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SPEECH BY MS TAN SIOK CHOO |
30-Mar-06 | The following is the speech given by Ms Tan Siok Choo at the book's official launch at Badan Warisan Malaysia:
Malacca: Voices from the Street is an appropriate title for the book. It encapsulates what Huck and Fernando tried to do when they first started visiting Malacca - to speak on behalf of Malaccans, in particular, those who have lived in the same house or worked at their craft for decades and whose voices are being progressively silenced by the sledgehammer of modernisation.
As they wrote in the preface, Huck and Fernando began by listening. Between 1999 and 2005, they sought out and listened to the ordinary people - the shopkeepers, craftsmen, traders and fishermen - whose activities and lifestyles contributed to the rich tapestry of Malaccan life in the 19th and 20th century.
Both the authors and this book are impossible to classify. Although Huck and Fernando are architects, they are better known for their conservation work. As many of you are aware, Huck was born in Penang and Fernando in Portugal.
Despite their origins, both have spent the last six years exploring every road, hidden corner and abandoned alleyway in Malacca. They spent so much time in that historic city that I am sure they qualify as permanent residents of Malacca.
While undertaking research for this book, Huck and Fernando displayed a dedication and perseverance befitting social historians. In their quest for information, Huck and Fernando conducted 150 interviews and visited several institutions in this country as well as in Singapore, Portugal, Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Similarly, this book defies easy categorisation. The quality and number of colour photographs suggests this is a coffee table book. Numbering more than 200, the colour photographs are works of art.
But the wealth of information that can be gleaned from its 360 pages, together with an index and bibliography, underscores the fact that this is an excellent reference book on Malacca’s social and urban history.
Some photos are exceptionally detailed, some capture the ambience of the past while others portray present-day Malaccans, in varying moods - smiling, pensive, intent on their work or enjoying their leisure. There was, however, one notable exception. I couldn’t find a single photo of an angry Malaccan.
It is a reflection of their skill as photographers and their eye for seeing beauty in abandoned buildings and discarded items that Huck and Fernando have succeeded in creating arthouse photographs of a dilapidated warehouse beside the Malacca River, a torn and discarded photo of a woman sitting on a chair and the vandalized tombstone in the former Dutch cemetery.
One of several photos that I liked shows the items made by tinsmith Yong Sit Chuan (page 266). Two kettles on the upper shelf and three rows of tin mugs, stacked on top of each other, are on the lower shelf. With sunlight reflecting the sheen of the metal, the two lower rows of tin mugs look newly minted and provide an ironic comment on a sunset trade.
Another equally evocative photo is that of The Royal Press. This photo of a wall with its uneven coat of paint and plaster, loose sheets of paper hung on a metal hook, wooden frames with rows and rows of metal type depict a business that has become a relic of commercial progress / computerisation.
When I first saw a photo of a food container hung from the ceiling, it took me 10 seconds to realise this was a photo of part of the original kitchen in my ancestral home in Malacca. The original kitchen looked unrecognisably tidy. I guess Huck and Fernando must have cleaned up this area before photographing it.
Apart from the photographs, the wealth of information that Huck and Fernando have collected is extraordinary in terms of scope and detail. A description of Chinese New Year in the Malacca Guardian on 3 February 1930 notes that "All the lights and lanterns of private residences and business premises were kept burning till a late hour."
In the chapter on Blacksmith Street, Goldsmith Street and Temple Street (page 98) Huck and Fernando quote a Straits Times report dated 28 December 1887 about a disturbance in Blacksmith Street. "For some reason or other, a Hakka suddenly made a murderous attack on another Chinese belonging to the Hoh Beng kongsi" at 8.30 in the morning.
"Another remnant of old Malacca is fast disappearing in the removal of the conglomeration of attap house at Kampong Hulu" observed the Malacca Guardian on 4 November 1929. "This property belongs to the estate of Dato Samsuddin, who died about 160 years ago, and covers several acres of land of high commercial value." (page 176)
All these newspaper cuttings suggest Malaccans remain much the same. Then and now, Malaccans celebrated with gusto their festivals, gangsters created disturbances while a handful lamented the disappearance of old heritage buildings.
That this book is a visual feast, that the information is incredibly detailed and the fact that Malacca is the focus of this book, are three reasons why it gives me great pleasure to launch this book.
(Ms Tan Siok Choo is the grand-daughter of Tun Tan Cheng Lock and daughter of Tan Siew Sin) |
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