Photo 1: The view from Link Hotel of Tiong Bharu Road – 1930s
S.I.T. block (left) and 1900s Straits Chinese shophouses (right). This was the same bus stop I journeyed to
school at Grange Road.
I recall different
trades took up space on the ground floor whilst on upper levels were the
residential units. There were three
trades that spring to mind as I speak.
One was a tailor shop
where I had my first long pants tailored-made at the age of 9 for the Chinese
Lunar New Year. I must have “purposely”
forgotten the name of this tailor shop probably because of hot arguments with
my father over styling. Coming from the
old school of thought, he insisted that that trousers should have a small fold
at the ankle level, pleated and loops for holding up the belt which I felt were
not cool. Even my primary school uniform
shorts were tailored-made and were knee-length, making them looked like a pair
of bermudas rather than “shorts”.
Photo 2: Tiong Bharu Estate layout (c 1948). Do you recognize that 1950 telephone set?
Not expecting to grow
taller at any time soon, I used a pair of scissors to shorten the school
shorts. When I was questioned by my
father I had a ready answer: shrinkage due to poor textile material and
frequent washing. So out came my
suggestion if he ever thought of going to the tailor: Never buy Japanese
textile materials especially from that tailor shop at Block 53.
Photo 3: This was before
Block 53 became Link Hotel (left) and a Hock Lee Amalgamated bus on Tiong Bharu
Road going towards Bukit Ho Swee (c 1955).
The other thing I
detested was the visit to the Chinese street barber, whose make-shift space was
the staircase. In my opinion, this
barber took the easy way out by using the clipper to trim-off my “kalipok
curls” and I ended up with an ugly inverted “bowl-shape” head to show. When I reached the age of 13, I found my “new
freedom”; no more visit to that barber.
I went to the air-conditioned Indian barber shop diagonally opposite the
Eng Hoon Street temple, paying 50 cents instead of 30 cents for a hair-cut.
The last shop was Lucky
Studio which carried more pleasant memories for me. I took my IC and passport sized photos here,
and the last visit was for my graduation family photo-shoot. In those days, there was no instant
photograph development service. You come
back a week later to collect.
Today Tiong Bharu Estate
is re-born with a different kind of charm.
The resident demographic remains cosmopolitan -- young and old,
foreigners and local residents all happily co-exist side-by-side and call Tiong
Bahru home. This is a suburb of
contrasts: mornings see the elderly congregating and lingering over a simple
breakfast of Cantonese cheuk (rice
porridge) and others, over cups of kopi and espressos.
You can only be young once. Thank God I was a teen thru the 1960's. Good
times & great music then. Here’s one
a big hit at the height of the Vietnam War done Acapella style.♫
Nearly 40 years later, I
shared my memories with the Link Hotel management (the current occupants of the
former Blocks 53 and 54). My two friends
Lam Chun See and Yeo Hong Eng also got to do their bit at a special event to
mark the hotel’s fifth anniversary and Christmas Light Up. Chun See displayed his “Good Morning
Yesterday” book whilst Hong Eng show-cased his vast collection of heritage
paraphernalia.
Photo 6: Many like this when she comes around.
Most theme nights are
developed around fancy dress, food and decorations but that evening, Link Hotel
took guests for a walk back to the
1950s in a slightly different way. Old
photographs showed the spatial geography and heritage paraphernalia found in
the Tiong Bharu area.
Beside the desire
to promote one of Singapore’s heritages and bring back the old charms of the
Tiong Bharu area, Link Hotel went one step further. Guests included former residents and
neighbours of the two blocks. The guests
gathered together to reminisce the past and updating notes of their well-being. For me I was kind of half expecting to see
that Chinese street barber again but I guess people do fade away with time.
All too soon the evening ended. Too much food and drinks but still we made it
home safely.
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