By Sjon Hauser
Translated by Grace Chow

           
SINGAPORE'S old Chinese temple Thian Hock Keng is fenced off. It is being renovated: NO ENTRY, WORKS IN PROGRESS. The Po Chiak Keng is also covered by scaffolding, but I defied the DANGER, KEEP AWAY. Porcelain splinters for the roof adornment are being sharpened with electric hand-drills. Dizzy from the noise, dust, and the smell of glue and paint, I was back outside in no time again. I walked down Havelock Road, looking for the Yu Huang Dian, until the street became Ganges Avenue. Situated between a hill and a river, the temple is supposed to be a fine example of 'feng shui'. I saw only blocks of flats.

I ambled back to where the Singapore river ripples, hidden between new buildings. Remains of a dilapidated warehouse can be found at only two places. At a sidewalk there is a painting of the river in bygone times: bumboats, sampans, fringed by colourful shophouses with a lively trade. At the opposite side I stumbled upon a memorial where there once was a National Theatre: 'demolished in 1986 due to structural reasons.' I walked to the end of Clemanceau Avenue which, according to a street sign, once used to be Havelock Road. I thought that I had reached my goal after all when I saw something that looked like a little Chinese temple. But it appeared to be a modern office inside: everything smelled new. According to the porter, there has never been a temple here.

In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera describes how Prague became a city without memory in the course of the swift changes in its recent history. As a portent of this, Kafka had Jozef K. wander around people without a past, people who had lost their heritage, in a city where the streets today have a different name from yesterday. In Singapore I had the feeling of being in such a Kafkaesque city, although the city was not depressing and the sun was always shining. Since Singapore's independence in 1965, it has made the jump from Third World to First: a jump during which it underwent a cultural lobotomy. Within a few years, the old was demolished to make way for modern flat towers.

Premier Lee Kwan Yew's obsession with cleanliness reflected itself in the order and tidiness of the new republic. A prosperous and safe future was the trump card, and the past became negligible excrement.

Some 77 percent of the 3 million population is of Chinese descent.

'Corrupt' Western sins and values (like the freedom of expression) crept in, however, through the well-educated new generation and a mainly Western-based modernisation process. In the 1980s, Lee, who is used to ruling the island without opposition, began to parry this threat with the widespread propagation of 'Asian values', especially Confucianism, which was also regarded as a sound base for high economic growth figures. With the grooming of an Asian mentality and identity came the need for a past again. In the late eighties the Urban Redevelopment Authority set up a national board to preserve monuments, to save the remnants of what was left to be saved. The thought that tourists might stay away if there were no temples, mosques or old Chinese streets left to be seen also played a role. The restoration of the bridge to the past is in full swing. Five thousand sites have now been 'identified' to be eligible for preservation.

The Chinese flooded to Singapore after the British started a free trade port here in 1819. The fortune-hunters from mainly South China settled down around the mouth of the river to trade or to work as a coolie in the harbour or plantation. The island was then famous for tigers that came swimming across from the peninsula and that tore hundreds of inhabitants apart yearly. The trading conditions were favourable: the story goes that Tan Che Sang, the richest tycoon in those days, used to sleep between the iron chests that held his money. The immigrant quarters grew so unbridled that urban planning became necessary in 1828. The Chinese got the southern bank of the river. A couple of years later they had become the biggest population group. The coolie trade blossomed. At the Telok Ayer street, then situated at sea, newcomers disembarked from their junks into the Fak Tak Chi - the first temple - to thank the gods for their safe journey. After that they were brought to their lodgings, commonly known as 'pig quarters'.

That little temple has been restored several times. In 1869 it was in danger of collapsing into the sea, but it still exists -- as a museum. A framed newspaper article from 1998 hangs at the entrance with the headline 'No more termites, step in'. A scale model gives a fair picture of the street life of the old days.

The Chinese immigrants organised themselves into secret societies soon enough. Singapore has had its fair share of clan wars and other problems with kongsi's. William Pickering was appointed to get a grip on the secret societies. Despite his knowledge of the Chinese language and his tactfulness he only partly succeeded. In 1887 an angry Chinese split his head with an axe.

