Behind shophouses selling designer furniture and Italian cuisine lies a maroon leather chair, a cracked mirror and a marble-finished cabinet. At this back alley of Tanjong Pagar, a sturdy green canvas tied to water pipes and air-conditioning grills shield the trio from the afternoon sun and the gaze of the financial district’s skyscrapers.The made-in-Japan chair sits along the alley’s double-yellow line, a traffic marker that prohibits parking. But street barber Lee Yoon Tong insists the relic from his former salon is not going anywhere else.
"I want to serve my old customers," he says in Mandarin while sweeping up locks of hair strewn along the lane. "They still look for me, so I don’t want them to run around looking."
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