[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/beyond-generations-the-enduring-and-nostalgic-appeal-of-heartland-shophouses\/#NewsArticle","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/beyond-generations-the-enduring-and-nostalgic-appeal-of-heartland-shophouses\/","headline":"Beyond generations: The enduring and nostalgic appeal of heartland shophouses","name":"Beyond generations: The enduring and nostalgic appeal of heartland shophouses","description":"It can be difficult to discern where work ends and family time begins for the Lim family at Cheong Ann Watch Maker. After all, 60-year-old David Lim, his 58-year-old wife Sally Neo, and their 29-year-old son Shawn can be seen often hunched over, meddling with clockwork mechanisms at their workstations in the corner of their […]","datePublished":"2022-01-17","dateModified":"2022-04-15","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/ler-jun-sng\/#Person","name":"Ler Jun Sng","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/author\/ler-jun-sng\/","identifier":320,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/96c2c5ed54668ff02cc041326a58a56424181d9285b8f54cd192dd573e876ae5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/96c2c5ed54668ff02cc041326a58a56424181d9285b8f54cd192dd573e876ae5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"TheHomeGround Asia","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/photo_2021-07-22-222533.jpeg","width":640,"height":640}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Credit-Ler-Jun-and-Tung-Pham_Featured-Image-1.jpg","url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/Credit-Ler-Jun-and-Tung-Pham_Featured-Image-1.jpg","height":900,"width":1600},"url":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/beyond-generations-the-enduring-and-nostalgic-appeal-of-heartland-shophouses\/","about":["Community","Local","Singapore"],"wordCount":2036,"articleBody":"It can be difficult to discern where work ends and family time begins for the Lim family at Cheong Ann Watch Maker. After all, 60-year-old David Lim, his 58-year-old wife Sally Neo, and their 29-year-old son Shawn can be seen often hunched over, meddling with clockwork mechanisms at their workstations in the corner of their quaint shophouse along Lim Tua Tow Road in Upper Serangoon.Cheong Ann Watch Maker is located at Lim Tua Tow Road in Upper Serangoon.\u201cThe shop was founded by my grandfather in 1947,\u201d the younger Mr Lim says, motioning to the two porcelain plaques hanging on the wall. They have the shop\u2019s name and the year it was founded inscribed on them. \u201cHe used to be a coffee boy, but somehow picked up the trade from a clockmaker in the vicinity where he worked,\u201d he adds.Two generations of watchmakers are documented in this portrait at Cheong Ann Watch Maker.Having spent the bulk of his childhood playing around the shop with his older sister and brother, and observing the trade from up-close, the younger Mr Lim\u2019s decision to join the family business in 2015 straight after completing National Service was \u201ca no-brainer\u201d. For the third-generation scion, being confined to his workstation and surrounded by grandfather clocks and antique timepieces kept him grounded, focused and taught him how to appreciate his own possessions.Mr Lim, his father, remembers having the boy within sight to keep him out of trouble when he was younger. Recalling his son\u2019s mischievous nature, Mr Lim says: \u201cWhen I taught him (the trade), I had to be stern and harsh. I had to push him. And probably since he\u2019s from the generation who knows how to use the Internet, he picked up the trade quickly.\u201dMr Shawn Lim is the third-generation owner of Cheong Ann Watch Maker.On what he adores most about his profession, the younger Mr Lim finds it fulfilling whenever he successfully repairs a client\u2019s timepiece. But the most satisfying for him is being able to work his magic on a faulty collectible and fix it. “That feeling that you get when you are able to repair a watch that no other watchmaker can is great,\u201d he says.\u00a0Cheong Ann Watch Maker is one of many neighbourhood or heartland shops in Singapore that is still owned and managed solely by members of a family. With roots that go all the way back to the late 1980s or early 1990s, each of these shops often specialises in a unique trade or service and has seen generations of patrons come and go.At Anthony The Spice Maker, Mr Anthony Leow and Ms Leow Min Ling are the two faces of the brand. (Credit: Tung Pham)A similar narrative is told at Singapore\u2019s pioneer speciality spice blend store Anthony The Spice Maker at Kreta Ayer Road. Established in 1986 and previously under the moniker \u2018Liao Jia Xiang Trading\u2019, Anthony The Spice Maker was founded by Anthony Leow, a second-generation spice merchant, and presently managed by both he and his daughter Min Ling.According to Mr Leow, the shop was born during a time when residents were evicted from their dilapidated kampungs (Malay for villages). Among those who moved were his parents, who were spice merchants and Mr Leow grew up following his father\u2019s footsteps, learning the tricks of the trade along the way. But he harboured bigger ambitions then.From interacting with housewives and grannies, who had approached the duo for customised spice mixes, Mr Leow learned the different recipes and their corresponding special blends. Being entrepreneurial and shrewd, he tapped on the family kept secrets of these women, and along with his own knowledge of spices, created unique blends for popular recipes, and marketed them at local supermarkets.