A Singapore in transition: SIT

Among American photo-journalist Harrison Forman’s vast collection of some 50,000 photographs, found in the American Geographical Society Library of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee are the wonderfully captured scenes of a Singapore in 1941. The photographs, which include a number of rare colour captures, provide a glimpse of the bustling colony that Singapore was, just as preparations were being made for a war that many felt would not come to its shores.

A view of Hong Lim Green and the so-called “Suicide Flats” built in the early 1950s by the SIT (photo: Harrison Forman Collection, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

The collection also contains a number of photographs taken in the 1950s and 1960s that show a Singapore in transition, as Singapore went from colony to state, and eventually towards merger with Malaya and independence. One of these photographs, taken in the mid-1950s, is seen here. It captures the then newly erected 9-storey blocks of flats at Upper Pickering Street / Upper Hokkien Street (a plot now occupied by Parkroyal Collection Pickering) that was put up by the Singapore Improvement Trust or SIT (the block in the middle was in fact built to house the SIT’s HQ).

Completed in 1952, the blocks were Singapore’s tallest public housing blocks and the tallest buildings in Chinatown. As with many tall public housing blocks over the years, they had an unfortunate association with suicides and became known as the “suicide flats” almost as soon as it came up. The blocks of flats, also acquired a reputation for being haunted. This was not without reason as there were a number of reports of hauntings. An ex-resident —  a former colleague of mine, who lived on the top floor of one of the blocks, described how he had resisted a compulsion to jump from the balcony at the urging of “a group of children” who were calling to him from the ground. He told his parents about the encounter and was never allowed out on the balcony again.

The SIT, which was established to carry out town planning and later took on the role of providing public housing, built Tiong Bahru Estate and also put up estates such as Princess Elizabeth Estate and Old Kallang Airport Estate (where Dakota Crescent is) and set what then was the largest public housing programme at Queenstown in motion. They were also responsible for putting up several smaller clusters or individual public housing blocks such as the Princess Elizabeth flats at Farrer Park, blocks in the Bugis area and in Kampong Kapor. SIT made initial plans and carried out the early land acquisition for Toa Payoh and built the old Kim Keat Estate as a prelude to Toa Payoh before being disbanded in 1960 —  when the Housing and Development Board (HDB) was formed. The rest, as they say, is history. HDB became one of Singapore’s great success stories and built twice the number of public housing units that SIT had managed to put up in its three decades of existence in a matter of just three years.

SIT built Tiong Bahru

While the blocks at Upper Pickering Street have been demolished, the legacy of the SIT can however still be found. The SIT built portion of Tiong Bahru has largely been conserved. There are also several blocks around Dakota Crescent that are being conserved following calls to keep the surviving part of the old estate. Beyond public housing, the back lanes behind shophouses, and the spiral staircases found behind them, could be thought of as another legacy of the SIT with the trust having been responsible for executing the scheme following their formation. There are also the estates that the SIT built and maintained that housed their senior staff. These are still very much with us and can be found at Adam Park and at Kay Siang Road.

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Wei-ing in on kueh

Kueh (also spelt kuih) — a range of snacks popular in this part of the world — is something that almost anyone who lives in Singapore finds pleasure in. A firm favourite, especially amongst the young, is the rainbow-like assembly of sticky and individually coloured layers of sweetened and flavoured rice flour that is known locally as kueh lapis sagu. Most will agree that this snack seems most enjoyable when dismantled and then consumed one layer at a time.

The unusual, a rather yummy kueh salat laksa.

For me, stuffing one’s mouth with kueh of any variety, counts as one of the simplest of pleasures of living in SIngapore, even if I did have a rather traumatic experience once doing just that. It happened the Chinese New Year when I was seven at a kampong house of a family friend in Punggol. As tradition would have it, snacks and goodies were placed on the table, including a plate of ang ku kueh or red tortoise (shell-shaped) snack. Unable to resist the call of the red tortoise shell, I helped myself to an ang ku kueh. Biting into the sweet, somewhat sticky but soft and quite delicious bean paste filled snack, I promptly swallowed. It was at that point of swallowing that I realised — to my absolute horror — that I had quite literally bitten off more than I could chew when I felt a shaky milk tooth going down the mouthful of kueh.

Wei of Indie Singapore Tours.

My subsequent encounters with ang ku kueh would prove far more enjoyable, the most recent of which involved downing a variety of kueh, including ang ku kueh, in (and with )good spirits as part of a specially curated tour. The tour Whis-Kueh, offers an interesting perspective on kueh and what passes off as kueh in Singapore, taking participants first on a walk through the streets of Chinatown in search of the traditional makers of kueh and kueh’s many local variations. Why Whis, one may ask? Well, the reward at the end of the walk is not only a really tasty platter of kueh — some of which is now rarely found, but also a few swigs of whiskey (and rum) that quite surprisingly is able to bring out the best in some of the kueh.

In search of the original location of one of the traditional pastry shops.

Curated by Wei, the founder of Indie Singapore Tours which is running the experience, the tour offers quite unique and interesting insights into kueh. For the experience, Indie Tours has partnered with Furama City Centre (FCC) — the venue for the whiskey and kueh pairing session during the second half of the tour, and with INTERCO-MLE — the source of the whiskies (and rum), all of which are sourced from various distilleries, and independently bottled by the company. Besides kueh sourced from traditional kueh makers such as Ji Xiang Ang Ku Kueh, Tong Heng Traditional Cantonese Pastries, and Poh Guan Cake House (the source of the now hard-to-find Teochew chi-kak or “rat-shell grass” kueh (鼠壳粿), even if it is a traditional Hokkien cake maker), the kueh platter will also feature two of FCC offerings — the durian pengat and a really delicious kueh salat laksa. Much like ang ku kueh in my childhood, I am never able to resist durian and a good kueh salat, which traditionally sees a glutinous rice base topped most often with a pandan flavoured sweet custard layer. The laksa salat reminded me of a savoury salat that I once tasted, only this, as my fellow participants would attest to, was really out of this world!

The reward.

The short and sweet but thoroughly enjoyable, highly educational, and most definitely weight gaining two-hour experience runs every Saturday from 3.30 to 5.30 pm (minimum 4 to go) and is priced at $120/-. For more information, and bookings, please visit https://indiesingapore.com/tour/whiskueh/.

Chinese Cake.

Traditional Teochew kueh from top and clockwise: png/tao kueh (饭/桃粿); soon kueh (笋粿); and chi-kak kueh (鼠壳粿) – served at the Chui Huay Lim Club.

What is kueh?

The word kueh in Singapore is used to describe many types of snacks or even dishes. Kueh can be colourful, but can also be rather colourless. Kueh can be savoury, but are more often than not sinfully sweet. Locally, the word is often translated as “cake” or “pastry”. It however is hard to really translate what a kueh actually is, and describing any kueh as a cake, does not in my opinion do any kueh justice. While the word kueh may be Chinese in origin, the use of that single syllable extends also the rich array of locally adapted and created kueh, or kuih in Malay, that reflect regional tastes and flavours, and ingredients used in the region.

