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Hucksters, peddlers and vendors around the streets and small lanes

Wednesday, 12. 3. 2008  –  Category: Arts, Entertainment & Culture, Issue One, cover story, latest_stories, shantou highlight

Drug drum

(drug-drum)

It was common to hear and see “drug drum” in the past years. However, this business has gradually disappeared since the 1990s. In the old days, the drumbeat “dohn, dohn, dohn” were usually heard at the breakfast time. That was the pedlar swinging his swinging drum, which was his facia. The words “drug drum” came from “swinging drum”, because both of them share a similar pronunciation in Chaoshan dialect. As a result, people took “drug drum” for “swinging drum” over time and those who swung their drums and sold their wares were often named as “drug drum picul” or “drug drum seller”.

The “drug drum” seller often carried a fancy wooden container, in which were all the small articles of daily use such as sachets, toilet powder, rouge, “la dao” (It was made of aloe in shape of pieces and used to do up one’s hair. It served as the modern fixatures when it was dipped into water.), vanishing creams, soaps, toothpastes, red head ropes, lamp wicks, elastics, needlework and tailor’s chalks. Consequently, women were the main consumers.

Index:

1. Recycling scrap metal and toothpaste shell
2. Facial threading
3. Foot bucket and waist bucket selling
4. Renew bucket bottom
5. Castration of roosters and pigs
6. “Pen” selling
7. Drug drum
8. Clothes-dyer
9. Fish sauce and soy sauce selling
10. Repair forging hearth or change the windows
11. Repair copper pots, galvanized pots and metal pails
12. The Verdigris Plaster Medicine
13. Snacks in the evening

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