See the World 85 years ago – part 2 (Peter Chan)

My grandfather never stopped his hobby until the day he passed on. Just before that he summoned my cousin and I to his bedside; being the senior male descendants of the family clan, he told us of his parting wish. Being the elder of the two, my cousin made his choice of a colourful world atlas and I was left with his other collection.

I was devastated because I was eyeing the world atlas book. What was the man thinking then? Since then I have kept this pristine collection in some dark corner for the last 40 years.

Photo 1: Postcards of two well-known hotels in New York at that time. Only the Vanderbilt Hotel remains but as a posh apartment (c1925)

When I now closely scrutinized the postcards several questions came to my mind, some I had answers but many we don’t.

Photo 2: The reverse of a post card (c 1925). The Yokohama-Specie Bank has a place in Singapore’s history. It was the Japanese bank which arranged the S$50 million Chinese community contribution to Japan’s WW2 efforts. After Japan lost the war in 1945, Japanese assets were seized. Today HSBC occupies the same spot where this Japanese bank once stood. Yokohama Specie Bank is now Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

For example, how did my grandfather see the world 85 years ago? How did he find so many Caucasian pen-pals willing to correspond with a Chinese man from Singapore? I discovered he used a moniker “Chan Kim Kwong” and the corresponding address of his office (Yokohama Specie Bank) and the family home (12 Pasar Lane in Jalan Besar). What is even stranger if you examine the hand-writing of postcards received from Europe and the Americas? I am certain it was my grandfather’s hand-writing but how did he get franked postcards of so many countries? Later my grandfather turned to a typewriter instead of handwriting. He gave up collecting postcards and found a new direction; covers.

Photo 3: Cover of a special occasion (c1936)

My grandfather’s collection of postcards and covers has become a fascinating subject for me, though I beg to differ that I am a stamp collector. There is so much interesting information I can gather because he has left me with so many written commentaries. Come think of what a stupid thing I could have done if I had decided to offer it to the “Kalang Guni Man”.

See the World 85 years ago (part 1) – Peter Chan

Today travel to foreign countries is so easy and made even cheaper by the introduction of budget airlines. With the Internet we can even see foreign countries through pictures. Nearly 90 years ago, my grandfather also saw the world but he did it very differently, not like the way I envisaged. He did not join the merchant navy and jump-ship. I was very amazed at the way how he did it. He did something unique in the age of steamships, tongkangs and pig-tails.

I am still putting the pieces together on how he managed and balanced leisure against a career given that he was the sole breadwinner and supporting a family of 12. From bits of references here and there, I gathered he loved to collect stamps, envelopes, postcards, coins, newspaper clippings and smoking pipes. But he was never a sportsman.

As I unraveled more intimate details of my grandfather, I shall start with his collection of postcards of Singapore’s commercial center. This part of Singapore was where he began his career at the age of 17 in 1918. So presumably this part of Singapore must have interested him similar to what caught my interest as a child in the early 60s.

Do you recognize anything from the postcards?

Photo 1: Battery Road. Whiteway is now Maybank Building. The building on the left is now HSBC Building (circa 1933)

Photo 2: Raffles Place. The 3 storey building in the center of the photo was the British bank, the Mercantile Bank between D’Almeida Street and D’Souza Street. Robinson’s was on the right. The car park is now Raffles MRT Station (circa 1933).


Photo 3: Singapore River where Chinese business blended with colonial interests (circa 1925).