Guess what is the above?
It’s the Kok Kok Mee seller assistant’s canvassing tool. He would used the smaller stick to hit the bigger bamboo so that a sound “kok” was created. He would go round the estate and making a “tune” out of it to canvass for the noodle.
Those who wish to place an order would call him and he would take note of their order. After a while, he would deliver the order to the customer’s house. As good as pizza delivery now!
Times of My Life 
Of course I remember. We used to make our own and can do a pretty good imitation of the ‘tune’.
The tok sound comes from striking the top and tik sound comes from striking the bottom. And so it goes:
tok tik tok … pause ..tok tik tik tok tik tok tik tok.
There is a small section about this at the National Museum (part of the Living Gallery, I think… there’s a whole showcase on Singapore food).
Chun See, thanks for tune! Now I remember haha.
Acroamatic, btw is the National Museum now open or is it still under renovation? Sorry, have not been there a long long long time….
The National Museum was opened not long ago. Victor has blogged about it here.
Can someone correct me if I am wrong.
Street hawkers who use the kok kok equipment usually sell a) Fishball mee, kwayteow, Mee tai mak and bee hoon? So I suppose it is associated with only one type of food?
Chun See
What in the world were you doing to imitate the street hawker? Planning your future career????
Not only kok kok me, also hum-chim-pang/pak-tong-koe. We even imitate grand prix motor bikes ….. Honda vroom !!!!, and even cuckoo birds.
Chun See
How do you differentiate the sound between a Honda and a Norton bike?
Is that a serious questions? No I don’t.
I always thot that wehn the japanese came up with the 2 stroke motor cycles and the British and Italians had their 4 stroke, the Japanese sounded more like “e….e…e……e” whereas the British/Italians had their “Vrom”. That was what I thought when I went to see the Singapore Motor GP at Thompson Road in 1961.
Then I saw the Yamahas, Hondas, Kawasakis and Suzukis beating the Nortons, Tirumps, BSA and Ducattis. We boys decided to imitate like you except we preferred the “e..e..ee” sound over the “Vroom”
I remember that there was one instant-noodle TV advertisement that depicted the use of this kok-kok producing bamboo. But that was many years ago. Was it Myojo mee?
i would like to know where to buy kok kok mee sellers assistant canvasing tool.
i live in singapore.