Chinatown, Singapore: gay aspects

A casual visitor to Singapore may wonder why, in a country where the majority of the population are Chinese, there exists a Chinatown. After all, one does not find any Chinatowns in the other predominantly Chinese societies of mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

When the uninitiated looks back in history, he finds that the Chinese did not always form the majority race in Singapore. When Sir Stamford Raffles landed in 1819, the island was largely populated by small, dispersed settlements of Orang Asli (aborigines) and Malays of the Johor-Riau archipelago who engaged mainly in subsistence farming, fishery and trade.

There were, however, a few hundred Chinese already living here. As far back as around 1330, a traveller named Wang Dayuan (汪大渊) from Quanzhou, China during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty visited Singapore and he wrote about a small settlement called Danmaxi (淡马锡, from the Malay Temasek) with Malay and Chinese residents. The 300 or so Chinese lived in two areas, one at Fort Canning and the other at Keppel Harbour. Presumably the people who lived at Fort Canning indulged in agriculture while those at Keppel Harbour in trade. Clearly, these places were not where Chinatown is today.

Raffles was keen to exploit Singapore's excellent location along the East-West trade routes and her natural deep harbour for the benefit of the British Empire. He envisioned a future Singapore where the majority of the population would be Chinese, the probable reason being that Chinese coolies were reputed to be able to live in meagre conditions with poor remuneration while remaining relatively docile and industrious.

The Raffles Town Plan segregated the races as he believed that Europeans should not live together with their colonised Asian subjects. The various Asian races were designated individual areas. Even amongst the Chinese, he delineated separate sections for Hokkiens, Teochews and Cantonese.

From Raffles' vision sprang Chinatown as each race was not initially free to live wherever it liked under British rule.

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This article was written by Roy Tan.