The above shopping complex has upped Queenstown's X-factor in the 1960s and 70s by several notches. It houses Golden Crown Restaurant and a night club in the top level, the popular Tah Chung Emporium at the second and several smaller shops at the ground level. Before Tah Chung Emporium was completed in 1967, makeshift roadside markets along Margaret Drive and itinerant hawkers along Commonwealth Avenue blossomed. This new complex provided the residents with better hygiene, convenience and comfort as residents of Queenstown can now embarked on their shopping tours under airconditioned comfort.
Kamaruddin Hassan commented, "I'll always ask my mom every pay day to buy toys at the emporium and have ice kachang after that. That area nvr fails to bring bck my childhood memories everytime I pass by that area."
Jenn-Lee Ong recalled, "There was a bakery opposite the coffeeshop and a OUB bank behind, nearer to the bus stop. Tah chung emporium had a supermarket department downstairs and I remember there's a ice stall selling like slurpee where you can cut out a coupon-like logo to collect and exchange for stuff like T-shirts.
Patrick Samuel Chan mentioned, "It's a pity Golden Crown Restaurant is no longer around but at least they still produce mooncakes every year. Some of them are the traditional ones like lotus paste with melon seeds and they do have some 'newer' flavours like green tea but nothing too funky..."
Ng Wee Kiat said, "That's the place where I took my 1st step in collecting toys. I still have some of them in my collections I bought transformers there, which were mostly paid by my grandfather. I remember buying my 1st video game western bar and it's still in working condition."
The empty plot of land today is the former Tah Chung Shopping Complex
Landscapes refer to the repositories of the ways societies function at any particular time as different eras of human occupation and actions leave specific traces in the landscape that can be detected, recorded and examined. Tah Chung Emporium is our expression of physical processes, individual and collective actions. It may have been a piece of insignificant history to the younger generation today and most likely be worthless. However, as long as it remains a part of us, it is our collective memory.
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I bought white and pink pillow cases with beautiful cross stitch design from Tah Chung Emporium about 33 years ago and I'm still using them now. Not a thread from the cross stitch has come off and not a tear after 33 years
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