"Transient" Residents

I just did some "farming" of my flyers around the Tiong Bahru Estate this morning and I noticed this paper that was stuck above some letterboxes along Tiong Poh Road.

Initially, I was rather amused and I assumed that the person responsible for this notice must have been pretty much annoyed by the inconsiderate behaviour of his or her neighbours.

Yes, there are some littering problems here within the estate. The problem is that there are no rubbish chutes in the Pre-War section. For those who are so used to having a rubbish chute within the home, this is deemed a very troublesome inconvenience. It is really a daily chore to bring the rubbish down to the bins. And the most tempting thing to do is to toss the rubbish out the windows or leave them along the walkways.

Being Singaporeans, we must and will find someone to blame for our own laziness. Perhaps we should blame the town council for encouraging this anti-social behaviour. It is because they have done such a wonderful job that we do not even stop to thank them for doing such a great job. In fact, we expect them to clear up the rubbish as soon as it appears...otherwise we complaint. So what if the estate is cleaned up by noon and sometime even twice, for some of us, it is just not fast enough.

Okay, back to the notice thingy.

On second thoughts, I kinda felt that the notice was quite derogatory. Surely you can detect the disdain in that "artist" work.

That set me thinking. Do we selectively welcome some foreign talents into Singapore and sweep all of the lesser talented foreigners under the carpet. It seems that we want them to be around when we need them to do some dirty work and then wish that they disappear into thin air as soon as they are done.

Recently, I even heard some complaints about foreign workers using a badminton court in between block 38 and 49 Kim Pong Road. Someone complained to the RC members that these people made too much noise while playing badminton and they played on even after the lights were switched off.

I was rather surprised as I live around here and I never had any problem with them. In fact, I am happy that they are engaged in something healthy. If you have the time, go and check it out in the evenings. They all seem like MUTES playing badminton. No shouting and cheering. They are just happy whacking furiously at the shuttlecocks.

I supposed some of us have and supremacy attitude that we just wish these group of people will go and hide somewhere after their work hours. They should just do their work and then go to bed and wake up in the morning and just do their work again. We are almost emperor-like and they are the foot soldiers. We think we can do what we deemed fit.

Coexisting with these transient residents may not be easy. It is true the some of them may be a pain in the neck, but they nonetheless play a very important role in our society. If only there are more communications and mutual respect amongst the residents here, things should not escalate into something messy.

For example, my mum in law was very annoyed when some "transient" residents above her home left all their rubbish in front of her home...even though the bins were just about 10 steps away! She managed to talk to them nicely and the problem has been rectified.

How you treat people would be the same way people would treat you back. If we accord these workers the due respect, I think they will reciprocate too.

ONE BLOCK, THREE STREETS...

The New Paper

ONE BLOCK, THREE STREETS...
MAIL TO THE WRONG PLACE

Tiong Bahru's Block 78 leaves many confused
HE raves about the crispy kaya toast and thick coffee served at the kopitiam on the ground floor.

By Mindy Tan
07 September 2007

HE raves about the crispy kaya toast and thick coffee served at the kopitiam on the ground floor.

But he rages about mail getting lost, groceries delivered at the wrong place and visitors knocking on wrong doors.

Mr Tan Ah Bah, 72, who has lived in Tiong Bahru's Block 78 for 40years, has good reason to be angry.

His block, a U-shaped 70-year-old art-decor pre-war development, has three street names attached to it.

And depending on which side of the block your flat is located, your address will be different.
Flats in the centre of the block have the address 78 Moh Guan Terrace.

Those on the west side have the address 78 Yong Siak Street, while those on the east have the address 78 Guan Chuan Street.

Worse, flat numbers are similar.

All three roads are connected to the block which was designed and built by the British in 1937.

It has four storeys, 166 units of two, three and four-room flats, and 10 shops on the ground floor.

According to company director Mr Jackie Wong, 70, who was born in the block in 1937 and is still living there, the street names have been there for as long as he can remember.

WHO'S KNOCKING ON MY DOOR?
Mr Wong recalled an incident when a stranger turned up at his door, asking his 'son' to report to the army camp for 'duty'.

The 'son' turned out to be his neighbour on the other side of the block.

Mr Wong felt that a repositioning of street signs could solve the confusion.

But renaming the block as 78A and 78B would mean residents 'have to change ICs', he said.

So why cause such confusion in the first place?

THOSE QUIRKY BRITS
Blame it on the British who are known for their quirks, said Dr Kevin Tan, president of The Singapore Heritage Society.

Dr Tan said: 'In the small streets of England, it won't be surprising to see that roads and numbers don't always correspond. The British are fairly comfortable with a bit of quirkiness.'

Also, the roads could have been meant for use as service roads without the consideration of having a block, Dr Tan added.

