Seasonal delights: Eow packing walnut Shanghai mooncakes at the shop in Taman Sentosa, Johor Baru. — THOMAS YONG/The Star
JOHOR BARU: As the Mid-Autumn Festival nears, it is common for Singapore residents to visit Johor Baru to buy mooncakes for their loved ones.
However, a new trend has emerged, where many are also buying them for strangers – all in the name of charity.
Second generation handmade biscuit shop owner Eow Kai Chin said many customers from Singapore braved traffic jam at the Causeway just to visit Johor Baru for their mooncake fix as early as August.
“We started selling our walnut Shanghai mooncakes and signature Teochew mooncakes with fresh yam filling, which are handmade from scratch, from last month.
“These are seasonal products for the Mid-Autumn Festival, so we usually get a lot of repeat customers, both locally and from Singapore,” he said at the shop in Taman Sentosa.
Apart from buying for family and friends, Eow said he noticed many Singaporean customers have been buying mooncakes in bulk to bring back home for distribution to old folk’s homes and children’s homes.
“A few days ago, a Singaporean customer purchased 80 boxes of mooncakes of various flavours, and a week ago, another customer also bought about 60 boxes for charity.
“They usually call us to place an order and they will visit our shop to pick up the items once they are ready and packed.
“We will also prepare an itemised receipt for them upon request as they will be taxed by their government at their border checkpoint,” he added.
With a box of four yam mooncakes priced at RM70, Eow said the amount of time and energy spent on the journey across the border was a small price to pay for the items compared with buying them in the city-state.
He added that many Singaporeans also made similar trips for festive cookies during Chinese New Year.
“More than half of our customers are Singaporeans who told us that they prefer the traditional mooncakes made by our trained hands as the recipe has been unchanged for 40 years since my father’s time,” he said.
He added that he and his six siblings have been making traditional biscuits since they were young, a skill that they learned from their father.
Eow said most of his customers are families and the elderly who looked for the “nostalgic” factor in their mooncakes.
The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Mooncake Festival, is observed on the 15th day of the eighth Chinese lunar month, which falls on Sept 17 this year.