The origin of the word is in the Minnan languages such as Hokkien or Teochew, which was spoken by a large majority of Chinese immigrants to Singapore and the region and amongst who were some of the earliest Chinese settlers in the region. The Minnan word kueh (粿), describes types of snacks that are usually made from glutinous rice flour. Here however, sweet potato flour, and even mung bean flour — known locally as tepung hoon kueh (hoon kueh being Minnah for “kueh flour” and tepung, the Malay word for flour) is also used. Some examples of traditional Chinese kueh includes savoury steamed rice “water cakes” or chwee kueh (水粿) and chai tow kueh (菜头粿) or carrot (more accurately “radish”) cake and soon kueh (笋粿). Sweet(ish) kueh includes huat kueh (发粿) or “prosperity cake”, often used for prayer offerings, and ang ku kueh (红龟粿).

The hard to resist durian pengat, which surprisingly goes well with the stronger whiskies.

From “Chinatown” to “China Town”

The development of Singapore’s Chinatown, its reason for being, and how it does not quite fit into the same mould as the Chinatowns found across the non-Chinese world, was the topic of my previous post. Chinatown’s evolution in more recent years, first into a conservation and a tourist site as one of three of Singapore’s “ethnic quarters”, does have a significant influence on what has become of Chinatown today as a go-to place for the newest additions to the Chinese community in Singapore.

Chinatown today is part tourist attraction, a place for Singaporeans to find traditional goods for the occasion and for the new Chinese to get a taste of home.

The “new Chinese”, if I may call those more recently arrived from China that, started arriving in the wake of the setting up of diplomatic ties between the People’s Republic of China and Singapore in 1990. That opened the doors for an inflow of much needed migrant workers, along with academics, professionals, students and “study-mamas” (or peidu mama) in large numbers. Recent estimates has it that there could be as many as 400,000 new Chinese who have come Singapore, some of whom have been naturalised. Similar ethnically with their long-time Singaporean Chinese cousins who have mainly descended from southern Chinese immigrants, the new Chinese have a wider diversity in their origins, have quite different values and cultural perspectives, speak differently and have differing tastes. A natural consequence of this is the appearance of the many businesses, eateries and stores that now cater to the tastes, wants and needs of this numerically significant group.

Well patronised Northern Chinese and Sichuan food eateries along New Bridge Road.

Chinatown, and in particular, People’s Park Complex, is now where a concentration of such business can be found. People’s Park Complex, perhaps for it long-time role as a place to purchase Chinese made products since its opening in 1970, and where several remittance agents were set up in the 1990s, would attract travel agents specialising in the Chinese market, food and snack stalls, stores dealing in Chinese foodstuffs, and most recently, supermarkets. These have more or less become permanent fixtures in the shopping centre. Beyond this, food outlets are also made an appearance in and around the area of the complex. People’s Park Food Centre has now a range of food stalls offering food representative of northeastern China and also from the numb and spicy (mala) food from the Sichuan area.

Eateries and food stalls lining People’s Park Complex and People’s Park Food Centre offer a taste of home for many new Chinese.

Nearby, a long-time Chinatown landmark in the form of the former Great Southern Hotel, has been the home of Yue Hwa Chinese Products, a Hong Kong store which brings in Chinese goods and foodstuffs since 1996. The store has been a go-to place for ingredients for the more exotic types of Chinese food. It has however seen the arrival of a new competition, Scarlett Supermarket, whose name in Chinese ShiJiaKe (思家客) translates into “homesick”. The supermarket, which brings in Chinese snacks and foodstuffs and offers them at very reasonable prices, has in the short time since it opened its Trengganu Street outlet in October 2020, become popular both with new Chinese and with many Singaporeans. It has since opened stores across Singapore, including a flagship store in People’s Park Complex and by January 2022, will have 10 stores in total.

Yue Hwa Chinese Products, a Hong Kong store that was established at the former Great Southern Hotel in 1996. It has long been a go-to place to obtain ingredients for more exotic Chinese cooking.

The new kid on the block – Scarlett Supermarket, which opened its first store in Oct 2020, and has since opened several other stores across Singapore, including a flagship store in People’s Park Complex in Feb 2021.

What has become especially lively is the Chinatown food scene. This isn’t just confined to the area in and around People’s Park Complex, but has also added flavour to the scene across Eu Tong Sen Street and New Bridge Road. That is where the heart of old Chinatown was. Now an area that is at the heart of the tourist side of Chinatown, new Chinese eateries can be found along with several others along Upper Cross Street, Mosque Street, Pagoda Street, and Smith Street.

Eateries lining Mosque Street.

While the eateries may have been set up with the aim of bringing a taste of home to the multitude of new Chinese here in Singapore, many have also found regular patrons elsewhere. Three northeastern (dongbei) Chinese restaurants along Upper Cross Street for example, have become popular with the Koreans and Japanese and are featured on websites and other social media channels not just here but also in their home countries. In this way perhaps, Chinatown could be seen as playing a role of bringing people together, much like it did in the past.

A dongbei restaurant along Upper Cross Street.

While the focus of this post is on Chinatown becoming “China Town”, Chinatown today a lot more than that. As we heard in the video attached to my previous post, it is also a place for Singaporeans, especially those with past connections to the place. The renewal of Chinatown has also brought with it a host of new attractions such as the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Although the authenticity of the relic that it houses has been questioned, and perhaps whether the temple’s place in Chinatown is appropriate, it is here to stay. The temple and much of today’s Chinatown could be thought of as a continuation of the Chinatown of the past. Although not quite the same, it is still very much a place that brings people and cultures together.

Not Chinatown and not Singapore? A structure that perhaps defines the new Chinatown, the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Consecrated in 2008, it was built to hold what is claimed to be a tooth of Buddha that was housed in an earthquake damaged stupa in Myanmar. Questions have been asked about the authenticity of the relic.

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From Chinatown to “China Town” (video)

From Chinatown to “China Town”

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What makes Chinatown Chinatown in Chinese majority Singapore?

That there is a place known as “Chinatown” in Singapore seems quite odd, with Chinese settlers and their descendants having been in the majority from the mid-1800s. The origins of the name lie possibly in Singapore’s very first Town Plan. Drawn up in 1822, the plan defined areas for settlement along ethnic lines. The area where Chinatown is today, corresponds to the plan’s “Chinese Campong” and an adjacent “Chuliah Campong” (“Chuliah” or “Chulia” is a reference to those from the south of India). The term “China town” to describe the district, as reports in the English language press going back to the 1830s show, found use very early on.

Chinatown, through the eyes of its former residents (a video).

While the use of the term does suggest a similarity with other Chinatowns or Chinese dominated streets or neighbourhoods found in urban centres across the non-Chinese world, that is where the similarity ends. Singapore’s Chinatown has never quite been a “Tong Yan Kai”, the “Street of Tang People” in Cantonese, as many of the other Chinatowns are often referred to. To most in the Chinese speaking community, Chinatown was “Greater Town”, “Tai Por” in Cantonese or “Tua Po” in Teochew and Hokkien.

A statement relating to the revenue obtained from the so-called Revenue Farms in Singapore published in 1838.

“A Street in Chinatown”, 1932, Leiden University (CC BY 4.0)

Another name that the district was, and still is, associated with is “Ngau Che Shui” (in Cantonese) or “Gu Chia Chwee” (in Hokkien) and “Kreta Ayer” (in Malay). Translating into “Water Bullock Cart”, the name is a reference to the section of Chinatown around Kreta Ayer Road and Spring Street, where there were fresh water springs from which bullock carts used for the sale and distribution of fresh water were once filled. The name is now also used to refer to the larger Chinatown area.

Smith and Trengganu Street corner, 1914 with the former Lai Chun Yuen on the left.

