SINGAPORE'S VINTAGE EATING PLACES: HAKKA AMPANG YONG TAU FU @ UPPER THOMSON ROAD

As long as I remember, there has always been a Yong Tau Fu restaurant on the way to Nee Soon (Yishun). Now there are two. Located on the northern stretch of Upper Thomson Road, this row of shophouses has existed for many decades, and could be called Nee Soon by its locality, long before the actual new towns of Yishun and housing estates of Lentor came into being. 

It was my late uncle Tay Lee Soon who first brought my family here to try out its famous Yong Tau Fu, and my grandmother joking referred to it as Lee Soon Yong Tau Fu. This dish, essentially tofu items stuffed with meat and other ingredients and eaten with savoury and sweet sauces, was an acquired taste for us youngsters. But as tastes mature and refine themselves, yong tau fu (ytf for short) become a sort of delicacy or comfort food, eaten on special occasions. 

Braised duck, stuffed intestines and boiled eggs.

This time, we were guests of local writer and arts polymath Phan Ming Yen, a true-blue Hakka originally from Petaling Jaya, and his wife Amy Ho, a Hongkonger. That is guaranteed of quality in itself, and we were no disappointed. The big pile of yft may be eaten with rice or kway chap (broad rice sheets in soy sauce), but not before being dipped in copious savoury or sweet sauces. This restaurant also serves braised duck, which provides the meat content of this meal.

Real Hakka Phan Ming Yen
swears this is the real thing!

This ytf is rather different from those served in food courts, and that makes it rather special. The other ytf place was closed on this Monday evening, so that means another trip up north to make culinary comparisons. 

With sweet and savoury sauces,
it is guaranteed there will be no leftovers.

HAKKA AMPANG YONG TAU FU

922 Upper Thomson Road

Just use the northern exit of

Springleaf MRT station

(Thomson East Coast Line)

1943: THE MUSICAL EVENINGS AT CHANGI / Phan Ming Yen et al

 

1943: THE MUSICAL 

EVENINGS AT CHANGI

Talk by Phan Ming Yen et al

National Library Building

Saturday (27 September 2025)

After Singapore fell on 15 February 1942, thousands of civilians became subject to the Imperial Empire of Japan. While the local Chinese were brutally suppressed, their Western counterparts including British / European / Australian were in incarcerated in Changi Prison. Over-crowded conditions meant that thousands were housed in spaces meant for hundreds. What was life like in Changi, and what sort of music did the prisoners get to enjoy? That was the subject of this interesting illustrated talk by historical researcher and general polymath Phan Ming Yen.

The 1st floor space of the National Library
was a conducive spot for this public talk.

Assisted by actor / dramaturg Aaron Lee who did readings and pianist Natalie Ng performing excerpts from piano pieces, this was an absorbing hour-long presentation that captured the imagination, and there was never a dull moment.

The source material came mostly from The Changi Guardian, a self-published periodical started by the prisoners to report on and document happenings that took place there and then. Extracts from May 1942 to September 1943 gave an idea as to what the prisoners went through.

Despite straitened circumstances, there was humanity in Changi. Through the good graces of a certain Lieutenant Okasaki, the captives were allowed to mount musical concerts to entertain themselves. Using captured pianos, those who could perform (and there were hundreds) did so and this meant a lot to those in attendance. 

The diagram behind shows the plan
of Changi Prison in 1943.

The concerts took place twice a week in an unlikely venue: the prison’s laundry area, amid the noise of operating machinery, flushing WCs and people at work. Not exactly Dame Myra Hess at The National Gallery.

One piece heard during the New Year period was Auld Lang Syne, which also existed in its Japanese version, Hotaru no Hikari (Glow of a Firefly), hence it was not proscribed. Also performed were works by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Rachmaninov, all of which would have been familiar and played at home. One name stood out among the performers, Gordon van Hien, who in 1938 founded the Singapore Musical Society, which would be active post-War till the 1970s.

One asks the question, “Why does music matter?” One was the opportunity for silence, away from the mundane noises of the day, except for music and the laundry itself. Besides the music, there was also “Changi University”, a reference to the 4000 books that the internees had access to. By 24 September 1943, the population in Changi had numbered 3194.

All this had to end sometime. In September 1942, an illegal wireless transmitter radio was found in the possession of a prisoner, and music stopped. 57 men were interrogated and tortured at the hands of the Kempeitai; 15 died and the others were sent to Thailand’s Death Railway. It was a cruel way to end, but this was war after all. The last issue of The Changi Guardian was published in 12 October 1943. In 1946, the Singapore Musical Society that survived the war resumed its concerts.

Attending the talk were the WAGs.

