A Visit to Ignatius Chew Museum - Kim Tan Discovers Her Roots

At the Chew Museum. Kim Tan with hubby Danny Cheung and daughter Naomi

It took one visit to the Ignatius Chew museum for Kim Tan to realize that her family was large.

  

Kim Tan lives in Singapore and visited Ipoh recently. It was a casual visit with her husband Danny Cheung and daughter Naomi to savor Ipoh’s good food and to find some family history.

Not unexpectedly it was ‘family history’ which became the interesting point of the trip after visiting the museum.

She described it as a surprise for her while her husband was ‘very impressed’ and her ‘7 year old daughter Naomi was excited and fascinated that the family was popular’.

Kim Tan is the grand-daughter of Yeoh Ghim Seng, the son of Yeoh Khuan Joo and Winnie Khong Sau Meng the daughter of illustrious Dr Khong Kam Tak

“My grandparents were from Ipoh and moved to Singapore 70 years ago and settled there. I have never stayed in Ipoh. My grandmother Khong told me stories about Ipoh but they were just names without pictures.

She described her grandmother now 99 years old as very alert for her age and does a lot of things on her own.

Before I came up to Ipoh I researched about the museum and its location. I hadn’t announced my visit and on the day when I dropped by I was lucky that Ignatius was on hand to open the door and explained the family to me.

Going through the museum I never realized I belonged to such a big family, much too large for me to remember all the names.  

Kim described the museum as very interesting and informative and discovered that both her great-grandfathers have street names named after them.

I visited the homes of my great grandparents. Sri Maju office’s was where my Yeoh great grand parents lived. The staff very kindly allowed us to go upstairs of the building.   

Naomi at Sri Maju the former home of her great great grand parents the Yeoh's.  

A road name of another great great grandfather, Dato Khong Kam Tak in Ipoh

Sadly the Khong family home that used to be on Gopeng Road was torn down and is now an Indian restaurant. I took pictures and videos at both locations to show to my grandmother.

Kim thanked Ignatius for putting in the long hours to piece together the family tree and plans to visit again next time hoping to get in touch with more relatives and of course to savor the Ipoh food.

JAG