One unique feature of Singapore’s Chinatown, is its multi-ethnic flavour. Non-Chinese houses of worship are quite a conspicuous part of it. Two of Chinatown’s streets, Pagoda and Temple Streets do in fact take their names from a Hindu temple. Another, Mosque Street is name after the Jamae (Chulia) Mosque.

The shophouse dominated streets of Chinatown with a Hindu temple, the Sri Mariamman, after which two streets are named.

The multi-dimensional quality extended to the Chinese community in Chinatown, who divided themselves along lines of dialects. The Kreta Ayer section of Chinatown for example, was home to the Cantonese, and the area around Telok Ayer and Amoy Street was predominantly Hokkien. The Teochews lived and ran businesses in the areas closer to the Singapore river. The non-Chinese communities that were added to this mix were those from southern India and smaller pockets of other communities that included the Baweanese (or Boyan). Hailing from Pulau Bawean, the Baweanese were skilled horse handlers. Many found work as gharry-drivers and made the area of the stables at Erskine Road, home. 

A Silver Chariot procession along the Streets of Chinatown during the Hindu festival of Thaipusam.

Pondok Peranakan Gelam Club – set up by the Baweanese community in Club Street near Erskine Road

The South Indian community would come to include many who came during the expansion of the port that followed the opening of the Suez Canal. Areas such as Tanjong Pagar Road on the fringes of Chinatown, became home for some, so much so that the area came to be referred to as “Little India” — a term that is now attached to the Serangoon Road area.

Decorative arch along Cook Street by Kadayanallur Muslim League on occasion of Singapore being conferred the administrative status of a city, 1951. Courtesy of Singapore Kadayanallur Muslim League.

Singapore’s Chinatown was by no means the only “China town” found on the island. As the population of Chinese settlers grew, secondary settlements developed north of the Singapore River. One, known as “Sio Po” — the “Lesser Town”. The area of Sio Po, was allocated to the Europeans in the 1822 plan. As Singapore’s interior opened up, many in the Europeans found the inland areas more conducive as places to live in, and this paved the way for Chinese settlers, who could be thought of as latecomers to the Chinese diaspora began to move into the area. The Hainanese, were among the first to move in, establishing a Tin Hou or Mazu temple at Malabar Street (where Bugis Junction is today) in 1857.

Mooncakes from trishaws and tricycles – street vendors were a common sight even up to the 1980s in Chinatown.

Geylang, could be thought of as another secondary settlement, with many being drawn to the area when its plantations started to make way for industry from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Temples were set up to cater to spiritual and community needs, along with a number of clan associations. One addition to Geylang’s clan scene in the 1920s, the Huang Clan, at which the “Father of Modern Chinese Art”, Xu Beihong, painted his highest valued works (see also: Tigers, elephants, rambutans and Xu Beihong in a garden of foolish indulgences).

A temple in Geylang.

Chinatown proper, would develop into a collection of overcrowded streets and tenements. Nestled into this were some notable cultural institutions such as Lai Chun Yuen and the Majestic Theatre, the physical reminders of which in the form of the buildings that housed them, are still around. A feature of the place were the hawkers who filled many of the streets, with their offerings of fresh produce, cooked food items and sundry goods.

An already somewhat sanitised Chinatown in 1984, with some semblance of street life. The corner of Smith and Trengganu Streets is seen here.

The lively scene on the streets, concealed what may be thought to be a shadier side of Chinatown. Behind the laundry cluttered façades of Chinatown’s numerous shophouses were congested quarters, many shared by coolies, opium and gambling dens, and numerous houses of ill repute. Hints of what did go on in the streets and behind the scenes in the dimly lit shophouses were quite unambiguously described in the colloquial names attached to Chinatown’s many colourful streets.

Colloquial street names offer a peek into the past.

Unsurprisingly, the conditions in Chinatown, made it a prime area for the secret societies. Hideouts, and gang hangouts could be found aplenty in Chinatown, together with many inconspicuous places in which weapons were hidden. Some businesses became fronts for illegal activity, while others, including streets hawkers, became targets of secret society run protection rackets. Fights over territorial control, violent reprisals and settlements of disputes were a common occurrence and with Ineffective policing, murder and mayhem ruled the streets of mid-20th century Chinatown.  

A Chinatown shophouse with cubicles arranged on its upper floor.

That Chinatown is today, a thing of the past. Much has changed since the 1960s and 1970s, when life could still be seen on the streets. Property acquisition with a view to demolition and redevelopment, would see street hawkers, other business and residents being moved, some into Chinatown Complex and Hong Lim Complex in the 1980s. A rethink the urban renewal policy would result in the protection of much of what was left, building-wise, through the conservation of the Chinatown as a precinct in 1989, thus keeping the area’s built character. This paved the way for the development of Chinatown’s identity as an “ethnic quarter” for the promotion tourism and perhaps its evolution into what it is today, a place that some would say, is a reprise of its role as a “China Town” for the new diaspora from China..

Pagoda Street, 1971, Wilford Peloquin (CC BY 2.0)

Murals, through which mural artist Yip Yew Chong brings the past into the present, have become part of the modern day Chinatown scene.

My Chinatown Home

The idea of a “Chinatown” in Singapore, in which there is a large ethnic Chinese majority, seems quite a paradox. There due to its historical connection with the first area of settlement established by way of Singapore’s first town plan in 1822 for the incoming Chinese to the newly established trading post, the area could be thought of as the heart of the descendants of the early Chinese immigrants whose connections in Chinatown include its temples, clan associations and other cultural and religious institutions.

While Chinatown today may have its architectural character preserved through the conservation of many of its streets and shophouses, it does have quite a different flavour. Some say that it has morphed from Chinatown into becoming a “China Town” due to the proliferation of businesses and food outlets catering to the new Chinese community (migrants and new citizens who have arrived post-1990). While that may be so, Chinatown is in the heart of many of the old residents of Chinatown, who continually maintain that connection with it in one way or another.

One former resident, Yip Yew Chong has gone a little further, decorating the walls of Chinatown with murals depicting various bits of its past. For Yew Chong, a prolific mural artist who spent his first 14 years living in a shophouse in Sago Lane and who now maintains a studio in the area, the murals provide an opportunity for old residents of Chinatown, including himself and his family to re-live the past. He also hopes the murals, which incidentally have become popular as instagram-mable spots, will allow other visitors to Chinatown and tourists to find out what life in Chinatown was like back in the days when it served as home to him.

Among the murals Yew Chong has painted, is one “My Chinatown Home”, which as the title suggests, depicts he old home in Sago Lane. Here is a video in which he provides a short description of what he has shown in the mural:

Gathering Spaces: touches of China in Singapore

A touch of China in Singapore?

The constant flow of people into Singapore through much of its modern history, has been of great benefit to Singapore, not just in economic terms but also in cultural terms. The coming together of peoples from far and wide has resulted in the multi-cultural society we in Singapore live in and in what Singaporeans eat, say and do.

Among the wonderful mix of communities we have are the Chinese. Many are descendants of Chinese immigrants, who came over in large numbers from parts of the region and from southern China through much of the 19th and the early 20th century. The community or I should say collection of communities, formed a majority in a little more than two decades after the British East India Company set up their trading post, and have since 1930, accounted for some three-quarters of Singapore’s population, give or take a few percentage points.

A section of Chinatown that a long-time resident regards as “North China”.

