Original beef
Black pepper beef
Spicy beef
Original pork
Spicy pork
Tender pork
Original bacon
Spicy bacon
Mr. Yap—who goes by no other name—displays eight jerkies in an unassuming bak kwa shop off a busy intersection in Rosemead.
Jerky is all he sells, the only store of its kind in Los Angeles.
“Jerky is a universal snack that everybody likes,” Mr. Yap tells me as he leans in. Bak kwa means ‘pork jerky’ in Hokkien, a Southern Chinese dialect spoken in the province of Fujian, China, where it first originated. He knows it, and I know it. We are on the same page when it comes to bak kwa, for at least a fleeting moment — which is all it takes for anyone to devour the snack.
Unless you are a practicing vegan or vegetarian, you know he is right. Jerky, in its entire hearty splendor, is a food that has nourished some of the world’s earliest civilizations. Because jerky is simple and straightforward, people do not ask many questions, especially when it tastes good, which is to say it is the opposite of gnarly, tortured, tasteless and prudent — like the freeze-dried chicken bar you’d eat on a camping trip to the moon. Mr. Yap’s stuff is transcendent, indulgent, inspired, heavenly, and addictive — and appeals to the craven, all-too human person who wants to stay on earth for forever just so they can eat jerky.
Mr. Yap had speculated that Singapore-style jerky would have this appeal in the U.S. His store is a three-time Los Angeles Times food category winner including the “Handmade Gift Guide” Winner in 2013. After only five years in business, he is already in the process of setting up two new stores.
While Los Angeles thinks his jerky is a big deal, Mr. Yap does not. Making jerky, in fact, puts him in an awkward spot. Though he is proud of his jerky, he still does not fully celebrate his unexpected stardom. Still leaning over, he reveals the chip on his shoulder that he cannot shirk: “Back home, selling bak kwa was like selling hot dogs on the street corner. My family was looked down on.”
Mr. Yap’s father did not want to carry on his mother’s jerky business in Singapore, and Mr. Yap did not either. Immigrating to the U.S. meant he could get a degree, earn a better living – maybe even reinvent himself.
He never saw himself tucked away in an unassuming shopping center, as he is now, his profit growing steadily as customers queued for his eight specialty bak kwa flavors. Was he just lucky? After all, the number eight is an auspicious number for the Chinese that sounds a lot like the Mandarin word for prosperity. Despite his Chinese heritage, however, Mr. Yap does not credit Chinese superstition for his present success. Quite the contrary, he is quick to tell me that being Chinese has little to do with him at all.
“We’re not really Chinese,” he says indignantly. Mr. Yap is a Singaporean tried and true, born and bred on the island-nation of Singapore in Southeast Asia.
But his Chinese name continues to confuse dozens here in the U.S. who ask him: “You have a Chinese name, you speak Chinese, and you don’t want to be Chinese?
…Then what the hell are you?”
Since Mr. Yap has already spent nearly 40 years away from Singapore, a country only 53 years old, it makes sense then, that Mr. Yap’s mind returns a blank check when asked that final question. He has not been home long enough to know.
In 1983, Mr. Yap moved to Los Angeles with “yellow skin” and “a big head,” he says. His parents gave him enough money to last him a year, and he decided to study film as an undergraduate at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, then after a semester, he transferred to the Communication Studies department at UCLA. He dropped out of both when he could no longer afford tuition. He ended up at California State University of Los Angeles beside the 10 East freeway, a gateway to the San Gabriel Valley (SGV) where he would spend four decades, searching for a life far greater than the island he once called home – a mere red dot on the globe.
His search included prospecting for a good plate of Hainanese chicken rice, a Singaporean staple.
He could not find any.
Sometime in the late 80s, he did find a $7,000 video camera. And, intent on becoming a filmmaker, he bought it and started shooting weddings. And funerals. Lots of funerals.
