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Chapter 1: Why A Comparative Study of Chinatowns?
1.1 Chinatown: The Ethnic Enclave
An ethnic enclave, it is observed, is created when people of
a particular racial or cultural group create a ―protective‖ (Portes and
Manning, 1996) neighborhood which functions separately from the
majority population of a city as they try to be self-sufficient and
basically survive in a new environment (Hummon, 1996).
In many ways, enclaves like Chinatown were a support
mechanism for incoming immigrants (Kwong, 1996; Logan, Alba
and Zhang, 2002), allowing incoming immigrants to adapt more
comfortably to the new way of life in new places while providing
them with much-needed requirements for settlement, like housing,
jobs, contacts and access to networks (Zhou, 1992; Portes and
Jensen, 1992). ―Dominant in the urban sociology literature on
immigrant incorporation is the role of ethnic enclaves—ethnic
neighborhoods that provide a ―port of entry‖ or ―context of
reception‖ and help facilitate incorporation in the host society by
generating informal resources, networks, and institutions that
provide linguistic and cultural services and products (Portes and
Rumbaut, 1990). The seminal work of Alejandro Portes and his
colleagues developed the concept of a ―context of reception‖ to
describe the key factors that mediate the incorporation of new
1
immigrants (Portes and Bach, 1985; Portes and Rumbaut, 1990;
Portes and Zhou, 1992) such as the provision of emotional, social
and cultural support, as well as other resources such as
information, housing, initial entry into the labor market, and social
capital, and shelter from abuse all of which help them adapt to the
new environment (Aldrich et al; 1984; Zhou and Logan 1991;
Bailey and Waldinger 1991; Logan, Richard and Wenquan, 2002)
attest to the importance of this arrangement to the new immigrant;
for immigration then is more or less a social process facilitated by
ethnic-based networks and these largely informal networks also
promote a particular set of conditions for socio-economic
integration in the host country through the formation of immigrant
enclaves and occupational niches. The enclave is thus where new
migrants congregate, live, work and trade and these activities
sustain the place and give it life and vibrancy as communal ties are
forged and a certain level of interdependency holds everyone in
tension with each other in the same mutual help community.
For our purposes here, it is important to note that besides
being highly contingent social developments that were engendered
out of perceived gaps in service provision and were constituted as
a response to the prevailing social environment these new
migrants find themselves embedded, these ethnically constituted
social developments also bear very significant spatial expression
as activities are enacted in a specific place or ‗quarters‘ or
2
‗neighborhoods‘, and give rise to very distinct spatial outcomes.
These are places whereby ethnic identity was heavily and
meaningfully inscribed, developing a distinct sense of place and
they exist in heavily interdependent relationships with their
incumbents and the social institutions that these then nascent
immigrants engendered to cater to their perceived needs and that
of their fellow countrymen, institutions that are embodiments of that
ethnic identity.
Given this high dependency in taking cues from the physical
and social environment in its development, how the initially strongly
welded relationship between place and ethnic identity has evolved
over time will by implication be a good commentary of the
contemporary social relations between those that currently inhabit
these traditional enclaves. This means that it will be instructive to
begin looking at the contemporary manifestations and read the
changes that have been wreaked on these traditional enclaves
against its genesis to look at how ethnic identity has transformed,
and how it manifests itself in place (See Genealogy of both
Yaowarat and Chinatown SG‘s development at Appendix A).
Looking at how ethnic identity is embodied in space or emplaced
(Gieryn, 2000) today in these traditional enclaves, engendering
various spatial outcomes constitutes a large part of our endeavour
in this thesis.
3
1.2 The Ethnic Enclave Today: Chinatown SG Niu Che Shui
Singapore‘s Chinatown (Chinatown SG) was conceived in the
Jackson Plan of 1822 when Sir Stamford Raffles delineated
parcels of land for different groups of migrants to inhabit with the
main purpose of facilitating proper governance in the colony the
British established in 1819. This form of urban planning based on
ethnicity inaugurated the emergence of the phenomenon of ethnic
enclaves1 in Singapore, creating the institutionally developed
presence of ―distinct social and spatial areas‖ or urban villages‖
(Bell and Jayne, 2004:1). Chinatown grew quickly as immigrants
arrived mainly from the southern Chinese provinces with a variety
of dialect groups such as the Hokkiens, Teochews, Cantonese,
Hainanese, Hakkas and Foochows which each formed their own
communities.
Raffles' influence also led to the allocation of
different areas for each clan group. The Hokkiens settled around
Telok Ayer and the waterfront, the Teochews along Singapore
River (Clarke Quay) and around Fort Canning, while the
Cantonese and Hakka lived further out at Kreta Ayer2.
1
An „enclave‟ is a distinctly bounded area enclosed within a larger unit. An „ethnic
enclave‟ is such an area that is mostly populated by recent immigrants who have
voluntarily or involuntarily1 chosen to cluster together. There is usually a geographical
concentration of residents, businesses and community institutions (Zhou and Logan,
1989) of a single ethnic group
2
It should be noted that despite these dialect group differences, there was also a palpable
sense of a unified „Chinese‟ identity as evidenced by examples of supra-Chinese
institutions such as the Chinese Chamber of Commerce started in 1908 where “nearly
all well-known Chinese of Singapore have been members” . The Chamber acts as an
arbitrator and intermediary between Chinese and non-Chinese migrants. In fact when the
Hokkien-Teochew riot broke out in 1906, Capt A.H. Young, then the Colonial Secretary,
went to the CCC to ask the committee for assistance (Song, 1967:389). This shows that
there are supra-dialect institutions that governed the Chinese.
4
Interestingly, the dialect segregation also had an unintended
effect on commerce in Chinatown – business owners, either for the
convenience of communication or the comfort of the familiar, would
often hire workers of their own dialect. This eventually led to trades
being dominated by particular dialect groups. Despite these
differences between the various dialect groupings which saw them
develop clan associations that differentiate them from the other
Chinese dialect groups, these groups coexist cheek by jowl in the
area
demarcated,
enjoying
high
product
and
service
complementariity that affords Chinatown a cohesive if initially
superficial imagined, essentialized uniform ‗Chinese‘ Identity3.
While it is not a totally spontaneous congregation of an
ethnic group in a particular place4, in many ways Singapore‘s
Chinatown resembles the other Chinatowns in terms of its early
beginnings and functions. Like Chinatowns all over the world
Chinatown SG was engendered as an ethnic enclave whereby an
ethnic identity bears strong spatial expression and is strongly
grounded into physical space. In Niu Che Shui can also be found
3
The state‟s nation-building efforts in the 1960s saw education provision taken out of
the hands of clans and private institutions (Wilson, 1978). This period of time also
coincided with the sate‟s desire to clean up the appalling living conditions caused by a
concentration of Chinese immigrants. Plans were then made to move people out and
improve the overall standard of living. It is important to note as well that by this time,
the Chinese as an imagined cohesive ethnic group has become the majority population in
Singapore.
4
It must be noted that Chinatown is an essentialized entity for Chinese immigrants to
Singapore co-habited with other immigrants, a point which is vividly illustrated in Telok
Ayer Street where the Thian Hock Keng temple, the Nagore Durga Shrine and the Al
Albrar Mosque are located right next to each other on the same street, denoting a multiethnic presence .
5
formations that plugged perceived gaps in service provision, social
support and these are similarly engendered in and through the
relations the ethnic Chinese have with mainstream society and
those in power, and serve to alleviate the hardships of the early
migrants and the often dire economic and social living conditions
they had to endure. This narrative of resilience, perseverance and
navigating a new environment through mutual help communities
bears uncanny similarities to that of the Chinese elsewhere.
