Farewell Funan: Thank you for the memories

SINGAPORE — For 31 years, it has witnessed gadget trends and computer upgrades come and go.

Come Thursday (June 30), the Funan DigitaLife Mall will be shutting its doors for an upgrade of its own — its biggest ever, in fact. The mall's owner, CapitaLand Mall Trust Management, announced last December that Funan will close for three years to be re-developed into an “experiential creative hub”.

In a three-part series, TODAY speaks with several long-time tenants and their employees about their memories of Funan, and what the mall means to them.

Funan is my ‘second home’
Josephine Soh, 61

While many old-timers claim Funan as a "second home", few can top Madam Josephine Soh's intensely personal ties with the mall.

She was among the "pioneers" who started working at Funan Centre, the mall's original name, when it first opened in 1985. On May 16 that year, she was working in Funan till a few hours before her son’s delivery.

"I wanted to be in the office every day," said Mdm Soh, who first worked at Golden Shine, a consumer electronics store in Funan set up by her then-employer and his wife. “I worked as per normal, knocked off, went home in the evening and later took a cab to the hospital. I only took my maternity leave the next day.”

When her employers retired in 1992, she moved to Cristofori Music School in the same mall where she has been working since as a sales staff.

Asked to describe what it was like working in Funan in the 1980s, Mdm Soh said the tenants then were “close like family members” and even shared home-cooked food with each other. Back then, the mall sold more than just IT products, and had tenants selling shirts, CDs and even mahjong sets.

Her family is also intrinsically connected to the mall, despite her insistence on separating work and family time. In the mid-90s, for instance, her son attended Cristofori’s speech and drama classes. For the past three years, her daughter’s young children have been attending weekly music lessons at Cristofori.

Mdm Soh will continue to work at Cristofori when the music school relocates to Liang Court on Thursday. She is sad to leave Funan, but at the same time upbeat about a move to a new environment.

“I hope to meet new friends and challenges. I don’t think it will affect the business in any way as most of the students have agreed to follow us, as it’s very near to Funan,” said Mdm Soh.

Her wish for the new Funan mall is for it to revert to the “good old days” when it had an eclectic mix of shops, not just those focused on IT products. And ever sentimental about the mall, Mdm Soh said it would not be a final farewell when it closes on Thursday.

“It will definitely come back after three years right? So we will still see Funan,” she added.

From secretary to boss
Mary Ann Wong, 64

Mdm Wong had zero knowledge of computers when she and her husband got their keys to Micro Interface within Funan Centre in 1984. Three years later, her husband decided to work at a computer assembly company, and handed the keys to Micro Interface to Mdm Wong.

Not one to back down from a challenge, she quit her job as a secretary in an engineering firm selling boilers in 1987, rolled up her sleeves and began devoting all her time to running the company.

Over the years, the company has changed its business a few times. It started as an assembler of personal computers, under the brand Micro Interface. However, by the early 90s, the company decided to resell computers made by other companies instead because this was less labour-intensive.

Back then, the mall was very busy, she recalled. “In those days, the mall was abuzz with people, every day it was so crowded.” There were so many people that some days, she had to stop people from coming into her store so she could serve customers already inside.

But within a decade, even reselling computers became too hard. Because things became so competitive, by the late-90s they became a concept store selling Targus products like laptop bags and cables, which they continue to do to this day.

Mdm Wong originally planned to enjoy a well-earned retirement after news about the closure of the mall broke, but her many long-time customers urged her not to throw in the towel.

It was because of these customers, whom she now considers her very close friends, that she is still carrying on. Once Funan shuts down, she will move the business over to a small shop on the fifth floor of Sim Lim Square. “A small place but we still exist,” said Mdm Wong.

A shutterbug’s paradise 
Vincent Chay, 45

Even before he started working at Funan, Mr Vincent Chay was no stranger to the shopping centre. As a teenager, he was a regular at the mall.

“I used to buy my CDs from DaDa Records, which is not around anymore; during the 1980s, that was the fastest way to get the latest music,” he recalled. “And the former food court at Level 7? Carona Chicken started from there.”

Eventually, his passion for photography led him to pursue a career as a senior sales representative at Alan Photo — and just like the mall’s outlet, he has been there since day one, 12 years ago.

Ironically though, since he started his job at the camera shop, he has been so swamped with work that he has not found the time to engage in his favourite hobby.

While some might think of Funan as a place to shop for cameras and accessories, this is a fairly recent phenomenon, according to Mr Chay. “When we first came, there weren’t many camera vendors around. It was about five to six years ago that a lot of camera shops came to the same building… If you want to get a camera, this is the best place to shop,” he said.

Funan’s reputation as a place to buy camera equipment was why Nikon Singapore chose to launch its D750 DSLR camera in the mall in 2014. It was the first time ever that the Japanese camera maker had a two-storey setup within a shopping mall in Singapore, a first for Funan as well, according to Nikon Singapore.

