Beyond the shining surface, a place like home

Marina Barrage. [Photo provided to China Daily]

I stayed at the New Majestic Hotel in Chinatown for the four days while I was in Singapore in mid-June. The area, covering about 0.9 square km, was where Chinese immigrants settled from the early 19th century to the mid-20th century.

Starting from the early 1980s the Government of Singapore began to gradually renovate the area, with one of its overarching concerns being to preserve local history. Many age-old houses, including the hotel premises, were designated conservation buildings and put under protection. Today the area has an estimated 1,600 residents and a total of 1,200 conservation buildings.

Lyndel Joyce, the hotel's marketing communications executive, said that anyone in the know will always quickly get a whiff of the history in this part of town.

"Steps away from Bukit Pasoh Road, where our hotel is located, is another street known in the 1950s and 60s as the 'mistress street'," she said. "Also not far way was police quarters. There used to be a lot of clans within the Chinese community in Singapore. Feuding sometimes took place and required police intervention."

All the grittiness associated with that history are now mere vestiges, many old buildings that used to house the clan associations now housing design companies and art groups.