Getting up as early as 3.00am, women carried cabbages, beans, lady’s fingers, yams, pumpkins, and cucumbers in two huge baskets suspended from stout poles held across their shoulders. They would then settle down in the back lanes and alleys to sell their wares in the morning. Both locally produced as well as imported vegetables, fruits, poultry and eggs were sold in markets. The wholsalers often relied on street vendors to sell their perishable stocks of vegetables and fruits. The Teochew community for the most part controlled the vegetable and fruit trade. They had their own association near Ellenborough Market.