In 1990, twelve years after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s November 1978 visit to Singapore shortly before China launched the Open Door policy, ties were established between the two countries. Much has happened since then, including an influx of migrant workers, students and emigrees from the People’s Republic in large enough numbers that makes it hard not to notice.

Today, there may be as many as four to five hundred thousand Chinese migrant workers, students, members of the academia, researchers, businesspersons, and others, together with new citizens of the post-1990 era in Singapore; a number that is certainly significant enough to have an impact. This influx, of whom I shall call “New Chinese” (as opposed to their much longer-settled Singaporean Chinese cousins), is seen in many ways. The New Chinese bring with them very different perspectives, a culture that has been tempered by the political and social developments in 20th century China, very different accents and a taste in food that draws influences from a greater part of China as compared to that of the early Chinese settlers in Singapore, and a preference for certain goods and foodstuffs from home. This is clearly evident in spaces that have become focal points for the New Chinese, where a concentration of businesses and trades aimed at this new group of Chinese can clearly be seen.

A row of Chinese Restaurants along North Bridge Road

I shall be having a look at these New Chinese focal points, what I shall call “gathering places”, this November as part of Temasek Polytechnic’s Global Community Day 2021 (GCD 2021), through a virtual session titled “聚会场所 Gathering Places – Exploring Chinese Community in Singapore“. Through a “virtual tour”, I will attempt to identify gathering places for the New Chinese, try to establish how they became so and what makes them so, and also look at how they may or may not have become spaces for a new chapter in the coming together of peoples and cultures that has so enriched Singapore. I have completed two sessions for students and will be hosting a third that is open to the public on Saturday 20 November 2021 at 2 to 3 pm. To register for the session, and also other public programmes for GCD 2021, please visit this link: https://www.gevme.com/temasek-polytechnic-global-community-day-2021-24422801.

A “new-age” gathering space riding on a current craze in China – will it be a gathering space fro the future?

The last light-box on Keong Saik Road

Taking a walk around Keong Saik Road recently, I could not help but marvel at its transformation into a hip and happening neighbourhood. It was certainly quite a different place when I caught my first glimpse of it back in the 1980s. A walk that I took with a former schoolmate around his neighbourhood, opened my eyes to what seemed to to illuminate the seemingly dimly lit Keong Saik Road by night. That hastily executed detour from the planned excursion route left a vague impression the well-known side of Keong Saik Road and what each of its many lamps on which unit numbers were marked on, identified. The street’s gentrification in more recent times has seen to the dimming of the old lights of Keong Saik Road to the extent that they have all now been completely extinguished. What does remain to remind us of the street’s colourful past is a now famous tale of it that has been wonderfully told by Charmaine Leung in “17A Keong Saik Road“, and in physical terms, a last light-box at No 8 Keong Saik Road found atop its back door. Housing one of the street’s last brothels to operate, it seems that the sushi restaurant that will soon occupy it, will be keeping the light-box for posterity.

Now hip and happening, the area around Keong Saik Road is a place with quite a past.

The triangular site formed by Keong Saik Road, Jiak Chuan Road and Teck Lim Road, which now features a collection of quite well patronised eating and drinking spots, was where Keong Saik’s was colloquially called Sam Zau Fu (三州府) in Cantonese. This was with reference to the “residences” lining the triangle of streets that made up the main sections of Keong Saik’s red light district. The district did have a long-held reputation as an area to indulge in the vices even before the brothels, as we knew them, came into being when Keong Saik was a haven for courtesans or entertainers who found employment in the area’s tea houses and rich gentlemen’s clubs.

The last light-box. Will it be kept?

The courtesans, many of whom were extremely young and trained in a manner not too dissimilar to but without the rigours of the geisha in Japan, were equipped with skills to perform with the yuetkam (月琴 or yueqin in Mandarin) and/or the peipa (琵琶 or pipa in Mandarin). It was for this reason that the term peipa chai (琵琶仔) or “young pipa player” was used to refer to them. In them the wealthy club-goers and tea-house patrons would find ready mistresses. These mistresses who might have been “bought-off”, were also housed in the area and the common name for Teo Hong and Bukit Pasoh Roads in Cantonese, which is Yi Nai Kai (二奶街) provides an indication of one of the areas in which this occurred. Yi nai, which translates literally from Cantonese into “second milk”, is a euphemism for “mistress”. The tea houses and entertainment venues began to morph into houses of ill-repute and by the end of the 1950s, Keong Saik Road acquired notoriety for being a place in which “high-class” brothels operated. The term pipa chai seemed at the same time to have been extended in its use to describe the brothels’ working ladies.

One of the last “lights” of Keong Saik – seen in March 2014.

While conversations we do seem to frequently have about Keong Saik Road’s past are all too often dominated by what did go on after dark, the street does have many other facets to it. It was only in 1926, that the street was given a name — after a founder of the Straits Steamship Company and a Municipal Commissioner Tan Keong Saik. Host to a number of associations and religious institutions, the street benefitted from the colour that religious festivals and celebrations injected into it. One festival that still enlivens the street is celebrated by the Chettiar community every January or February during Chetty Pusam on the eve of the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. The community’s temple at Keong Saik Road’s junction with Kreta Ayer Road, the Sri Layan Sithi Vinayagar, serves as a point to pause in the journey taken by the silver chariot carrying the image of Lord Murugan from the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple at Tank Road and back to it. The return leg of the chariot’s journey to Tank Road is accompanied by a colourful and lively procession of kavadis or “burdens” that takes a route down Keong Saik Road before making its way along Neil and South Bridge Roads on its way home.

Keong Saik Road and the Sir Layan Sithi Vinayagar Temple during Chetty Pusam.

While the visible traditions of the Hindu temple still plays a big part in adding flavour to Keong Saik Road, the same cannot be said about a number of traditions associated with the Chinese community there, partly because of changing circumstances and demographics of the area’s population. One lively Chinese practice that has gone that way is da siu yan (打小人) —  “petty person beating”. Also translated as “villain hitting”, the rather interesting practice was enacted with great gusto at the site of the Oriental Theatre, which was right across Kreta Ayer Road from the Sri Layan Sithi Vinayagar temple. Out of sight, it has not been put out of mind by those who have witnessed the practice such as Richard Lee. A description of it that he provides is found in a Facebook post, which reads:

There was a perimeter wall of the old Oriental Theatre that served as a “prayer” wall for people to “打小人”.

Villain hitting, da siu yan (Chinese: 打小人), demon exorcising, or petty person beating, is folk sorcery popular in the Guangdong area of China, Hong Kong & Singapore (and is) primarily associated with (the) Cantonese. Its purpose is to curse one’s enemies using magic. Villain hitting is often considered a humble career, and the ceremony is often performed by older ladies, though some shops sell “DIY” kits.

Villain hitting (打小人)
Make use of a varieties of symbolic object such as the shoe of clients or the villain hitter or other religious symbolic weapons like incense sticks to hit or hurt the villain paper. Villain paper can also be replaced by other derivatives such as man paper, woman paper, five ghost paper etc.

Sacrifice to Bái Hǔ (祭白虎)
The hitters have to make sacrifice to Bái Hǔ if they want to hit the villain on Jingzhe. Use a yellow paper tiger to represent Bái Hǔ, there are black stripes on the paper tiger and a pair of tooth shapes in its mouth. During the sacrifice a small piece of pork is soaked with pig blood and then put inside the mouth of the paper tiger (to feed Bái Hǔ). Bái Hǔ won’t hurt others after being fed. Sometimes they will also smear greasy pork (a piece of lard) on Bái Hǔ’s mouth to make its mouth full of oil (so that it is) unable to open its mouth to hurt people. In some regional sacrifice the villain hitter would burn the paper tiger or cut off its head after making sacrifice to it.

