Singapore Writer’s Festival 2015 – The Fluid Identities of Southeast Asia, 7 Nov, 4 – 5 pm

Posted on November 1, 2015 by Kennie Ting

I am delighted to update that I shall be featured at this year’s Singapore Writer’s Festival, which launched on Friday, 30th October 2015.

Join me and journalist, Elizabeth Pisani (author of the book, Indonesia, Etc – Exploring the Impossible Nation) at a panel on “The Fluid Identities of Southeast Asia” on Saturday, 7th November, 4 – 5 p.m. at The Arts House, Blue Kumon Room, Singapore.

We will be discussing this intriguing question of Southeast Asian identity, including the lingering impact of colonialism today, the historic links between the region’s major (port) cities, and how a heritage of trade and travel has created multi-cultural and mestizo (Peranakan) communities in cities like Batavia (Jakarta) and Singapore.

To get you tickets: https://www.singaporewritersfestival.com/nacswf/nacswf/programme-listing/festival-events/THE-FLUID-IDENTITIES-OF-SOUTH-EAST-ASIA.html.

Tales of Asia I – Malacca & Manila (Highlights)

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Kennie Ting

Dear armchair time-travellers, here’s a clip featuring highlights from my talk at the Woodlands Regional Library, Singapore on 18 October 2015. A link to entire talk to follow soon. In the meantime, enjoy…

A link to the full talk is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYa3SA8_7HY

[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and London. Find it also at http://www.amazon.co.uk, http://www.amazon.com, http://www.waterstones.com and http://www.bookdepository.com.

Hôtel Métropole, Hanoi

Posted on May 18, 2015 by Kennie Ting

The iconic and fabulous La Terrasse cafe restaurant, at today’s Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi.

Hôtel Métropole in Hanoi is one of the most beautiful hotels on this Grand Tour of Southeast Asia, and it is easily also one of my favourite hotels of all. Opened in 1901, it was the grande dame of the Hanoi social scene; and over a hundred years later, as the Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi, it remains the city’s most illustrious hotel establishment.

Hotel Metropole sits at left in a postcard from the early 1900s. The square it sits on was known as Square Chavassieux. Across from the Hotel stood (and stills stands) the Residence Superieure.

Stepping into the hotel is like stepping back in time – the atmosphere is chic, glamorous, chic and steeped in nostalgia. Wrapped up in a seasonal quilt in Winter and supping at one’s aperitif in the famous Bamboo Bar inside the hotel’s central courtyard, one feels transported to Paris during the Belle Epoque (1870s – 1910s). The hotel is lit up with a thousand christmas lights, and the lilting melody of French chansons waft through the air.

Another memorable and unique experience the hotel offers is a spin across town in one of its 1950s vintage Citroën cars. Sailing through the streets in this vehicle, with hundreds of ordinary Hanoi-ans peering curiously at one from their motorcycles, it is hard not to feel like a turn-of-the- century colonialist, ostentatiously descending onto the town for a sumptuous dinner and subsequent merry-making at the cabaret.

Que la vie est belle!

[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore – Kinokuniya, Times and MPH – as well as at museum shops and the airport. As of mid-June, it will also be available at major bookstores across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, at Waterstones and Blackwells in London. It is further available on http://www.amazon.co.uk and http://www.bookdepository.com]

The Hotel Lobby today.

The Hotel’s chandelier.

Vintage Citroens at the hotel.

Old Manila and the Spanish Empire

Posted on April 26, 2015 by Kennie Ting

Manila Cathedral and the Headquarters of the Knights of Columbus.

Old Manila was a mediaeval walled city, built by Spanish colonialists in the late 1500s. Up until the early 1900s, it was a beautiful place of baroque cathedrals and ornate villas, reminiscent of towns in New Spain (today’s Mexico), from which it was ruled. It was known by sailors who stopped on her shores, as the “Pearl of the Orient.”

Unfortunately, much of Old Manila – called Intramuros (or “inside the walls”) today – was ruined in the aftermath of World War II. Specifically, the old city was a casualty of the Battle of Manila – a key battle on the Pacific front between the United States of America and Imperial Japan.

Today, much of Intramuros still lies in ruins, and around these ruins sit luxury residences alongside shanty-towns. But look hard (and look up) and you will find windows into the past – when you can just about imagine how it was like 400 years ago when the Spanish brought EMPIRE, RELIGION and TRADE to these shores.

[The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is available now at all major bookstores in Singapore – Kinokuniya, Times and MPH – as well as at museum shops and the airport. As of mid-May, it will also be available at major bookstores across Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, at Waterstones and Blackwells in London, and on http://www.amazon.co.uk.]