The
similarities however,
end
there
as
Singapore‘s
Chinatown underwent a dramatic change in trajectory following a
series of efforts carried out under the auspices of the state‘s vision
of urban redevelopment in the 1960s that saw the clearing out of
Chinatown businesses and residents and later in the 1980s a
change of tack in ideologies couched in terms of conservation and
heritage. These inconsistencies in policies have been frequently
been said to account for the ―inauthenticity‖5, ―placelessness‖ of
Chinatown SG today for it destroyed the quotidian rhythms of place
that made it what it was, and these were often deemed culpable in
transforming it into a space that is unrecognizable and ―that speak
little of local identities and lifestyles‖.
5
This thesis adopts a constructivist approach to „authenticity‟, conceptualizing it as a
continued lived in experience that can be either still enacted in place and remains
meaningful because the community of users as a community of practice are able to agree
collectively and validate the cultural experiences.
6
These themes constitute a leitmotif of lamentations that are
echoed in the literature surveyed, the first being the notion of how
Chinatown was and still is a product of the state‘s changing
policies and ideologies; and second, that these changing
ideologies have spatial consequences and problems have arisen
out of having changes superimposed upon it, usually top-down, by
external agencies; third, that because the people who make up this
community have not been sufficiently consulted about their views
and were largely passive, powerless and lacking a voice in the
proceedings as they watched top-down, state-driven projects
irrevocably change their lives, mutated their social lives and
marched on relentlessly as the state negotiated what is popularly
termed the ―conservation-redevelopment dilemma‖ (Kong & Yeoh,
1994; Yeoh & Huang, 1996) on their own with economic goals
seemingly at the forefront of any decision-making and as
something that is privileged over and above other factors as an
overriding concern; with the result that fourth, the occurrence of the
production of a ―manufactured sense of place‖ (Henderson, 2000)
that has little resonance and fail to strike a chord with the people in
general owing to its ―artificial prefabrication‖ of old buildings, with
its newly embellished façade marked by a kitsch bright coat of
paint and the eradication of traditional activities and tenants who
used to reside there, destroying the very elements that made it a
‗place‘ (Yeoh and Kong, 1994) and by implication made it
meaningful.
7
The notion that the state‘s ideologies has driven and still
drives its conservation efforts; that state-driven, top down,
economic-centered efforts at conservation was often carried out
without consultation of the public was problematic and deemed a
large contributing factor to its current ―inauthentic‖ form; that the
state‘s efforts engenders questions of whom the conservation is
really for; being ―themed and tamed‖ (Chang, 1997), rid of its
―social contamination‖ and other polluting influences (Yeoh and
Kong, 1994) and become a kind of modernist caricature that has
little resonance and as a consequence the creation of a dissonant,
discordant and meaningless landscape (Chang, 1997: 47) and
becoming a place in which locals have unwittingly become
relegated to the position of an ―outsider‖; the destruction and
creation of memories of place reflect that there is a general
consensus that Chinatown has become a victim of sorts, victimized
by the state‘s somewhat overzealous efforts at conservation and
suffered as a result of the changing policies the state has
employed over the past 40 years, which has robbed it of its
potential, and installed in its place a freeze-framed theme park with
little resonance for the locals and constitutes part of our dissonant
heritage.
However, these explanations while valid arguably neglect
the fact that Chinatowns are socially contingent ethnic formations
8
and its forms and functions today actually tell us more about the
prevailing
social
environment
and
the
relevance
and
meaningfulness of an ethnic identity today for the inhabitants of
that space. Further, they have always been constituted as a
response to the relationships the Chinese have with those in power
in mainstream society. These mean that the state can only be one
part of the problem and the ‗Chinatown problem‘ is also in part the
outcome of wider social changes that have occurred and shaped
the meaningfulness and relevance of an ethnic identity which is a
crucial component in ethnic place-making. Place elements such as
restaurants, shops, markets exist because they are meaningful to
the people who continue to consume these goods and services
that still has resonance as part of their reproduction of their
identities; and conversely to the business people who continue to
inhabit it as a commercial space, who thrive because of that
interdependence they share with place and with their customers.
These elements embody identities that are produced and enacted
in space, and powerfully draw together the place-ethnic identity
dyad that is over time sustained by heritage undergirded by shared
social memories that belie the expression of ethnic identity that
continue to have currency today.
Framed this way, this thesis argues that it is more fruitful to
examine the evolution of elements and ethnic identity in Chinatown
SG in contributing to its current configuration, relooking at the
9
state‘s role in this equation by incorporating considerations of a
wider change in society and how that has impacted the relevance
and currency of an ethnic identity and impacted the place-identity
dyad that is so crucial for enclaves like Chinatown. This approach
is premised on the genesis of Chinatown as a place that is
ethnically significant, whereby activities enacted en site are
ethnically symbolic, significant and emblematic of a reproduction of
identities in place; where place and ethnic identity were mutually
reinforcing and are produced and reproduced symbiotically in an
interdependent quotidian fashion and kept alive through praxis.
Our goal here is to look at how identities are represented in
Chinatown SG today and Chinatown SG today is read as a spatial
outcome of that expression of an ethnic identity today.
1.3 Why Compare and Why Yaowarat? A Note On The PlaceIdentity Dyad and Authenticity
The story of Chinatown SG so far is one of destruction of
the elements that make place. Because these elements have been
removed, it is difficult to discuss how these elements have made
place. To rectify this perceived issue, this thesis adopts a
comparative framework with Bangkok‘s Yaowarat in a bid to
identify and examine the elements that arguably are embodiments
of ethnic identity and study the impacts they have on place.
10
Yaowarat thus constitutes a foil with which to inform our
understanding of Chinatown SG.
The relationship between place and ethnic identity (placeidentity dyad) have been a focal point of scholars of contemporary
urban configurations. The earliest studies of Chinatown by Portes
and others showed us indubitably that place and identity were
strongly welded and constituted lived in experiences, that were
‗authentic‘ owing to its composition of ‗live‘ communities of cultural
practitioners. Contemporary studies of these enclave formations
over time however face the two-fold challenge of firstly distilling the
elements that are central to making place (a task made more
difficult as simultaneously social and physical change affecting the
ways identity is expressed and anchored spatially as ethnic groups
relate to the place differently today6 are ongoing); and secondly, in
these ―ethnic enclave reconfigurations‖ (Luk and Phan, 2005),
defining ‗authenticity‘ becomes difficult and contestations over what
the term means today are rife since MacCanell (1973,1976)
introduced the concept to sociological studies of tourist motivations
and experiences two decades ago.
With these in mind, this thesis conceptualizes place-making
elements as food (Drucker, 2006), entrepreneurial activity as
embodied in ethnic businesses (Valdez, 2002; Waldinger et. Al.,
6
For example as people move out of Chinatown to create “ethnoburbs” (Li, 2009) or
other satellite ethnic towns and as new immigrants from other ethnicities succeeding the
physical space of their predecessors.
11
2009; Zhou, 2004), and places of community worship (Kong, 1994;
Ho, 2006). These are cultural markers and are effective as markers
because they differentiate and are commonly accepted by the
Chinese community as powerful cultural markers. The subsequent
chapters will flesh these out.
This thesis also follows Bruner (1994) and adopts a
constructivist approach towards authenticity. This is a view that
asserts that authenticity is not a property inherent in an object,
forever fixed in time. Instead it seen as a struggle, a social process
in which competing interests7 argue for their own interpretation of
history (1994:408). Conceptualized this way, this means that
authenticity is dependent on the collective agreement of the users
and their ―relationship
with a place‖ (Sasaki, 2000) and
authenticity or inauthenticity is the result of how one sees things
and of his perspectives and interpretations. In this conception
―culture is always in process‖ and context is always in its purview.
