View of Mandalay Villa

Her fame rests on her sociability and lavish entertainments. In 1920, she apparently met the king and queen at a garden party at Buckingham Palace, where she wore Chinese attire to great acclaim.

Her home, Mandalay Villa on Amber Road, built in 1902, was the setting for charitable and social events. Her parties mingled the British, Chinese, and Malay elite, with guests sometimes numbering several hundred. Her birthday dinner in 1931 was reported by local newspapers to have had more than 400 guests, including the Sultan of Johor, Singapore’s Chief Justice, and movie people. The entertainment included ronggeng, wayang, mah-jong, and fireworks.

It was at one such party at Mandalay Villa, held on New Year’s Eve, that Lee Kuan Yew proposed to Kwa Geok Choo. “Just before the party broke up, I led her out into the garden facing the sea. I told her that I no longer planned to return to Raffles College but would go to England to read law. I asked her whether she would wait for me until I came back three years later after being called to the Bar … She said she would wait. We did not tell our parents. It would have been too difficult to get them to agree to such a long commitment.”