百味松如
1921-1993
Twenty Days in Singapore: The 1987 Footage
From August 8 to 28, 1987, Chen Songru led eight master chefs — six from the Beijing Sichuan Restaurant and two from Xiangshan Hotel — to Singapore to present "State Banquet of Sichuan Cuisine," and the whole city took notice. Until now, this site held only five photographs and a single menu page from the event. Now, a videotape sealed away for more than three decades has been digitally restored and released for the first time — moving footage that fills the exact gap the still photographs could not: what he actually did on an international stage, how he taught, and how he spoke on behalf of an entire cuisine. The clip in Unit 07 of him speaking into a microphone — confirmed by his family to be his own voice — is, in particular, the only known recording of his voice in any publicly available material to date.
How Singapore Received Him: What They Said About This Chinese Chef
◈ "China's National Treasure of Sichuan Cuisine"
The title that would come to accompany Chen Songru's name was given by the Singaporean press during this very trip in 1987. For a chef who had come out of rural Ziyang, Sichuan, these twenty days marked the first time his skill was framed by international coverage not as "a good chef," but as the representative figure of an entire national cuisine.
Nanyang Siang Pau / Sin Chew Jit Poh, Aug. 4, 1987 · scanned original clipping
Sin Ming Daily News, Aug. 4, 1987 · scanned original clippingHonest Boundaries
"China's national treasure of Sichuan cuisine" was an honorific given by the local Singaporean press at the time of the 1987 event. Lee Kuan Yew's in-person visit is corroborated by independent material; his specific remarks are currently found only in the biography manuscript, and this site labels each claim according to its level of evidence, as it does throughout. For more clippings, see the News page.
From Beijing to Singapore
In August 1987, 66-year-old Chen Songru led eight master chefs — six from the Beijing Sichuan Restaurant, two from Xiangshan Hotel — from Beijing across roughly 4,500 kilometers to bring "State Banquet of Sichuan Cuisine" to the tables of Singapore's China Restaurant. It was the single most important international trip of his life.
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Aug. 4, 1987 · A Prelude
Four days before the opening, Singapore's Sin Ming Daily News and Nanyang Siang Pau / Sin Chew Jit Poh both ran feature interviews the same day, introducing readers in Singapore to the Sichuan master chef who had "cooked for Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping" (originals and coverage in Unit 00).
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Aug. 8, 1987 · Opening
"State Banquet of Sichuan Cuisine" opened at Singapore's China Restaurant. A banner at the venue marked the run of dates "8-8-1987 ~ 28-8-1987," a joint presentation by Singapore's China Restaurant, the Beijing Sichuan Restaurant, and Xiangshan Hotel.
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Aug. 8–28 · Twenty Days
For a full twenty days, Chen Songru and his team presented state-banquet-level Sichuan cuisine every day — footage, photographs, and menu materials of the venue, kitchen, and ceremonies are woven together by theme in Units 03–07.
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Aug. 28, 1987 · Closing
The event closed to great acclaim across the city; the local press hailed him as "China's national treasure of Sichuan cuisine." Back in Beijing, he continued working at his post on Xirongxian Lane No. 51 for six more years.
Honest Boundaries
No archival record survives of the team's day-by-day schedule; the timeline above has been reconstructed from press publication dates and the run of dates shown on the venue banner. The flight route shown is illustrative — the actual flight and any layovers remain uncertain.
The Story of a Videotape
Among the videotapes kept by his family, one (28 minutes 8 seconds total, PAL format, 720×576) fully captures footage directly related to the 1987 Singapore trip. In 2025, the family sent the tape to a professional facility to be transferred to digital files; in August 2026, this site de-interlaced, denoised, and organized the transferred master into chapters, and presents it here for the first time.
