(This is a monthly letter from Baba Colin Chee to members and friends of the Association.)


Dear Nyonyas and Babas,

2021 Annual General Meeting & 2020 Challenges

2021 AGM
It is unbelievable how time has simply flown by, despite COVID-19.

Last July, we held our first virtual AGM.

Our next AGM is scheduled for Sunday, 25 April 2021, at 2.30 pm. It will be held virtually.

2020 Accounts
Our 2020 Accounts are in the process of being audited by a public accounting firm and the audited accounts will be tabled at the upcoming AGM.

Our Association’s finances continue to look healthy.

In August last year, your General Committee (GC) crystal-balled the public health situation yet again as COVID-19 took root in Singapore.

We risk-assessed right up to end-2021 and we were not optimistic.

33rd Baba Nyonya International Convention
We decided to try to recover hefty deposits made in 2019 for the convention even though we had, by then, already postponed it to 19th – 21st November 2021.

We owe a big KAMSIAH! to Nyonya Gwen Ong, TPAS’s Head of Events and our co-organiser for the Baba Nyonya Convention. She quietly succeeded in taking back a significant deposit in a manner that was also gracious. Her timing was immaculate.

We have started preparations for a downsized convention this year. Details will be announced when they are all nailed down in the coming weeks.
Suffice to say, tomorrow afternoon, we will have the historic first practice readings by Baba Ivan Heng as Emily of Emerald Hill in English and Baba GT Lye as Emily’s mother-in-law in Baba Malay. They will do so in the presence of widely respected director, Baba Alvin Tan, who will direct the play.

All three theatre practitioners, who are Peranakan Chinese, are Singapore national cultural award winners.

This coming together, for the very first time, of Singapore’s two iconic theatre artistes – Baba GT Lye in traditional wayang Peranakan and Baba Ivan Heng in contemporary theatre – in a once-in-a-lifetime play, The Matriarchs, will launch the Baba Nyonya Convention on Saturday 20th November 2021.

The Matriarchs, is not to be missed!

The Peranakan Ball, 120th Anniversary
We must also say a big THANK YOU! to Nyonya Peggy Jeffs, TPAS’s 1st Vice President and Chairperson of the Peranakan Ball Subcomm, for her clear-minded and determined effort to keep our accounts for The Peranakan Ball always in the black and anticipating the roadblocks.

Through Peggy’s example, the GC and I have humbly learnt and appreciate that producing a fund-raising Ball while resolutely keeping costs down but standards of ambience, entertainment and meaningfulness way up, takes a lot of experience, time, connections and fine calibration.

Despite postponing the Ball from 18th July last year to 15th May this year, we managed to retain the support and confidence of our 500 fully paid-up guests and friends who kept their reservations.

However, as was anticipated in last August’s situational review, we were correct in our pessimism that things would not likely return to normal in May this year.

At our request, then, Shangri-La Hotel had kindly let us book a back-up date of Saturday, 25th September 2021.

Your GC has decided to postpone the Ball, yet again, to September.

We had seriously thought to cancel the Ball but eventually decided to postpone it instead. This is because several members have indicated they would still like to continue to support the Association.

The Ball in September will also be reformatted and will be known as The Peranakan Dinner 2021.

We are not likely, under current regulatory guidance, to be allowed to have it in any public venue given the nature of the event and the number of guests involved.

We are presently finalising key details of the reformatted Ball and will shortly announce them to all our guests. We humbly seek your understanding here.

Be assured of one thing: For those of you who wish to withdraw from the dinner, TPAS will fully refund the amount you paid for the reservations. We fully understand your decision and are grateful for your support and patience for more than a year since you made your reservations with us in 2019.

If you wish, however, to donate a sum to TPAS, we would be most thankful.

Much of 2020 was spent re-scheduling and re-organising our 120th Anniversary Peranakan Ball as well as our 33rd Baba Nyonya International Convention to 2021.

The complexity of managing that experience because of the very fluid public health situation, funding uncertainties, and venue sponsorships cannot be understated.

I cannot thank enough my fellow members in the GC, our volunteers and supporters, our partners, and our members and friends who enabled this.

The Peranakan Magazine, 120th Anniversary Issue
We were also strenuously challenged to publish our 120th Anniversary magazine The Peranakan in 2020.

Hopefully, the long-awaited issue will be ready for delivery in a few weeks. On 4th March, the printouts of the final layout will be reviewed.

On behalf of the GC, I sincerely apologise for the repeated delays and thank you for your forbearance. We will update you once the magazine is ready for delivery.

One Nyonya wrote in recently to say: “Since it’s a special, worth it to take time to get it right as it will be durable.”

Concluding Remarks
My March Letter will address the virtual Annual General Meeting in April as well as the personnel changes within the General Committee that have taken place last month and this month.

There will always be that challenge to find individuals who are honest, tireless and creative, who are team players, and who will give unstintingly of their personal time, to join the GC and its volunteer teams.

Most importantly, who are committed to both the community and culture, and not themselves.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to ALL our TPAS volunteers in and out of GC, and both past and present.

Without them, TPAS will not be.

On this Chap Goh Meh day of the Lunar New Year, on behalf of TPAS’s General Committee, I wish each of you and your loved ones a resounding Selamat Taon Baru! Peng An Peng An!



Colin Chee
Keeping the Culture Alive
26 February 2021

Click here to send Colin a note