“Had nightmares every night [about the funerals] – that’s how I survived college,” he said, his large eyes widening before crinkling behind his glasses. For a man in his fifties, he still has a boyish, toothy grin that could best suit a mischievous thrill-seeker.
Readjusting the cap over his neck, he quickly regains composure and settles further into his chair in his shop. It pairs well with his clean, professional khakis. A distant look comes over his eyes and for the first time, he forgets about the batch of jerky that sits waiting for him in the industrial kitchen behind the front counter. His wife is busy closing shop.
“As I got older, the film business became difficult, especially because of my yellow skin,” he says a matter-of-factly, his voice falling a little flat.
While his initial dreams were dead, it at least meant he did not have to attend another funeral.
But the question“…Then what the hell are you?” still burned in his mind.
He was going to be anything but the guy capturing a corpse’s better angle.
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When he could not find a good plate of Hainanese chicken rice, he ate at Panda Express instead – at the chain’s flagship location in Glendale Galleria. This was before they became a huge hit.
Nothing was too appealing on its menu, though. “Every dish had sugar in it, and Chinese dishes don’t use sugar,” he said.
But this restaurant was precisely where he fit in – it was Chinese, but not really Chinese. He was Chinese, but not really Chinese.
Peggy Cherng, cashier and wife of Panda Express’ founder, Chef Ming Tsai Cherng, became one of his good friends, a second mother. She talked to him and watched him eat his rice between bites of a finely barbequed duck leg. “All they sold were piles of duck legs because Americans didn’t like to eat the other parts,” Mr. Yap remembers.
It was not that way in Singapore, though. Back home, his grandmother’s food stall that operated in the 70s from a side alley of Chinatown sold barbequed birds in their entirety. As a boy, he went after school to help, watching her closely – and he never complained. When she wasn’t making barbequed duck, she taught him to make bak kwa. Together, they ground beef or pork and added natural red fruit coloring with a secret marinade. After it was grilled over a fire, they were laid in neat squares on strips of bamboo. Bamboo absorbed just enough moisture to keep the jerky slices from becoming too dry. Bamboo was perfect.
“But here, the only thing they allow us to do is use stainless steel,” Mr. Yap said as he threw a haphazard glance toward his front door, replaying the awful scene of an FDA food inspector coming into his store several years prior, armed with a deadly clipboard and pen that banished years of a traditional bamboo drying-technique from Los Angeles forever.
Glancing back at his industrial steel grills, Mr. Yap says, “It took us two years to refine our technique before we could satisfy the health department here. They still come in every three months to check – to give us a surprise. If they see just one tray of bamboo, they’ll put us out.”
But Mr. Yap is quick to add, speaking loudly as if the food inspector was still in the room prying for any hint of unsanitary particulars: “Here, we only use pure ham meat. We have six guys in the back taking out the tendons, the fat, the skin. And we only use free range pigs; very expensive and used only at five star restaurants. Little fat, full of flavor.”
You can tell that he is right. Forget your long, wrinkly Slim Jims®; this jerky – bak kwa – is entirely different. It is translucent and glistening, refracting light like a ruby red slipper. When asked what gives it its beautiful crimson color, Mr. Yap answers, “I cannot give you the recipe, but if you go down the fruit aisle of a supermarket, it’s the reddest thing there!”
Perfectly charred along the edges, the squared sheets of Mr. Yap’s best-selling original pork jerky resemble sleek Chinese red envelopes that are pretty on the outside and even better on the inside. At first bite, one tastes the gentle veil of honeyed garnish that decorates the pristine meat underneath. At second bite, the tenderized pork emerges onto the stage – this smoky, salty, soya-saucy three-man act is an effortless showstopper.
