Sweets by the dime

Dropped by an old fashioned, Chinese personal care store this afternoon and was elated to find Hacks – these sweets from my childhood days – still selling by the dime. I nearly missed these stuff – my favourite blackcurrants are now wrapped in these purplish wrappers quite unlike the traditional yellow ones in the early days.

While I relish the flavour of these traditional ‘cough drops’ – oh yeah, they are the ‘original’ throat soothers long before Fisherman or Ricola gain popularity in Singapore – I am hit by this sudden relevation that I’ve finally come home.

Right across the border, Sixthseal, probably share my sense of nostalgia when he griped about the 30 cents increase in petrol prices, which equate to six Hacks in Malaysia.

The nostalgia for the good old Hacks ain’t quite a proprietary emotion along the Straits of Malacca. This successful import from the British colonists, appears to have tugged at the heartstrings of its fellow countrymen. For Paul McGann, the eighth Dr Who, his memory of the same named series was associated with the Hacks man and the Hacks jar in the house in the 1960s.

Indeed, for us, the Gen Xers and second or third generation post-independence Singaporeans and Malaysians, Hacks represents part of a deep-seated heritage from the colonial days. And considering how Hacks has remained ingrained in the memories of our British colonisers, these sweets by the dime may well be among the earliest products truly ‘globalised’ through the tide of time.