Fazzera's Reflection

Prior to this heritage trail, I can only remember ever visiting Chinatown thrice. Once when I was in secondary school as part of a learning journey, the other was when I had to accompany my mom to a tailor – of which both times was as dreadful as I can remember a few years ago. I personally felt that the place had no significance in my life as I have only seen it as just a tourist attraction and a place where our local Chinese will visit during the festive periods. By actually typing out my past impressions of the place leaves me ashamed of how ignorant I was. >.<

That aside, I was glad that my group had been selected to visit Chinatown as this provided me a chance to actually visit the place with an open mind. The heritage trail was an enriching experience for me as it has allowed me to gain a better understanding of Chinatown’s history and culture. When my group and I were walking around and searching for the particular areas and streets we needed to visit, it actually made me much more observant of the location, the architecture and the people around. It made me realise that every little part of the streets had its own history and stories that made up the past of Singapore.

The site that interests me most is the Telok Ayer street as six of Singapore’s national monuments can be found there. Although we only visited four of it, the fact that a site or structure is gazetted as a national monument meant that it holds so much historical, architectural and social importance to Singapore’s heritage. As the first landing point for immigrants, the early communities built their respective places of worship on Telok Ayer street to express gratitude to their deities for their safe passage through the harsh voyage. Although the Telok Ayer area was designated for the Chinese community according to the Jackson Town Plan of 1822, the location of these places of worship made Telok Ayer a multi-cultural space where different communities co-existed. It was interesting to be able to see places of worship like temples, mosque and church co-existing in the same region.

Essentially, this heritage trail has been meaningful as it has exposed me to understand the rich history and culture of Chinatown. It was really an enjoyable experience this time around with my group mates. On top of that, I was pleasant to see tourists visiting the historical sites but at the same time, it made me realise how disheartening it is that more tourists indicates their interest in the diverse heritage of Singapore than local Singaporeans actually do. Thus, I feel that it is important to raise greater awareness of these heritages and the significance of various places in Singapore, especially to the younger generations that we will be educating in the future.