Vintage view of a calesa (horse carriage) exiting the Parian Gate, Walled City of Manila.

Vintage view of a calesa (horse carriage) exiting the Puerte del Parian (Parian Gate), Walled City of Manila.

Fort Santiago is the entrance to the Walled City of Manila.

Rangoon in the 1900s

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Kennie Ting

In the course of writing the Rangoon chapter, I managed, very fortunately, to acquire quite a few early 1900s vintage postcards that presented views of the city of Rangoon in British Burma – today’s Yangon, in Myanmar.

The first postcard above is a spectacular bird eye’s view in colour, of Strand Road and the Rangoon River. As you can see, Rangoon was a bustling port – in fact, it was perhaps the most important port in Southeast Asia proper, after Singapore.

The second view, below, is that of the historic High Court Building (at centre), which still stands today. The building was built in 1914 in a distinctly Edwardian style, and wouldn’t feel out of place in London itself.

The wonderful thing about today’s Yangon downtown, is that it looks almost exactly the same as the Rangoon presented in these vintage postcards. All the amazing monumental architectural heritage still stands, and there is a race against time to preserve and restore many of these.

The first chapter of The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia takes the reader on a stroll through the old town of Rangoon/Yangon in the 1900s and today, presenting views and vistas from the turn of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th century.

The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia will be available from mid-April in all major bookstores, museum shops and featured hotels in Singapore, the Southeast Asian region and Hong Kong.

Rangoon City View with the High Court at centre. Collection of the Author.

The High Court Building today.

Raffles Place, Singapore: Then and Now

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Kennie Ting

Singapore: Raffles Place in the 1930s.

In the spirit of national mourning for the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the founding father of Singapore, I kick off this blog with a post on the city Mr Lee built, which also happens to be my city.

The photos present Raffles Place in the 1930s and today – and they demonstrate starkly and eloquently Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy, as well as the phenomenal growth of Singapore from a colonial entrepot to today’s global trade and financial hub.

Raffles Place is the commercial heart of Singapore. Known as Commercial Square in the 1820s, it was renamed in 1858 after the (British colonial) founder of Singapore, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles; and it has held that name every since.

Throughout much of the 1900s, it was the centre of the major trading and banking corporations in the world, including the Standard Chartered Bank and the Hong Kong and Banking Corporation. It was also the centre of retail, housing the premises of premiere departmental stores, Robinsons & Co. and John Little & Co., both of which still operate today.

The photo on top shows the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China building (the forerunner to Standard Chartered), with its distinctive dome and Neo-Classical architecture, at centre. Immediately to the right is the John Little & Co. departmental store building, erected in an Ibero-Moorish style.

The photo below captures almost the exact same view, with the Standard Chartered Bank building standing exactly where it used to stand, but replaced by a towering, brown skyscraper. At centre is the entrance to the Raffles Place MRT Station – MRT being Singapore’s underground public rail system – built to recall the facade of John Little & Co.

The Romance of the Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia will be available after April 15, 2015 at all major bookstores and featured hotels in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong, major museums in Singapore and on http://www.amazon.co.uk.

Singapore: Raffles Place today.

Steamships, Grand Hotels and Port Cities in Southeast Asia

Posted on March 22, 2015 by Kennie Ting

Dear Readers,

After two and a half years of working on this, my new book, The Romance of Grand Tour – 100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia is finally to be launched on 15th April, 2015 in my home city of Singapore.

It is a new coffee table book celebrating the Grand Tour of Southeast Asia in the 1920s. Retracing the journey of those grand tourists of the ‘20s, the book takes today’s traveller through 12 fabled port cities in what was then known as the East Indies.

Setting sail from Rangoon (Yangon), we visit Penang, Malacca, Singapore, Batavia (Jakarta), Surabaya, Bangkok, Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), Phnom Penh, Hanoi and Manila before disembarking at Hong Kong harbour.

Each chapter presents a historical and photographic overview of the city’s old town, colonial precincts and living cultural heritage, drawing on archival images, maps and accounts, as well as contemporary photos.

In each city, we also stop at the city’s grand colonial hotel – the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong, the Eastern & Oriental Hotel in Penang and the Hotel Metropole in Hanoi, to name a few.

As part of the on-going marketing and publicity campaign for the book, I am starting this new blog, where in the course of the year, I shall be posting images, photographs, maps and quotes from my book; interesting stories related to the “making of” the book; book events in the region, AND – as a plus – images, quotes, bits of history that are related to the history of travel, or to the 12 port cities in my book, but which did not make it into the “final cut.”

Welcome on board ship… and to a year of history, nostalgic and excitement!

Sincerely,

Kennie Ting

The Romance Of The Grand Tour

100 Years of Travel in Southeast Asia

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