Thus, when the block was built, 'planners may not have conceived of an exercise for the block to have one street name, such as Moh Guan Circle'.

But housewife Madam Annie Zhao, 58, is more concerned about the rubbish than the confusing addresses.

She said: 'Nowadays a lot of owners rent their flats out to foreign workers.

'There's always cigarette butts on the staircase.'

In 2003, Block 78 was gazetted by the URA as a conservation area.

___________________________________

Where the streets have meaningful names
Businessman Seet Moh Guan, the fourth descendant of a notable Hokkien clan, donated a large sum of money to build a library in 1854

Prominent businessman Tan Guan Chuan (1887-1946) built a factory and held high positions in merchant associations

Influential Chinese leader Tan Yong Siak (1831- 1914) handled disputes among Chinese businessmen

First occupied by the affluent, Block 78 was later dubbed 'mistress' village'. Rich men housed their mistresses there.

___________________________________

More blocks with multiple addresses
Out of 8,833 HDB blocks in Singapore, three have multiple addresses

U-shaped Block 17, built in 1949, is on Tiong Bahru Road and Seng Poh Road.

L-shaped Block 28, built in 1967, is on Jalan Bukit Merah and Hoy Fatt Road.

1座组屋3地址

Now Available ONLY in Tiong Bahru

I was browsing through a book on Chinatown and some pictures inside the book caught my attention.

At a glance, I thought this was Tiong Bahru

Initially, I thought the book has expanded the area of coverage to Tiong Bahru, since Tiong Bahru is not too far from Chinatown.

On reading the content, I realised that there were some S.I.T. ART DECO flats that once stood in the heart of the Chinatown area!

These Art Deco flats were built by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) in 1938 and could be found around the corners of Smith Street and Trengganu Street. The Kempetai used these flats during the Occupation years.

This 1938 SIT flat along New Bridge Road has been demolished in 1975 to make way for the Chinatown Complex. The complex was built to consolidate all the street hawkers that operated in that area.

As these flats were demolished in 1975 to make way for the Chinatown complex, I suppose many of the post 65ers probably do not know, let alone remember that these buildings existed.

Vestiges of old SIT flats fast disappearing

Junction of Smith Street & Trengganu Street BEFORE 1975

Junction of Smith Street & Trengganu Street AFTER 1975
Collection of Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts,
Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore

By the way, The "Art Deco" period occurred roughly between the two World Wars, or from 1920 to 1939. For more information on Art Deco, please visit Wikipedia

The "Seng Poh Road" Divider

There is an error in the current issue of the Home and Decor magazine. They have erroneously tagged the transacted prices for HDB in the Tiong Bahru Estate as Conserved flats. And to make it worse, the magazine mentioned me and my website. (Hello!? Were you working under pressure?)

Home and Decor did ask me to provide the prices of the Pre-War flats but I told them I only have the HDB transacted prices in my website. As for the Pre-War section, there are no public records of them in either the HDB or URA website. We gotta find out from the valuers or do a search on them....with cost. (I wonder why these information are not readily available).

Anyway, to "right" the wrong, I hope to be crystal clear this time around in explaining where the HDBs are and where the conserved ones are located.

Seng Poh Road (highlighted in PINK) is the road that separated the 2. I hope the picture I have provided below would clarifies this once and for all.

Low Kim Pong (1837 – 1909)

Low Kim Pong
Collection of Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts,
Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore

Kim Pong Road, within the Tiong Bahru Estate, was named after philanthropist Low Kim Pong (1837 – 1909).

Born in 1837 in his native Zhangzhou, Fujian province, he came to Singapore in 1858. He started as a small time businessman and went on to set up a medical shop, Chop Ban San and later Chop Hock Nam, which eventually became one of the largest Chinese druggist stores. He also dealt in private banking. Committed to social services, he was a member of the Chinese Advisory Board, the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Royal Society of Arts.

A devout Buddhist, he established the Siong Lim Temple in Kim Keat Road in 1902. (Siong Lim Temple is the common Hokkien or Fukien name of the Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery (Chinese: 莲山双林寺), literally Twin Grove of the Lotus Mountain Temple)

At the age of 60, Kim Pong had a dream where he saw a golden light rising from the west over the sea (the west being symbolic of Buddhism which originated in India, and is west of China). He took the dream to be an omen, and went to the coast the next day. At dusk, he met a unusual Hokkien family arriving by boat.

The entire family had taken Buddhist vows and were on their way home to Fujian after a pilgrimage to Sri Lanka. Low, moved by their devotion, tried to persuade them to stay in Singapore and spread the faith. He promised to build a temple for their use. The head of that family, Xian Hui, eventually became Siong Lim's first abbot.

Trading Ladles for Pens

click on image to enlarge