Pray for blessings (祈福)
Use a red Gui Ren paper to pray for blessings and help from Gui Ren. The red 貴人紙 were pasted onto the wall nearby. The nearby perimeter wall also served a spot for a series of drying racks for drying pig rind in the sun. The man who did this is my friend’s Ser Huat Ho’s grandfather….. The dried pig rind were then deep fried and sold to food vendors.

– Richard Lee

Another widely observed religious practice on Keong Saik Street — at least for the womenfolk — that has gone in the same direction as villain hitting is the annual observation of the Seven Sisters Festival on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. Based on accounts in oral history interviews and descriptions provided by the prolific muralist Yip Yew Chong, it was quite a big occasion in Chinatown, especially along Keong Saik Road. The commemoration of the festival, which revolves around a folktale of star-crossed lovers who were permitted to meet across a bridge formed by swallows (or magpies depending on the locality) once a year, is sometimes thought of as a Chinese version of Valentine’s Day. It was especially popular among the unmarried womenfolk, which included the majie, for whom Keong Saik Road’s Cundhi Gong was a religious focal point. During the festival, paper offerings to the feminine half of the lovesick couple — the weaver fairy and the seventh of the seven fairy sisters that the festival is named for, are made. Offerings include ones representing vanity items such as combs and lipstick. Flowers were also made. Before being burnt, the offerings were put on display, some on a bowl fashioned out of paper together with miniature paper dresses, items of embroidery, as well as freshly made cakes and fresh fruits. Participation in the festival started to dwindle in the 1960s and by the 1970s, hardly any of the highly visual displays were seen on the street.

The five-foot-way of the Cundhi Gong.

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The last of Keong Saik Road’s vanishing light-boxes:

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Pagoda Street’s pagoda was more than a gopuram

One of the fascinating things about the streets of Singapore is the stories that are attached to how they were named, either colloquially or officially. One example is Pagoda Street, along which a pagoda — at least in the modern sense of the word — seems quite conspicuously absent.

While is certainly puzzling to Singapore’s visitors, we in Singapore have been schooled to hold the belief that the pagoda in question is the gopuram of the Sri Mariamman temple, Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple. Depending on how creatively this story is told, the temple’s prominent located gopuram at the corner of South Bridge Road and Pagoda Street, might have been mistaken by the common folk as a pagoda or for the want of a better description, identified as one. Whatever the story may have been, they all seem to have ignored the fact that the word “pagoda” in the context of the early 19th century when the street got its name, was one that was in use in the English language in making reference to both Hindu and Buddhist temples in India and in Southeast Asia.

The gopuram of the Sri Mariamman Temple

Historically, the use of the term “pagoda” is quite interesting. Its origins as many would have it is said to lie in the Persian word “butkada”, which is said to translate into “temple of idols”. There are also strong suggestions that it may instead have been derived from Chinese, or at least the Chinese dialects — some would argue, languages — that were in use in the past. The combination of Chinese words describing a “tower of bones of the dead” (白骨塔) or literally “white-bone tower”, is often cited as a possible source of the word, or even “octagonal tower” (八角塔) or literally “eight-cornered tower”. Both combinations, when said in one or several commonly spoken southern Chinese dialects, are similar sounding to the pronunciation of “pagoda” in the English language.

A Chinese-styled pagoda at Haw Par Villa (a personal photograph from November 1976). One suggestion is that the origin of the word “pagoda” is Chinese. The word “pagode” was however already in use in the 16th Century in Portuguese India to describe Hindu and Buddhist temples.

Interestingly, the Portuguese version of the word, “pagode”, was already in use as early as the early 16th century, during a time when Portugal established its presence in India after Vasco da Gama’s discovery of a hitherto elusive sea route from Europe to the subcontinent. The word was utilised to describe the Indian temple complexes, both Hindu and Buddhist, that fascinated the Portuguese and the Europeans that were to follow. One example of this use was in the descriptions of the rock-cut Buddhist temple complex on Salsette Island near Mumbai or as it would have been called by the Portuguese, Bom Bahia. The complex came to be known as “Pagode de Canarim” (also”Pagoda de Canarin”), which the British would later name “Canari Pagoda”. The word “pagode” in the English form would also come also to be widely used, as is evidenced through official accounts, literature and correspondence through the 17th to 19th centuries, to describe either a Hindu or Buddhist temple and in some cases, even a mosque. There is in fact a description of the Sri Mariamman Temple, on a 1846 sketch made by John Turnbull Thomson of the temple and the Jamae Chulia Mosque on South Bridge Road, that does refer to the Sri Mariamman Temple as a “Hindoo Pagoda”. The mosque is referred to in the same description as a “Kling Mosque”.

“View in Singapore town; Hindoo Pagoda; Kling Mosque”; 1846
Thomson, John Turnbull, ourheritage.ac.nz

Descriptions of Hindu temples as “Hindoo pagodas”, were in fact used rather widely in English accounts of explorations and travels of the 19th and early 20th century. It therefore is quite probable that Pagoda Street was named, not because of Sri Mariamman Temple’s gopruam having erroneously been looked upon as a pagoda, but the Sri Mariamman Temple in whole, was to the English speakers of the day a “Hindoo pagoda”.

The Sri Mariamman, which is Singapore’s oldest Hindu temple, seen here during the Navaratri festival in 2015, would probably have been thought of as a “Hindoo pagoda”. The term was used in 19th century English to describe Hindu temples.

Sri Mariamman Temple’s gopuram, seen above the rooftops of the streets of Chinatown.

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Various illustrations of “pagodas” found in India in 19th century Portuguese and English literature

An illustration of a Hindu temple in the Damāo Pequeno north of Mumbai in “A India Portugueza” published in 1886.

Another illustration of an Indian temple complex, named “Pagode de Chandrenate” in “A India Portugueza”.

A Hindu temple described as a “Hindoo Pagoda” in an illustration found in “India, historical and descriptive: revised and enlarged from “Les Voyages Celebres” with an account of the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857-8, published in 1876.

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Discovering the “China” in Singapore’s Chinatown

Unlike many other cities around the world where “Chinatowns” exist, a “Chinatown” in Singapore — where three in four of its population are ethnic Chinese — does seem rather odd.

The roots of the Chinese quarter do of course lie in Singapore’s very first urban plan, the so-called Jackson Plan of 1822, hatched at a time when the settlement was still very much in its infancy. That plan, placed the main settlement for migrants from China in the area where Chinatown is today also had a “Chuliah campong” for settlers from the Indian sub-continent adjacent to it. To the Chinese speaker, Chinatown had long been known as Tua Poh (大坡) or “the greater town”, or Ngau Che Shui or Gu Chia Chwee (牛车水) — a reference to bullock-drawn water carts carrying supplies of fresh water to the settlement in its early days. It is perhaps in recent times that the notion of the former settlement being Chinatown has taken root, and this seems rather ironically to have coincided with the quarter losing its original Chinese-ness through resettlement and redevelopment, and its subsequent association with the modern Chinese immigrant and the tourist crowd from modern day China.

The Town Plan of 1822.

