Cecil Rajendra - No Bed of Roses: The Rose Chan Story

Copyright 2013 Cecil Rajendra

Design by Bernard Go Kwang Meng / Cover art by Cover Kitchen Co Ltd

This edition published 2013 by
Marshall Cavendish Editions
An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International
1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196

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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Rajendra, Cecil.
No bed of roses : the Rose Chan story / Cecil Rajendra. Singapore : Marshall Cavendish
Editions, 2013.

pages cm

eISBN : 978 981 4484 64 0

1. Chan, Rose, 1925-1987. 2. Stripteasers Malaysia Biography. I. Title.
II. Title: Rose Chan story

PN1949.S7
792.7028092 -- dc23 OCN837061203

Printed in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd

This book is dedicated to the memory
of Lee Khai Hong a.k.a. Lee Ying
my Sifu/Guru in matters esoteric and subterranean
who first introduced me to Rose Chan
and later suggested i write her story.

Thanks are also due to Rebecca
who worked tirelessly to decipher my
longhand taugeh scrawl and knock the
handwritten manuscript into shape.

And finally to Christine Chong,
without whose prompting and prodding
this story might never have seen print.

CHAPTER ONE
Early days in China from Soochow to Singapore to Kuala Lumpur lessons from childhood cooking, schooling and making money!

CHAPTER TWO
Wrestling with pythons wardrobe mishap at the Majestic goes topless a striptease star is born!

CHAPTER THREE
The other Rose Chan master chef and charity queen fundraising dinner marriage to Nazier Rosminahs bedroom secrets!

CHAPTER FOUR
Bride at 16 Japanese Occupation husbands rejection dance hostess at the Happy World how she stole her name from Taxi-Dancer Chan-Chang to Queen of the Dance Rose Chan

CHAPTER FIVE
Strippers and statutes court battles in Australia and Singapore finding legal loopholes post-war permissiveness and post-colonial prohibition revisited

CHAPTER SIX
Deathwatch in Butterworth why she chose Penang as her last post SAKURA and a second lease of life Tiger Show at the Tin Miners Club everything revealed!

APPENDIX
Aphrodisiacs, arcana and accessories more Rose Chan recipes that song

Late one Monday afternoon, in the middle of preparing an affidavit, there was a knock on my office door...

Peeved at being interrupted, Enter! i barked.

The door opened slightly and in popped Lee Yings head.

Busy? he inquired, tentative.

Of course im busy. You cant see, ah?

Sorry, sorry... sheepishly he apologised and was about to withdraw...

Never mind, i said. Whats up?

You want to meet Rose Chan, ah?

It was so out of the blue i was taken completely aback...

Meet who?

Rose Chan lah, the dancer... you doan know, ah?

You mean the real Rose Chan... dont joke!

No joking, real Rose, one hunnert per cent... swear! You wan to meet or not?

Now Lee Ying was known as a bit of a joker... in Chinese business circles. He was also something of a legend among Chinese newsmen for being a fearless journalist during the British administration of Malaya. Rumour had it that he was forced to flee to China in the 50s because of his fierce anti-colonial stance!

Now in the 80s he had re-invented himself as a sharp, bush-jacketed housing developer. Our office was handling the legal paperwork of his building projects and he was first introduced to me as a good, honest client.

Later, as i got to know him better, i realised that he was not just a good client but a unique personality well-read, politically savvy, generous to a fault and gifted with a wicked sense of humour. i never could tell when he was sharing a morsel of confidential information or having me on.

Where? When? i stammered, still in a state of shock.

Lee consulted his watch. Now lah, in ten minutes... Rose arrive from KL this morning... stay in small hotel in Chulia Street... ask me to meet her. You can come or not? he clipped.

i hastily packed my brief, informed my burly turbaned chief clerk that i had some urgent business to attend to with Mr Lee, and rushed out of the office. In ten minutes we were knocking on the door of Roses hotel room; the hotel was no more than a three-minute drive from our law offices in Penang Street. Waiting for Rose to answer her door, i did not know what to expect...

Rose Chan had been part of my schoolboy fantasies for decades, but i had never got to see any of her shows. In the 50s, a group of us tried to sneak in while she was performing at the New World Amusement Park but were caught and thrown out by the jaga (security guard).

Shortly afterwards, i left to further my studies in Singapore and thence to London.

After my long sojourn abroad, i returned to find that Rose had long retired from the stage. Thus, the chance of ever seeing her perform live had been lost.

Now standing with Lee Ying before her door, my subconscious was half-expecting an approximation of the delicious Rose Chan of amusement park billboards, newspaper photographs and teenage fantasies.

Imagine then my horror when the door opened to disgorge this podgy, puce-faced, haggard, middle-aged woman. Rose Chan?! Definitely, Lee Ying was kidding... one hundred per cent!

Lee and Rose embraced like two long-lost friends, then started nattering away at the breakneck speed of two steam engines.

i was totally ignored.

After ten minutes of loud animated talk that sounded more like an argument, Rose bellowed something that sounded like You doan believe me! You doan believe me... Nah! and opened her blouse to reveal that her left breast had been removed leaving an ugly network of scar tissue.

We were still standing in the hotel corridor, stupefied. Cooly re-buttoning her blouse, Rose noticed my presence for the first time. Whos he? Rose asked Lee. Lee reverted to English, You say you wan see loyah, i bring for sister good loyah.

Rose muttered something about me being too young and then the two were back on track chugging and chattering away.

On our way back, we stopped at Lees printing press in China Street where he brought me up to scratch over a glass of Guinness.