Ipoh World

This photograph is of Cheong Kong, driving one of the last two working Ipoh trishaws, on duty early in the morning in August 2005 at the Central Market. The market was founded by Yau Tet Shin in 1909. One of the last two trishaws licensed to operate in Ipoh at the time it was not licensed to carry passengers, only goods as shown. His role was to purchase fresh food for a number of restaurants and deliver it to them. The trishaw was owned by Boon Eng Keat, who had been involved in their manufacture and renting to drivers for many years. The following information came from an interview with Boon Eng Keat in 2005.

Before the war there were still plenty of locally manufactured rickshaws (Jinriksha) in all Malaya’s towns. Indeed Boon Eng Keat’s mother had two and his sister one. These two-wheeled manually drawn vehicles had spoked wheels with solid rubber tires and double bow springs supporting the two-person carriage. There were also plenty of bicycles. Consequently it was not long before the two modes of transport were blended together and around 1940 the first Ipoh trishaw was born. The first few were actually amalgamations of a bicycle and a rickshaw and therefore retained the springs, but the newly built version had no springs and solid tyres. Not the most comfortable vehicle to ride in! Pneumatic tyres on traditional bicycle wheels only took over, as they became available, well after the end of the war.

However, despite the rickshaw originating in Japan, the Japanese invaders discouraged the use of this "Cart pulled by Man" during their occupation of Malaya and hence accelerated its replacement by the Trishaw.

Amazingly, in Ipoh, encouraged by the Japanese, this new form of transport took over the role of the rickshaw in only six months or thereabouts and many of the rickshaw pullers had to find other employment, a number of course becoming trishaw drivers overnight. Nonetheless a few rickshaws were still plying the streets of Ipoh in the early 1950’s in competition with their offspring the Trishaw.

Strangely enough, this two-pronged development must have been happening separately, but in parallel, in Malaya for in the South the bicycle was mounted to the side of the trishaw carriage whereas in the North it was always behind. In Melaka and Penang, where today these vehicles mainly serve the tourists, this distinction remains.

Boon Eng Keat, became familiar with this new mode of transport soon after the war, and at the age of 19 found employment in a Hale Street trishaw shop in Ipoh Old Town called Sin Seng Huat (one of the shops demolished to make way for the large Maybank building). Here he became skilled at making and repairing trishaws for which his pay could total 100 dollars maximum a month if he worked hard. He remained with this same company for 23 years, but in 1970 went into the same business on his own account.

In 1954, while employed at the Sin Seng Huat trishaw shop, Eng Keat was introduced to a group who were forming the new Kinta Trishaw Drivers’ Association and although not a driver, he knew many of them and volunteered to become the part-time Treasurer to the Association. The Association was based at Yau Tet Shin Road and Eng Keat remained their Treasurer for 26 years. However, when the President, Wang Wen Zhen, passed away there was a lot of internal Association bickering, which led to Eng Keat resigning his position as Treasurer. Wang Wen Zhen himself was an interesting man as he was a simple Tau Foo seller who had only come to know the trishaw drivers by playing Mah-Jong with them. Recognised by the drivers as an honest and hard-working man he was well liked by them and was therefore elected as the Association’s President. After Eng Keat resigned from the Treasurer’s post, the Association continued under a new President and Treasurer until its 33rd anniversary in 1987. However, not long afterwards the Association went into a state of hibernation from which it never awoke, as with the severely reduced numbers of trishaws and drivers, which by then was down to about 100, not all of whom belonged to the Association, the need to continue was no longer there.

During the early years of the trishaw in Ipoh there were many disputes between Perak Trishaw Association, led by the Seenivasagam brothers, founders of the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) and the Kinta Trishaw Drivers Association, backed by the Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA). The trishaw manufacturers and drivers were all squabbling amongst themselves, the political parties were trying to attract workers and drivers to change sides and generally there was a lot of confusion in the trishaw business. These squabbles were purely political as both MCA and PPP needed the drivers’ votes in elections, and of course, their support transporting voters to the polling stations. These problems were only actually overcome when the Perak Trishaw Association was dissolved just three years after its formation and the Kinta Association became the sole trishaw organisation in Ipoh. A smaller association was also formed by the few Malay trishaw drivers who operated in Teluk Intan, but this was never very active and had no ties with Ipoh.

