during the historic 2008 general election, political candidates like Yusmadi Yusoff, later elected member of Parliament for Balik Pulau, walked the lanes of the Simpang Empat Balik Pulau night market with his supporters, shaking hands, listening to locals and handing out campaign pamphlets directly. But it also hosted more intimate functions, by providing an unfiltered display of parental grit and hard work. Family life was inseparable from work: you would often see vendors running stalls with their young children playing in improvised spaces nearby—such as under the tables—complete with baby bottles, toys and folded cardboard beds.
So too was the pasar malam a site for performance (see also “Spectacle, ‘snake oil’ and satay” in this issue). Traditional medicine vendors frequented markets across the north of the peninsula. These oftentimes incredibly good talkers pitched all sorts of massage oils in exaggerated fashion. Mostly, people did not stop to buy their medicine, but just stayed because they were completely hooked by these sellers’ eloquent pitches. Then there were the street musicians: visually impaired individuals sitting on plastic stools were ubiquitous, singing Malay classics from the 1970s–90s or nasyid (spiritual) songs. These engagements sent a message: they were not begging, but rather, offering their talents to earn an honest living. Back then, my parents would hand me some cash to drop into their baskets to teach me empathy. And now, as a parent walking down these same lanes, I find myself passing cash to my own children to do the exact same thing, continuing an unwritten lesson in basic humanity.
