Chinatown
Chinatown
Three years after Singapore was settled Chinatown had 3,000 inhabitants, most of them penniless and half starving immigrants from mainland China. Over the next decade their numbers would grow to exceed 30,000. The living conditions must have been horrid. Chinatown was a relatively small area for such numbers of people. Slophouses, two-story buildings with shops or small factories on the ground floor and living quarters upstairs, were common. Often twenty to thirty lived in a single room. The British did not provide police protection in Chinatown. This was the responsibility of the Chinese guilds, or clan associations, to oversee their own law and order. Shop displays spill onto the pavements, tables groan with the weight of exotic foodstuffs and the weird wares of the Chinese apothecaries like dried lizard skins and powdered rhino horn. The Sam Kee Building in Pender Street is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the narrowest building in the world, at only six-foot (two metres) wide. This was the result of a local property owner reacting to the expropriation of most of his land in 1912 for the widening of the street: Chang Toy decided to build what he could on the remaining tiny strip. Another main attraction in Chinatown is the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, enclosed behind high walls, that was built in 1986 at a cost of $5.3-million with the craftsmen and materials all imported from China.
The best way to see and enjoy Singapore’s Chinatown is to walk its streets, but first we had to get from the hotel to Chinatown. Taxi’s are readily available as are buses, but the best way to travel throughout Singapore is by using its subway system, the MRT.
Singapore’s MRT is wonderful. Being a seasoned subway traveler forced to take subways in New York City from time to time I appreciated Singapore’s subways. Not a single piece of newspaper laying anywhere about. Underground stations were all air-conditioned and the fares were inexpensive. New York could certainly learn something from Singapore about subway service and cleanliness.
Chinatown Attractions
The Wak Hai Cheng Bio Temple
Built between 1852 and 1855 by the Teochew Chinese the temple is dedicated to the goddess of the sea. Inside the temple were altars where the faithful, who had purchased paper models of the necessities of life (money, cars, airplanes, horses, boats, etc.) could ritually burn them as offerings to departed loved ones. It is believed that their essence, represented by the flames and smoke, passed through to the spirit world for their loved ones to enjoy.
The Thian Hock Keng Temple, “Temple of Heavenly Happiness,” was completed in 1841 is one of Singapore’s oldest and largest temples. Before Singapore’s land reclamation project the temple stood on the shore at the point where the Chinese immigrants first stepped on land after crossing the perilous South China Sea. The temple is dedicated to “Ma Chu Poh,” the goddess of the sea.
The Sri Mariammam Temple, a Hindu temple. Its pagoda-like entrance is topped by one of the most ornate gopurams (pyramidal gateway towers) in all of Singapore. Hundreds of brightly painted statues of deities and mythical animals line the tiers of this towering pyramid. Glazed cement cows sit seemingly in great contentment atop the surrounding wall.