\u00a0\u00a0Mr Leow is the second-generation owner of Anthony The Spice Maker. (Credit: ATSM)Like the younger Lim, Ms Leow, 28, spent a huge part of her childhood tagging along with her father as he walked the supermarket aisles and visited factories. Like her own father, she picked up the bits and pieces of the spice trade from such exposure and constant interactions with housewives. Recalling her earlier years talking to customers at her father\u2019s shop, she says: \u201cBecause I was fairly young, they would sometimes doubt me. I have never been afraid and I knew I needed to prove myself eventually. It took some time but I eventually convinced them that I know my spices.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Ms Leow says when she was a child and into her teenage years, she had never thought of working for her father in the trade. It was not until after she graduated from university that her father broached the subject with her. \u201cThat got me thinking. I could be helping my father and still be doing what I love. More importantly, I didn\u2019t want my father to be running the business alone,\u201d says Ms Leow, who now handles communication, personal relations and marketing at the store.\u00a0The diversifying neighbourhoods where these shops reside rarely gives their owners a pause. Often, families managing them have to grapple with arbitrary changes on the go. These include rental hikes, en bloc sales, or even seemingly insurmountable challenges when bigger players dominated the market in the vicinity.While there have been several who succumbed to the ebb and flow of business and economics, there are many more who continue to display resilience, passing their legacies on to the next generation.\u00a0This has never been truer for 51-year-old Mr Lee Chin Siong, the third-generation practitioner at Heng Foh Tong Medical Hall, and his family.  \u00a0\u00a0The interior of the Heng Foh Tong Medical Hall.In past decades, the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) scene in Singapore has been dominated by large industry players, such as Eu Yan Sang, Hockhua Tonic and ZTP. They are in many major departmental malls and HDB neighbourhoods, taking over from the smaller Chinese medicinal halls that used to be in every corner of the community.\u00a0Determined to carry on the legacy that was established by his grandmother Ng Sock Eng and making TCM relevant today, Mr Lee, a retired engineer, came out of semi-retirement to rebrand the family business.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mr Lee is the third generation worker of Heng Foh Tong Medical Hall.\u201cHerbs are gentle (products) that can harmonise whatever is going on in your body,\u201d he says, highlighting how he and his family grew up consuming a variety of herbs that have been incorporated into their daily meals. \u201cA lot of youths don\u2019t know what we do, but herbs are known to target the roots of many ailments,\u201d he adds.A family portrait of the three generations at Heng Foh Tong Medical Hall.Nestled within the crowded estate of Bukit Batok in the western part of Singapore, Heng Foh Tong Medical Hall takes on an unassuming shopfront, but its interior is brightly lit and adorned with modern tech gadgets. Sleek LED light panels that are void of dust and cobwebs illuminate the shop, while electric fans with no blades oscillate above to ventilate the space.The extensive wooden cabinet is a family heirloom that houses loose herbs.One half of the store resembles a provision shop, where shelves are filled with daily essentials, such as body soap, baby pacifiers encased in plastic wrappings and cans of breakfast cereal, while the other half a traditional Chinese medical hall, where herbs are either stored in glass jars or loosely kept in their own compartments in an expansive wooden herb cabinet. \u201cThis (wooden shelf) has been around since my grandmother\u2019s time and it was handcrafted by Shanghainese craftsmen in 1957 to conserve and maximise the space to house over 600 herbs,\u201d Mr Lee says, gesturing towards the well-maintained family heirloom behind the counter.