In the later years, many trishaw drivers were ex tin-mine workers who, as the tin trade declined, moved to this new occupation, but they were really too late as the trishaw trade in Ipoh was already on its way out. During the 1990’s trishaw drivers’ numbers dropped to about 30. These were all over 50 years of age and some were well into their 70’s or 80’s. They were mainly running around the Central Market area delivering goods and the occasional elderly passenger. Stories are told about one very elderly lady who continued to go to the market every day by trishaw and refused any other form of transport until the day she died. But by 2005 when this photograph was talen there were only two left and they could be found around the Central Market very early in the morning, delivering fresh meat and vegetables to local restaurants.

The ‘Golden Age’ of the trishaw in Ipoh was from the end of the war in 1945 until Merdeka (Independence) in 1957. This was the heyday for Ipoh’s trishaw drivers, manufacturers and renters and during that period there were probably about 1000 trishaws in the town with 700 on the streets at one time and more than 10 trishaw repair shops in Old Town alone. The trishaw was known as ‘King of the Road’. During the war the newly available trishaw was rarely used by the Japanese who would prefer to use their bicycles both on and off duty to get around the town, particularly to go to the many brothels, but if they did ride they were difficult passengers for the drivers who had to make sure that they bowed correctly to their Japanese masters, pedaled quickly and then often did not get paid. Visits to prostitutes during duty periods was a regular routine for many of the Japanese soldiers, but if the offending soldier was caught, he would be slapped and beaten by his officer in public. These were difficult situations for whoever was present and often resulted in them being beaten as well. One incident that Boon Eng Keat remembers well is when he saw a drunken Japanese officer trying to board an old trishaw that was unsafe. Having picked up some Japanese words he tried to warn the officer in his own language, but was misunderstood and chased down the road by the officer with drawn sword. Fortunately he ran fast enough to be able to tell the tale.

A good condition trishaw could be rented out to a driver for about 70 cents to one dollar a day, while an old and worn machine could still command 50 cents. Trishaws were used mainly for passengers, particularly schoolchildren going to and from school, but with three sitting in the seat, one or two on a plank across the arms of the carriage with one or two more squatting on the front platform and one riding on the luggage carrier over the rear wheel; six or seven small children was about the most that a driver could manage as they were quite a load to pedal along. Mothers with pre-school young children also regularly used trishaws for going marketing or to the town shops. For economy these shoppers would often share with a neighbour or a friend with two adults in the seat and two or three children squatting in front. Some drivers would also deliver goods from companies to other companies or homes. Everybody except the very rich used trishaws then: cinemagoers, soldiers, civil servants, trades people, the British administrators, miners, plantation workers and managers and particularly the prostitutes. The fare was negotiable, but was generally 30 cents per person per trip and a hard working driver could earn 30 to 40 dollars a day giving a monthly income of 1000 dollars or more, a very large sum for those days.

The most fabulous time of all for the trishaw drivers was while the British soldiers were still in Malaya for the British loved the trishaw more than anyone. On the army payday, 30 to 40 trishaws would wait outside each army camp. The soldiers would rush for the trishaws and call out their destination, the pubs, the cabaret, Jubilee Park or wherever. Soldiers’ trishaw races were also good for a driver’s income as the soldiers would always pay five dollars or more to the winning driver and often preferred to pedal themselves with the driver riding in the carriage. Most of the drivers had picked up enough English to understand the soldiers requirements and when they called for girls they were happy to oblige. Many drivers became part-time pimps, charging the soldiers 30 to 50 dollars to arrange the girl and then only paying the prostitute 10 dollars. Unfortunately some of these drivers found the easy money too much of a draw and became permanent pimps, claiming their territories in front of certain hotels. Should a prostitute walk into the hotel without taking a ride from a trishaw, she still had to pay commission to the driver or risk getting hassled. This had quite a bad effect on the trishaw trade as single women became frightened to ride in trishaws in case they were accused of being prostitutes or threatened by the drivers. Ipoh’s trishaw drivers missed the British when they had gone!

After the British had finally left, the Communist threat was still in force, but apart from a few difficulties in the streets now and again, this really did not disrupt the town too much as most of the problems took place around the mines and plantations. Hence the trishaw trade continued much as normal although as more cars and motorcycles took to the roads, there was less need for trishaws and their numbers diminished, leaving just the two by 2005.

To read an e-Book featuring the life of Boon Eng Keat, click here.

To read about the history of Ipoh's transport in e-Book form, click here.

To read more about New Town market built by Yau Tet Shin, click here.

To read more about Jubilee Park, click here.

To read more about The Seenivasagam Brothers, click here.

To read a brief history of the Rickshaw, click here.