Singapore Legend

By John Keeble

Not everyone is lucky enough to become a legend in his own lifetime. It happened to me, by chance, in Singapore during a photo exploration that drew together the island’s past and present, survival on the streets and survival of an endangered culture. 

Peranakan house

I was pausing during a fascinating introduction to the Peranakan culture, stealing a few moments at an unoccupied market table to write my notes, when I found myself part of the table’s usual denizens, the old men who met there daily to live today in their legends of yesterday.

There was Hussein, a Singapore legend before his riches to rags fall; the oldest man who was The One Who Knows The Most About This Area; and Ali who was once a pop star and boxing champion and who still sings, as he did for me. ‘He is a legend,’ one confided in me earnestly. Others had other talents. I became The Writer, an instant legend.

In fact, in Singapore I was The Photographer. I had been given an introduction to a fellow photography enthusiast, Carolyn Lim, whose beautiful images grace many screens and who, with amazing luck for me, had a few days free just before the start of the Year of the Horse.

‘What do you want to photograph?’ she asked as we ate monkey brain mushrooms and ginger in one of Singapore’s million tempting eateries.

Ah, well, nothing touristy, nothing I’ve shot before … anyway, we settled on some irresistible one-offs, including the intensely touristy Chinese New Year in China Town, but the main theme was the Peranakans, a Southeast Asian population dating from the 15^th century and today fighting for survival as a living culture. It grew from Chinese traders and adventurers taking local wives in the trading centres from Penang to Singapore.

‘Only men came because it was illegal then for women to leave China,’ explained William Gwee, one of the most respected figures of Peranakan culture in Singapore, who welcomed me into his home with its extensive library where he works. ‘They came to make their fortune and many returned home when they had done what they set out to do. However, some stayed with their local wives and this developed into part of the population with its own culture.’

Under the British rule in the 19^th Century, they prospered as a vital link between Chinese, Malayan and British traders and administrators. Culturally, they held mainly to the Chinese ways but later wealthy generations were often English-educated, giving them at least bilingual abilities and an elite position in local society.

‘In recent times, the Peranakan culture has been dying out,’ said Mr Gwee, author of books on the Peranakan way of life during the mid-20^th Century and an expert on Peranakan language which is under threat as modern generations follow economic and social demands for international English. ‘There are only a few of us left who experienced the Peranakan way of life and we are dying out too. But I find some of the younger generation are interested [in their cultural inheritance]. They communicate on Facebook.’

His efforts to preserve the language have included briefing scores of academics who have visited him to mine his knowledge. His language books include A Baba Malay Dictionary (Tuttle Publishing).

This saves for the future Peranakan words and phrases that have dropped out of common usage. In their own way, Mr Gwee’s language books spotlight the evolution of the culture. Changing language charts changing cultures – here, for example, there is an old Peranakan phrase for a man who marries his late wife’s sister. Was that really necessary in the culture? ‘Yes,’ said Mr Gwee, ‘It was very common.’

Mr Gwee’s focus is not only on the demise of his culture. In his home, he has Taoist, Sai Baba and Catholic images. ‘People ask me why I have so many,’ he said lightly. ‘I say: ‘If I get to the gates of Heaven and I am turned away, I can try the others’.’ A pretty good joke … I think … with the engaging Mr Gwee, it was difficult to tell.

While the living culture is endangered, the Peranakan past is there for everyone to see in many parts of Singapore. The most noticeable evidence is the Peranakan houses and shophouses, more colourful than the Chinese shophouses. On the East Coast, where Mr Gwee lives with his wife Rose and generations of  family furniture, there are Peranakan restaurants serving traditional dishes and, in the heart of  Singapore’s historic Central area, there is the Peranakan Museum.

It was at the museum that I met Chrisella Dekker, a South African volunteer taking a turn as the tourist guide through the museum’s room settings, artefacts, images and art of the past – beautiful gold jewellery, slippers made from thousands of tiny beads, religious objects and pictures. The museum traces, too, the origins of the culture. ‘Every man needs a wife and local women dreamed of marrying a Chinese man,’ said Chrisella. ‘They had the big houses and the money.’

We worked our way through the evolution of the Peranakans and their beliefs and practices. ‘That’s a good dragon,’ Chrisella explained to her small, enthralled audience of travellers who chanced upon the free tour. One of our group had disappeared. We never found out if she had been taken by a bad dragon.

A major item on my photography list was one of Ms Lim’s special interests: the massive wood-burning Thow Kwang Dragon Kiln that can fire hundreds of pots at a time at temperatures between 1,250 and 1,300 degrees centigrade. On the day I visited it looked like a slumbering dragon, 70 years old, 27 metres long, its mouth far lower than its tail to use rising heat from the fire for the 32+ hours for each firing. Its huge size allows walk-in placing of pots and every metre can be controlled during firing with 17 pairs of stoking holes.

‘It is safe from the developers for the moment,’ said Ms Lim, who is part of the effort to preserve this important aspect of Singapore’s history. ‘But the future …’ We walked inside the kiln, photographed it from every angle, wondered how any nation could even contemplate risking such a valuable piece of its heritage.

Inside the Dragon kiln

Then it was Ms Lim’s turn on stage. She is a potter of some skill and had agreed to throw a pot for me while I photographed the process. Under other circumstances, it might have gone in the Dragon kiln to be fired but it was not in use that day. Other examples of her work were fired in it and they now reside in the pottery business’s art section.

On the other side of the island, with the New Year approaching, every Peranakan mind was turned to the Kitchen God. This is not a god who makes your rice nice. It is the god who hangs around the kitchen all year, listens to all the gossip, and then pops up to heaven to snitch to the big god.

‘We have to give the Kitchen God sweet things so that he can say only sweet things about us,’ said Peter Wee, president of Singapore’s Peranakan Association and owner of  Katong Antique House on the East Coast.

With an introduction from Ms Lim – herself a Paranakan – he offered to show me his shophouse with its display of old photographs more fascinating than the museum’s exhibits because here was the man and the photographs showed his ancestors. Others historic images gave an insight into Peranakan people and their elite position in society with elegant houses and 1930s cars.

‘This is what a Peranakan house is like,’ he said as we went through his shophouse, Mr Wee pausing for my photography with the casual air of someone who had been photographed many times before. The front room was the shop; the second was a private room with his collection of photographs, furniture and space for some office work; then there was the third room open to light and air, with water and greenery and good feng shui; and finally the kitchen, the domain of the women and the Kitchen God listening to their gossip.

In front of his wall of photographs disappearing up the stairway to the next floor, Mr Wee paused, indicating the images. ‘That’s my great grandfather,’ he said. ‘That’s my grandfather … this is my mother.’ Now his image resides among his ancestors’ images, a man of his time among the men, women and children of their time at the peak of the Peranakan culture and society.

Gardens by the Bay

As I left, he gave me the Peranakan Association’s beautifully produced quarterly magazine – a glossy, modern Singapore showcase of Peranakan life linking today’s flowering with the culture’s historic roots. It also listed Peranakan associations in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia. Old culture, modern communications and network structures: the Peranakan  hope for the future.

Four days in Singapore. A thousand photographs. Not bad. But still not enough … maybe one last call. The new Gardens by the Bay, recommended by another Peranakan friend living in Thailand. The light had gone, perfect, and over the bay was a night cityscape and in the gardens there were sci-fi ‘trees’, maybe 20 metres high and slicing the night with blue light.

I thought, not for the first time: ‘Yes, Singapore really clicks with me.’

First published in VISA 114 (April 2014)