This is arguably the most reasonable approach in a study of
changing social meanings in an enclave. This is because this user
centric definition of ‗authentic‘ firmly locates the ‗authentic‘ in the
‗lived in experience‘ with ‗lived‘ alluding to being sustained by what
we will term ‗a community of practice‘.
7
As mentioned in THESIS “STB is trying to create Chinatown as “living history” but it
doesn‟t have the “local life” that convinces tourists. On the other hand, the authenticity
that STB is creating in Chinatown is questioned by locals who do not always recognize
what has been reconstructed in Chinatown as being “accurate” according to their own
memories and experiences.
12
This is crucial as this allows for ‗lived in experience‘ to be
anchored spatially in Chinatown while being simultaneously
cognizant of the fact that the community of practitioners are not
restricted to those living in the vicinity but bears a larger social
footprint. This is meaningful in a study of ethnic enclaves over time
as while concentrated celebrations of festivals like Chinese New
Year and Mid- Autumn Festival continue be practiced en site in
Chinatown and Yaowarat, and while practices tied to ethnicity
continue to be performed regularly en site, it continues to
contextualize the experience of these cultural markers in lived in
experience through social memory in a way that Chinese living
outside of it can also draw and partake in ethnic consumption and
continue to be a part of the community of practice. Geraldine
Lowe-Ismail‘s book on her Chinatown memories and the
passionate debates captured by Kwok et al (2000) stand testament
to that.
This triadic relationship between place, ethnic identity and
authenticity over time thus constitute the crux of the problematic
this thesis seeks to explore in Singapore‘s Chinatown as studies
and the mass media have often lampooned it as being
―inauthentic‖. A comparative framework is utilized here in a bid to
shed greater light into the problematic. The place-identity dyad and
how it is interlinked affects the authenticity of a place like
Chinatown for its users (both within and without) and it is hoped
13
that a comparative analysis can offer us more insight into broader
social changes that have taken place in the Singapore case and
allow for a more nuanced and sensitive reading of Chinatown‘s
contemporary configuration and perceived inauthenticity.
Yaowarat constitutes an interesting case for it has as we
shall see later evidently remained an ethnic stronghold, an enclave
whereby a Chinese identity continues to have currency and import
through the concentrations of ethnic businesses, food, temples,
community foundations etc. It appears to still embody many
characteristics that mark it out as different from the rest of Bangkok
and clearly stands out as a place on which an ethnic identity is
inscribed, where place identity and social identity remain congruent
as a lived- in memory. As Van Roy noted, ―It is among the most
successful in having adapted to the host culture while protecting
and preserving its own ethnic integrity‖ (Van Roy, 2007:5) This is in
marked contrast to the place identity in Chinatown SG that is no
longer congruent with that experienced in reality that we have
noted earlier to be inscribed, superimposed and seemingly
unsustainable.
Identifying and examining more closely the embodiments of
an ethnic identity in Yaowarat is purposed towards allowing us to
gain more insight into the evolution of the spatial expression of an
ethnic identity over time there and use that as a reference point, a
14
spring board to provide a more broad-based, nuanced, textured
explanation for Chinatown SG‘ s current configuration by
reconstituting the state‘s oft mentioned heavy hand at urban
redevelopment as a cause of Chinatown SG‘s ―inauthenticity‖,
―placelessness‖ becoming a space ―that speak little of local
identities and lifestyles‖ rather than the state as the final arbiter of
the dissonance of the Chinatown landscape today. It will also help
us put a finger as to what elements are missing, how they embody
an ethnic identity, and exactly how these are expressed and impact
place identity.
In other words, it looks at the state‘s interventions and
heavy-handedness in Chinatown SG and asks instead what
necessitates such interventions and why place identity appear to
be ultimately unsustainable and requiring frequent resuscitation
efforts by the state in enlivening it through deliberate ―festivizing‖
and embellishments. From this vantage point, the state‘s
intervention is part of the cause but also appears to be a
consequence of wider social changes that have taken place and
arguably a cross-comparison can shed light on what these social
changes can be, and how these changes have spatial impacts.
Thus, this is a strategy aimed at exploring how place is made in
Yaowarat and seeks to establish the elements of import in securing
identity in place and how conversely the absence of which can
potentially dislocate identity in place over time. Yaowarat
constitutes a memory regime that is alive and constantly reworked
15
and current; and that departs from the hijacking of memories and
identities we have seen enacted on Chinatown SG.
1.4 Methodology
This thesis makes use of semi- structured quantitative
surveys with a mixture of both closed and open-ended questions.
This was the main method of data collection and is utilized in the
hope of supplementing quantitative data with qualitative additions
that can help us formulate a fuller picture of the site surveyed.
With an initial conceptualization and cognizance of the fact
that identity is closely tied to food consumption, livelihoods and
community places, the target respondents were the hawkers on the
food streets in Chinatown SG (Smith Street) and Yaowarat; the
shopkeepers conducting businesses in Pagoda and Trengganu
Street and Yaowarat Road and Charoen Krung Road and
members of the temple and foundation hospitals. As this is a
comparative study, the choice of streets to conduct the survey in
were as closely matched in terms of function and location as
possible in the hope of achieving parity. It should be noted that the
definition of Chinatown SG utilized in this thesis are the boundaries
delineated by the state and encompasses the four main streets of
Pagoda Street, Temple Street, Smith Street, Mosque Street with
Trengganu Street stretching the interstices flanked by the four
streets.
16
Response rate varied widely between the two field sites with
the best data garnered from the food street in Yaowarat where 38
interviews were conducted successfully out of 45 attempted
(84.4%). On Smith Street, the response rate was 3 out of 15
(20%). The shops on Pagoda and Trengganu Street, the main
thoroughfare in Chinatown SG garnered a response rate of 19 out
of 30 (63.3%) attempted, whilst that in Yaowarat and Charoen
Krung streets was 76 out of 90 (84.4%) attempted.
1.5 Conclusion
In sum, the ultimate objective of this thesis is to offer an
alternative,
more
broad
based
explanation
of
Singapore‘s
Chinatown‘s current configuration. To fulfill this aim, Yaowarat is
used as a contrast case through which to understand the
constitution of place and identity over time and explore what
varying strategies of memory say about the larger social context. It
marries urban sociology with social memory and the sociology of
everyday life in a bid to understand how place and identity is
constituted and how reality in enacted in and through memory and
with what kinds of repercussions for notions of identity and
ultimately authenticity of a site like Chinatown that straddles
historically contingent time-space-ethnic relationships that has
17
changed over time. We will start our interrogation of food in
Chinatown SG and in Yaowarat before moving on to examining the
other businesses there in Chapter 3, the temples in Chapter 4,
community foundations in Chapter 5 and finally drawing the
threads together in the concluding chapter.
18
Chapter 2: Making Place: Food, Memory and Identity
2.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter I mapped out and explained the
analytic framework that I will be using in this study of Chinatown;
explained the rationale behind approaching the study of Chinatown
SG through the use a comparative approach; and mapped out
what I hope to achieve in viewing Chinatown from this vantage
point. In this chapter I will embark on an analysis of the concepts
laid out in the previous chapter and start examining ethnic identity
in place over time through the conduit of food, to look at the
‗foodscape‘. Sociologists of food have long established the
relationships between food and one‘s identity (Caplan, 1997;
Narayan,1995; Searles, 2002) and also by implication memory
(Holtzman, 2006). This makes food a useful analytical tool with
which to study the embodiments of identity and memory present in
Yaowarat and Chinatown SG today, allowing us to trace the social
trajectories that place identity, ethnic identity and memory have
undergone.