\u00a0New blood, new solutionsMdm Chye Nyuk Lian, Mr Lee\u2019s mother, handpicks herbs for her customers.Mr Lee, who only took over the reins of marketing and commerce strategy at Heng Foh Tong Medical Hall in 2019, reveals that part of his rebranding efforts include upgrading the amenities within the store. Besides the new LED light panels and bladeless fans, he intends to replace the medical hall\u2019s rusty display racks with ergonomic ones for his elderly parents. He has also come up with an enterprising business strategy that targets mothers, who have recently given birth. It is a bespoke confinement package comprising a melange of nutritious herbs that are handpicked by Mr Lee\u2019s mother, Mdm Chye Nyuk Lian.\u00a0\u00a0The HFTea series is a new series of herbal tea launching at the medical hall.Being forward-lookingWhen Covid-19 hit, many firms were forced to undergo rapid digitalisation and distribute their services to a growing group of online consumers. Fortunately for all three brands, having the prescience to create a digital domain ahead of the pandemic helped the businesses pivot well during the lockdown.\u00a0Heng Foh Tong Medical Hall is located at Bukit Batok in the western part of Singapore.Where other businesses would scramble to scour for vendors and set up a landing or social media page, Anthony The Spice Maker, Cheong Ann Watch Maker and Heng Foh Tong Medical Hall had already created an impressive social media or digital presence. Anthony The Spicemaker boasts a modern-looking web page with a strong brand identity, and Cheong Ann Watch Maker was featured multiple times on digital publications, while Heng Foh Tong Medical Hall took to the Shopee space to increase its sales funnels.\u00a0\u201cIt has always been my father\u2019s vision to go digital,\u201d Ms Leow says. \u201cHe knew going online was the way into the future and nudged me to lead the copywriting and designing parts of things.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cAs we went online, social media was a natural progression that came down the pipeline. We have now engaged a digital marketing company Firstcom Solutions to help us scale our social media game,\u201d Mr Lee says.If anything, technology has been an enabler. And Ms Leow, who has since moved to Switzerland for love and has frequent calls with his father via Zoom, can attest to that.\u201cI am presently doing research on the European market, and my dad and I have been on Zoom calls to discuss possibilities of extending Anthony The Spice Maker here,\u201d she says.What the older generations sayEach family that runs its own business usually has its own set of cultures and rules to abide by. When new blood injects new ideas into an ecosystem that has been traditional and conservative for too long, resistance will surface and internal stakeholders will face familial pressures.\u00a0When Mr Lee voiced his interest in digitalising Heng Foh Tong, his parents were surprised. \u201cTo be honest, my husband and I are semi-retired. We never really had many expectations that our kids would run the medical hall. We never thought (our son) would be interested,\u201d Mdm Chye says. \u201cBut we ultimately let him do what he thinks is best.\u201d To which, Mr Lee reveals that his parents\u2019 initial concern revolved around unnecessary spending but he continues to reassure them that he would only spend if there are \u201cgrants to ease the financial burden\u201d.Working alongside each other, the father-and-son duo at Cheong Ann Watch Maker are known for their extensive collection of grandfather\u2019s clocks and for repairing clocks.\u201cI am always pushing Shawn to bring Cheong Ann Watch Maker to the next level. He is the face of the brand now. I will support him,\u201d the older Mr Lim says. \u201cBut ironically, I would also always tell him: \u2018Don\u2019t get too popular\u2019.\u201dIn any case, how the present scions interact with their family members is reflective of the tight-knit chemistry they have with one another. Blurring the lines between an employee and an employer, the younger Mr Lim, Ms Leow and Mr Lee have had the opportunities to learn from the previous generations. As they continue to banter about in refreshing candour or qualitative criticisms with their parents and offsprings, they are remoulding the very DNA of the family brands to befit the tastes of the next generation of clients.\u00a0Join the conversations on TheHomeGround Asia\u2019s Facebook and Instagram, and get the latest updates via Telegram."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Destinations","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Singapore","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/\/singapore\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Beyond generations: The enduring and nostalgic appeal of heartland shophouses","item":"https:\/\/thehomeground.asia\/destinations\/singapore\/beyond-generations-the-enduring-and-nostalgic-appeal-of-heartland-shophouses\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]