THE WEST, WESTERN MUSIC & THE CHINESE COMMUNITY IN EARLY 20TH CENTURY SINGAPORE / A Talk by Phan Ming Yen

THE WEST, WESTERN MUSIC &

THE CHINESE COMMUNITY

IN EARLY 20TH CENTURY SINGAPORE

A Talk by Phan Ming Yen

Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre

Saturday (30 November 2024)

Today, we take for granted the sheer variety of Western classical music performed in Singapore by a multitude of artistic groups, both professional and amateur. However, this wonderful state of affairs had to have its origins. No, we are not referring to the "cultural desert" of 1970s Singapore, as decried by Dr Goh Keng Swee, before he famously set things right by founding the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 1978. In this very interesting talk by former Straits Times music critic and The Arts Magazine editor, the polymath Phan Ming Yen goes way back in time where his story actually starts.

Based on old newspapers, articles and archival material, Ming Yen has painted a very vivid and not too flattering picture of colonial Singapore from the 1890s. Those were the days when Brits like William Graeme St Clair and Edward Salzmann, with important connections to the establishment and press, held sway. 

They were responsible for introducing Western classical music to the natives, quaintly referred to as Asiatics, to counter the hideous noise of the daily grind and "rudimentary Chinese music", to enrich and educate the unwashed. These came in the form of the Singapore Philharmonic Society and its children's concerts, and other activities. For his troubles, the old pipe organ of Victoria Memorial Hall was named the St Clair organ.

Racist or not?
Supremacist to say the least!

Ming Yen plays some "rudimentary" Chinese music.

The very photograph which sparked
Ming Yen's interest in this subject.

The locals were receptive, in particular the Straits-born Chinese, who were mostly English-educated, upwardly mobile and increasingly gentrified. This movement led to the first orchestra formed by non-Europeans, the Chia Keng Tai Orchestra which performed in society events, public concerts and in 1939, accompanied the Wuhan Songsters in its anti-Japanese fundraising efforts. A central figure was violinist Tay Lian Teck, also a member of the Municipal Commission of Singapore, who died in 1942 while fleeing the Japanese by ship.

Remembering Tay Lian Teck

This tapestry of histories from old Singapore is relevant because it eventually shaped the society we live in today and how we enjoy our music. Ming Yen closed his riveting 90-minute-talk with a quote from Goh Keng Swee, revealing within his mind what would eventually lead to the founding of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in 1978. We are where we are today because we stand on the shoulders of giants. 

A meeting of old friends and historians.

IN MEMORIAM: DENNIS LEE (1946-2023) A Tribute by Phan Ming Yen

DENNIS LEE: IN MEMORIAM

BY PHAN MING YEN

 

For a whole generation of us who grew up in the Malaysia of the 1980s loving music and the piano and who had dreams of a career in piano playing, Dennis Lee shaped our world.

 

I like to think that I probably heard most (if not all) of the times Dennis played in Kuala Lumpur in the mid-1980s at the former British Council Auditorium in Bukit Aman. I was fortunate enough to have parents who brought me to his concerts each time he was in town.

 

From memory and from a glance of old concert programmes dating from 1980 till about 1984, Dennis brought to us music - in the days long before music was as accessible as it is now online - that ran the spectrum from past to present. There was anything and everything from Mozart through Brahms via Debussy to Christopher Headington (1930 – 1996).

 

I distinctly remember Beethoven’s Moonlight and Pathetique Sonatas and the Chopin Funeral March Sonata in one concert and my introduction to Ravel’s Gaspard de la nuit was through Dennis having programmed that work in a first half that opened with Prokofiev’s Sonata No.2 and with a second half the comprised Brahms’s Sonata No.3. The concerts were well attended and possibly every music student in town was present. At that time, he was like a beacon, showing that a career as a solo pianist was possible for Malaysians. As a piano student, you kind of grow up wanting to be like him.

 

The last time I heard Dennis in a solo recital was here in Singapore, at the former DBS Auditorium (1990 or 1991) and for whatever reason a Liszt Funerailles from that evening still remains in my mind.

My second piano teacher was a friend of Dennis and his wife Toh Chee Hung and I think that was how I first introduced myself to Dennis over a telephone call back in 1991 when I started work here. I cannot remember how or why the conversation came about but what I remember was that it was a long, and for the most of the time, it was hilarious and an absolute joy. I recall laughing a lot. All this given that I was a little nervous and apprehensive at first to speak with a pianist whom we all looked up to when we were students.