Further, framed against an ethnic neighbourhood
setting these relationships have a further element of being a part of
place identity as well. The purpose of this chapter then is to look at
what Susan Drucker (2002: 173) has termed ―enclave food‖ in
relation to its meanings and representations today; with a view
towards utilizing it as a foil from which to study identity formulations
19
in these historical enclaves today and as a tool that enables us to
gauge
its
current
contributions
to
place
identity
through
understanding its complex influence on ethnic identity.
The attempt at understanding the relations between food
and ethnic identity and how it is enacted in place will be explored
through ethnographic descriptions and discussions of the physical
manifestations of food institutions present in Yaowarat and
Chinatown SG today; as well as a through a selective crosssectional study8 of the social profile of the proprietors manning
these. Simultaneously, to enable a more holistic, contextual
understanding of contemporary configurations of food and identity
in these traditional enclaves over time, these primary findings will
be framed and understood against the backdrop of historical social
trajectories the relationship between food and ethnic identity has
taken over time in these two places as embodied in these food
spaces and purveyors of food. Tracing these permutations will
allow us to glean insight into the social ecology of these hawkers
over time and allow us a contextualized understanding of the
different constructions of ethnic identity over time in place in both
Yaowarat and Chinatown SG respectively.
After mapping out the social ecologies of food hawkers in
the two sites over time the chapter will take another comparative
8
Because this is a comparative study, there is a need to juxtapose comparable
manifestations against each other. Due to this consideration, the food street is
profiled alongside its counterpart food street in Yaowarat.
20
turn and the two sites will be juxtaposed. The differences in the
social ecologies of food hawkers in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG
will then be discussed in a bid to look at what food represents in
each enclave today and its impacts on place identity. This then
forms the basis from which we conduct a discussion with regards
to the contexts that give rise to memory conditions that contribute
to the formation of a strong, accessible ethnic identity and hence
place identity versus one that results in a weak, inaccessible,
dislocated place identity. This chapter will then conclude with an
extrapolation on what these differing constellations of food as a
consumptive aspect of identity formation can inform us with
regards to understanding the placelessness that has become
synonymous
with
Chinatown
SG,
and
allow
us
to
examine/extrapolate on what is being consumed through food
beyond identity in weak memory regimes.
2.2. Chinatown SG
Chinatown SG offers an array of cuisines for the visitor to
pick from. Available are Korean restaurants, vegetarian cuisine,
Chinese food hailing from different parts of China, Thai food, local
fare served in a kopitiam and other local snacks such as desserts
and Chinese yam cake, mooncakes and other assorted Chinese
biscuits interspersed between the various cuisines that also
includes a German/Austrian sausage store with a gregarious
21
German proprietor who has been featured in local media forming
part of the Chinatown SG food scene.
The word ‗eclectic‘ comes to mind when trying to collectively
describe the kinds of food available in Chinatown SG. There are no
obvious concentrations of a particular cuisine or type of food, and
one will be hard pressed to categorize a trademark cuisine
synonymous with the place. The disparate nature/character of food
in Chinatown SG is noteworthy and is a point we will revisit later in
the chapter.
Given this wide-ranging variety and apparent lack of definition in
the kinds of food served in Chinatown SG, the only clustering of
food stalls that is evident on Smith Street stands out as distinctly
different.
Clustering
expresses
a
certain
homogeneity
or
complementarity in function or is an expression of a set of
relationships. It is hence from here that we will begin our
discussion on food, ethnicity, memory and place identity, with the
conscious knowledge that a food parallel food street exists in
Yaowarat (organically) and will provide a basis for comparative
cross referencing subsequently.
2.2.1 Welcome to The Food Street
The food street (above) was inaugurated 10 years ago, the
brainchild
of
the
Singapore
Tourism
Promotion
Board
in
22
collaboration with the Chinatown Business Association (CBA) as
part of a larger overall overhaul of Chinatown in a bid to rejuvenate
it. The CBA itself was the brainchild of the Singapore Tourism
Board (STB) who inaugurated the CBA to act on its behalf in
matters pertaining to businesses in Chinatown. As part of this jointinitiative, the Food Street is a carefully coordinated establishment
run by the CBA and hawkers who hope to conduct business there
lease these stalls from the association. The Food Street then, can
be inferred thus to be a joint effort between the state and its
agents, as essentially a state sanctioned, organized effort deemed
compatible with Chinatown land use9.
One will realize that they have reached ‗The Food Street‘ by
virtue of actual signboards that trumpet its exact location. Situated
along Smith Street, the food street rolls out in a neat and orderly
fashion.
9
The food street was mooted as part of STB‘s proposal for theme streets that
was supposed to include market street, festive street, tradition street and bazaar
street (Kwok et al, 1998:39). It was a plan that drew much criticism but STB put
up a ―strenuous defense against fears that Chinatown is being developed into a
theme park‖. That food hawking was singled out as part of the resuscitation
efforts by the state is worth noting as the whole spectrum of wet market and
night markets went hand in hand with food hawkers in the daily rhythms of those
who inhabited Chinatown in the 1980s and before (Thoo, 1983) and yet only this
cross section was singled out for re-manifestation. It is also worth noting that
while the other proposed theme streets did not materialize, the food street went
ahead despite objections from members of the public who were concerned that
such a move to ‗thematize‘ Chinatown will compartmentalize it into functions,
providing visitors a neat but simplified experience of Chinatown. There were also
apprehensions voiced with regards to STB‘s attempts to provide an overarching
theme to Chinatown, with fears that in so doing, it has ignored Chinatown‘s
history and culture-that it has reduced the layers of meaning to one that overemphasizes an idealized or artificial kind of ‗Chineseness‘ (Kwok et al, 1998:39).
This will be a point we will come back to later in the chapter.
23
Figure 1 The Food Street on Smith Street at 6 p.m. on a weekday.
Consisting of 20 standardized-sized stalls lined up equidistant from
one another on the pavement of one side of Smith Street, the food
street operates daily officially from 6pm on till late. Patrons can
either seat themselves on the row of wooden tables and benches
running parallel to the stalls about two metres away from the stalls,
or in the evenings dine alfresco seated on the tables and plastic
stools rolled out on Smith Street itself, which closes to vehicular
traffic after 6 pm to cater to the anticipated human traffic such an
arrangement was designated to serve.
Interestingly, lined up along Smith Street on both sides are
two corresponding rows of restaurants with many offering a
pantheon of ‗Chinese‘ cuisine from Tian Jin, Beijing, Shanghai, that
24
are run by Chinese nationals. Interspersed between these
restaurants are institutions located in Chinatown under the Arts
Housing
Scheme
that
include
the
Harmonica
Aficionados
Community, Xin Sheng Poets Society and Singapore Association
of Writers, Ping Sheh, Chinese Theatre Circle, Shi Cheng
Calligraphy and Seal Carving Society, Er Woo Musical and
Dramatic Society, TAS Theatre Company and Toy Factory
Productions Limited.
The food street is well lit at night with coloured streetlights
zig-zagging their way along the street overhead in the alfresco
setting. These are accompanied by red swaths of cloth artfully
draped adorned with traditional Chinese red lanterns interspaced
similarly, all zigzagging artfully above the street creating a distinct
ethnic overtone. That these were installed by the CBA and not the
hawkers themselves add to the notion of contrived, deliberate
attempts to foster a, hyper-Chinese ambience that reeks of an
ethnic overtone.