These developments do in a way, mimic the evolution of the Singaporean Chinese identity — something that the “Not China Town” tour that has been put together by The Real Singapore Tours — seeks to examine. The tour, which I had the opportunity to attend a preview of, involved a long but leisurely walk through Singapore’s Chinatown. Together with the realisation of how widely spread Singapore’s so-called Chinese quarter is, the tour provides its participants through the stories told at various touch points and through songs, is a much deeper understanding of what the “China” in Singapore’s Chinatown is really all about.

Chinatown at the Crossroads – Cross Street was in the area where the “Chuliah Campong” was.

The tour, which can be forgiven for being too long due to the depth into which its guides expertly explore the evolving Chinese identity and for the refreshment stop — is certainly a must do — if the question of what shapes the Chinese Singaporean identity does bug you. Do look out for them at The Real Singapore Tours.

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Highlights of Not China Town

Guide Jamie Lee giving an overview of what Singapore’s Chinatown is all about.

Listening to the first song – before the continuation of the “dance” through Chinatown.

Why Pagoda Street?

Another of the guides, Mark Tan (who sings very well), explaining the politics in the simplification of the Chinese character “sheng” in taking the king (王) out and giving power to the ground (土). The simplification of Chinese characters was an effort initiated by the Peoples’ Republic of China in the mid 20th century.

Celebrating the recent addition of hawker culture in Singapore to UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage at the new age and very touristy hawker street on Smith Street?

A modern addition to Chinatown – around where the street of the dead was. The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple may have little to do with the collective memory the Chinese Singaporean may have of Chinatown, but it is an example of Tang architecture — the dynasty with which the Chinese immigrants of the past from Southern China identify with. Many descendants of the earlier Chinese immigrants to Singapore would have been identified as T’ng Lang, T’ng Nang or Tong Yan – 唐人- or Tang Ren in Mandarin or People of the Tang, rather than as Han Chinese.

Mark Loon – on the ma-jie and their vows of spinsterhood.

Of animistic practices and the natuk kong.

On the visit of Deng Xiaoping and the sinification of the Chinese in Singapore.

Clues that point to the migration from Amoy (E-m’ng or Xiamen).

A last song – at where it all began for many early immigrants from China.

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Sar Kong’s fire dragon visits the Heavenly Jade Emperor

Photographs from the eight night of Chinese New Year – when the Hokkiens gather to welcome the Heavenly Jade Emperor. The occasion this year was graced by the fire dragon of Sar Kong, who paid a visit to the Singapore Yu Huang Gong.

More on the Hokkien practice :

• The Eight Night

And, on the Fire Dragon of Sar Kong :

• A fiery September’s evening
• A dragon awakens
• The fire dragon’s lair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Rats, on the streets of Singapore!

The arrival of spring, celebrated as the Chinese New Year, brings colour to the streets of Singapore’s Chinatown. Marked these days by a street light up, the anticipation of the festival also sees a host of events and activities as well as the crowd pulling Chinatown Chinese New Year Street Bazaar offering new year delicacies and must-haves, and an invasion of rats this year for the Year of the Rat.

Trengganu Street last weekend.

Anticipating the arrival of spring in Chinatown.

Rats have invaded for the Year of the Rat.

 

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Heritage & Food Trail

Always a hit, the nightly stage shows run from 8 to 10.30 pm from 4 to 24 January 2020 at Kreta Ayer Square, opened each night with a lion dance performance. Another well received activity is the Heritage & Food Trail, which takes participants on a historical and cultural tour through the streets of Chinatown, culminating with a feast of Cantonese delights at Singapore’s largest hawker centre, Chinatown Complex Food Centre. Tickets for the trail, which run on 11, 12, 18 and 19 January, can be purchased at Kreta Ayer  Community Club at $15/- per participant or online (with a 10% discount) at:

11 Jan : https://go.gov.sg/heritagefoodtrail11012020

12 Jan : https://go.gov.sg/heritagefoodtrail12012020

18 Jan : https://go.gov.sg/heritagefoodtrail18012020

19 Jan : https://go.gov.sg/heritagefoodtrail19012020

Food, glorious Cantonese food from some of the 200 food stalls in Chinatown Complex Food Centre.

Yes 933 deejays on the heritage and food trail.

Mural hunting during the heritage and food trial.

The “disneyfication” of Chinatown is complete.

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A Walk through Temple Street

Photos of the always Colourful Street Bazaar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parting Glances: Losing a Pearl

A look back at Pearls Centre, which was demolished back in 2016 due to the construction of the Thomson-East Coast Line. The site for the mixed-use development was sold as part of the second wave of the Urban Renewal Department’s (later URA or Urban Redevelopment Authority) “Sale of Sites” programme. Initiated in 1967, the programme was an initiative to move urban redevelopment and renewal through the sale of sites acquired by the Government to private developers. and was initiated in 1967. Completed in 1977 – in an era of similarly designed buildings, Pearls Centre featured a 10-storey podium block with four floors of retail space and a multi-storey car park. A 12-floor block of luxury apartments was put up above the podium. The developers for the building was Outram Realty and the architect, Architectural Design Group. Its cinema would gain notoriety for screening R(A) movies.

The photographs below were taken in 2014/2015.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kreta Ayer Heritage Gallery

A peek at the wonderful little pocket of joy that Kreta Ayer Heritage Gallery is. Located at the at the Kreta Ayer Community Club, the 100 sq. m gallery opens today (14 July 2019).

An effort by the National Heritage Board (NHB) and the Kreta Ayer Community Club, the gallery is a showcase of Kreta Ayer’s and Chinatown’s intangible forms of cultural heritage that have provided the area with much colour. This is seen through objects, photographs and personal effects of both practitioners as well as Kreta Ayer’s former residents, organised along five themes: Chinese opera, nanyin music, Chinese puppetry, Chinese painting and calligraphy, and tea drinking and appreciation.

Cantonese opera, a big part of the Kreta Ayer cultural scene is especially well represenred through the display of costumes, scores, stage objects and other memorabilia such as autographed photos. The displays also trace the evolution of the genre of Chinese opera from street performances to theatre based ones.

The gallery will open daily from 12 to 8 pm.

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A set of six photographs featuring opera performers, undated On loan from Cindy Chat. This set of photographs forms part of Cindy Chat’s collection of opera-related paraphernalia. Cindy is an avid opera fan who used to follow her father backstage where she would meet opera performers. Fascinated by their dazzling costumes and elaborate make-up, Cindy would approach the performers for photographs and autographs.

 

 

Discovering 5 Kadayanallur Street (2019)

COMPLETED

The 2019 edition of Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets, a series of State Property Visits that has been organised with the support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) starts this June with a revisit to No. 5 Kadayanallur Street.

Two(2) sessions are being held on 22 June 2019 (a Saturday), each lasting 45 minutes.

Each session is limited to 25 participants.

Participants must be of ages 18 and above.

Registration is necessary. Do note that registration for both sessions closed at 6.50 pm on 10 June 2019. 

Updates (info only) on the 2019 series will also be provided at this link and on The Long and Winding Road on Facebook.

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More information:

• The hospital at Mount Erskine and what may now be Singapore’s oldest lift
• Photos (on Flickr)
• Story of a lift nearing 90 (Sunday Times, 27 May 2018)

Parting Glances: the cylinder on Pearl’s Hill

A last look at Pearl Bank Apartments, a Chinatown landmark and a celebrated modern building.

