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The riveting true story of Singapore's hidden royal palaces: 
Istana Woodneuk and Istana Tyersall







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The Mystery and Mastery of Tan Yeok Nee (Part 1)

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Introduction: The Life and Times of Tan Yeok Nee Tan Yeok Nee is a towering figure in the history of 19th-century Johor and Singapore. He started out as a youthful immigrant from China, enduring indentured labour on his arrival in Pahang. He eventually became one of the most powerful men in Johor and Singapore during the 1860s-1880s. Today he has streets named after him in Johor Bahru and buildings that bear his name in Singapore. More fundamentally, however, we see everyday the successful economies of Johor and Singapore and the ever improving livelihoods of their inhabitants. Although he played a major, and foundational, role in creating this phenomenon, relatively little is known about him. This is the first post I have published in some months in the on-going story about the writing of  Palace of Ghosts . The reason for the break is that when I first had the idea to include a post on Tan Yeok Nee, who is an important yet secondary character in Palace of Ghosts, I imagined that...
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A Night Like No Other: Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor's Grand Ball at Istana Tyersall in 1895

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With the launch of  Palace of Ghosts: Singapore’s Untold History , (available now on Amazon), I wanted to share a highlight event that features prominently in the story.  Click Here to Buy the Paperback Book In 1895, Sultan Abu Bakar hosted a grand ball to celebrate, in an ostentatious fashion, the opening of Istana Tyersall—a momentous occasion marking not only the opening of Istana Tyersall, but also the launch of a new royal dynasty, one officially recognized by Britain’s Queen Victoria.  There are no known photographs of the Sultan's grand ball, but this depiction of a European royal ball, painted by Wilhelm Gause in 1900, showcases a scene that would have been recognizable to attendees of the Sultan's grand ball at Istana Tyersall in 1895. Throughout his life, Abu Bakar was fixated on inheriting the sovereign title of the defunct Johor-Riau Sultanate: Sultan of Johor. The new state of Johor had been under his firm control for decades by the time he finally achieved h...
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The Mystery and Mastery of Tan Yeok Nee (Part 2)

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Fresh off the Boat: New Friends in Singapore When the youthful Tan Yeok Nee first befriended Abu Bakar at his father’s residential compound at Telok Blangah in Singapore, neither of them could have known how transformational the friendship and, later on, the partnership would become. Those days were, however, still a long way off when Tan first stepped off the boat and onto the shores of Malaya and Singapore. Among immigration societies like Hong Kong and Singapore, there so often appears to be an inverse relationship embedded in the origin stories of how staggering wealth sprouted from humble beginnings: the more successful a tycoon eventually became, the more desperately eccentric his debut in the world of business seemed to be. Hong Kong’s Li Ka-shing starting out as a street vendor of plastic flowers comes to mind. However, it’s not just unique to immigrants nor to Asia: the 1960s entertainment sketch “The Four Yorkshiremen,” immortalized by England’s Monty Python off-beat comedy t...
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