A New Look For Singapore Chinatown

by Simeone Andrulli

I must admit that despite my extensive traveler experience, entering the sanctuary island of Singapore caused me concern. Too often illustrated magazines and international newspapers reports bizarre news about the small state island : expensive fines to whoever litters the streets; chewing-gum strictly banned from the national territory; street patrolling by means of cameras, exemplary punishment stricken to transgressors breaking local laws tasting of European Middle Age ...in short something bordering more the description of a futuristic and mysterious science fiction society , certainly not thinkable in SE Asia. I did not expect the police siren behind me anytime I broke the strict rules of Singapore but a palpable apprehension accompanied my actions. I often found myself rebuking even my wife who has the habit to be careless in littering. The ironic part of it, is that while my wife Etsuko is Japanese and so coming from a country rigidly observing its own laws, I am from Italy, country traditionally transgressive regarding restrictions to individual freedom.
The stereotyped image of Singapore was brought into question with the choice of the hotel. Early twentieth century huge rooms, creaking and unsteady furniture, large windows that let enter insects through the mosquito net breaks, a lot of dust everywhere, cockroaches keeping company in the bathroom: a more consistent scenario with the seediest parts of Marseille or at the least with the pre-war colonial Singapore, not a city renown for the modernity of its structures.
The day after, the proverbial image of Singapore was not late to appear before us: not much traffic on the roads, steel and smoky glass towers challenging the constantly leaden sky, shopping centers crowded by tourists taking advantage of bargains and the great variety of merchandise, limousines with chauffeurs waiting for affluent customers at the exit of sophisticated hotels like Raffles or Shangri-La.
However as we passed the colonial district and the skyscraper curtain overlooking the Singapore river, the city drastically changed. Like a boundary between two worlds, Pickering Street and the adjoining Church Street marked the passage between two epochs, two civilizations facing each other, a brutal challenge where the oldest one was getting the worse of it. While North of this ideal line, modern architecture geometries faded behind the trees adorning the avenue, south of such frontier there were entire blocks of completely abandoned and crumbling palaces: It was Singapore's Chinatown. When we arrived it was daytime, but we did not need much to imagine ghosts and other twilight beings wandering among the ruins when darkness enveloped the area. The spectacle was impressive: as much as the cyclopean cities near Cuzco, Chinatown seemed stricken not by a seismic tremor rather a cultural collapse.
A map placed at the entrance of the SE Asian modern Pompeii played down the first impact impression. Chinatown had been divided by sectors and it was under plastic surgery operation. The sector we were walking through was the last one to chronologically undergo to the careful cure of architects and building firms.

The wounds of time were evident everywhere. The last inhabitants, over there still present hurried to move their furnishings into the new apartments out of Chinatown. Since Singapore's mainstream culture can be considered Chinese, it's no mistake stating that most of Singapore's heritage can be found in Chinatown.
Immigrants from China settled in Singapore in latter half of the 19th century and recreated much of what they had left behind. Clan groups began migrating from the S provinces of China to the South Sea in successive waves from the 17th century on. The greatest number migrated in the 40 years after 1870. Separate streets were occupied by different Chinese groups. Clubs and clan houses (kongsi) aided family and regional ties. The kongsi were often associated with societies (tongs) which controlled gambling and prostitution industries and drug trade.
Last decade Singapore fast economy development changed the governmental plans for Chinatown and so until a few years ago, high-rise development was invading Chinatown itself. From time to time part of it was demolished to make way for new complexes like "Chinatown Complex", at such a rate that by the time the authorities grasped that tourists actually wanted to see its crumbling building, it was almost too late. Chinatown had become a slum, which the government thought unbecoming of Singapore otherwise germ-free environment. The action undertaken by the government to renovate Chinatown became clearer step by step as we crossed the different sections by which Chinatown was being divided.
Smith Street, Temple Street, Pagoda Street, Trengganu and Sago Street had their characteristic baroque-style shophouses but instead of weathered shutters, the entire rainbow color sequence was represented in the decoration of ancient streets. Markets, foodstalls, street vendors, incense scents all gone. In their place: offices, high fashion boutiques, even an Irish pub instead of a Chinese teahouse.
Anyway the district that had changed beyond recognition was Tanjong Pagar at the Southern tip of South Bridge Road. Once a veritable sewer of brothels and opium dens where rowdy sailors sought sinful company, over two hundred shophouses were painstakingly restored and painted in sickly pastel hues.
Fortunately not all of Chinatown was under construction, demolition or renovation. Telok Ayer Street whose Malay name - Watery bay - recalls a time when the street would have run along the shoreline of the Strait of Singapore, did not have any sign of construction workers. The superb Thian Hock Keng Temple, the Temple of Heavenly Happyness, from the street looked spectacular.
Strangely a beggar sat at the main entrance while some devotees lighted incense for their prayers. A sign of relief: not all Chinatown had faded away.
As much as the Hokkien temples and the Muslim mosques erected along the ancient shoreline to welcome the new arrivals also barbershops looked like carrying on Chinatown's heritage. Some arranged their "office" under the porticoes and with almost all families who lived in Chinatown gone, their only customers seemed to be the construction workers. Even though a complete new ambience was displacing the old one, we did not mind entering the Mc Donald near Chinatown Complex: fatal attraction of an hamburger and French fries. Despite the evident pseudo-cultural clash, it did not sound so inappriopriate the location of an American fast-food in the core of the new Chinatown, at least in Singapore. We were not the only ones to enjoy the state-of-the-art air condition environment; locals of clear Chinese descent queue up and waited patiently their turn and instead of their typical pork-meat meal, they shared with us the pleasure of a rounded sandwich. Nevertheless a touch of China-ness was everywhere; not in the architecture of the palaces rather in the people who started to animate the renovated Chinatown which slowly was taking a new look.
An old woman selling newspapers, avid readers standing nearby, re-opened shops in the newly refurbished palaces with shoppers looking for a bargain...my wife and I reassured by such a "relaxed" attitude forgot for a while of being in Singapore: we even thought we could find chewing-gum...nobody knows what can happen in Chinatown, ever!