GEORGE TOWN, June 9 -- If you have stayed at Seven Terraces, Muntri Mews, Muntri Grove or Jawi Peranakan Mansion – all located in George Town – you are sure to have been charmed by the beautiful Peranakan furniture and antiques on the premises.
What's more, many of those exquisite items are not copies but actual antiques collected by George Town Heritage & Hotels (GTHH) founder Chris Ong.
The hotelier grew up listening to Peranakan stories told by his Nyonya grandmother so when he purchased a Straits Chinese heritage building in George Town as a home, he restored it to its former glory and furnished it with Peranakan flair with some Chinoiserie thrown in.
This year, Ong decided to recreate the romance of the Straits Chinese in some of the rooms within his spacious double-storey home along Muntri Street and open it to specially selected guests.
Each month, about a dozen guests selected from hotels under GTHH will get a chance to visit Ong's home for an evening of Peranakan stories and a meal.
The house was used as a grocery shop for many years before an antique collector bought it.
“I walked into the building just as they started the restoration work and bought it on the spot from the antique collector who happened to be someone I had known for many years,” he said.
That was 12 years ago.
Ong maintained most of the original features of the house. The front reception hall is a traditional take of how the opulent Straits Chinese would receive their guests: mother-of-pearl chairs and matching side tables and the centrepiece, an elaborately carved gold-painted screen to separate the reception area from the living area.
There is also an altar that Ong’s late neighbour gave him with a request that he continue to pay respects to the deity that came along with it.
When the elderly woman died, Ong purchased her unit and maintained the house's traditional kitchen complete with its original firewood stove.
We joined Ong's guests at one of the recent home visits; Ong walked us through the house while talking about Peranakan traditions before we headed upstairs to a recreated Straits Chinese wedding room.
Over the years, Ong has amassed an amazing collection of Peranakan wedding beds, some of which are used in guest rooms at Seven Terraces.
“I didn’t realise I had collected quite a number of these beds, including a confinement bed too, so I decided to recreate a Peranakan wedding room in my house so guests can get a feel of what a Peranakan wedding chamber was like,” he said.
The Peranakan wedding bed, in its gold carved magnificence, gleams like a jewel in the room decorated like it would have been in the 1920s.
The windows are covered in heavy European-style valences, a throwback to the Peranakans fondness for European decorations.
All sorts of wedding items are displayed in the room; everything from hand-sewn beaded Nyonya shoes to red and black rattan baskets called sia narh in Hokkien that were used to deliver dowries and offerings.
In this room, Ong recounted a few of the traditional practices at Peranakan weddings and showcased the items used such as a comb that the mother would use to comb the hair of the bride the night before the wedding day.
The last part of the visit is to the kitchen in the next door unit. The kitchen was maintained in its original condition with minimal changes.
The wood fire stoves are now outfitted with gas stoves but the kitchen is still in full operational condition and this is where dinner was prepared.
As is typical of Ong’s creative flair, the kitchen was given added character with a collection of colourful tiffin carriers lining the top of a cabinet on one side while the wall behind the stove is an explosion of enamel trays and plates.
The home visit ended with a casual dinner of Peranakan fare at the dining room complete with antique cutleries and porcelain from the 1880s.
At one of the previous home visits, guests were even taught how to roll their own popiah.
Ong said the meals for each month differs so that it will be a different experience for different guests.
The “At Home With Chris” event is held on a monthly basis and open only to GTHH guests. Find out more at www.georgetownheritage.com.
