page_title: Lim Chin Tsong
section_title: Chin Tsong Palace
hierarchical_section_title: Lim Chin Tsong / Chin Tsong Palace
caption_attribution_description: English: Lim Chin Tsong palace aka Kokkine palace, Rangoon, Burma.
context_page_description: Lim Chin Tsong was a Burmese Chinese tycoon and merchant, with business interests ranging from rice to oil. Throughout his career, he served as the sole partner of Lim Soo Hean & Company, originally established by his father, a Chinese emigre to Burma.
  During his own lifetime he was known as the most successful Chinese merchant in Rangoon. He entertained the social elite of the city in lavish parties hosted at his residence, Chin Tsong Palace, and gave generously to charities, including a hospital, a temple, and several schools. In modern Yangon, he is mostly remembered for the sudden and mysterious circumstances of his bankruptcy and death.
context_section_description: Between 1915 and 1918, Lim built a lavish residence in the Golden Valley area of Rangoon at a cost of over 2,000,000 rupees. The building includes a mixture of Eastern and Western architectural styles, and its five-story tower was built to resemble the Fu Xing Pavilion in the Summer Palace, in Beijing. Building material was imported from both China and Italy, and foreign artists were employed to decorate its interior. The most notable artists to work on the building included the English painters Dod and Ernest Procter. The fusion of Chinese and Western architectural elements was not unusual in other British colonies with strong Chinese communities (such as Penang and Melaka), but was unique in Rangoon.
  The original name of the property was "Mount Pleasant", but after it construction the property became popularly known as "Chin Tsong Palace". After the construction of Chin Tsong Palace, Lim and his wife regularly threw lavish parties and entertained the social elite of Rangoon. The most notable guest entertained by Lim at the residence was Georges Clemenceau, who visited Burma in 1920.
  During the Japanese occupation of Burma, from 1941–45, the house was the headquarters for a Japanese radio station that broadcast propaganda, the "All Burma Broadcasting Station". Following Japan's defeat the house was owned by an Indian businessman, before being nationalized by the newly independent Burmese government in 1950. After the Burmese government took ownership of the house, they turned it into a guesthouse and changed its official name to "Kanbawza Yeiktha". In the late 1960s the building was converted into a hostel for female students attending the Institute of Economics and the Rangoon Arts and Science University, which were nearby. Today, the house is used as an office and arts school by the Fine Arts Department of Myanmar's Ministry of Culture.
  In 2015 the Chin Tsong Palace was designated a heritage site by Myanmar's Ministry of Culture. It is undergoing renovations and, as of 2017, remains open to the public. The renovations are scheduled to be completed in 2018, on the 100th anniversary of its construction. After the renovations, the Ministry of Culture plans to open the space as a cultural center.
caption: Lim Chin Tsong Palace in 1920
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