At 80 years old, hawker Chow Mun Cheong is still very quick on his feet. At his stall Chang Ji Hot & Cold Desserts at Chinatown Complex Food Centre, he rapidly churns out bowls of delicious ice kacang, dripping with sticky gula melaka syrup, and cups of iced sour plum juice for his regulars. He has been doing this for over six decades, spending most of it working alongside his wife Phang Yoon Jnn, 75. The couple, who has been married for 51 years, conveniently live right above the hawker centre in a three-room flat.

Mun Cheong's excellent ice kacang and sour plum juice.

Last September, Yoon Jnn was diagnosed with dementia. Her condition revealed itself via little incidents, like getting lost when she went out. Other hawkers in their Chinatown neighbourhood would find a confused Yoon Jnn wandering around and gently led her back to her husband. “They told me, ‘Your wife doesn’t know her way back’. That was how we discovered she had dementia,” Mun Cheong tells 8days.sg in Mandarin.

Mun Cheong in action at his stall.

Despite the challenges, Mun Cheong is every bit the patient and devoted spouse. When we meet the husband-and-wife at Chinatown Complex for this story, Mun Cheong lovingly makes a bowl of chendol for his wife and ensures she’s comfortable before he starts talking to us. Occasionally, he steals bites from her bowl.

There are times when Yoon Jnn is cogent enough to chat pleasantly too. “My health is okay,” she cheerfully tells us. She could walk with the help of a walking stick, but sometimes spaces out during our conversation. “Her memory deteriorated a lot. She forgets things after five minutes,” says Mun Cheong.

As Yoon Jnn started requiring constant care, Mun Cheong made the difficult decision to close his thriving dessert stall in January this year to be her full-time caregiver. “If my wife didn’t get dementia, I would have continued working. But no choice, since she has this condition now,” he shares matter-of-factly. His stall neighbours, who run a spinach soup business across from him, are taking over the space.

Hiring a nurse is also not an option for Mun Cheong, who reckons that having a stranger take care of his wife is “not so good”. He explains, “Her condition makes her temperamental. Sometimes she loses her temper and hits people”.

Chang Ji Hot & Cold Desserts

The couple has two children, a daughter and a son who are both in their 40s and working in the beauty and banking industries respectively. In light of Yoon Jnn's condition, they persuaded their parents to give up their stall. “I did ask my children to take over my stall, but they have their own careers,” says Mun Cheong. Yoon Jnn chimes in: “They have their own interests, so we let them be. Our profit margin isn’t much, but if we can work, we just work lah. As long as there are people who enjoy eating our desserts.”

On January 31, Mun Cheong’s stall drew long queues as he served his desserts for the last time. Saddened customers thronged his unit to stock up on his signature homemade sour plum concentrate. “You want more of this next time, can go behind and buy,” he told a middle-aged regular, who pouted and said, “But it’s not the same.”

“Behind” refers to dessert stall An Ji, which is located just a few units away from Chang Ji and has an identical menu. As it turns out, it’s owned by Mun Cheong’s older brother Chow Mun On (centre, in blue), 86. Like Mun Cheong (who’s the youngest of five brothers), he runs the stall with his wife too. And, in another corner of the hawker centre, is another dessert stall called Xue Hua Fei, which is run solely by Mun Cheong’s widowed sister-in-law Tan Kee Leng (extreme left, in pink), also 86.

Mun Cheong's self-created homemade sour plum-lemon concentrate, which he and his brothers also sell to their customers in bottles.

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Selling desserts obviously run in the Chow family. Mun Cheong, Mun On and their late older brother Mun Thye followed in their father’s footsteps to become dessert hawkers. “Our father was illiterate, so being a hawker selling desserts was easier. No license back then, all underground! He sold simpler thing — soybean and grass jelly drinks. Now we’ve fancier desserts,” says Mun Cheong.

Right from the start, the brothers decided to run separate roadside stalls, which used to be located at People’s Park before they shifted to the modernised Chinatown Complex Food Centre. Yoon Jnn shares sagely, “We can just focus on making our own desserts. No quarrels, no complications.” According to Mun Cheong, there was no competition between the brothers as they each had their own customer base. “Our menus are the same, but the way we make our desserts is slightly different ’cos we all have our own style,” he says.

Despite being octogenarians, Mun Cheong and Mun On are still very much active. We witness the brothers pour out massive tubs of red bean paste and shave mountains of ice on old-school ice grinders at their stalls. Their brother Mun Thye, Kee Leng’s husband, had passed away 20 years ago after a fall.

Hawker Tan Kee Leng at her stall, Xue Hua Fei.

Like her brother-in-laws, 86-year-old Kee Leng is also happily working as a hawker. “I did think of retiring. But what would I do at home, sit there and do nothing? I’m used to this life,” she laughs. But Mun On, also 86, reckons that their family stalls would be gone for good once they all retire.

He muses, “Manpower is an issue. It’s hard for us to hire outside help, and hard for us to manage everything on our own. My kids are not interested in taking over.” In the meantime, the Chows will continue to sell desserts as long as they can. As Yoon Jnn sums it up: ““We like having things to do, so we work!”

An Ji, #02-183 Chinatown Complex Food Centre. Open daily 10.30am-10.30pm.

Xue Hua Fei, #02-19 Chinatown Complex Food Centre. Open daily 7am-5.30pm.

PHOTOS: YIP JIEYING