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The Chee family ancestral altar, located on the mezzanine floor.
With bronze lamps affixed to the posts, the stairwell on the second level opens onto an expansive hallway.
A prominent element of the house is the intricate and complex set of stairs with rosewood treads that reaches from the ground floor upwards to the domed cupola soaring above. In effect, the staircase and landings create an open central atrium that extends the full height of the building. Several large, but now vacant, rooms are found on both the second and third floors.
The Chee family ancestral altar is located on the mezzanine floor between the ground and second floor, with tablets arrayed on tiers representing at least four generations.
The Chee family created the Chee Yam Chuan Temple Trust to fund and manage the maintenance of this historic structure as well as the burial sites of family members. According to a news report quoting Chee Swee Hoon, the Executive Chairman of the Trust, “the Trustees are also planning to set up a company with the aim of sharing the benefits with the Chee descendants, by way of offering them shares and dividends” (Wee, 1999). The public, while viewing the magnificence of its expansive outer courtyard, ornate façade, and towering spire, must come to realize that this imposing structure embodies more than what merely appears on the outside. The building is an expression of the Chee family’s identity, which straddles both the Chinese and Western worlds, transforming what some might see as only an abstract concept of intergenerational relationships into a material form.
Three large porcelain figures of Fu, Lu, and Shou, the Three Stellar Gods of Good Fortune, Emolument, and Longevity.
Painted on a porcelain plaque, this is a Chee ancestor dressed in imperial regalia.
A cast-iron detail along the top of the safe found in one corner of the entry hall.
A view from the topmost landing looking down through the stairwell to the entryway.
CHEE JIN SIEW HOME
MALACCA, MALAYSIA
Mid-19th Century
Details of the painted scrolls above the façade windows that include not only paintings of birds and flowers but also two pairs of characters meaning “Bright Mountains, Beautiful Waters,” a phrase commonly used in fengshui to indicate a favorable site.
The façades of townhouses lining both sides of Heeren Street remain a gallery of Malacca’s early twentieth-century élite. Parallel Jonker Street, on the other hand, once known for its mixed uses—gilded clan halls, a school and a theater, and an array of shophouses selling traditional as well as more modern goods—has undergone a metamorphosis. Today, many of the old structures are gone and replaced by venues such as cafés, pubs, and souvenir shops catering to the mass of tourists who flock to Jonker Walk, a rebranded nighttime bazaar launched by the city government. “Since 2000 Jonker Street has reeled under repeated assault: the depletion of a traditional resident community, in which the Straits Chinese are now reduced to a single family; the eviction of established traders and the demolition of their premises; the decay of heritage structures amid new campaigns designed to lure the indiscriminate tourist; the encouragement of more outlets peddling kitsch that already bristles along the road; and the sanctioning of yet more projects that misrepresent the street’s historic fabric. All have cost Jonker Street its soul” (Lim and Jorge, 2005: 80). Indeed, many who are concerned with the authentic representation of Malacca’s heritage have been saddened by this makeover. It is somewhat ironic that the English translation for Jonkerstraat, the original Dutch name for Jonker Street, is Nobleman’s Street.
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