Monday 16th March, Singapore

Christine Peeris née Moss is my fifth cousin once removed, and today we met in Singapore, where she was born and has lived all her life - without ever crossing any other national border, not even to Malaysia! She is a very proud citizen, who has of seen the growth of a nation, in the last 70 years, from I-(Anna)-am-tbh-not-sure-what-but-very-underdeveloped to the wealthy, fashionable, international hub that hosts (and relies on) every possible global brand for its face and its success. Christine picked us up by taxi with a carefully planned itinerary to fill the following 7 hours, and filled the air everywhere with her constant patter of admiration for what we were seeing as we travelled. Some of our questions she even also managed to answer in between her 'look at that!'s and 'isn't that wonderful's!
We saw lots of the city from the car. These were the most important in Christine's plans for us:
Eurasian Heritage Centre (closed on Mondays, darn it)
Mulligatawny soup - would have been Eurasian Centre chef Quentin's but 'Closed on Mondays' counts for soup as well as exhibition. So we ordered it at:
Fullerton Hotel, grand and beautiful, one of the early iconic buildings of the city. The soup is thick, curry-ish, rice at the base and chicken lumps in the sauce. I remember similar from childhood, do you? I thought it was Indian, but Christine insisted it is a Eurasian historical staple.
A 'Welcome to Singapore' chocolate cake she had secretly arranged for Jun, her fave waiter, to bring us for dessert.
Christine has a quirky sense of humour and likes to tease. In the hotel foyer (where lunch is served), when discussing with the waitress which table to take, she was muttering under her breath that she "bought table 27 for S$57000". But she could not quite find it where 'her table' should have been, so we took whatever table it was that was near enough to her favourite position next to a particular palm plant. She was so keen on this one plant I am surprised she hadn't 'bought' that too! She had of course not 'bought' the table, ever, for any amount; they are not for sale. Was this Singaporian comedic improv in full swing?
History exhibition at the Fullerton Hotel - the Singapore Post Office was once housed here, on 3 floors.
The Merlion, mythical mascot of Singapore
Anderson Bridge and Cavenagh Bridge
Tiffin Rooms - another joke: the famous Emmerson's Tiffin Rooms, opened by my g-g-grandfather in 1866, were located in buildings now no longer in existence. In her tour guiding 'reccy' Christine had spied an ice cream man with his little ice cream stand, just on the north side of the Cavenagh Bridge, and decided to declared this to be as close as anyone can tell to the original restaurant. She confused the poor little man by asking if he sells tiffin ice cream; but for S$1.50 I did buy a yam ice cream, the most unusual flavour available.
National Gallery, Old Supreme Court , Victoria Concert Hall, statues of Stamford Raffles (the founder of modern Singapore) and ...

... and this: a monument of an elephant on a column, commemorating the occasion of the visit of the King of Siam to Singapore in 1871. Now, we happen to know that this auspicious event was a grand dinner catered by the best chef of the time: no other than our aforementioned g-g-grandfather Charles Emmerson! And as it happens, this too took place on March 16th: a nice coincidence.

Another cool story to wow the grandkids with!

So our family relationship has been established, in a fun day with a fun lady. Christine has promised to send more details of her family tree research - she preferred to not discuss details today, and apparently others of her family are not keen to divulge private information at all so may need more careful persuading - and I will send her our side of the story. It seems there are more records available in the UK than in Singapore. Internet-savvyness also really helps.Leggi altro