Food sold on the food street include Chinese desserts such
as ―ah balling‖ or flour balls with peanut or sesame filling served in
a sweet soup and other desserts like ice-kachang, pig-organ soup,
stir-fried and/or barbecued seafood with ‗sambal‘ chilli sauce, fried
carrot cake, fishball noodles, fried kway teow, fruit juice, poh piah
25
or spring rolls, fried hokkien prawn noodles. These are often
referred to as ‗local favourites‘.
The food street hence appears to be an interesting mishmesh of local fare tinged with stylized Chinese street furniture,
housed amidst a concentration of traditional Chinese arts such as
opera troupes and calligraphy writing and fringed together with a
new emerging pantheon of ethnic Chinese restaurants. Having
painted the food street and described its physical composition, I
will now turn to describing the people in and of the food street and
how they relate to the food street. This will be a precursor before I
launch into a discussion of the relationship between the former and
the latter which will help throw into sharper relief and help us make
sense of the scene just described above as well as that I am about
to describe below.
2.2.2 The Social Ecology of the Food Street
At the time of research10, there were six stalls on the food
street sporting A4-sized papers with ‗for rent‘ imprinted on them.
Out of 14 hawkers, only 3 responses were gathered. The small
10
August 2008
26
sample set was the result of a combination of factors that include
‗survey fatigue‘11, the time the research was conducted12 (amongst
those who declined to be surveyed many claimed to be ―busy‖).
This may also be an apparent reflection of ownership patterns of
the stalls on the food street. Many of the hawkers who preferred
not to be surveyed claimed to be unable to answer questions of
how long their stalls have been in business on the food street 13,
claiming to not be the owners but merely stall assistants hired by
the absent ‗boss‘. This is once again unverifiable and it is not
certain if the response was reliable or was provided to deflect or
evade questions regarding rents and profit margins and reasons
for locating their businesses on the food street. There is hence a
regrettable gap here in knowledge about proprietorship. However,
this may be instructive in helping us understand the ownershipstakeholdership aspect of the food street. This response from
many of the hawkers, including those who kindly participated in the
survey suggests that the people who operate the food stalls are
often not the owners, and are not related to these owners. There is
a distinct emotive disconnect then between the people who man
the food stalls with the food street itself. The fact that the stalls
surveyed were there for one year (fishball noodles), seven to eight
11
The reason for not wanting to participate for some hawkers is that they have
done many similar surveys before. This unfortunately cannot be verified and
they cannot be persuaded despite the researcher producing credentials to prove
that this is a school- supported project.
12
It was conducted at about 6 pm as the stalls are setting up for dinner
13
They tend to also not know how long the food street itself has been around.
27
years (Bak Kut Teh14), and the last respondent not being certain of
the number of years (zhong zhong15) seem to reinforce this notion
of an emotional distance or an apparent lack of stakeholdership
evident between the businesses and the food street itself.
This theme is perhaps further supported by the responses
gathered for the reasons for location. Out of the three responses,
all of them were unable to answer that question. If food was related
to ethnic identity in an enclave, this is distinctly absent in this
context. It was as if location on the Chinatown food street did not
matter and that they could have chosen to set up their stalls
anywhere else in Singapore16.
This point seems related to the fact that the food sold here
appear distinctly ‗local‘ i.e. Singaporean in nature and appear
devoid of any perceivable ethnic marking17. The foods available on
the food street are not uniquely ‗Chinese‘ but consist of local
favourites that can be found in most hawker centres and coffee
shops located island-wide. Fishball noodles, kway chap18, handmade noodles, bak kut teh, prawn noodles, steamboat and the like
are all easily available and at much lower prices all over the island.
14
It is a clear, peppery pork broth with pork ribs.
It consists of items such as prawn cakes, spring rolls, fish cake etc that are
deep fried and served with sweet chilli sauce and stir-fried vermicelli.
16
This stands in marked contrast to the overt ‗Chinese‘ street furniture the food
street is set up in.
17
Except that it is not halal. But this is not unique to this place. Most hawkers
selling similar items are also often not halal.
18
Broad sheets of rice flour noodles served with savoury broth that is accompanied by
braised condiments such as braised meat, pork intestines etc.
15
28
There hence appears little reason for Chinese Singaporeans to
come to the Chinatown food street to sample ‗the best‘ local fare,
because ‗best‘ is located island wide in a dispersed fashion
according to the various food guides. Hence, it appears that if food,
ethnic identity were in place in the past in the enclave, it is no
longer the case.
The higher than average prices are also reflective of the
higher rents. Rents are reportedly cost up to SGD 5000 per month
plus utilities, which is payable to the Chinatown Business
Association who runs the place and are in charge of leasing out the
stalls. Some of the stall owners when queried about the stalls that
remained empty next to theirs report high turnover rates in tenants,
owing to the fact that ―they cannot survive‖ because ―business is
bad nowadays (it used to be better and late at night it can still be
quote crowded on weekends in the past) and the rental here is
very expensive‖. It appears then that customer traffic is often
irregular and it was observed by one of the hawkers that ―it is
worse nowadays because of the poor economy because fewer
tourists‖.
This seems to imply that while they claim not to know the
reason for location, that they are aware that locating here will mean
that a proportion of their patrons will be tourists and this is possibly
part of the reason they are located here rather than elsewhere. The
29
notion that businesses are not doing well because of a drop in
touristic arrivals seem to imply that in fact the income accrued from
tourist patrons formulate a significant part of their income. This is
corroborated from their response that half of their patrons are
tourists and the other half locals who work in the offices around the
area.
That locals who patronize these stalls are from the offices in
the near vicinity implies that convenience is an important
consideration in their patronage, over and above possible factors
such as taste, loyalty and the like. This seems to be supported by
the low rates of repeat customers who reportedly eat at the stalls. It
appears then that repeat customers are rare and customers tend to
come from a diverse range.
The reliance on touristic clientele and the diversity of clients
and patronage based apparently predominantly on convenience
seem to be factors that plague the food street. From the responses
of the hawkers it appears that it is increasingly less viable to
conduct their business there, because customer flow is not
sustained and is erratic and it seems, declining.
The lack of
viability and sustainability appear to stem from a strong local base
of patrons that can help the businesses ‗survive‘ through regular
patronage that will help ensure regular income for these hawkers
even when touristic arrivals are low.
30
The short time period the stalls are in business, the lack of
knowledge about the food street itself, the lack of attachment to the
food street, the lack of business viability, the over-privileging and
reliance on a touristic clientele all seem to point to a lack of
continuity from its enclave roots, an emotive disconnect between
the locals and the food street, and a lack of invocation of an ethnic
identity tied to place that can provide a business advantage for
these hawkers. Ethnic identity appears to have little currency here
although the food street is on the surface located at the heart of an
overtly ethnic Chinese place of heritage, and is adorned amidst
stylized Chinese street furniture such as lanterns.
This disjuncture and dislocation between food and ethnic
identity; and between the physical, explicitly expressed Chinese
identity and the lack of social expression by the inhabitants of that
landscape as evident from the observations so far bears further
investigation. The state‘s role in this has been well –documented
and studied (Thoo, 1983). The premise of this paper is that these
disjunctures and contradictions need to be understood more
holistically juxtaposed against Yaowarat‘s food street and it is to
the description of observations in Yaowarat that I will now turn
before delving into a comparative discussion in the hope of
shedding new light onto the apparent disjuncture between food and
ethnic identity, between the physical Chinese-ness of physical
31
space and a lack of social expression of that Chinese ethnic
identity and how looking at these contradictions through food that
can help to explain the ‗placelessness‘ that has been commonly
associated with Chinatown SG from a different angle.
