Friday, December 10, 2010

Foong Seong Building Since 1931

Foong Seong Building, or some call it Foong Seong Villa, is a 3-storey old building in Laxamana Road. Located diagonally opposite to Lam Look Ing Bazaar, building like this back in years of 1930's is considered grand scale in Ipoh. And I realize there are quite a number of relatively big buildings in Ipoh completed in year 1931. I believe that was the time where this little small town experienced a leap in urban development. Back to talk about Foong Seong and the building. He was one of the famous tin miners in Kinta Valley. Most of his mines were located at south-west Ipoh, in the area of Pusing, Tronoh, Papan & so on. Just like other major tin miners, he had contributed a lot in Ipoh town development including the establishment of Sam Choy Primary School, which was once operating at top floor of Foong Seong Building. The ground floor of the building still occupied by shops but the upper floors are believed to be vacant. It looked poor even from the exterior, we can see some windows are only covered by alumimium plate. With its strategic location in the heart of city, it should not be ignored of its potential to be a restaurant, heritage hotel or even civic hall because it used to house a Chinese opera theater in the past.

5 comments:

  1. Hello. I have been to your city. Your photo shots look beautiful. Somebody should preserve the old buildings for remembrance and for tourism.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you Ho! Yes, preservation of heritage is crucial because it's the best treasure we can pass it on to coming generations to learn history in physical, but not only from books & pictures.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm currently working on an article to promote Ipoh and was attratced to your description of the Foong Seong Building. Your pix evokes nostalgia (the passing by of a black and yellow taxi) and I wish to seek your consent to publish the pix in my magazine should the need arises. Thanks in advance. Drop me a mail at cheahcs2001@yahoo.co.uk.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello Chor Sooi, I am glad that you like the blog. I have dropped you an email. Pls check it out. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Foong Seong is not Hakka He is from gu gang zhou canton

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts with Thumbnails