Beansprout Soup

There are many stories related to beansprouts in Sibu. Here is one.

Once there was a wife who was always suspicious of her husband's unfaithfulness as her husband and his friends would spend a lot of money visiting foreign countries every year. Sometimes even twice or thrice a year if he made a lot of profit from his business. Her husband never took her anywhere because he was rather afraid of her.

To ensure that the family at least get some money from her husband, she demanded that her husband give her "food allowance" to feed the family. According to their company's clerk, her husband would say, "Send the bills." And no other words. He would say this about his wife, "No book to say." Which in Foochow means there is no good thing say about the wife.

So she billed him every month 3 large tins of cooking oil, 30 katis of beansprouts, 30 katis of kang kong, 30 katis of long beans, 1 guni of rice,3 katis of salt, 3 katis of sugar and 30 tins of Milk Maid condensed milk...

She was so frugal  that her children had beansprouts every day. Her mother in law who visited every now and then was not too happy to see beansprouts  at the table, and large tins of cooking oil, unopened. Her husband was a small eater and if he had  some buttered toasts in the coffee shop with friends, he would not even eat lunch at home. He would have some noodles in the coffee shop before he went for his evening walk. Hence when he went back home, he did not mind just having a soup or some vegetables.

(Actually, this lady "sold back" the tins of cooking oil to her friendly sundry shopkeeper after a month as she needed the bill.)

May be the husband knew all about these dealings, but he just kept quiet so that he could go overseas.