located in leith street, the blue mansion was the home of one of the china's last mandarins and 1st capatalists, cheong fatt tze. arriving penniless from guandong and working as a water carrier, cft grew up to become a legend of rags-to-riches hakka entrepenuer.
the cheong fatt tze mansion was excellently restored to its authentic original form and now turned into a heritage boutique hotel and museum. visitors will be shown around on a guided tour for about an hour which conducted twice daily. the guide during my visit is a descendant of the 6th generation.
the mansion has 38 rooms, 5 courtyards, 7 staircases and 220 windows. the floorplan depicts the architecture of chinese courtyard house and features feng shui principle (with a brilliant fake earth element!). but the combination of gothic louvered windows, venetian shutters, chinese chien nien cut-and-paste porcelain work, stoke-on-trent floor tiles, scottish cast ironworks, art nouveau stained glass and victorian ceiling that turns it into a masterpiece of art. the indigo blue paint meanwhile doesn’t signify anything, it was just to be different from other buildings in that era where paint color was limited.
unfortunately, no photograph is allowed inside the mansion.
the restoration project won the unesco heritage conservation award 2000 and few other awards. the guide shared with us the difficulties during the project from finding the artisans to dealing with bureaucracy. crockery tax for the porcelain bowls which eventually to be broken for chien nien work?
at the end of the tour, we finally managed to have a look at tan tay po, the 7th wife and said to be one of the dominant wives. from the way she looks in those old photos, i would say so.
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