The history of Singapore and its evolution as an entrepôt had always intrigued me. This visit to Singapore provided me with an excellent opportunity to explore this heritage. I embarked on a solo walking tour of the city-state's museums. From Raffles Place, I headed to the Asian Civilisation Museum.
At the Asian Civilisation Museum, I bought my museum access pass and I embarked on this amazing journey.
One thing I particularly liked about Singapore was how the establishment got locals involved in appreciation of their heritage. Locals and permanent residents are allowed free access to the museums. Aliens like me can also see these museums with a three-day, SG$ 20 pass that gives access to five museums and heritage sites in the city.
The Asian Civilisation Museum housed government offices during the colonial days and was known as the Empress Place Building...
The Asian Civilisation Museum gave an interesting insight into how Temasek, or Singapore, as it was known a few hundred years back, did have a prehistoric civilisation which has intrigued historians for long. Pottery from these civilisations has been excavated from various sites across the island and these were on display.
The museum had on display various artifacts from the erstwhile Malay dynasties that ruled Singapore right upto the arrival of the Chinese, Europeans and Indians to this island state...
The Chinese immigrants came in as cheap labour in these boats, which were known as junks...
And they were issued paper passports like the one above...
These immigrants were settled in Chinatown. Chinatown was plagued with disease, opium and gangwars. The members of the mafia used these medallions as membership tokens...
Opium was also a major scourge in Chinatown...
Singapore was ruled from India by the East India Company in the 1800s... India became a source of cheap labour and a lot of convicts (prisoners from the 1857 war of independence in India) were brought in... The Sepoys were trusted lieutenants of the gora sahabs and were brought in to police the gangs of Chinatown....
The Chettys and the Chettiars from South India migrated to Singapore as money lenders....
Today, in Singapore, Tamils form a majority (amongst all Indian communities) and Tamil is an official language...
Chinese lacquer bowls....
The Asian Civilisation Museum acknowledged the dominance that Hinduism and Buddhism from India had in the medieval times, before the advent of Islam...
The legendary Garuda....
Porcelain from China that captivated the world in the Middle Ages....
Buddha on a cross from Japan - advent of Christianity in Asia saw people practising both religions.... Sadly, liberalism has given way to dogmatism today....
The Parsis also found their way to Singapore.... Though the museum was silent on this, I suspect, the opium trade did bring them here in the 1800s....
The statue of Sir Stamford Raffles right outside the Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall, which is next to the Asian Civilisation Museum... Raffles was an employee of the East India Company and is regarded as the father of modern Singapore
As I headed towards the Singapore Philatelic Museum, I passed by this colourful building. This used to be the Old Hill Street Police Station. Its proximity to the warehouses at Clarke's Quay and Chinatown helped the police keep gangwars under check.
Today, this building houses the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts
The old fire station - again it was by design located next to Clarke's Quay to ensure a quick response to any fire that could break out there....
The Freemasons Hall reminded me of the one at Janpath, New Delhi....
And while the Singapore Philatelic Museum is a short walk from the Asian Civilisation Museum, it took me a good half an hour to get here... I was "trigger-happy", soaking in the heritage of Singapore...
A post box, with markings of EIIR, brought in from Hong Kong in 1997, when the colony was transferred to China as a Special Administrative Region...
Replicas of the Penny Black (the first postage stamp) and early stamps from the Straits Settlements - British colonies and protectorates in the Malay peninsula on display...
Kids having fun.... The museum was teeming with kids... I was the only adult around...
Some more stamps from the Straits Settlements....
With the advent of email, Skype and other means of communication, philately is on the verge of extinction, but museums like this one will keep these memories alive...
The museum is a real treat for those who want to explore the fascinating world of philately - they have an interesting collection of stamps in real gold, those made of mother of pearl, fabric, those taste like chocolate and what not...
But I had to move on....
My next stop was the Peranakan Museum, which is housed in the old building of the Tao Nan School.
A representation of father and son outside the museum...
The Peranakans are descendents of ethnic Chinese who migrated to South East Asia and married with locals. There is also a small minority of Pernakans called the Chittys - Tamils interbred with ethnic Chinese....
Some prominent local Peranakans....
A Peranakan wedding procession...
A guided tour for local schoolkids... Getting schoolkids involved in appreciation of national heritage builds an unbreakable bond, a sense of pride in the nation's move forward...
We need to learn that in India...
The interiors of the Peranakan Museum talk of the glory of the era gone by....
Peranakans draw on Chinese Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian beliefs. A representation of Fu, Lu, and Shou, deities representing appiness (Fu), Prosperity (Lu), and Longevity (Shou) reminded me of Xintiandi in Shanghai....
From the Peranakan Museum I headed to the National Museum of Singapore, passing by some interesting buildings that definitely had been restored...
The museum looked magnificent...
Movie posters of local productions from the last 50 odd years were on display...
Kids on a guided tour...
The Singapore Stone, undoubtedly the museum's most prominent displays, is a fragment of a large sandstone slab which originally stood at the mouth of the Singapore River. The slab, which is believed to date back to at least the 13th century, has an undeciphered inscription, which has been an enigma to historians....
The stone was discovered near the present day Fullerton Hotel....
A short movie depicting the early days in Temasek, before the immigrants came in...
Stinky and mosquito infested, that's what Singapore was a century ago...
What really intrigued me in my trail of Singapore's history was how Singapore has not deified its founding fathers like Lee Kuan Yew. In India, it is unimaginable not to have a Nehru Museum or a Gandhi Museum... A country is what it is because of its people and their heritage, and certainly not becase of its political leaders. Perhaps, that's a lesson we still need to learn back home....
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