2.3 Yaowarat
Unlike the experience at Chinatown SG, the moment one
arrives on Yaowarat Road it is apparent that it is a Chinese
stronghold. With respect to food, it is immediately noticeable that
there are concentrations of particular food, with sharks fin and
birds nest being synonymous with Yaowarat. That is not to say that
these products are unique to Yaowarat and can only be found
here, but as I am enlightened by my Thai friend, that if one wants
to buy these products, or consume these, that Yaowarat is the goto place for quality assurances and competitive prices. The number
of specialist shops selling these products and the observations that
these products can be found in many provision shops as well as
medicine halls seems to bear testament in support of her
comments. Yaowarat is where everyday food coexists with festive,
seasonal eats and it is apparent from the food found there. Below
are some examples of the variety observed in Yaowarat.
32
Figure 2: Everyday essentials such as salted fish and other dried goods are on
full display in the markets.
Figure 3: The research period coincided with the Dumpling Festival and festive
seasonal products such as these bags of bright orange salted egg yolks and
33
banana leaves are widely available. The sheer volume of these specialized
items indicate that the shopkeepers perceive the selling of these goods to make
good business sense, which in turn indicates that the Chinese continue to look
for these as well as the more everyday items such as fish maw and other dried
goods.
This reflects culture in practice and bespeak of a cultural depth as these are ‗raw
materials‘ for the end product i.e. the dumpling and the production process
typically involves certain age-old family practices and traditions and time spent
frying, chopping, wrapping and steaming. The fact that the Thai Chinese still
make these themselves is hence culturally significant. Interestingly, this bountiful
supply of ‗raw materials‘ is no longer seen in Chinatown SG and what is sold are
typically the dumplings as a finished product for consumption, signaling perhaps
a gradual obsolescence of traditional cultural practices such as slaving over the
stove to make dumplings, and involving the family in these festive cooking
events.
Figure 4: One of the several stalls selling braised pork knuckle with rice. Note
that the signboard is in two languages, Chinese and Thai. This is a characteristic
of signboards observed in Yaowarat in general.
34
Figure 5: A roasted duck stall doing brisk business.
Figure 6: One of the many stalls selling birds nest drinks and dessert. It is iconic
and ubiquitous.
35
Figure 7: Teochew rice cakes or bee kueh. These are filled with stir fried
glutinous rice and are flavourful savoury snacks. These add variety to the range
and variety of the foodscape and are highly ethnically specialized snacks.
36
Figure 8: Chinese herbal teas brewed with typical Chinese favourites such as
dried chrysanthemum flowers and lotus root. These are said to have ‗cooling‘
properties i.e. that these drinks help to maintain balance in the body, which is a
distinctly Chinese medicinal concept.
These pictures reflect the sheer variety of food available to
cater to every need and displays how food incarnates into different
uses i.e. as snacks, drinks and even medicine. The cuisines
available here are markedly less varied compared to that in
Chinatown SG as well and it is clear that the overwhelmingly
dominant one is ethnic Chinese cuisine. Forming a substantial part
of this Chinese foodscape is the number of restaurants offering
sharks fin and birds nest. Palpably concentrated, these, together
with some Chinese restaurants such as Shangarila and Hua Seng
Hong have become synonymous with the Yaowarat landscape.
Complementing these more formal dining options are food stalls
37
haphazardly scattered on the already pavements outside shop
fronts in the mornings peddling an assortment of food consisting
mainly of Chinese snacks such as chive dumplings, chwee kueh or
rice cakes with preserved radish, bee kueh, a flat pink rice
dumpling stuffed with glutinous rice amongst other tantalizing food
products that are distinctly ethnic Chinese. Although these food
institutions are spread out throughout Yaowarat, they are linked by
a homogeneity in products proffered and also by product
complementarity whereby within Yaowarat can be found a density
of shops offering Chinese provisions and dried goods like dried
shrimp and mushrooms soya sauce, tea leaves, and other
condiments, preserved fruit, Chinese peanut or traditional cakes
and the like along with wet market produce such as steamboat
items like fish dumplings and bean curd skin all available under
Yaowarat‘s metaphorical roof.
This distinct clustering of similar functions and dominance of
a particular cuisine in Yaowarat, the concentration of particular
foods and the complementarity of the products hence stand as
marked contrasts to the undefined foodscape observed in
Chinatown SG. Because this is set up as a comparative study
there is a need to find a basis for comparison. What is similar
between the two places as alluded to earlier is a food street that is
also a part of the evening Yaowarat foodscape, concentrating
evening food activities in a manner similar to the one on Smith
38
Street. In the next section, I will describe the Yaowarat food street,
and the social ecology of the hawkers there. I will simultaneously
highlight the similarities and differences, setting it up for a
comparative discussion in the final section of the chapter.
2.3.1 The Yaowarat Food Street
The food street on Yaowarat is different from the one in
Chinatown SG in many respects. While the food street in the latter
is announced with much fanfare through well-placed signboards,
there are no corresponding official signages proclaiming to the
visitor that they have arrived at the food street. That is not to say
that the food street is inconspicuous. Quite the contrary, the food
street in Yaowarat is considerably larger in scale compared to the
one in Chinatown SG. While the latter consists of twenty stalls
lined up in a neat and orderly fashion, the former is a food
enterprise that sprawls along both sides of Yaowarat, snakes into
the side streets where stalls line up three rolls deep, obstructing
traffic. Hawkers set up shop on the pavement and/or roadside in
front of the shops that are mostly closed for the night in the early
hours of the evening at about 6 pm19, constituting part of the
19
As an outsider looking in, the assemblage of the food street proves rather fascinating.
The early morning anticipation and bustle transforms into the scorching lull of the slow
afternoon and as light ebbs and subsides after 6p.m. and most of the shops pull out their
shutters, roller doors, and you can almost feel their sigh of audible relief that their retail
day is over, and for some, that another work day has gone by without event nor incident.
The winding down after a day‟s labour is palpable and as the day draws to a close, that
which permeates the air is a relaxed atmosphere.
39
sidewalk rhythm20 that is part of urban land use in Thailand (Dovey
and Polakit, 2006:8).
Unlike the formal standardization and fixity in store location
in Chinatown SG, the hawkers informally arrange themselves in
the sidewalk, streaming in to take their place on the street in an
informally negotiated, seemingly organically derived order, armed
with their wares for the night on their portable wagons 21. The
manner in which the stalls are organized and are snaking along the
street sprawling haphazardly with each stall‘s respective tables and
chairs exudes a sense of casual spontaneity and fluidity that
departs from the rigidity and highly mechanical constellation of the
food street observed in Chinatown SG22.
While both offering al fresco dining experiences, there
appears to be little ‗contrivedness‘ in Yaowarat‘s food street in that
compared to the bright lights and overtly Chinese street furniture
put in place in Chinatown SG, the stalls in Yaowarat are light by
20
The food street in Bangkok comes alive at about 6 p.m. everyday except Thursdays.
This set of hawkers constitutes the last leg of the sophisticated appropriation of space
that give rise to sidewalk rhythm that (Dovey and Polakit, 2006) identified in their work
which sees breakfast fast food stalls (6 a.m. to 10 a.m.), shops (10 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and a
late night restaurant (6.p.m. till 11 p.m.) occupy the same piece of land in a negotiated
yet seemingly ad hoc and seamless diurnal ritualistic transition from day time to
nighttime activities.