A sellout crowd stands around the bak kwa protected by glass casing, hoping for more samples, but the samples are few. Mrs. Yap is wise; she knows that if she hands out too many, spectators may not be so keen on buying a snack that averages $30 a pound. If they do end up splurging, customers are quick to grab their goods, dash back to their cars, eat-more-than-they-should on the drive home, and stash the rest into an inconspicuous corner of the fridge before anybody else can smell it. Meanwhile, Mr. Yap is the brilliant director hiding out in the back drafting new scripts: grilled fish and pork floss are rumored to be his next box-office successes.
The smell from Mr. Yap’s kitchen pervades the store like your favorite neighbor’s barbeque does the whole block on the Fourth of July. It is completely distracting, almost enough to help you forget how bare his store is. There are no tables. A few chairs are lined up along the walls, and remember, Mr. Yap is only selling jerky, so there is no need for a menu. The things that are clearly in abundance are chrome refrigerators situated everywhere – that, and cardboard boxes. Mr. Yap looks like he could pack up to leave, at anytime.
“Singapore for Singaporeans is still home,” his voice lowering to a surreptitious hush. “To us, America is like somebody else’s house. It’s like being in a hotel. It’s temporary. Maybe one day, I’ll move back there when I get older…”
The truth was out. After spending over two-thirds of his lifetime in the U.S., Mr. Yap was still not Chinese. He was not yet American.
“…Then what the hell are you?”
He is still a Singaporean.
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When asked about what makes a Singaporean a Singaporean, he laughs. “We all have that tongue so we all know each other when you hear it.”
(Source: Angloinfo.com)
It is true – Singaporeans do have a distinctive way of accenting various syllables so that it is perky like an Indian accent while still carrying a slight British intonation. Short and choppy, one hears English interspersed with words and idioms from multiple Chinese dialects. Couple that with Malay slang and an overarching Chinese-style of delivery and there you have it – a recipe for perfect Singlish, the unofficial language of the tiny island.
This is a direct result of Singapore’s unique position on the map. According to the LA-based cartographer Eric Brightwell, the island’s land mass is slightly smaller than the San Gabriel Valley; yet it sits at a critical juncture between major trade routes from the north, south, east, and west – bridging Southeast Asia with the rest of the world. Before the island became an independent country, it was already a well-known port city that had been overrun by the Malays at the start of its documented history.
When Singapore later became a Crown Colony under British rule in 1819, scores of Chinese and Indian immigrants sought the island for work and refuge and stayed permanently, learning to live with their new neighbors and adding to the colorful Singlish framework one word at a time.
Frankly, the island’s slang can be slightly awkward to an outsider – just try saying bak kwa (with an emphasis on the bak) out loud. For some, Singlish may not sound befitting of the delicacy. This may be why Mr. Yap tries very hard to mask his accent. If he hides his accent well enough, he can steer clear of questions like: “…Then what the hell are you,” to which he still has no response.
Singlish is thus a secret code used only among other Singaporeans because they are the only ones who will get it. When a fellow Singaporean walks into his store and breaks out into “that tongue,” Mr. Yap allows himself to let it all out too, and when he does, you can almost hear him gasping for air, like he has been holding his breath underwater for a very long time.
Sadly, those moments are few and far between. There are only about 5,000 Singaporeans scattered across the county of Los Angeles and most of them choose to blend in within larger Asian enclaves. There is no ‘Little Singapore’ for them to revel in, and only a handful of Singaporean restaurants left that are increasingly adopting foreign menu items in order to stay afloat. Even the famed Singaporean-styled Hainanese chicken rice dish is rapidly vanishing.
This is why Mr. Yap runs a deli, not a restaurant. Despite having all of his grandmother’s family recipes (including her signature blueprint for Hainanese chicken rice), Mr. Yap says Singaporean cuisine is not survivable because Americans see it and think, “It is not Chinese food. It is not Korean food. It is not Japanese food. It is not Thai food. What the hell is it?”
The only thing that Americans might actually get is jerky.
