This Used to be His Playground: Jian Yang’s Creative Journey Began At Chip Bee Gardens

He is the world’s second-largest Barbie doll collector. But this is not merely a toy story. It is also a story of love — for play, for creativity and for storytelling.

On November 23, we had the pleasure of hosting a panel discussion with Jian Yang, who also wears the hat of Managing Partner and Head of Strategy at Distilleri Group.

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For Jian, Chip Bee Gardens is a treasure trove of childhood memories. Here, countless afternoons were spent with his sister and cousin, transforming gardens, drains and pavements into imaginative play spaces for action figures, dolls and toy vehicles. “Chip Bee Gardens was basically our playground,” he recalls fondly. “My grandparents built, and lived in Yang Apartments in Oei Tiong Ham Park. There was a back lane where you could climb over a fence straight into Holland Village, where we’d go to play.”

That young boy might not have realised it then, but those cherished moments would go on to spark a lifelong passion for toys. What began as a humble beginning in the 1980s with action figures grew into a stupendous collection featuring over 13,000 Barbies, 500 Transformers, and countless other iconic toys from the ’80s and ’90s.

Jian’s creativity didn’t stop at collecting though. The light of his talent spills into custom-making outfits for his Barbie dolls. Letting the texture and tactility of materials take the lead and inspire the outcome, Jian crafts intuitively. 


“I don’t plan. I just start,” he shared. “It’s exciting to see where the materials take me.”

During the session, Jian fascinated the audience by designing a Barbie outfit on the spot in under 10 minutes, demonstrating his artistry and spontaneity.

Beyond toys and fashion, Jian is an avid sketch artist. He takes pleasure in documenting his travels and thoughts through drawings and quick notes. “Drawing allows me to capture a moment I can’t put into words. It’s like a visual journal I can look back on,” he explained, offering us a glimpse into another facet of his creative expression. Not to mention his yen for storytelling — the root of which could also be traced back to Chip Bee Gardens.

“When I was older, my dad told me the story of my granduncle Tan Eng Joo, who used to own the land that Chip Bee Gardens was built on,” he recalled. The family’s architecture and construction companies designed and built up the area in the 60s, Jian said.

“My dad, grandfather and grandmother were all active in R.Y Construction, which was supposed to be our family's legacy. That's why my name (Yang Jian) means ‘to build’, and my cousin's name (Yang Li) means ‘strength’.”

One could say these are “just stories of the past”. But to Jian, “these stories are legacies that we must claim, because otherwise, who is going to tell our stories?”