21
This ranges from huge pots of soup and stock or roasted chestnuts to a lorry loaded
with durians) and utensils such as multiple large woks that sit atop stoves that will be
working in overdrive later on in the evening as the dinner crowd pulls in
22
Stalls selling bottled Chinese herbal teas and bottled orange juice can be found as well
with some operating out of a little nook in between two closed shops on the pavement,
with their Styrofoam ice boxes steeped in melted ice and water and chillers to keep the
neatly arranged drinks nice and cold and using metal pots to keep the hot drinks at the
appropriate temperature
40
street lamps and from the lights put in place by the hawkers
themselves to showcase their wares. This unpretentious, fluid,
loosely ritualized configuration implies a certain kind of autonomy
that seems to rub off on the interactions between the hawkers and
their patrons, as well as between the hawkers as the foodscape.
Due to its sheer scale, there is a wider array of food
available. Dinner options range from simple fare like rice vermicelli
with fish balls, which was very popular and roasted meat and
roasted duck noodles having very brisk business as well. There is
also a shop selling kway chap, which is large broad pieces of kway
teow in a bowl of dark savoury soup infused with spices and dark
soy sauce to be eaten by an equally amazing spread of pig innards
such as the large and small intestines, fatty belly pork, and
assorted other side dishes such as preserved salted vegetables,
hard boiled egg, fish cake and bean curd all darkened and well
marinated from being braised for hours in the pot of spices and
dark soy sauce, all of it being washed down and complemented
with chilli sauce that the proprietors made23. These are arguably
what can be termed ‗Chinese food‘ which is contrasted with the
‗Singaporean‘ food served in Chinatown SG. This seems to be
corroborated by my Thai Chinese friend who chirped that, ―when
23
Besides these cooked food stores, there are several stores selling freshly roasted
chestnuts with its distinct gently charred aroma, and lined amongst the other stalls are
lorries will baskets of durian of all sizes, parked along the road which are transformed
into mobile stalls from which a brisk and somewhat boisterous trade is run, and the
unmistakeable and distinct pungence of the durian adds to the aromas and smells that
waft along the road and tempts the dinner seekers palate.
41
you go to Chinatown you must eat, eat, eat; my friends and I do
that all the time!‖
Besides the apparent wide variety of ‗Chinese food‘ there
are also concentrations of certain types of food. In the survey
sample there are shops selling Chinese desserts such as sweet
potato soup, white fungus with gingko nut in a sweet soup, birds
nest and assorted Chinese sweets; and braised sharks fins served
in claypots. There are also more than a few stalls selling roasted
chestnuts. These concentrations of food types are not present in
Chinatown SG.
Unlike the relative lack of business flow in Chinatown SG on
a weekday evening, business is brisk at many of the stalls and as
the hawkers served their customers with gusto, fully aware that
speed is of the essence here, their customers were tucking into
their nosh with equal enthusiasm and the conversations that flowed
amongst after work crowd, many still in their work shirts creates a
kind of ambience that is pulsating with calm. The warm lighting
from the stalls, the still lit neon signboards of the ubiquitous gold
smiths, the smells of cooking food, the layered murmurs and hum
of conversations combine to make for a comforting tranquil bustling
and a tapering tedium that is gently assuaged into a state of
restfulness. This implies it seems that the food street is inserted as
42
part and parcel of daily life and eating rituals, implying a primarily
local clientele.
The food street in Yaowarat hence appears different in its
more organic constitution, its distinctly predominant ethnic Chinese
cuisine, its lack of overt stylized Chinese-ness, and its insertion at
an everyday life level. Having painted the food street and
described its physical composition, I will now turn to describing the
people in and of the food street and how they relate to the food
street. Again, the social ecology will be put in a descriptive
comparative framework that juxtaposes the ethnographically
observed and surveyed realities existing in the two places. This will
prove useful in the subsequent discussion of the conclusions that
can possibly be drawn through understanding these differences to
help us understand our primary case and its dissonance through
understanding the meanings food come to represent over time.
Understanding the social ecology is hence instructive for our
purposes and we will now focus on that. Ironically without branding
ethnic identity is strong.
2.3.2 The Social Ecology of the Yaowarat Food Hawkers
The response rate of the hawkers along Yaowarat
pleasantly surprised me. I was filled with apprehension when I
reached the food street that evening to conduct the survey. It was
43
sprawling and after 7 pm when all the hawkers are assembled,
bustling with activity. I perceived it to be very difficult to get the
hawkers to talk to me because they are busily plying their trade
and may have little time nor desire to talk24 to a stranger from
asking seemingly inane questions they may not think are
meaningful to answer. These visions vanished when I embarked
on my first survey. The stall owner, a young Thai-Chinese man in
his early thirties was busy attending to his customers, but was also
more than willing to help me with my survey (there is an obvious
curiosity about my work and a certain novelty involved) after I
explained where I am from and what my survey was about. It was
interesting to note that as we conversed, it was palpable that we
were being observed with curiosity and some suspicion. These
suspicious eyes were cast from all the stall owners adjacent to this
desserts stall as well as those located on the opposite side of the
road. It is interesting as once the friendly young man acceded to
my request, almost the entire row of hawkers to be surveyed
acquiesced and similarly acceded to my requests and loosened up
considerably. The sample size was hence encouraging and worth
mentioning for it reflects an obvious sense of camaraderie amongst
the street hawkers, a predominantly Thai-Chinese group, who it
seems are ready to warn each other of ‗danger; lurking ahead.
24
I also expected reticence because these hawkers may be hawking illegally and may
hence not be open to questioning about anything even if it is information that is not
perceived to be sensitive on her part.
44
This initial observation of emotive connection between the
stall keepers was not random. As I proceeded along the street,
there was good-nature banter all around reflecting the good
relations that the stall keepers enjoy.
Figure 9: This friendly hawker bantered cheerfully with his neighbours and the
sense of familiarity and ease is palpable. He helped the rice cake- selling lady
(on the left) understand the survey question and had a laugh with her as well
indicating good relations between them.
45
Figure 10: The cheerful kway chap storeowner and his wife who made this
researcher feel really welcome despite their brisk business.
Particularly memorable were the proprietor of the kway chap
shop (pictured above) Though business was brisk and he was
busy chopping up the food into bite-sized pieces for his hungry
customers seated and waiting for their meal, he made time to talk
to this researcher and engaged in good-natured banter and
conversation with her asking her various things like where she is
from and what her interpreter is doing. His wife was equally
generous and she talked to us while her hands were busy
scooping chilli sauce into small bags and then skilfully manipulating
the contents into a neat little bag of chilli sauce for takeaway
customers. When we marvelled at how skilful she was, she told us
to give it a go and patiently showed us how to whip the chilli sauce
46
into the plastic bag step by step and we tried it with several bags
before she was satisfied that we got it right and she smiled rather
proudly when showed her our end product and she declared it
satisfactory.
This was the norm rather than an anomaly and we received
the same hospitable treatment from most of the stalls we
interviewed and were very grateful that despite the fact that they
were so busy it being dinner time, they were not impatient with us
and made time to talk to us. Essentially once the first stall owner, a
young man who inherited his family‘s desserts shop selling sweet
potato soup, bird‘s nest, and gingko nuts and other desserts
agreed to speak with us, the rest of the food street eyed us and
that practically constituted our go ahead and the rest of the
interviews conducted were enjoyable. There was also a keen
sense of camaraderie amongst the hawkers who teased one
another good naturedly, interrupting our survey to rib the other
person, or help explain terms that they don‘t understand.