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The time has come to bid farewell to Pearl Bank Apartments, that cylinder-shaped apartment block sticking right out – perhaps like the proverbial sore thumb – of the southern slope of Pearl’s Hill. Sold to us here in Singapore Southeast Asia’s tallest residential building during its construction, it is thought of as a marvel of innovative design in spite of a rather unpretentious appearance. Emptied of its residents, it now awaits its eventual demolition; having been sold in February 2018 in the collective sale wave that threatens to rid Singapore of its Modern post-independence architectural icons. CapitaLand, the developer behind the purchase, will be replacing the block with a new development that with close to 800 units (compared to 288 units currently).

The residential block, photographed in 2014.

Pearl Bank Apratment’s development came as part of a post-independence urban renewal effort. Involving the sale of land to private firms for development, which in Pearl Bank’s case was for the high-density housing for the middle class. The project, which was to have been completed in 1974 with construction having commenced in mid-1970, ran into several difficulties. A shortage of construction materials and labour, as well as several fatal worksite accidents, saw to the project being completed only after a delay of about two years.

An advertisement in 1976.

After the completion of the project in 1976, its developer, Hock Seng Enterprises, ran into financial difficulties and was placed into receivership in August 1978. This prompted the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) to step in to purchase all eight of the block’s penthouses in 1979. The 4,000+ sq. ft. penthouses (the area included a 1,000 sq. ft. roof terrace) were resold to Civil Servants and Statutory Board officers at a price of $214,000 for an intermediate unit, and $217,000 for the corner unit – a steal even at the prices of the day!

A view from one of the penthouse units.

The 38-storey apartment block also saw problems with its lifts and for over a month in 1978, only two were in working order. Another incident that imvolved the lifts occurred in November 1986 when a metal chain of one of the lifts fell a hundred metres, crashing through the top of its cabin. It was quite fortunate that there was no one in the lift during the late night incident. The building developed a host of other problems as it aged, wearing an increasingly worn and tired appearance over time. Even so, it was still one to marvel at and one that had photographers especially excited.

Built on a C-shaped plan, a slit in the cylinder provided light and ventilation. The inside of this cee is where the complex nature of the building’s layout becomes apparent, as does its charm. Common corridors provide correspondence across the split-level apartment entrances as well as to each apartment’s secondary exits via staircases appended to the inner curve. The apartments are a joy in themselves, woven into one another across the different levels like interlocking pieces of a three-diemnsional puzzle. The result is joyous a mix of two, three and four bedroom apartments.

There have been quite a few voices lent in support of conserving the building and other post-independence architectural icons, which even if not for their architectural merit, represent a coming of age for the local architectural community and a break away from the colonial mould. Several proposals have been tabled previously to conserve the building, including one by one of its architects, Mr Tan Cheng Siong and another by the Management Corporation Strata Title Council.

Part of the waste disposal system.

That sentiment is however not necessary shared by all and the sites central location and view that it offers, does mean that the site’s development potential cannot be ignored. Among its long-term residents, a few would have welcomed the opportunity to cash in. Those occupying units on the lower floors might have had such thoughts. It seems that it was increasingly becoming less pleasant to live in some of the lower units due to choked pipes. One could also not miss the stench emanating from the rubbish disposal system.

The view from a penthouse roof terrace.

Architectural or even historical perspectives aside, the person-on-the-street would probably not get too sentimental over the loss of Pearl Bank Apartments. Unlike the old National Library, the National Theatre or the old National Stadium in which memories of many more were made, there would have been little opportunity provided to most to interact or get close enough to appreciate the building.

A last reflection.

All eyes I suppose are now on CapitaLand, to see what in terms of the site’s heritage –  if anything – would be retained. Based on noises being made online, the launch of the project is due in 2H 2019.

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More views:

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Extortion on Club Street

The pain of the darkest of times that descended upon Singapore 77 years ago is still found in the hearts of many. That comes as no surprise, tens of thousands disappeared in the first weeks of the Japanese Occupation; a large number it has to be assumed, victims of the vicious purge we now refer to as “Sook Ching”.

The fear that the act instilled in the local Chinese population – the target of the purge – was an intended consequence. Many among the community’s elite had supported the resistance effort against the Japanese invasion of China in one way or another. Several were in detention and needed little persuasion to “cooperate” through the formation of the compliant Overseas Chinese Association. From the association’s members, “tribute money” could also be extracted.

The first act in the sequence that would lead 50 million Straits dollars being pledged, took place on the 27th of February 1942- as the murderous purge was being enacted. Its stage was the hall of the exclusive Goh Loo Club to which several senior members of the Chinese community were summoned. High on the agenda for that tense first meeting, which was set by a collaborator of Taiwanese origin, Wee Twee Kim, was the development of proposals for “cooperation”. The meeting is depicted in a wall mural at the club’s clubhouse, in which Dr. Lim Boon Keng – the association’s president designate – can quite easily be identified.

It was at subsequent meetings when the sum of money, which amounted to 20% of what was in circulation in Singapore and Malaya, was agreed upon – which can perhaps be thought of having put an end to the purge. Raising the amount required many in Malaya and Singapore to dispose of their assets, and depleted the savings the Chinese population held. It also took two deadline extensions and a loan of $22 million (taken from the Yokohama Specie Bank). A cheque would eventually be presented to General Tomoyuki Yamashita by Dr. Lim on 25 June 1942 at a 3 pm ceremony. This ceremony took place at the Gunseibu headquarters that was set up in the Fullerton Building.

The Goh Loo Club.

The mural.

The hall on the second level where the meeting took place.

A view of Club Street from the clubhouse.

A more agreeable depiction perhaps – with Yamashita behind bars.

A receipt to acknowledge a “donation” made towards the $50 million issued by the OCA (source: https://roots.sg/Roots/learn/collections/listing/1121258).

The Goh Loo Club

Founded in 1905, the club moved to its location on Club Street in 1927 and is one of a handful of exclusive establishments from which the street takes its name.

It was set up by a group of select Chinese businessmen and its members included Dr. Lim Boon Keng and Lee Kong Chian. Its name, 吾盧, which means “love hut” is apparently inspired by a poem written by the Jin dynasty poet Tao Yuanming in which he describes his house.

Its clubhouse bears many of the characteristics of the shophouse with the exception of its unusually large width. A consequence of this is the very obvious set of columns seen in the halls on the clubhouse’s lower floors.

Interestingly, the Basketball Association of Singapore was housed on the first level of the clubhouse from its founding in 1946, to 1971 – as can be surmised from the window grilles on the ground floor. The association was founded by Mr Goh Chye Hin, who was then the president of the Goh Loo Club.

The mural

The mural depicting the first meeting of the OCA, found on the outside wall of the clubhouse, was installed in 2016. Amongst the faces found on it is the reviled General Tomoyuki Yamashita. The mural also celebrates the members of the working-class Chinese community and prominent figures in the community such as the revolutionary leader, Dr. Sun Yat Sen.

The mural is best viewed from the compound of the Singapore Chinese Weekly Entertainment Club.

A reminder of the clubhouse’s association with the Basketball Association of Singapore.

Bearing a burden through the streets of Singapore

Chetty (or Punar) Pusam / Thaipusam

With a greater proportion of folks in Chinatown preoccupied its dressing-up for the Chinese New Year on Sunday, a deeply-rooted Singaporean tradition that took place in the same neighbourhood, “Chetty Pusam”, seemed to have gone on almost unnoticed.

