Last hurrah for 70-year-old Geylang mama shop

The Cheng Xing Provision Shop at 229B Geylang Road, which for more than 70 years sold items like cigarettes, vintage mugs and joss sticks, will open its doors for the last time this weekend.

The shop had closed down last year but there will be two guided tours on Sunday to pay tribute to the business and its owners.

The event is co-organised by media company Our Grandfather Story and social enterprise Geylang Adventures.

A video featuring the shop's former shopkeeper Madam Yeo Li Ying, 63, has been uploaded on Our Grandfather Story's Facebook page.

Visitors can read anecdotes from Madam Yeo about how they used a pulley system for their money tin, and how there was an attempt to rob them.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority's director of conservation management, Mr Kelvin Ang, will talk about conservation struggles in Singapore and the history of old shophouses.

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Old-school snacks such as fancy gem biscuits and glass-bottled soft drinks will be sold at the two-storey shophouse.

We felt it would have been a pity to just let this iconic old-school mama shop close down without a proper farewell. Ms Cheah Wenqi, one of the co-founders of Our Grandfather Story

Geylang Adventures founder Cai Yinzhou, 27, told The New Paper that Madam Yeo had shuttered for good last year, partly because of falling sales with the Liquor Control Act in 2015 and her husband's death in 2016.

The masters student at Singapore Management University said Madam Yeo had approached him for help to sell her items, as she had no space to keep them in her new Yishun home.

Madam Yeo was clearing out the remaining items in her shop on Tuesday when TNP visited. She declined to be interviewed.

Ms Cheah Wenqi, 23, one of the co-founders of Our Grandfather Story, said: "We felt it would have been a pity to just let this iconic old-school mama shop close down without a proper farewell."