Old Thong Chai Medical Institution
Encyclopedia
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, and is located at Eu Tong Sen Street
Eu Tong Sen Street
Eu Tong Sen Street is a one-way road located in the central part of Singapore in the planning areas of Outram, Singapore River and Bukit Merah...
in the Singapore River Planning Area, within the Central Area
Central Area
In Singapore, the Central Area or Central Business District contains the core financial and commercial districts, including eleven urban planning areas, namely Downtown Core, Marina East, Marina South, Museum, Newton, Orchard, Outram, River Valley, Rochor, Singapore River and Straits View as...
, Singapore's central business district
Central business district
A central business district is the commercial and often geographic heart of a city. In North America this part of a city is commonly referred to as "downtown" or "city center"...
.
The building was constructed in 1892, and housed one of the best known Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
charity
Charity (virtue)
In Christian theology charity, or love , means an unlimited loving-kindness toward all others.The term should not be confused with the more restricted modern use of the word charity to mean benevolent giving.- Caritas: altruistic love :...
medical centres
Clinic
A clinic is a health care facility that is primarily devoted to the care of outpatients...
in Singapore. Traditional Chinese doctors
Traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to a broad range of medicine practices sharing common theoretical concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage , exercise , and dietary therapy...
or sinsehs used to dispense free treatment and medicine
Medication
A pharmaceutical drug, also referred to as medicine, medication or medicament, can be loosely defined as any chemical substance intended for use in the medical diagnosis, cure, treatment, or prevention of disease.- Classification :...
to patients of all races in Singapore. Today, it is used as a commercial
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
building for the Singapore office for Forever Living Products
Forever Living Products
Forever Living Products International, Inc. is a Scottsdale, Arizona-based direct selling company that sells aloe vera and bee derived drinks, cosmetics, nutritional supplements, and personal care products in over 145 countries. Forever is the world's largest grower, manufacturer and distributor...
.
History
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
s got together to set up Singapore's first traditional Chinese medical
Traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine refers to a broad range of medicine practices sharing common theoretical concepts which have been developed in China and are based on a tradition of more than 2,000 years, including various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage , exercise , and dietary therapy...
institution for the poor. These compassionate men saw an urgent need for a charitable organisation that provided medical
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
advice and assistance to those who could not afford to pay for it.
Thong Chai dispensed free medical consultation, treatment and herbal medicines to the poor, regardless of race or religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
. Its sincere efforts were appreciated and recognised and more benefactors joined its ranks. They came from all Chinese communities: Cantonese
Cantonese people
The Cantonese people are Han people whose ancestral homes are in Guangdong, China. The term "Cantonese people" would then be synonymous with the Bun Dei sub-ethnic group, and is sometimes known as Gwong Fu Jan for this narrower definition...
, Hoklo
Hoklo people
The Hoklo people are Han Chinese people whose traditional Ancestral homes are in southern Fujian of South China...
(Hokkien), Teochew, Hainanese and Hakka
Hakka people
The Hakka , sometimes Hakka Han, are Han Chinese who speak the Hakka language and have links to the provincial areas of Guangdong, Jiangxi, Guangxi, Sichuan, Hunan and Fujian in China....
.
Initially, Thong Chai operated out of a small rent
Leasing
Leasing is a process by which a firm can obtain the use of a certain fixed assets for which it must pay a series of contractual, periodic, tax deductible payments....
ed shophouse
Shophouse
A shophouse is a vernacular architectural building type that is commonly seen in areas such as urban Southeast Asia. This hybrid building form characterises the historical centres of most towns and cities in the region.- Design and features :...
on Upper Pickering Street, then known as Upper Macao Street. It was then called Tong Chay Ee Say. In 1892, it bought the building at 50 Eu Tong Sen Street, with which it has become most strongly associated, and changed its name to Thong Chai Medical Institution.
