I’m usually the prime mover for the trips I make, angst’ing over as many details as I can manage, for the comfort and enjoyment of my travel mates.
Last weekend, I was a happy appendage to a trip to Malacca led by my friend Jennifer Yin and her Baba contact Norman Cho. I really didn’t give any thought or attention to the planning of the trip, trusting every detail to them, not quite knowing what to expect, whether I’d like the people I’d be travelling with, etc.
A weekend trip without expectation turned out to be a very pleasant one indeed. First, I liked my room-mate Doreen See from the word ‘Go!’ She is well-spoken, refined and above all, very considerate especially since we were in a situation of two total strangers twinning. This was helped by a mutual love of good nyonya food, durians and relaxed clothing styles plus, her daughter is studying in NAFA which makes this mum “cool” and a true friend of the arts.
Our trip programmed by Baba Norman Cho, was planned to coincide with the annual reunion of the well-renowned Chee Family members of which flew in from Melbourne and elsewhere, for this important family gathering. Not only did we get a sneak peek into the baroque-style mansion in which several generations of Chee family formerly lived, we also attended a rongeng dinner at King’s Green Hotel owned by them. So, on Saturday, 22 July afternoon, we had the privilege of touring both the beautiful Baroque-style Chee Mansion as well as the Baba&Nyonya Heritage Museum owned by the Chan Family on Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock. The Chee and Chan families are linked by marriage.
That evening, we also attended the rongeng dinner party at King’s Green Hotel organised in conjunction with the reunion where we met Peter Wee, President of the Singapore Peranakan Association and Peranakan Voices’ Angeline Kong. I learnt from Angeline on Sunday morning that 39 members had travelled up to support the Malacca Society’s heritage food fair.
Between the formal events, Norman introduced his colourful Baba Nyonya friends to us. Cedric who heads the Kuala Lumpur Peranakan Society and creates new Peranakan jewelry, ordered us a sumptuous meal at Bei Zhan on Friday evening and (after a bit of driving around so we’d get hungry enough), delectable range of durians at a pop-up stall on the coastal road with no signboard / address 🙂 Then, there was sweet Lena, operator of a Berjaya betting outlet, who brought her beaded wares to us and they were pretty enough for me to succumb to a pair.
The unexpected highlight for me was a chance meeting with senior Malaysian artist Tham Siew-Inn. I was first drawn to the gate to his backyard garden and then to the lush foliage outside his gallery at the opposite end of Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock. Wandering into what I thought was a mere souvenir shop, I found the artist’s seal-carver son Tham Ze King from whom I ordered two seals for gifts. While Ze King was carving my seals, I wandered around the gallery looking at the impressive art collection, to finally meet Tham Siew-Inn himself, and Mrs Tham.
When I shared with Mr Tham that I had spent a part of my career promoting visual arts in Singapore, he pulled out from his glass cabinet, a copy of “Singapore Artists” the first-ever coffee-table book on Singapore artists that I published in 1982 while working in the Ministry of Culture. So few copies of these books exist and it’s so long-forgotten that I was bewildered to find a copy in near-pristine condition, in of all places, Malacca! It was a magical moment for me!
Mr Tham shared his life story with us, that he was self-taught, had painted all over the globe including Bhutan and Himalayas and how after a bad experience with art gallerists, he relocated from Kuala Lumpur to Malacca and started afresh. His two very supportive sons (Seal carver Ze King and IT-savvy photographer-writer Ze Hoe) have facilitated his reinvention and sustainability, for example, making his art affordable by converting his paintings into limited-edition prints, etc. His two linked shophouses are a real treasure trove of paintings from limited-edition prints at the entrance hall to older and larger, monumental works, in the rooms upstairs.
On our way home, we visited Bee Lian who was baking endless trays of pineapple tarts right before our very eyes, in the living room of her traditional home at 307-A Jalan Parameswara. She was assisted by two capable Indian helpers who topped the tarts and decorated them before popping them into one of the many ovens at work.
We ended our trip with fish-ball kway-teow in Yong Peng. The durians next door that Jennifer was eye’ing were sadly my sold and eaten by the time our kway-teow arrived as the service was super-slow. We left Yong Peng with a parting glimpse of 20 shiny Lamborghini cars w Singapore number plates at the petrol station next to the kway-teow shop. I suppose that’s the Singaporean testimony to the standard of the fish-balls in Yong Peng.
My Arts Bucket : Life is an Endless Stream of Goosebump Moments! 