Tan Kim Ching who happened to be Anna Leonowens, a young widow, looking for work to support herself and her two children. The story of the schoolteacher and the King of Siam has been made popular through the films "The King And I" (Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr) and "Anna and the King" (Chow, Yun Fatt and Jodie Foster). When the King and Queen of Siam landed in Singapore in 1890 they stayed at Tan Kim Ching's house, "Siam house", in North Bridge Road. It was reported that The King, who was expected to arrive in Singapore at Tanjong Pagar Wharf on board
Anna Leonowens the Long Island Historical Society, she lectured on subjects including "Christian Missions to Pagan Lands" and "The Empire of Siam, and the City of the Veiled Women". "The New York Times" reported: "Mrs. Leonowens' purpose is to awaken an interest, and enlist sympathies, in behalf of missionary labors, particularly in their relation to the destiny of Asiatic women." She joined the literary circles of New York and Boston and made the acquaintance of local lights on the lecture circuit, such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin", a book whose anti-slavery