The multi-day event saw professional photographers give talks to attract shutterbugs to the launch. There were even fire jugglers and taiko drummers.

After Funan closes on Thursday, Alan Photo plans to move staff and products temporarily to their other outlet in Sim Lim Square. However, they intend to relocate the Funan store to a permanent new location at Raffles City by next February.

A ‘photographer’s candy shop’
Leon Wee, 28

As an 18-year-old Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts student majoring in photography, Leon Wee’s interest was piqued by a tiny photography-focussed bookstore tucked away in The Adelphi. In need of some extra cash, he decided to work there part-time.

Fast forward a decade and Mr Wee, now 28, still works at Riceball Photography Bookstore. The difference, however, is that he is now the shop’s manager.

The store moved across the street to Funan Digitalife Mall in 2007 because it attracted more foot traffic.

Mr Wee noted that Funan is one of the better-known IT malls in South East Asia, and does attract people from all over the region. “The business got better definitely, and we gained many customers who became good friends who come down weekly to chit chat with us,” said Mr Wee.

Today, Riceball Photography Bookstore carries more than just photography-related books. Affectionately known as a “photography’s candy shop”, it sells camera accessories such as straps and bags as well as carry a selection of Leica lenses and secondhand cameras.

Part of a photography boom that hit Funan about a decade ago, Riceball and other camera vendors in the building such as Click! Cameras and Alan Photo have moulded the shopping centre into a one-stop “camera/photography playground” for photography enthusiasts — and created a closely-knit community of like-minded “good friends”.

Funan’s centralised location makes it a good gathering point for photographers.

“The photography enthusiasts doing street photography are all around in this area: Boat Quay, Clarke Quay, Little India and Arab Street. Funan is a nice spot to meet for coffee before and after they go out to shoot,” he noted.

Come this Sunday, Riceball will operate out of nearby Peninsula Shopping Centre. But this move is likely to only be temporary as his boss has his heart set on returning.

“We are definitely planning to come back to Funan after three years, if they going to cater the mall to be a IT/camera mall,” said Mr Wee.

The challenge ahead 
Loo Pei Fen, 34

When Ms Loo Pei Fen first started working at Funan, she was a 12-year-old girl helping out her dad in his shop. The name of the store? Challenger.

Of course, being just 12 back then, she was not allowed to do very much. She did help at the cash register though, packing away purchases into plastic shopping bags for shoppers.

“In those days ... the only way you know whether something is selling out before the end-of-day reports is seeing what people are putting into them (the plastic bags),” she recalled. 

Ms Loo officially started working at Challenger’s Funan outlet after she graduated from university in 2004 and today, she is Challenger’s Chief Marketing Officer.

Challenger is hard to miss at Funan, occupying most of the top floor. However, it was not always a 53,000 sq ft behemoth.

In 1985, Mr Loo Leong Thye (Ms Loo’s father) opened his first store in Funan. Called Symphony, it was only 160 sq ft and it sold software and computer accessories. Within a decade however, Mr Loo had expanded his business considerably and owned multiple stores in Funan. He decided to consolidate them all on the top floor of the mall and that was how the megastore Challenger was born.

Over the years, Challenger has expanded and it now has close to 50 outlets around Singapore. Between 2011 and 2012, they even experimented with opening around the clock at their Funan outlet. However, they couldn’t find enough people to work across the shifts and so they had to go back to regular retail hours.

With the mall’s closure, Challenger is not looking to replace its Funan outlet with an equally large store somewhere else. After June 30, all the company’s retail staff who are now based at Funan will be deployed to other branches. Instead of setting up another large physical store, Challenger is looking at going online in a big way. 

In fact, it was the news about the three-year closure of Funan that gave them the impetus to kick their plans “into high gear”. This year, they launched an online marketplace called hachi.tech where people can buy almost anything they can find at a brick-and-mortar Challenger store.

Ms Loo is a big believer in e-commerce. “Today if I close a 50,000 sq ft stall, I’m able to stock up 10 times, 20 times the products online and reach a lot more customers, not just locally but overseas,” she said.

Some new features they are looking to introduce into their digital marketplace are options for same-day delivery, pre-orders, lucky auctions and integrated online activities. 

However, the online store is only meant to complement a mall experience, not replace it, she said. She believes that the human touch is still necessary, as is the experience of seeing a product in person, holding it, touching it and trying it out.

Given that she practically grew up at Funan, Ms Loo will be sad when the mall closes. “Funan and Challenger are synonymous — they represent the best of each other,” she said.

Watch our Facebook live video of Funan's farewell party: 
http://bit.ly/funanfarewellparty

Get a 360-tour of Funan taken before it closes for three years: 
http://bit.ly/funantour