Well this weekend is a pretty sad weekend, after realising that my favourite 'zi char' eatery will be waving goodbye to the good old place that it was housed in centuries ago, before the Japanese invaded Singapore. Here is the article, please read it first!!

Yes i do know that there are government regulations put in place for the preservation of these shophouses, but nothing beats the rustic feel of having known that nothing much has changed since the pre-war era. now, these shophouses, like the coloured ones that you see in the photo above, have become home for boutique hotels. yes its good that more boutique hotels are sprouting up, but hey hey dont you think that sometimes we got to draw the line somewhere? This place is actually located at the ends of chinatown, good old rustic chinatown is no more. On one hand, i am glad that i am a 90's kiddo and i actually get to tour these places like they were during the nineties, where everything was still pretty run down and when here and there, corners were being upgraded and given a facelift. this eatery is called "dong ya" as the chinese words read accordingly, from the traditional chinese way of reading, from right to left.


here is another photo of it, by the way, all of the photos that you see in my recent posts since last weekend, are actually taken using my Xperia Z, HURRAY FOR THE AWESOME QUALITY because my camera memory card aint with me. located at the backdrop, is the towering The Pinnacle, a HDB block. hmm i took these photos somewhere during the evening, since that was the time we headed for dinner! usually, every saturday morning, we would visit this place to have their good old traditional kaya toasts and for me, my good old milo 'bing' which means iced milo in chinese! well even though they are famous for their coffee, my family always sticks with the same drink choice for every meal,
for me, its milo 'bing', *milo fan*
bro always takes tea 'bing',
mum takes forever to finish her tea (1hour meal becomes 2hours)
aaaaand....
dad just eats his apples.


now that's traditional coffeeshop-style singaporean tea and coffee. not those typical starbucks coffee.












oh shuks i just realised i didnt snap a photo of their toasts. ah anyway, it can be seen in the article i provided above. now how did i know that the eatery was gonna go, is that dad is very frequent customer of the eatery, hence he would chat with the boss, if the boss ain't as busy. so that's when we found out that the tenant was probably going to sell the place. However, it was only on last saturday, their second last day, did i realise the notice they have put up on the walls, that they were closing! technically even though they are moving to another shop space, the ambience is still going to be vastly different. Upon discovering that they were going to close, we actually decided to eat there again in the night! quite stupidly, i didnt bring my camera in the night, hence i resorted to using my xperia z to snap all these photos.

you know sometimes we just simply assume that these 'treasures' of singapore would stay, however we are grossly wrong man. its the same idea as us treasuring our loved ones but of course different contexts. I find it particularly vintage and nostalgic, when i get to know of a tenant who is currently using the old shophouse is actually the original tenant. The way they do things, the designs of the insides, the stains on the interiors, thats what makes up the vintage nostalgia of a building.

oh God i think my camera didnt focus well. :S sorry!!
THIS
is called preserving heritage, having stained walls, having worn out wooden tables, not to mention having those good old foldable tables and plastic red chairs.
NOT
simply repainting the exterior (awful colours by the way) and changing the first floor to massive glass panels, repainting the insides and air conditioning the entire place. The only difference between these transformed shophouses and modern hotels is the exterior.

Its like during primary school or secondary school, when we are educated on the history of singapore, all you see are dark interiors, filled with screens depicting the times when the Singapore river was so muddy, you get statues of coolies working hard, you get all the clanging sounds as though people are still working, you get (very) clean versions of mock-ups of how things used to look in the past, you get the typical touristy package. Apparently that's how the government flows eh? However on the ground when i ask the people about the heritage of singapore, everyone's voice seem to resonate in the same chord: to keep these places, like 'dong ya', alone. The very idea is to keep every single aspect of it the same, even more so when such a fixture is actually present before the war. PLUS it hasnt changed hands. Until now.


now this is called the kind of heritage that we should be preserving, the tiles, the fans, the lightings, the furniture, the hooks on the wall used to hold the ropes. instead, i'm pretty sure that three months later when i walk down this aisle, it will be probably decked out with massive glass panels on the sides, the floor tiles outside redone, the rain covers that are rolled up would be gone. In fact you know what? the good old tables and chairs would be gone and so would the people.

the many frequent customers of theirs feel extremey sad that this place is never going to be the place where it used to be, as they slowly recounted the times when they brought their univeristy mentors here to eat and enjoy coffee, they good old friends from overseas to have meals. Despite being surrounded by boutique hotels, by nicely done-up pubs, boutique shops, this eatery is the gem. Some things are just left best untouched, without any air con, no fancy plates, no fancy decorations, just give us the good food. In fact, without all these fanciful things is what makes the dining experience even more rustic. :)

somehow every photo of mum doesnt seem glam. -.- sorry mum!!

So now comes the question, when is it the right time to draw the line, in the name of preserving singapore's history? In my opinion, if the government is serious about preserving our history, they should consider stepping in to prevent these gems of singapore from being missing. From what i know, the boss rents the place from the tenant, however a foreigner (not going to disclose nationality) have given a really good price, so boss has no choice but to move out, to a unit further down the road. So then again, we have foreigners coming into the picture, buying up these units and causing these gems to be gone. crudely put it, its akin to these foreigners stealing  the heritage of singapore. I agree that such cases are isolated and few to mention, however it is also because of this that's why the government should step in to protect whatever that is left of Singapore. With rapid urbanisation, we soon see these unique eateries being gone, instead, because of branding, you see coffeeshops looking pretty much the same, every shopping mall probably have the same stalls too. Example, if you want milk tea in Singapore, where do head to? Share Tea, Gong Cha, Koi. If you want coffee, you have TCC, Starbucks, Coffeebean.

Oops sorry for digressing, but what i want to bring across is that if the Singapore government is truly keen on preserving the heritage of Singapore, then they should step up efforts in preservation works or introduce/revamp policies. Just my two cent's worth, instead of pouring in money to constantly maintain the structures of old buildings in Singapore, the government can probably reimburse the tenants instead, to ensure that the original tenants remain, or review case by case the changing of hands of such units and intervene if needed to.

Currently status quo, the old national library in town is gone, and i used to frequent that place in the past, borrowing books and eating there. Now, this eatery is also another treasure of singapore that is to be gone. oh but this time, to a foreigner. Is it just me or is the anti-foreigner sentiment in Singapore rising? erm the national library died to a tunnel. photos of the old national library:



on one hand, i am glad to have been able to dine at such a wonderful eatery at such a wonderful place, but on the other, i am saddened that as Singapore advances into a vibrant city, such a wonderful eatery would be gone too.

I really do pity that the children of Singapore would close to never be able to experience first hand, the old Singapore.

good bye Dong Ya, you would be missed.
14/08/2013