The Raffles Hotel changes, but endures

By John Nelson
Columnist
During a boyhood visit to Memphis, I recall sitting at a table in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel. It seemed
like a gigantic space at the time and watching the events unfolding around me was exciting. That
experience left me with a fondness for the grand lobby design.
Years later, I would find the grand lobbies of Oriental hotels more fascinating since they allowed the
visitor a glimpse of scenes and characters even more colorful and diverse.
Since the Raffles Hotel in Singapore was my favorite of the Far Eastern hotels, I read with great interest
reviews of the hotel after a recent restoration that I stumbled across on the internet. Accounts os this
latest renovation made me think about all the changes the hotel has seen over years.
The Raffles I first visited in the 1960’s was certainly different from the hotel that had existed in the 1880’s
when such notables as Rudyard Kipling and Joseph Conrad were guests. But it probably much
resembled the hotel as it appeared in 1942 when Japanese troops were swooping down on Singapore.
Knowing that they’d soon be bound for POW camps, the trapped British expats converged on the Raffles
for a last taste of good food and drink before gathering in the lobby to sing “There’ll always be an
England.”
It seems the Japanese were captivated by the hotel. Instead of torching this blatant symbol of European
colonialism, they moved in, and until Japan’s defeat in 1945, the Raffles housed Japanese officers and
dignitaries.
For many years, the lobby experience at the Raffles extended into an adjoining watering hole called the
Long Bar. As the name implies, the room contained a long, polished, teakwood bar with an old-fashioned
brass foot rail and a number of rattan tables and chairs.
The bar’s claim to fame was that a Chinese bartender in 1915 had concocted a drink dubbed the
Singapore Sling. This gin-based, pink-colored, overly-sweet cocktail has never been that popular
internationally, but its name recognition has brought countless tourists into the Long Bar to order the drink
in the very spot where it originated.
That was the hotel that I occasionally visited through the 60’s and 70’s with my visits becoming more
frequent in the 80’s when assigned to a ship based at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Singapore was
one of the gateways to the island, and with daily flights into Singapore and only a couple of charter flights
a week to Diego Garcia, one could often finagle a couple of days in the city.
Singapore had been on the upswing when I first visited and it has continued to flourish. As a confined
city-state at the tip of the Malay Peninsula, it has limited space for expansion, so there has been pressure
to replace older colonial structures with more space-efficient modern buildings. It soon seemed to city
leaders that any space containing a historic building could be put to better use – yes, that does sound a
little like Batesville.

Sometime around 1986, I heard that the old Raffles was to be demolished, but fortunately by that time,
there were enough folks determined to save some of the colonial structures from the city’s past. The
following year, the Raffles Hotel was declared a national monument.
My last experience at the old Long Bar was in late 1988 when I met some friends there who lived in
Singapore. As we sat around drinking cold Tiger beers and enjoying the unique blend of hotel guests,
locals, and tourists, my friends advised me to enjoy the experience since the hotel was closing the next
year for a major renovation, and rumors were that things wouldn’t be the same when it reopened.
The Raffles was closed for more than two years, and during my transit through the city, I would snoop
around the hotel to check out the renovation. I learned that the new owners intended to restore the hotel
to the elegance of the early 1900’s and to attract well-heeled guests willing to pay for the experience.
And that pricey experience couldn’t be spoiled by streams of tourists tromping through to order Singapore
Slings at the Long Bar.
The Long Bar had to go, but it couldn’t go very far since there was the incentive to sell tank car loads of
the pink drink at an exorbitant price. So the famous bar was moved to the second floor and towards the
back of the hotel where it could be entered from the hotel’s shopping arcade.
A look at some photos of the recent renovation depicted beautiful spaces painted in the signature white of
the hotel. The Long Bar appears to be in the same space it occupied following the 89-91 restoration.
The bar’s furnishings were familiar, just new and glitzy, but then the old faded but comfortable plantation
decor had disappeared years ago.
I’m not likely to visit the Long Bar again, so it's probably best to remember that visit with friends in late 88.
I recall how they would roll their eyes when some male tourist would order a Singapore Sling. As old
Singapore hands, they knew it was a ladies drink. It was concocted for the benefit of wives and
daughters while the menfolk sat around drinking gin flavored with lime and whiskeys imported from the
U.K.
But I don’t mean to suggest that males ordering the drink are effeminate since over the years I’ve downed
a few myself.

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