Chinese Houses of Southeast Asia. Ronald G. Knapp
and understanding of the several cultures within which he lived. Although Tan Cheng Lock could neither speak nor read the Chinese language, his home celebrates the power of the written word in Chinese culture and gives evidence of the high regard in which the Chinese community in pre-and post-independence Malaysia held him. The ground plan of his residence, approximately 10 meters by 68 meters, is similar to those of other larger houses along the seaside section of Heeren Street. Set back from the street, the two-storey façade is separated by a shed-like roof that creates a streetside veranda paved with large terracotta tiles, a passageway known as a five-foot way and a requirement imposed by British planners. This type of setback with a veranda is not common in China. Just inside the double-paneled entryway is an entrance hall dominated by a high rectangular altar table accompanied by a square offerings table. Both of these are set in the central portion of a wall that has doorways on both sides. Formal sets of chairs and tables line the walls. Couplets and auspicious four-character phrases adorn the room. The two-character phrase yiqi, meaning “Righteousness,” is hung just below the ceiling and above an old painting of the Daoist deity General Guan Gong, also known as Guan Yu, who is said to personify many virtues—courage, honor, integrity, justice, loyalty, and strength—and Zhang Fei, another loyal warrior and his comrade of the Three Kingdoms period. A wooden panel on a stand has images of all Three Brothers of the Peach Orchard, Guan Gong, Zhang Fei, and Liu Bei, who were celebrated in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms as individuals who shared a desire to serve their country in difficult times. Two large paintings and calligraphic hangings, which face each other across the room, add both formality and brightness to the space.
Pastel portraits of Tan Cheng Lock’s parents, Tan Keong Ann and Lee Seck Bin, are given pride of place along this wall. The settee, which is constructed of hongmu, known in English as black-wood, has three marble inserts in the shape of peaches, emblems of longevity.
Looking up in the second skywell, one sees wooden louvered shutters with an ornamental panel beneath comprising linked wan characters that also symbolize longevity.
Just beyond the doors is a spacious vestibule-like sitting room with a round marble-topped table. While the furniture in this room is Western in style, the wall decorations are all Chinese. Of particular note is a large celebratory piece of embroidery that was given to Tan Cheng Lock’s only son, Tan Siew Sin, on the occasion of one of his birthdays. At the center of the piece and along the top are figures representing the Three Stellar Gods, Fu, Lu, and Shou—Good Fortune, Emolument, and Longevity—together with an unidentified woman, perhaps an attendant. Arrayed along the sides are the Eight Immortals.
A pair of beautiful lattice windows acts as a screen filtering the view through the doors from the entrance hall into the interior areas. A central door then leads from the sitting room into an elongated room punctured by a rectangular skywell, a shaft that reaches up through the second storey. This bright space is today filled with pots of ornamental palms of various sizes. An informal setting of a table with four light chairs contrasts with the rows of formal hardwood chairs that stand along the walls. Throughout this area the walls are covered with historic photographs and horizontal commendation plaques. On the right, tucked into an alcove and reached through an archway, is a spiral staircase leading to the second level. A study with a desk and bookcases filled with classic texts is aligned along a wall adjacent to the skywell. Above the desk is a commendation plaque presented to Tan Cheng Lock proclaiming “Honor Results from Actual Achievements.” A fine example of a Milners Patented Fire Resisting safe stands beside the desk. On top of the safe is a signed photograph presented by Chiang Kai-shek to Tan Cheng Lock in 1940, which is propped up by a bust of Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scout movement in 1907.
Just beyond the first skywell is an ornamental lattice screen running from wall to wall that frames a sitting room dominated by the Tan family ancestral altar with three characters, xiaosi tang, meaning Hall of Filiality, on a horizontal board above it. The three ancestral tablets, also called ancestral soul tablets, within the receptacle are those of Tan Keong Ann and his wife Lee Sek Bin; the ancestral soul tablet of Tan Cheng Lock and his wife Yeo Yeok Neo, and at the lowest level, the ancestral soul tablet of Tan Siew Sin. Above the altar is the ancestral portrait of Lee Chye Neo, the wife of the progenitor Tan Hay Kwan. On the left wall are images of Tan Cheng Lock’s grandparents, Tan Choon Bock and Thung Soon Neo, in frames with oval mounts, while on the right wall are pastel portraits of Tan Cheng Lock’s parents, Tan Keong Ann and Lee Seck Bin. The furniture in this room, which mixes traditional Chinese forms with Western elements, includes low-back armchairs and settees made of hongmu with marble inserts. The furniture was brought from Hong Kong on the occasion of daughter Lily’s wedding in 1935. Each of the settees has three marble inserts in the shape of a peach, a symbol of longevity. On the side walls, each with an elaborate framed mirror and among the photographs of family members are paintings and four horizontal commendation plaques presented to Tan Siew Sin with celebratory phrases: “Benefit the Country and Workers,” “Carrying a Heavy Responsibility Over a Long Period,” “Pillar of the Nation,” and “Merit is in Educating the Young.”
The master bedroom facing the street has circular ventilation ports along the top register of the wall. The Art Deco furniture was purchased in London for the marriage of Tan Cheng Lock’s daughter Lily in 1935.
Prior to the Second World War, the formal space housing the ancestral soul tablets marked the boundary between the public and private areas of the residence. Non-family members rarely were permitted to go beyond the formal halls and single skywell in the residence. The doorway on the left side of the altar leads to a small bedroom, which was created by adding a wall to a wider open area, which then became a narrower passageway. Within this small room is a cupboard that is identical to one along the wall of the passageway on the right. Beyond this passageway are the two remaining skywells, spaces for family dining and informality. In these areas, as with the other skywell in the front, it was possible also to capture and store rainwater. While most houses on Heeren Street in the past had two wells, the Tan household only had one and that was located in a bathroom. Both of the skywells today are landscaped with abundant greenery. Looking up, one sees the louvered windows that can be opened on the second level. Just below the louvered panels is a geometric ornamental panel with duplicated representations of the running wan character, an inverted swastika meaning “longevity.” Two bathrooms, a pantry, and a kitchen are also found in this area in addition to a steep staircase leading upstairs. In a circular masonry planter in the third skywell is a tall jambu tree with evergreen leaves that produces a red bell-shaped edible fruit called lianwu in Chinese and wax apple in English. Family lore recalls that this thriving and productive tree was planted when Tan Cheng Lock was born. At the far rear end of the house is a second dining area and a terrace, which early on had been the place where children ate. In recent years, this space was renovated as a two-level apartment for a housekeeper and her children. When the residence was built early in the nineteenth century, this rear area extended out over the sea below and was supported by pilings. A trapdoor in the wooden floorboards could be lifted for reaching a small boat moored below. In the nineteenth century, the area began to be silted up and in recent decades infilling was accelerated that pushed the shoreline some 200 meters away from the old houses.
The upstairs area covers fully two-thirds of the ground floor, with two of the skywells opening up the rooms on that level as well. This private area has two large bedrooms with adjacent sitting rooms. Until Tan Cheng Lock’s daughter Lily was married in April 1935, the front bedroom had been the bedroom of his younger brother, Cheng Juay and his wife. In preparation for the marriage, fashionable new furniture for the bridal chamber was brought from London via Singapore.
The second floor sitting room showing a doorway into the bedroom. Above each window is a painting of a fruit with symbolic associations: on the left is an odd fruit called foshou or “Buddha’s Hand,” whose names is homophonous with good fortune and longevity;