Telok Ayer Street remained Singapore's commercial centre into the twentieth century. It was designated as a monument in 1989. Together with Amoy street, located right behind, it is now part of the most thoroughly restored parts of Chinatown. Almost all of the shophouses received brand new traditional green and glazed tiled awnings with bamboo motifs that symbolise energy and prosperity. Nowadays most of the premises are occupied by the offices of insurers, travel agencies, law-, design-, and consultancy firms. Shops and craftsmen have disappeared, which lends it a certain sterility. No little red altars with smouldering incense are hanging in the five-foot-ways, which are so characteristic of Chinese neighbourhoods in Malaysian towns. No stack of goods. There are even no swallows, which usually like to nestle there and cover the surroundings with their droppings. There was wet laundry hanging out to dry on a bamboo pole from one and only one house. There is no trace to be found of the effervescent street life and the rowdiness of the old days. Where have they gone, the pimps who, in Theroux's novel, let Saint Jack be tattooed from head to toe with obscene Chinese characters? I only saw bespectacled yuppies with irreverent neckties and the latest models of lightweight mobile phones.

Still it looks authentic compared to the neighbouring Far East Square, since its opening in 1997 the 'jewel between the skyscrapers'. You reach it via the small temple museum. An automatic glass door leads you first to an airconditioned street with sidewalk cafes and a picture exhibition. Via another sliding door you reach Amoy Street, covered by a glass roof that automatically closes when it rains. Far East Square is supposed to be an exciting fusion of East and West and of Old and New - a bastion full of 'edutainment' where one becomes 'conscious of the Chinese immigrant past' and where you can spend your time in a 'pleasantly nostalgic, yet modern' way. In a folder I read that the designers were guided by the 'traditional concept of Yin and Yang where universe and life are held in balance by the elements water, fire, wood, metal and earth'. I found the constructions of metal pipes and tubes - a bit like a factory and a bit like Centre Pompidou - too dominant.

The Chinese lanterns served possibly as a balance. 'Come and see how Chinatown once looked like! The peculiar shophouses are the same as where hundreds (sic!) years ago coolies, money transfer agents and tea traders lived.' Only then I noticed that I am surrounded by authentic shophouses covered with brand new yellow painted plaster.

Via Water Gate I stepped into Peking Street with its Art-Deco-style refurbished shophouses. This was the centre of the agencies that transferred the savings of the coolies to their families back in China. The lucrative business was a monopoly of the Teochews. When the British opened a special post office for financial transfers in 1876, bloody disturbances followed. The money trade of the early days has left no visible signs however. I continued walking to the mouth of the river.

The clean up of the river is proclaimed to be a milestone in the process of making Singapore the 'Tropical City of Excellence'. The Singapore River was a filthy stinking sewer. According to Joan Hon in Tidal Fortunes, many children drowned there while swimming: 'Their bodies joined those of unwanted babies and dead pigs at dusk.' In 1977, the slums and sheds of hawkers at the quaysides were demolished, and 240 tonnes of rubbish was dredged from the river. Within 10 years the shrimps were back and the river was declared clean. When I was there in 1982 there were still hundreds of bumboats in the river, which were used to transport the cargo from the ships to the warehouses. The OCBC Centre was the highest building with 198 metres. It now cowers behind countless giants of 280 metres.

Just a couple of bumboats remain, rebuilt into sightseeing boats. The life on the river is already as sterile as some of the renovated streets in Chinatown. When the authorities became conscious of it, they tried to summon the soul of the past through flea markets in Chinatown and at the quays. But that soul is like the transvestites of Bugis Street: when the prostitution zone was renovated, they disappeared, and with them, the atmosphere.

From Read Bridge I can look over Clark Quay. Almost all the shophouses are now restaurants, with sidewalk tables for 'al fresco dining'. An exception is a jewel of a Chinese mansion, built at the end of the 19th century.

The sidewalks of the shophouses at Boat Quay, at the other end of the river, form the hot spot of the nightlife. Across the water, one sees colonial buildings, like the former court of justice from 1865. Soon it will be re-opened as the Asian Civilisations Museum with which Singapore hopes to become the cultural centre of the region. Just as with the History Museum, a monument with a time capsule was placed here at the turn of the millennium, so that later generations will get a picture of life anno 2000. The people were allowed to choose what to put into the capsule. They chose unanimously for the memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew.

The latest acquisition of Singapore's search for identity stands at a river bend: the MITA Building from 1934. It served as police headquarters for decades, and was renovated in 1997. The window shutters have the colourful style of the Chinese shophouses. It is now the seat of the National Heritage Board.

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