From this building, Thong Chai continued to serve the poor and sick but it also became a centre for business
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
and political
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
activities. Several clan
Clan
A clan is a group of people united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. Even if lineage details are unknown, clan members may be organized around a founding member or apical ancestor. The kinship-based bonds may be symbolical, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor that is a...
associations set up their headquarters there; the Chinese Chamber of Commerce was conceived in this building, and its first office operated there until 1906 when it moved to its own premises. In the early years of the twentieth century, when political tensions between China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
rose high, Chinese loyalists held public meetings at Thong Chai to garner support for their motherland.
Thong Chai Medical Institution is now located in a ten-storey building in Chin Swee Road, carrying on the Thong Chai tradition much in the way of its predecessors.
The Old Thong Chai Medical Institution was gazetted as a national monument
National Monuments of Singapore
National Monuments of Singapore are buildings and structures in Singapore that have been designated by the Preservation of Monuments Board as being of special historic, traditional, archaeological, architectural or artistic value....
on 6 July 1973.
Commercial history
The late 1990s saw the building first becoming a nightclubNightclub
A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...
and later a number of restaurant
Restaurant
A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...
s. In 2000, the building was acquired by Tung Lok Group and the building became a restaurant known as Jing. Not long after its opening, the group revamped its concept and named it Asian. Both restaurants proved to be unpopular, and it closed down in 2003 due to SARS
Severe acute respiratory syndrome
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome is a respiratory disease in humans which is caused by the SARS coronavirus . Between November 2002 and July 2003 an outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong nearly became a pandemic, with 8,422 cases and 916 deaths worldwide according to the WHO...
outbreak. The building was unused for around two years and it was converted into its current use in 2005.
The building is currently owned by Forever Living Products Intl, a healthcare company that uses purely aloe vera for its product. They are the world largest grower, manufacturer and distributor of Aloe Vera.
They bought over the building from the government in 2005 for SGD7million. The furnishing and such cost the company an additional SGD3million as they imported the antique furnitures from Malaysia and China.
Architecture
The typically southern Chinese building on Eu Tong Sen Street comprises three main hallHall
In architecture, a hall is fundamentally a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age, a mead hall was such a simple building and was the residence of a lord and his retainers...
s aligned on a central axis and separated by courtyard
Courtyard
A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. These areas in inns and public buildings were often the primary meeting places for some purposes, leading to the other meanings of court....
s and an air well.
In keeping with the social principles of southern Chinese architecture
Chinese architecture
Chinese architecture refers to a style of architecture that has taken shape in East Asia over many centuries. The structural principles of Chinese architecture have remained largely unchanged, the main changes being only the decorative details...
, the importance of the halls in the hierarchy of the building is reflected in the height of their ceiling
Ceiling
A ceiling is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limit of a room. It is generally not a structural element, but a finished surface concealing the underside of the floor or roof structure above....
s.
Another atypical feature is the roof
Roof
A roof is the covering on the uppermost part of a building. A roof protects the building and its contents from the effects of weather. Structures that require roofs range from a letter box to a cathedral or stadium, dwellings being the most numerous....
. Although the decorative elements on the roof ridge
Ridge (disambiguation)
A ridge is a geological feature that features a continuous elevational crest for some distance.Ridge may also refer to:-Science:* Ridge , a domain of the genome with a high gene expression...
are in the southern Chinese style, the ridge itself is not. Unlike the characteristic curve of a southern Chinese roof ridge, this one is completely straight. Decorating the roof are frieze
Frieze
thumb|267px|Frieze of the [[Tower of the Winds]], AthensIn architecture the frieze is the wide central section part of an entablature and may be plain in the Ionic or Doric order, or decorated with bas-reliefs. Even when neither columns nor pilasters are expressed, on an astylar wall it lies upon...
s of Chinese scenery executed in plaster
Plaster
Plaster is a building material used for coating walls and ceilings. Plaster starts as a dry powder similar to mortar or cement and like those materials it is mixed with water to form a paste which liberates heat and then hardens. Unlike mortar and cement, plaster remains quite soft after setting,...
relief
Relief
Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
work and wave-like gable
Gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of a sloping roof. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system being used and aesthetic concerns. Thus the type of roof enclosing the volume dictates the shape of the gable...
end walls.