When I was growing up, the state closest to my home island of Penang, Kedah, was known as the rice bowl of Malaysia. It still is, according to some tourist information websites I browsed, and produces more than half of the country’s homegrown rice supply. There aren’t any numbers though so we don’t know if the half has shrunk in proportion to the total.

Anyway, for sure, these days, you don’t see as many rice fields as before. (However here’s one I captured on camera from Bali)

I am thinking this because for the past week or so, I’ve had workmen in my house fixing my bathroom. They are fixing leaky water pipes – happens to them too apparently – and had to hack through the walls to get to the pipes. So the entire bathroom had to be gutted.

This is dirty hard work. Dust everywhere, and the men are working with their hands. Drilling, hammering, plastering – I am learning a whole new lingo here.

The contractor, Roger, is a man who is proud of what he does. I like him because he has a nice smile. Plus, he fixes, repairs and builds things – brick and mortar stuff. I admire people like that.

There are very few Rogers around these days. I had to wait two months before he could clear his schedule. And while I am told his price is high (neighbours always tell you that to make themselves feel good), I am happy with the work he’s doing.

His men are honest, hard-working, professional tradesmen – they earn an honest day’s wages for an honest day’s work.

But here’s the thing – one woman’s idea of hard work is another man’s easier living. Roger used to be a supplier of Five Spice powder, you know, the magic stuff that makes all Chinese food taste good. He did it for 10 years, got tired of the long hours and switched to contracting which – wait for this – he says is easier. “I do it nine to five,” he smiles.

I think it must be very satisfying to do something with one’s hands – to fix something, to build something. I often wonder if that’s why gardeners have that serene glow about them – because they make things grow and live. (Remember Goh Mia Chun, Singapore’s Motorcycle Diaries man – he’s a landscape designer.)

It’s so removed from the intangible world I live in – the world of words and ideas, bits and bytes, gadgets and widgets, things on a screen, buttons I can switch on and off at will.

I wish I could fix a lightbulb but I can’t.

It’s at times like these that I miss the world of print publishing. Those days when you could physically lay out a page, put a newspaper to bed and then hold the newspaper, hot off the press, in your hand – so fresh you can still smell the ink.

Perhaps that’s why there are some people who are going back to making things – like the entrepreneur John Yap who started Awfully Chocolate (remember those deliciously sinful chocolate cupcakes we gave away on day one coffee break). The company’s mission was to “put the cake back into cake and we would make it chocolate”.

And in the process, he’s now got several stores across Asia, making many people, especially women, happy.

It also got me thinking about a recent article I read about Singapore’s ambition to become a global city and one expert saying that in order for it to become one, it shouldn’t just keep building new things and producing and praising scholars and intellectuals.

Instead, it should regard hawkers in the same, hallowed light and give young people incentives to keep alive the art of cooking Singapore street food. This message resonates with me because my brother, who was with the Singapore Air Force as a captain, is now a hawker and produces the most amazing food.

Hawkers, like Roger, make real things – an honest day’s wages for an honest day’s work. They are as close to the rice fields as we in urban Asia get these days.

Featured image credit (Farmworker, rice terrace, Bali): Ockra/iStock