One Hundred Years' History Of The Chinese In Singapore: The Annotated Edition. Ong Siang Song
for each of the inmates. In 1850 he was a member of the committee appointed to arrange for sending exhibits to the Great Exhibition of 1851 at the Crystal Palace, London.
Tan Kim Seng
Upon the completion of Kim Seng & Co’s new godowns [47] in Battery Road (for many years occupied by Stiven & Co and recently sold), Mr Kim Seng entertained the European community and his native friends to a ball and supper. The offices which occupy the upper floor of the godowns were the scene of the entertainment, the front room overlooking the river being fitted up as a dancing saloon. At the supper Mr Kim Seng’s health was proposed by Mr Thomas Church4 in appropriate terms and drunk with the greatest enthusiasm by his guests. For the comfort of his native friends, some of the side rooms were laid out with tables of refreshments suited to their various tastes.
This Ball, which took place on February 21, 1852, furnished materials for an amusing contribution to Household Words of June 19, 1852: Kim Sing, a merchant well known as an Antonio on the Rialto of Singapore, conceived a few weeks ago the intrepid design of giving the first Chinese Ball ever beheld in this part of the world. Having recently erected a spacious godown or suite of chambers and warehouses, he resolved to convert one of these into a magnificent banquet hall and dancing room. …
Chinese Free School (Ghi-ok) in Amoy Street
Numerous invitations were issued to gentlemen and ladies of all tribes, who were requested to be present in their respective costumes on the appointed evening at the godown of Kim Sing. …
I had of course about me (as everybody else had) the usual prejudice of my own race, and, therefore, on being presented to the master of the house, with his pig-tail, sharp features and Mongolian eyes, it was with much difficulty that I kept my mirth under polite restraint. … The ball room was not smaller than the body of a good-sized English church, with a row of pillars on each side, under the galleries, behind which the spectators thronged. … The cluster of faces peering out from under the pillars was now and then lighted up with laughter as strangely-united couples whirled past A young lady from Calcutta, dressed after the most elab-orate fashion of the city of palaces, got fearfully entangled in a Schottische with a Chinese [48] mandarin, whose large, jet-black tail descended considerably below his waist. As he hopped and frisked, the tail flew about in the most dangerous manner. No doubt could be entertained, however, that the gentleman had been taking lessons for a fortnight or three weeks, because he really went through the business of the dance very respectably. At length, as ill luck would have it, one of his red slippers came off. A burst of laughter, which it was impossible to restrain, shook the fat sides of the host at this disaster, while the unhappy How Guim Foo quitted his partner and rushed, with his long tail like a comet, to regain his shoe – for to be shoeless is to be disgraced in Celestial eyes.
At another time, and in another part of the room, the tails of two of the Chinese, as they passed one another, back to back, hooked together, perhaps by the strings which tied them. While the gentlemen butted forward with their heads, after the manner of rams, to dissolve their involuntary partnership, the chosen partners ran into each other’s arms and whirled on in the waltz without them.
Becoming by degrees a little tired, I slipped behind the pillars for rest. Here I observed neat little tables in front of luxurious sofas, on which several Celestials reclined at their full length, smoking opium. They appeared to be in a delicious state of dreaminess, imagining themselves, perhaps, in the vicinity of the Lake of Lilies, with orange and tea trees blossoming around them. Near these were two or three Hindoos smoking the hookah; in the neighbourhood a solitary Turk who bore in his countenance an expression of infinite disdain for the infidels of all colours whom he saw around him.… To describe fitly the supper which followed, I ought to have studied for three years under some Parisian gastronome. It was a chaos of dainties, each more tempting than the other. All the fruits of the Indian Archipelago, of India, China and the West – some in their natural state, others exquisitely preserved – were piled around us. There were bird’s-nest soups, puppy ragouts, pillaus of kangaroos’ tails, fish of all kinds, and pastry in profusion. And then for the wines – all the wines that France, Germany and Hungary [49] could produce sparkled on the board, and the most anxious care was taken that everyone should be supplied with what he most desired. While we were regaling ourselves, delicious strains of music, issuing from I know not where, stole into the apartment. This I thought much better than a noisy band, destroying or bewildering one’s appetite, from a gallery immediately overhead 5
On the 18th November 1857 Mr Kim Seng offered the Government a sum of $13,000, a princely sum in those days, for the purpose of bringing a better supply of water into the town. He stipulated that the whole of that sum should be devoted to the purpose specified and that the works, when completed, should be taken charge of by the Government or the Municipality, and always maintained in an efficient state.
‘His offer is hereby accepted’, wrote Mr Blundell6, the Governor in January 1859, ‘with warm acknowledgments, and the assurance that the conditions imposed by him shall be strictly carried out’. The sanction of the Governor-General in Council to the work being undertaken having been obtained, plans and estimates were prepared, but matters dawdled on, and the first water-works were not finished till 1877 and opened in 1878. In 1882 the Municipality erected the large fountain close to Johnston’s Pier with the inscription: This Fountain is erected by the Municipal Commissioners in Commemoration of Mr Tan Kim Seng’s Donation Towards the Cost of the Singapore Water-works – a matter of fourteen years after the death of the donor, for Mr Tan Kim Seng had died on the 14th March 1864 at Malacca at the age of 59 years. Mr Tan Kim Seng maintained his popularity with the European community until the end of his life. One of the recorded events of the year 1861 was a Ball given during the race week in May, in the Masonic Lodge on the Esplanade, by Mr Kim Seng to all the [50] Europeans. It must have been of him that Mr Cameron7 has this note in his book:8
A Chinaman who had come to Singapore, a poor man about thirty years ago, died in March 1864, worth close upon two million dollars. He had grown up to be an extensive merchant, planter and tin miner, had adopted the settlement as his home and had left behind him many memorials of his public spirit and charity.9
In April 1840 was published the first account of a Chinese procession in the town, held in honour of a goddess or the statue of one which had been imported from China.
The procession extended nearly a third of a mile, to the usual accompaniment of gongs, and gaudy banners of every colour, form and dimension The chief feature of the procession was the little girls from five to eight years of age, carried aloft in groups on gaily ornamented platforms, and dressed in every variety of Tartar and Chinese costumes. The little creatures were supported in their places by iron rods, which were concealed under their clothes, and their infant charms were shown off to the greatest advantage by the rich and peculiar dresses in which they were arrayed, every care being taken to shield them with umbrellas from the sun’s rays The divinity herself was conveyed in a very elegant canopy chair, or palanquin, of yellow silk and crape, and was surrounded by a bodyguard of Celestials, wearing tunics of the same colour. We have not been able to ascertain the various attributes of the goddess, but it seems she is highly venerated: and a very elegant temple, according to Chinese taste, has been built in the town for her reception. She is called by the Chinese Thien-siang-sing-bo (or Ma-cho-po), being the deity commonly termed the Mother of the Heavenly Sages. She is supposed to be the especial protectress of those who navigate the deep: at least, it is to her shrine as the [51] Goddess of the Sea that the Chinese sailors pay the most fervent adoration, there being an altar dedicated to her in every junk that goes to sea. The procession is regarded as a formal announcement to the Chinese of her advent in this Settlement, and the exhibition, with the feasting attendant thereon, is stated to cost more than $6,000.10
This is evidently the Chinese temple described by Major Low in his Journal (1840-1) as a temple –
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