Singapore, March 6, 2010 Entering the two-storey house of Mrs Amy Ong is like walking into a museum of Chinese antiques. Down a ground-floor corridor are eight specially made cabinets, each with 10 glass shelves, where 4,000 Chinese teapots of all shapes, sizes and colours are locked away. While the 63-year-old declined to reveal how much the collection is worth, she has paid as little as $15 to as much as $1,000 for a solitary teapot. The living room is also filled with porcelain figurines, traditional wedding baskets and jade pieces. Upstairs, there is even an Empress Dowager bed dating back to the 19th century. It is no wonder the place is full of these fascinating curios – the semi-retired realtor has been collecting Chinese antiques since the age of 17. “People find it strange that I am English-educated but I collect Chinese things,” says Mrs Ong, who lives in the house in Bukit Timah with her husband, son and mother-in-law. Three other children are working overseas. She has teapots of every conceivable design – from houses to ducks, boats to chairs. One teapot is shaped like a large peach and filled from an opening in the bottom – by some mysterious process, water does not leak out when it is turned upright. The cover of each teapot is carefully tied down with a red string or taped down with a small piece of tape. When asked which is her favourite, she replies with a laugh: “I love all of them.” The teapots are made of Zisha clay or purple clay, mined near the city of Yixing in the eastern province of Jiangsu. Unlike normal clay, Zisha clay is free of toxic materials such as arsenic. It also has a long lineage, being used to make teapots as early as the 10th century. Mrs Ong’s collection is the result of a 20-year love affair, which began after a trip to China where she first bought the teapots. She recalls: “I was fascinated by the teapots there. Each one is like a work of art and has the artist’s name on it. Just like with a painting, it becomes more valuable once the artist dies.” The works of famous masters such as the late Gu Jingzhou are highly sought after. Tea connoisseurs say that only one kind of tea should be consistently brewed in the same teapot, which should never be washed with detergent, in order to retain the flavour. After numerous brews, the outside of the teapot will begin to shine, while the inside becomes darker. This, in turn, will increase the container’s value. Most of the teapots in Mrs Ong’s collection have never been used to make tea, though – she uses only duplicates of the teapots to do so. For years, she has bought the teapots from shops in IMM and Coronation Plaza. Dealers also tell her when new stock arrives. Occasionally, she sees something in a book and asks for it to be brought in: “You will end up paying more this way but you get what you want.” Some of the teapots have been broken over the years, when the family moved house. Once, her cat even jumped onto the shelves and broke eight of the pots. She has become “very selective” about which teapots she buys now because she is running out of space – they are “overflowing” onto the tables and other cupboards. Most of the teapots will soon go into storage – the family is currently shifting to a condominium, and only her favourite ones will be taken along.
