Chinatown-Singapore

Yesterday we went to Chinatown and to the Riverwalk.

It seems strange that a city whose population is over 70% Chinese would have a district called Chinatown. This dates to the early British settlement when the Chinese immigrants were a minority. Raffles, to keep racial tensions minimized, divided the city into districts based on ethnic groups. Chinatown was allotted the area south of the Singapore River. 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.


We had dinner at a "hawker" station. We ate dumplings and delicious smoked grilled ham. It is customary to serve this ham during Chinese New Year.



And for Gram, here is a picture of Caleb...