CHINESE BUSINESSES OF COLOMBO FORT

by Ifham Nizam-2022/06/10

In this series of interviews on Colombo’s heritage, we cover the Chinese businesses of Colombo Fort with the help of Historian Asiff Hussein, the Author of The Great Days of Colombo.

Q: In your book ‘The Great Days of Colombo’ you have covered many Chinese businesses that thrived in Old Colombo. It seems they did quite well. What was the reason for Chinese settling here and how come they did so well in business?

A: I guess the Chinese who settled here had their reasons. Although not much known, the Chinese of old had great business acumen, which explains why ethnic Chinese have done so well in business in countries like Malaysia and Singapore. The Peranakan or Straits Chinese found widely in South East Asia have been traders perhaps for centuries.

Those Chinese who arrived in Ceylon must have done so for fear of foreign invasion after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in the early 1930s and political turbulence at a time when Communism was making inroads under Mao Zedong. It’s interesting to see that all those who arrived here did so before the revolution of 1949 that led to the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. Being business people used to free enterprise, they must have seen the writing on the wall and decided the time had come to look for greener pastures elsewhere.

Most migrants who arrived here seem to have come from Shandong and Hubei provinces in the Chinese Mainland. Those that came from Shandong were mostly textile merchants while those who hailed from Hubei generally made a living as dental mechanics. Most seem to have arrived here during the inter-war years of the 1930s and in the World War II years and immediately afterwards, at any rate before the country achieved independence in 1948.

They settled in various parts of the island including in Colombo and even Jaffna where they peddled their wares or practiced their trade. In Colombo, they settled in areas like Slave Island and Maradana with a good many going on to establish hotels and restaurants in Colombo Fort. Chinese fare was very popular even back then.

Q: What were these Chinese restaurants in Fort called and what were they like?

A: These were mostly to be found in Chatham Street and York Street and seem to have dominated the culinary landscape of Fort. If one is going to say that food is the most important thing, then one might as well say they dominated the Fort. These restaurants seem to have sprung up beginning from about the WW II years or not long afterwards.

Free China Hotel was one such hotel and restaurant. It stood on York Street and must have taken its name as a protest against communism that was then making inroads in mainland China or who knows as a rallying cry against the Japanese invasions of the time. It was known from about the mid-1940s or maybe even earlier and seems to have had its heyday in the 1960s. It was most popular for its noodles served with sliced green chillies. Surprisingly, it offered as many as 500 dishes and ice creams “Ceylon’s Best” coming in as many as five flavours. It even hosted weddings including those of local Chinese couples when it would serve traditional Chinese fare such as pork and pumpkin soup. Another somewhat popular restaurant on York Street well known in the 1970s was Chinese Victory Café. It suffered a fire in 1963 but seems to have survived for a long time afterwards. Interestingly this restaurant too had a name with political undertones. Victory is not a name a hotel usually bears. Nectar Cafe at the corner of York Street and Bailey Street thrived in the 1960s and 1970s. It served a variety of good food including occidental fare like sandwiches, cakes, puddings and ice creams offered with fruit salad. It was basically a self serving restaurant where customers would pick their choice and form a line to the billing counter to pay for it, before taking their seats placed around half a dozen tables or so to enjoy their meals.

Q: You also mentioned Chatham Street as a Chinese culinary hotspot. What were they like and what did they offer?

A: Yes, it was Chatham Street that had most of the Chinese restaurants in Fort. These included Nanking Hotel which was the most popular of the lot, Peiping Restaurant, Peony Hotel later called Orchid Restaurant and the Mandarin Tea Rooms. They all seem to have had their best days in the 1960s and 1970s. Our fascination for Chinese food is nothing new. They had it back then too and it must have been really good. Nanking Hotel was placed at the corner of Chatham Street and Queen Street. Nanking was named after the Chinese city of Nanjing which is alternatively rendered as Nanking which is still best remembered for the infamous massacre by the Imperial Japanese army that invaded China. Who knows, perhaps it was named in memory of its victims. The hotel was most famous for its prawn-mixed fried rice, but also served Chinese fare like noodles and soups. It was run by the family of Yu. Foreigners frequently patronised the spot, particularly sailors and passengers of ships that used to call at the Colombo harbour. Nanking must have been quite old really and founded in the 1950s if not earlier. It is even mentioned in a book by James Jacobs titled From the Imjin to the Hook. A National Service Gunner in the Korean War (2013). Speaking of Colombo where they landed, he says: “Many of the restaurants did not look too clean, so we decided on a Chinese establishment called The Nanking. Not being familiar with the pedigree of the pig that had gone into the sweet and sour pork, what part of the crustaceans the prawn balls had been extracted from, or what chops had been cooked in the chop suey, we stuck to good solid British fare and ordered fish and chips. We hoped that the waiters would not realize we were on our way to kill some of their fellow countrymen”. The reference to their fellow countrymen is interesting because it obviously refers to the Chinese soldiers who were fighting alongside their North Korean allies. Then there was Peiping Hotel on the other side of Chatham Street closer to York Street. This is where the Fort Pilawoos Hotel later came to be. It was best known for its delectable crab dishes. It was run by the Kao family. I was told it had a jukebox where diners could insert a coin and select their songs from a list. A mechanical arm would then spring to action to get the record out and play the song.

Q: Besides restauranteering, what were the other trades the Chinese in Fort engaged in?

A: Silks and textiles of course. The silk industry in China has been known for thousands of years. Chinese tradition holds that it was Empress His Ling Shi who discovered silk as far back as 2640 BC. In fact, the making of silk was a well-kept secret confined to China for more than two thousand years.

Thus it is not surprising that the Chinese here dealt in silks and textiles. Several such shops were found in Chatham Street. I came across one that still survived a couple of years ago, though I’m not sure if it’s still there. It was called The New Chinese Shop and despite its name was actually quite old. It had been around since the early 1940s or according to some accounts the early 1950s. The shop was set up by the Chang family as a tailoring and curio shop but later became best known for its school uniforms, having given up selling traditional Chinese ornaments some time ago.

Further down, towards York Street and housed in York Building I found the Vogue Corner which was started in the 1950s if not earlier. It dealt in a variety of garments. Midway between these two and on the same side of the street was China Silk Stores which flourished in the 1950s 1960s and 1970s before closing shop around the 1980s. Shanghai Silk Stores on the other side of the street near the De Mel Building met a similar fate as did Eastern Silk Store further down towards Queen’s Road. It’s fascinating to know that certain parts of Fort was a kind of Chinatown though not as large as the true Chinatowns one comes across in places like San Francisco, touted as the largest Chinatown outside of Asia which I visited in the Summer of 2010 and found to be a most colourful place. One can only imagine how vibrant Fort must have been back then with its many Chinese hotels and silk shops.