Involving the Chettiar community, “Chetty Pusam” is held as a prelude to the Hindu festival of Thaipusam. It sees an especially colourful procession of Chettiar kavidi bearers who carry the burden from the Sri Layan Sithi Vinayagar Temple on Keong Saik Road through some streets of Chinatown to the Sri Mariamman Temple and then the Central Business District before ending at the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple on Tank Road.

The procession coincides with the return leg of the Silver Chariot‘s journey. The chariot, bears Lord Murugan or Sri Thendayuthapani (in whose honour the festival of Thaipusam is held) to visit his brother Sri Vinayagar (or Ganesh) in the early morning of the eve of Thaipusam and makes its return in the same evening.

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More Photographs of Thaipusam in Singapore:

• Vel, Vel, Vadivel: Thaipusam in Singapore (2010)
• Sights Sans Sounds of Thaipusam in Singapore (2011)
• Thaipusam at the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple (2012)
• An Annual Walk of Faith (2013)
• Faces of Thaipusam 2014 (2014)
• What colours the full moon of Thai (2015)
• The full moon of Thai (2016)
• The Thaipusam Chariot Procession (2017)
• Photographs of Thaipusam 2017
• The Silver Chariot through the streets of Chinatown (2018)
• Photographs of Thaipusam Preparations at the Sri Srinivasa Perunal Temple (2018)
• Kavadis on Keong Saik (2018)

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Lighting the Mid-Autumn up

Lighting this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival is the story of Chinatown, as is interpreted by the Kreta Ayer-Kim Seng Citizens’ Consultative Committee – the organisers of the annual Chinatown Mid-Autumn Festival. Centred around the theme of “Our Chinatown, Our Mid-Autumn” the celebrations this year aims to recapture images of Singapore’s Ngau Cheh Sui / Gu Chia Chwee in the 1950s and 1960s as well as the lives of the Chinese immigrants in the area.

Central to the celebrations is the OfficiaL Street Light-up, which will brighten the streets of the “Greater Town” – as Chinatown was also referred to in the past in the various Chinese languages – from 8 September to 8 October 2018. The light-up features more than a thousand lanterns including a 10-metre tall centrepiece, a Chinese junk, at the meeting of New Bridge Road / Eu Tong Sen Street with Upper Cross Street. There are also some 168 sculptured lanterns depicting some of the more visible trades-people of Chinatown’s past such as Samsui women, coolies, street hawkers and rickshaw-men; as well as 1288 lanterns made to resemble paper accordion lanterns over New Bridge Road, Eu Tong Sen Street and South Bridge Road. An additional 180 hand-painted lanterns with orchids, peonies and hydrangeas will also decorate South Bridge Road.

As usual, there will also be a host of activities during the month long celebrations, the highlights of which are an attempt to set a new Singapore record for the number of oriental masks worn at the same time, the regular street bazaar, nightly stage shows – with dragon dances during the weekends, and a Mass Lantern Walk. There is also a new night event this year – the Singapore Culture and Heritage Trail – Cantonese Chapter: “Reliving the Yesteryears Once More”. Over two nights, on 21 and 22 September, participants are taken back in time to the colourful night markets of the Chinatown of old. There is a particular focus on the Cantonese, whose presence was in Chinatown and there is an opportunity to taste lost-in-time Cantonese cuisine as well as a getai.

More information at : http://chinatownfestivals.sg/.

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A sneak peek at this year’s Official Street Light-up:

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Discovering 5 Kadayanallur Street

Next on the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of State Property Visits, being organised with the support of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA), is to No. 5 Kadayanallur Street on 7 July 2018. The visit is limited to 40 participants of ages 18 and above. Registration (limited to 40 participants of ages 18 and above) may be made by filling the form at this link (fully subscribed as of 1707 hrs 22 Jun 2018).

More information:

• The hospital at Mount Erskine and what may now be Singapore’s oldest lift
• Photos (on Flickr)
• Story of a lift nearing 90 (Sunday Times, 27 May 2018)

The hospital at Mount Erskine and what may now be Singapore’s oldest lift

Rather nondescript in appearance, the building at 5 Kadayanallur Street conceals a wealth of little secrets. Last used as the corporate offices of a department store in Singapore, there are few who know of the building’s chequered past and of its use as a hospital before and during the Japanese Occupation. Another interesting piece of history that the building holds is an old lift. Installed in 1929, the Smith, Major and Stevens beauty – complete with wooden panels and sets of collapsible gates – may be the oldest lift now in existence in Singapore.

The rather nondescript looking building at Kadayanallur Street – last used as CK Tang’s Coporate Offices.

The building, which has been described as Singapore’s first modernist building, was completed in 1923 as the St. Andrew’s Mission Hospital (for Women and Children). Designed by Swan and Maclaren’s Harry Robinson, the odd shape of its plan can be attributed to the site that was found to accommodate what would have been a small but very important institution. The first dedicated facility that the St. Andrew’s Mission set up – it had previously run several dispensaries, including one at Upper Cross Street with a small in-patient section – it was established to provide impoverished residents with illnesses living in the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of Chinatown with access to care and relief from suffering.

The inside of the building – the floor where the hospital’s staff quarters were located.

The installation of a lift – retrofitted in 1929 – was considered then to be a step forward in the treatment of children afflicted with a rare, debilitating and extremely painful tuberculosis of the bones and joints. The disease was first recorded in 1923 – the year of the hospital’s opening and in 1926, six children were hospitalised for it. The only opportunity that could be afforded for these patients to gain access to sunlight and fresh air, essential to treatment, was the roof of the building. This – due to movement of the affected limbs of the children being “painful and injurious” – would not have been possible without a lift.

The 1929 vintage Smith, Major and Stevens lift, which I believe may be the oldest now in Singapore, is still – if not for the shut-off of electrical supply – in working condition.

The hospital building was evacuated in December 1941 following an air raid and was never to be used by the mission again. The Japanese ran a civilian hospital for women and children, the Shimin Byoin, in it from April 1942. After the war, the building was used as a medical store. The Mission was only able to reopen the women and children’s hospital in January 1949 after it was able to acquire and refit the former Globe Building at Tanjong Pagar Road (some may remember the SATA Clinic there). More recently, the Kadayanallur Street building (incidentally Kadayanallur Street was only named in 1952 – after the Singapore Kadayanallur Muslim League) was also used as the Maxwell Road Outpatient Dispensary (from 1964 to 1998).

The roof deck that featured in the treatment of children with tuberculosis of the bones and joints.

A rare opportunity may be provided by the Singapore Land Authority to visit the building and also see the lift, through the Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets series of guided State Property Visits, possibly sometime in July. The visit will also give participants an opportunity to discover much more on the building and the area and also of the building’s history. Do look out for further information on the visit and how and when to register on this site and also at The Long and Winding Road on Facebook.

More photographs : on Flickr.

See also: Story of a lift nearing 90 (Sunday Times, 27 May 2018)

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Further information about Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets:

• Discovering Singapore’s Best Kept Secrets – LAND Sep 2017
• Guided tours of best kept secrets in S’pore – The Straits Times 23 Jul 2017
• 11 Best Tours of Singapore – TimeOut Singapore 11 Apr 2018
• 5 Guided Walking Trails To Discover Previously Inaccessible Corners Of Singapore – TheSmartLocal 28 Nov 2017

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