 

I did not speak with Dennis again until many years later in the mid-2010s at a lunch and after that, because of work, I got to know Chee Hung better. Strangely though it was during the pandemic (2020–2021) that I got to speak with Dennis again more (via WhatsApp) when he launched his CD of the Debussy Preludes. He had also sent me, a copy of his much praised (and deservedly so) CD of Szymanowski piano music and an accompanying note. I was very moved by the gesture and the CD - which for whatever reason I never owned - made me revisit Szymanowski.

 

Above all however, it was something Dennis said in a masterclass which he gave to the late Malaysian pianist Pauline Kung (1970-2015) that shaped the way I look at life today. There was a piano or pianissimo passage and Dennis said something that remains with me. It went something like this, in reference to how one controls piano tone when playing softly, “When you don’t have a lot, you treasure it more.”  

 

One could say the same about life.

 

Dennis Lee was more than just a musician and pianist who showed what was possible for Malaysians: from the few times I interacted with him and from all the advice I heard him give in masterclasses or whenever he spoke about a work, Dennis was a generous and wonderful human being.

Photo courtesy of Singapore Symphony Orchestra

All photographs of Dennis Lee concert programmes come from the Phan Ming Yen collection.

 

IN THE MOOD FOR FILM / Photographs from Phan Ming Yen's Piano Recital

IN THE MOOD FOR FILM

Phan Ming Yen, Piano et al

10 Square @ Orchard Central

Friday (8 April 2022)

 

 

This is not meant to be a review but rather a celebration of the multi-faceted personality that is Phan Ming Yen, the Malaysia-born artistic polymath (Director of Global Cultural Alliance and Chief Operations Officer of The Rice Company Limited), who celebrates his 55^th birthday this week. To commemorate this landmark, he gave a solo piano recital of movie music as a fund-raiser funds for The Business Times Budding Artists Fund. This fund provides opportunities to disadvantaged young people who aspire to make a career in the arts.

 

I have known Ming Yen since the early 1990s, when he was the much-feared music critic of The Straits Times, and scourge of artists who were not total geniuses. It was rumoured that he wrote just three complimentary reviews during his stint there. Those included solo recitals by Shura Cherkassky, Ivo Pogorelich, and I cannot remember what the third one was. He also wrote my first interview for ST (about my Singapore-centred verses to accompany Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals). Later we collaborated to organise the first SSO Music Marathon and co-hosted the Symphony 92.4 FM talk show Bluff Your Way Through Classical Music, which ran for twelve stellar episodes.

I am also much indebted to Ming Yen over the years. He played the piano at our wedding service in 1999, besides supplementing my CD collection in ever creative ways ("I bet you won't have this recording!"), also extending to me multiple invitations to giving talks on musical subjects, performing at cross-straits events and judging at local piano competitions. He is also my original piano duet partner, our specialties being Brahms Hungarian Dances, Rossini's William Tell Overture and the Radetzky March.

Ming Yen's first piece was
Abba's The Winner Takes It All
from the movie Mamma Mia.

 

At the start of his two-hour long recital, the audience was forewarned that he could talk for unlimited lengths of time. He, however, makes an excellent stand-up comedian, and unlike Victor Borge, he actually played more than he talked. The following photographs are a chronological sequence of the pieces performed, an eclectic mix of classical music, original film music and pop music heard in the movies. Each example was peppered with interesting factoids (such as Prague Spring 1968) and curious anecdotes from personal experience. It all made for a celebration of humanity itself, an escape from unrelenting perfectionists like Ray Chen, and not to mention an entertaining evening out.  

Next came two selections from the movie
starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, 
Somewhere in Time by John Barry and...

The 18th Variation from
Rachmaninov's Paganini Rhapsody.

Ming Yen reads from Milan Kundera's 
The Unbearable Likeness of Being followed by
Janacek's Madonna of Frydek (On An Overgrown Path)
and two pieces by Ennio Morricone.

Vocalist Estelle Ng chipped in with two songs:
Bernstein's Somewhere (West Side Story) and
Rodgers and Hammerstein's Shall We Dance?
(The King and I).

Recounting a trip to Hong Kong to watch an
uncensored screening of Lust.Caution,
he performed Brahms's Intermezzo (Op.118 No.2)

A story from Tokyo, an excerpt from an
Okinawan movie whom nobody in his group
has gotten grips with its story or meaning.
This was followed by Ryuichi Sakamoto's
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence.

Only For Love from Tan Dun's Sonata,
crafted from his music for The Banquet.

Ming Yen was joined by YST Assistant Tutor
Lin Xiang Ning in a medley of Abba tunes
which closed with the ending of
Grieg's Piano Concerto.

An encore from Joe Hisaishi.

Time to cut that birthday cake!

To my friend and co-conspirator in musical endeavours, have a happy 55th birthday!