Bak Chang

Artist: Lee Bee Teng
Year: 2023
Prize Category: 3rd Prize
 
artwork category

Watercolour

Artwork Description

Lee Beng Teng’s vibrant, food-packed composition pays homage to the making of zongzi ("粽子") , or bak chang in Hokkien, the glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves traditionally eaten by Chinese people during the Dragon Boat Festival or Duanwu (the 5th day of the 5th month of the Chinese Lunar Festival), falling in early May.
Although the artist has taken part in the complex process of making bak chang several times, they note that fewer and fewer people seem to be making it themselves, and so wanted to celebrate and document their memories of the process in this work. In the painting, the food is giant-sized, overwhelming the small cartoon human figures preparing the food. In the top half of the painting, family members are busy preparing the colourful ingredients that go into bak chang – glutinous rice, dried mushroom, egg yolks, different types of pulses, shallots, chestnuts, meat, in towering mountains around them, and beyond these the oversized labels of brands of soy sauce, oyster sauce, cooking oil and pepper used.

In the bottom half of the painting, family members wrap and cook the bak chang, surrounded by different varieties of zongzi prepared by different Chinese dialect groups in Malaysia. As fans of zongzi will know, these can range from sweet and tipped in blue butterfly pea colouring, to salty and meaty to vegetarian varieties. Zongzi, with their origins and legendary associations first noted in China as early as 195CE, have evolved though the dynastic eras of Chinese history, and in different geographies and dialect groups, allowing for the range found in Malaysia and Singapore with their numerous dialect communities. It has also been adapted and transformed into new variations across Southeast Asia during earlier and concurrent movements of peoples and food cultures.

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