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Mr. Yap and I walk over to the front counter. He asks his wife to hold a piece of bak kwa with a pair of tongs up to the ceiling lights for me. We all admire it together, and this is when I realize: Jerky has been an anchor for this Singaporean.
A joy washes over him when he reveals, “I had a choice to create a whole new name for my shop or to translate the name of my grandmother’s stall. I chose to name my store after my grandmother’s stall. I’m still trying to copyright the name. We’ve been rejected three times.”
“Were you close to your grandmother?” I ask.
“Let’s put it this way. I like to think I was closer to her than she really was to me,” Mr. Yap says. He is laughing out loud now. His wife, scurrying to tend to the final customer of the night, takes a quick glance over her shoulder. Her brows slightly raised, I sense her surprise.
“I have a younger brother and he’s the favorite – gets all the attention,” Mr. Yap says between chuckles. He is not bitter, though, because his grandmother loved him in other ways, like choosing to pass to him all the tricks of her trade, including the recipe for bak kwa.
“And that was a trick in the bag I hoped I would not use!” Mr. Yap says, laughing even louder now.
“What do your parents think?” I ask.
“First of all, when I first did this, my father passed away. My mom right now has dementia. None of them know that I am doing this,” Mr. Yap shares. Despite the sobriety of his statement, he scarcely finishes it before he breaks out into another partial belly-laugh, as if this is the best joke he has ever told.
He is clearly still in disbelief about it all. Making jerky was something he ran away from, moving to the movie capital of the world where he could direct his own life. It was part of his distant past – one that was approximately 8,789 miles and four decades behind him.
Today, however, it is what he does nearly seven days a week.
His life ran off-script, but he was surprisingly happy about it.
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There is no signage up at Mr. Yap’s storefront, not even a name – but a Crazy Rich Asians film poster from last summer is taped to the glass window by the entrance door for everyone to see. He might not have been the director, but finally, there was a major motion picture that explained Singapore and Singaporeans to America – sort of. Even with its various inaccurate portrayals of the island, Mr. Yap is grateful he no longer has to answer:
“…Then what the hell are you?”
Business nearly doubled for Mr. Yap when the film, a romantic comedy based loosely on Singapore’s most affluent families, released last August. More Singaporeans have also turned up for his bak kwa, even the ones who complain that it does not taste precisely the way it is made back home. Why? Mr. Yap says, “Their kids need it.” One mother, Alicia, drives over two hours from San Diego just so her son, Billy, aged 13, can have it, and online orders to college-dorms have soared.
First-generation Singaporean American “youngsters” – Mr. Yap’s favorite word for Generation Z’ers – are craving the food of their parents’ past for much the same reason Mr. Yap makes jerky: He craves a deeper connection to a core part of his identity. For far too long, it has been buried under a disguised accent and too many meals at Panda Express.
As his employees head home for the day, Mr. Yap finally gives it away: His family roots go all the way back to Southern China; in fact, he can still speak Hokkien and Hakka, two dialects from the region. Funny, because I thought he said he was not Chinese.
Like Mr. Yap’s ancestors, bak kwa made its way over to Singapore from China sometime in the twentieth century.
In the matter of about 30 years, however, it would appear that 5,000 years of Chinese DNA flowing through their veins was erased. Chinese migrants now called themselves ‘Singaporeans;’ their children brought up in English-speaking schools. Bak kwa, while still retaining its original name, is now typecast as Singaporean jerky, one that is sweeter and grilled over charcoal fires instead of being laid out to air-dry.
Yet, when one sees Mr. Yap back at work in his kitchen, one sees a man still making jerky like his grandmother, who made jerky like her Chinese forbearers.
He did not know it yet, but in the process of curing pork and beef, Mr. Yap had begun the process of becoming Singaporean again – and dare I say – Chinese.
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Mr. Yap is the owner of:
Fragrant Jerky (USA) Singapore-Style Fire-Grilled Jerky
8930 Mission Dr #106, Rosemead, CA 91770