The video is a transfer from a home VHS tape, and its picture quality has the limitations of its era. This site has only de-interlaced and lightly denoised the footage — no AI enhancement or frame interpolation has been applied, preserving the archival footage as it is.First-hand artifact
The Venue & the Menu
Footage · A Tour of the Venue
05:40 · Segment 00:00–05:40"State Banquet of Sichuan Cuisine" was jointly presented by Singapore's China Restaurant, the Beijing Sichuan Restaurant, and Xiangshan Hotel. The camera opens inside the restaurant, past dragon-motif decor, sweeping across an English-language newspaper report headlined "State Banquet of Sichuan Cuisine" posted on the wall, the banquet table setting, and a piece of calligraphy dedicated "to Singapore." About five and a half minutes in, a red-bordered dish nameplate appears — "家常紹子海參" (Home-Style Minced-Pork Sea Cucumber) — beside the event's panda logo: this signature dish of Chen Songru's stood on the Singapore banquet table under its original Chinese name. The menu booklet was especially distinctive: it printed his biography, a menu that treated the chef himself as the protagonist.
The event venue banner, showing the run of dates and "presented by Chen Songru and eight master chefs"
An inside page of the banquet menu, bilingual — corroborated by the dish nameplate seen in the footage
The first page of the menu booklet, printing Chen Songru's biography
The second page of the menu booklet, with photographs of the dishesBehind the Scenes in the Kitchen
Footage · Behind the Scenes in the Kitchen
08:00 · Segment 05:40–13:40According to Chen Songru's own memoir, the eight master chefs on this trip were made up of six from the Beijing Sichuan Restaurant and two from Xiangshan Hotel. This is the densest chapter of the whole film in terms of information: woks catching fire, sauces bubbling, several pans running at once, noodles being pulled and sauced, dishes being plated — every step of the Sichuan kitchen's 1987 operation is captured on camera. The rhythm of heat control, the pace of turning out dishes, and the division of labor within the team — none of it visible in a still photograph — is laid bare over these eight minutes; the principle of quick stir-frying and the mastery of heat described on this site's Craft & Dishes page find their most vivid illustration here. This is, as far as is known, the only surviving footage of this team's kitchen in action on an international stage.
The Team & the Dishes
Chen Songru with the team, posing with a panda mascot — the still-photo version of the round-table scene in the footageFootage · The Team & the Dishes
03:50 · 13:40–17:30The panda was the event's mascot, appearing on dish nameplates, promotional materials, and group photos alike. In the footage, the white-hatted chef team sits at a round table beneath a panda banner alongside the organizers — the moving-image version of the still photo shown at right. What follows are close-ups of the finished dishes and bilingual dish nameplates ("Sichuan Cold Noodles / SICHUAN…"), which can be cross-checked against the Digital Archive.
Guests & Speeches
Chen Songru warmly shaking hands with guests from the organizing sideFootage · Guests & Speeches
05:00 · 17:30–22:30Four days before the opening, two newspaper interviews had already told Singapore's readers the story of a chef who had "cooked for Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping" (see Unit 00). On opening day, guests wearing name badges filed in one after another, and the speeches given in front of a dragon-motif wall panel were recorded in full — the identities of the speakers have not yet been individually verified and are archived here as they are, pending identification; anyone with information is welcome to get in touch via Community.
The Toast & the Curtain Call · Chen Songru's Own Voice
A moment during a walk through the venue, with guests applauding warmly — corroborating the atmosphere captured on filmFootage · The Toast & the Curtain Call
05:38 · 22:30–28:08A toast, a final bow, applause — the film closes with the host's parting remarks in front of a peacock-feather screen. The senior chef who takes the microphone to speak is Chen Songru himself, and this is his own recorded voice (confirmed by his family) — the only known recording of his voice in any publicly available material. Twenty days later, the title "China's national treasure of Sichuan cuisine" traveled back to Beijing along with him.
Beyond the Footage
His twenty days in Singapore earned him the title "China's national treasure of Sichuan cuisine" from the local press. Back in Beijing, he kept working at his post on Xirongxian Lane No. 51 for six more years, until the very last day of his life. For more artifacts and records of this chapter of his life, follow these threads onward.