801号房. . .内心深处的心声

Since my work place is in Ann Siang Hill, I decided to explore the tranquil part of Ann Siang in the early hours of morning. I had been to Ann Siang countless of times, with friends for dining and some light afternoon chats. And best of all, it’s near Amoy Street where my friends and I love to dig into the wide variety of food, Hakka’s food. Ham Cha’s the best; it’s a healthy food that it’s soothing to our stomach. It has a wide variety of eating outlets and chill out outlets at Ann Siang Hill, however, I have not been active on the night scene, have been going out for drinks, less ever since I started my Masters. My friends told me that Ann Siang Hill is now so call the area favourite by the gays. This is what some taxi drivers told me as well. However, I still love the tranquil of Ann Siang Hill especially in the morning, as it’s calm and peaceful. I would rather visit the night scene there with my girl friends and buddies, since I miss the indo-chine outlet, have not been there for a long time. Maybe for the next high school gathering and my diploma class gathering, that’s the place for a class gathering maybe. There’s also some interesting Yoga studios along Ann Siang area, which I would visit them when I have the time.

A beautiful transition between the old and the new

Turn into Ann Siang Hill, which was once filled with remittance houses – for the largely illiterate immigrant population to send money home. The area around Ann Siang Hill and Club Street is also full of Clan and Sporting Associations, their walls crammed with trophies and photographs of old members and founders. Walk up to the entrance of No.19 Ann Siang Road and look at the floorboards above. You’ll see a boarded-up square peep-hole. In the past, ladies used to peep through this hole to see who was at the door. At this juncture, you may choose to detour to Telok Ayer Street which holds three national monuments. You have the option of following the main roads, or taking a short cut through some back alleys as shown in the map. Please take the necessary ‘back alley’ precautions and avoid this shortcut at night. Allow a good one hour and a half for this detour.  For the short cut, follow these instructions: At the end of Ann Siang Road, find a path to the left of the large building. Follow this path and go down the stairs. As you come to a backlane, turn right and follow it as it turns left onto a narrow road, and then on Amoy Street. Pop into the Sin Chor Kung Temple on your right, and then go straight ahead to the next road, which is Telok Ayer Street. The three monuments are to the left of this street.

Ann Siang Hill (安详山) is a small hill, and the name of a one-way road located in Chinatown within the Outram Planning Area in Singapore. The road links Club Street and Ann Siang Road (安祥路) to South Bridge Road. Ann Siang Road connects Ann Siang Hill to Kadayanallur Street. Ann Siang Hill, located off South Bridge Road, was the site of the house and estate of Chia Ann Siang (谢安祥; 1832–1892), a wealthy Malacca-born Hokkien Chinese sawmiller. Chia joined British firm Boustead and Company in 1848. The company traded in natural resources, spices, coconut, tobacco, tin, tea and silk. Boustead’s ships plied the China-Europe routes in the early days. After eight years on the job, Chia was promoted to chief produce storekeeper. He retired in 1890 after over 40 years of service in the company, and went into the timber business. He also became a partner of the firm Geok Teat and Company in 1863. After he became a wealthy landowner and one of the leading merchants of his time, he acquired both Ann Siang Hill and Mount Erskine.

Before Chia bought the area, the hill was known as Gemmill’s Hill after John Gemmill, a merchant and former auctioneer, and before that Scott’s Hill, after its original owner Charles Scott, who cultivated nutmegs and cloves in the area. The foot of the area between Ann Siang Hill and Mount Erskine, where South Bridge Road meets Neil Road and Tanjong Pagar Road (the site of the Metropole Theatre, now the Fairfield Methodist Church), was one of the earliest Cantonese Chinese burial grounds. The graveyard was in use up to 1867, exhumed in 1907 and part of the area, together with Mount Wallich, used for the Telok Ayer reclamation project.

The Chinese used to call this area qing shan ting. The early Chinese immigrants visited Ann Siang Hill when they wanted to send money home to their families in China as it was the traditional site of remittance houses. Letter writers and calligraphers also had their businesses at the five-foot way of the shop houses to help the illiterate immigrants write letters home.

Most of the houses in Ann Siang Hill and along Ann Siang Road were built between 1903 and 1941. Ann Siang Road, which has elegantly restored shop houses today, was once the traditional home of clan associations and exclusive social clubs. Damenlou Hotel (大门楼旅店) is a small hotel located at Ann Siang Road, in Singapore’s Chinatown, within the Central Area, Singapore’s central business district. The name, Damenlou, originates from the location of its present premises. It is a direct translation from the Chinese characters for Big Gate House, which was originally a nickname used by locals to identify the area in the 1930s. Then, there was an entrance of a Chinese association at Ann Siang Road, where businessmen gathered to relax, socialise or entertain clients. The entrance was marked by unusually large gates that shadowed over all visitors. Damenlou Hotel’s origins can be traced to the creation of the uniquely Singaporean dish of fish head mifen (rice vermicelli), which was invented by Tang Kwong Swee in the 1920s.

Tang and his “Ninth Uncle” sold che-char (cooked food) along the roadside. Then both men began to realize the great wastage of fish-bones and fish heads which were being discarded after the flesh had been sliced away. One night, they cooked the fish heads with some vermicelli.

“In the beginning, people didn’t like the thought of eating fish head. They thought it would be smelly,” noted Tang years ago; but he continued dishing it out and the dish caught on. Soon Tang was ladling out 500 bowls of fish head noodles a day, every day. He then went on to spend the next 60 years refining this dish into the most ambrosial noodle dish in town.

Tang’s effort had been well rewarded. Despite the many pretenders to the dish, true fish head mifen connoisseurs continued to make their way to his Swee Kee Coffee shop then at 18 Chin Chew Street and now Damenlou Hotel to sample his ware — amongst them regulars such as former OCBC chairman Tan Chin Tuan. Hong Kong stars Lydia Sum, Chow Yun Fat, Jacky Cheung and Roman Tam have reportedly also ingested a steaming bowlful. Business was so good after the invention of the fish head mifen that after 4 years; Tang and his uncle operated a three-star restaurant at Great World amusement park called Peach Garden. There, the wealthy and leisured class gathered. However, tough times came with the Japanese invasion. Peach Garden was used as a prison and Tang went back to hawking on the street.

After the war, Tang returned to operate Peach Garden Restaurant. During that period, times were bad and business was slow. Eventually, he gave up the restaurant to continue his roadside stall for the next 33 years.

The workload was brutally heavy, yet he determinedly never allowed his children to work for him. Instead he hired help and insisted that his children concentrate on their studies. “One day, when I went to visit him, I realized how tough his life was,” recalls Tang Tat Meng, his fifth son who happens to be the Chairman of Damenlou Hotel. “Because business was very good that day, he still had no dinner at 10pm. His hands were also red from the heat of the wok.”

In 1978, the Singapore government outlawed street side hawkers. Tat Meng, in consultation with Tang Senior, bought over the 18 Chin Chew Street coffee shop and made that address synonymous with fish head noodles. However, in 1992, the government re-acquired that site. With the imminent wind-down of the coffee shop, an alternative site had to be acquired, fast.

Thus, Damenlou Hotel was born, complete with a restaurant that ensures that Tang’s trademark fish head mifen will live on.