The foundations of these good relations appear to partly
stem from the fact that the majority of the stalls are owned by the
proprietor manning the stalls, implying a sense of ownership and
stakeholdership that in turn implies a vested interest in the success
of the food street. Many of these hawkers are second or third
generation successors of their trade that have been in business for
47
more than twenty years having inherited the business and recipes
from their predecessors who tend to be family members. Tellingly
and unsurprising then the reason for location in Yaowarat for many
of these hawkers is predominantly because of their inheritance that
is perhaps tampered as well by the fact that many of them still
reside in the vicinity.
Interestingly, many of these hawkers also mentioned that
part of the reason for locating where they are, is definitely because
this is Chinatown, where they have and continue to successfully
conduct their businesses. This indicates a confidence that this is
where Chinese people will come for their wares which is an
assertion that is supported by the data collected that shows that
across board, the clientele the hawkers serve are predominantly
Thai-Chinese (speaking language no longer significant) over and
above the percentage of Thais or foreigners, with repeat customers
coming mainly from the Chinese group (age was not significant) of
patrons.
This is interesting because it reflects two things. First, it
reflects that the hawkers are aware that being Chinese is an
important resource that still has currency in their business dealings
today. It was obvious from the bustling and frenetic pace of
business activities occurring in Yaowarat that this is a vibrant
centre of commerce and business sustainability is not an issue
48
based on the steady stream of diners that throng the food stalls.
Location was hence a strategic choice, an informed decision
stemming from knowledge that they are able to ‗strategically
essentialize‘ themselves in place (Veronis, 2007: 455), locating
themselves to achieve a competitive advantage in a niche market
and achieve business survival owing to this ethnic identity that it
appears continued to be fostered through the food the ethnic group
continues to eat as part of consuming their social identity. Second,
it shows that clientele patronizing the food street continues to be
mainly ethnic Chinese. This indicates that the food street is an
endeavour by the Chinese for Chinese. Third, if food is a good
indication of social identity then it appears that Yaowarat as a
whole essentially continues to be by the Chinese to serve their
needs and demands for services. All these point to the conclusion
that Yaowarat as seen through the food in Yaowarat and the
consumptive patterns of the patrons of these food establishments
is still very much enclave like in a way that Chinatown SG does not
based on the divergence and differences identified between the
two food streets and their contrasting social compositions.
In sum the differences between the physical (larger in scale
and sprawl) and social (emotive connections to place, reasons for
location, generational inheritance, profile of clientele) ecologies are
important and I have discussed some of the implications of these
and how they relate to the apparent success and lack of success of
49
the respective food streets in terms of business flow, finally
speculating on the implications reflect about ethnic identity
formation as evident through an analysis of food establishments in
Yaowarat and Chinatown SG food streets.
In this comparative discussion it is apparent that in
Yaowarat, ethnic identity is strongly grounded in food consumption
and food establishments in a way that is true to its enclave roots.
The converse is true it appears in Chinatown SG where the food
street seems to embody something else. The question then is if in
Yaowarat the conditions remain such that place, ethnic identity and
memory (continuity) are perpetuated in a manner that ensures that
enclave food continues to represent a consumption of ethnic
identity and through its self-reinforcing self perpetuating cycle
perpetuate itself; in the absence of continuity, (a) what is being
consumed on the Chinatown SG food street and more importantly
(b) why is ethnic identity in place no longer sustainable? And finally
(c) how do these help us understand the current state/ place
identity of Chinatown SG as a whole. This will be the focus of
discussion in the next and final section.
2.4. Understanding Chinatown SG Through Yaowarat
The observed disjuncture between the physical and social
composition of the food street in Chinatown SG stands in marked
50
contrast to the congruence and mutually reinforcing, intimately
welded relationship between the physical and social composition of
the food street in Yaowarat where there exists a particular kind of
organic, symbiotic chemistry. The strong interconnections between
ethnic identity, memory as manifest through food in Yaowarat
appear to be grounded strongly in the strong bonds existing
between these concepts The stilted, rigid, rather mechanical
constitution of the food street of Chinatown SG hence appears by
contrast to be due to the de-link between place, ethnic identity and
memory.
This apparent de-link between place, ethnic identity and
memory in Chinatown SG, however, seems more complex. The
dislocating relations between these concepts as evident on the
food street need to be contextualized against an understanding of
it as a manifestation of state interventions in Chinatown as a
whole. It is against this backdrop that the food street can be better
understood,
and
the
disjunctures
between
Yaowarat
and
Chinatown SG food street will compared in this section bearing in
mind this important aspect.
This section will also utilize this fact to help us decipher (a)
what is being consumed on the Chinatown SG food street, what
food represents if it is not ethnic identity, and what are its impacts
on place identity and more importantly; (b) why does ethnic identity
51
in place appear to be unsustainable organically which will be
discussed with regards to the accessibility and power of social
memory regimes and its impact on place identity; and finally (c)
how do these help us understand the current state/ place identity of
Chinatown SG as a whole. This will be the focus of discussion in
the next and final section and it is to this endeavour we now turn
our attention.
2.4.1 Consuming Identity vs. Consuming Nostalgia: Chinese
Food versus Chinatown Food
2.4.1.1 Theming and Taming25 The Food Street Today: The
State, Utility and the Ethnic „Themescape‟ vs. Autonomy
The food street was mooted as part of STB‘s proposal for
theme streets that was supposed to include market street, festive
street, tradition street and bazaar street (Kwok et al, 1998:39). It
was a plan that drew much criticism but STB put up a ―strenuous
defense against fears that Chinatown is being developed into a
theme park‖. That food hawking was singled out as part of the
resuscitation efforts by the state is worth noting as the whole
spectrum of wet market and night markets went hand in hand with
food hawkers in the daily rhythms of those who inhabited
Chinatown in the 1980s and before (Thoo, 1983) and yet only this
25
Chang (2000)
52
cross section was singled out for re-manifestation. It is also worth
noting that while the other proposed theme streets did not
materialize, the food street went ahead despite objections from
members of the public who were concerned that such a move to
‗thematize‘ Chinatown will compartmentalize it into functions,
providing visitors a neat but simplified experience of Chinatown.
There were also apprehensions voiced with regards to STB‘s
attempts to provide an overarching theme to Chinatown, with fears
that in so doing, it has ignored Chinatown‘s history and culture-that
it has reduced the layers of meaning to one that over-emphasizes
an idealized or artificial kind of ‗Chineseness‘ (Kwok et al,
1998:39).
It is obvious then that food is seen by the state as socially,
ethnically significant part of Chinatown identity and a vital place
making element under the state‘s purview, and it is perhaps even
more interesting that the food street was remade under the state‘s
mandate in a form that is heavily congruent with established
protocols of hygiene and undergirded by principles of modernity
and as an expression of a desire to ―re-package‖ Chinatown to
contain its diversity under the rubric of a unifying ―simple theme of
Chineseness‖ when ―many have pointed out that Chinatown has no
one unifying character nor theme, and neither can it be divided into
themes because such attempts will not have historical veracity‖.
53
The food street is hence inserted and recreated onto the
Chinatown landscape based on these principles and intentions. As
part of an ‗enhancement strategy‘ to revitalize Chinatown as a
repository of Chinese heritage, new street hawkers now inhabit/
inherit this newly superimposed ‗themed‘ habitus framed by the
vision of the state. The food street‘s sanitization, orderliness and
disintegration from the other complementary food functions such
as markets and its insertion outside of everyday life routines (as
reflected in a largely insular customer base) must hence be read
within this context. Food hence represents a concerted effort at
locating identity. This is essentially a top-down initiative as
indicated by the fact that most hawkers in Chinatown SG do not
seem to think ethnic identity is an important aspect of their
business and their clientele consisting of a large group of transient
patrons also do not appear to surface that being Chinese has any
bearing on the viability of their businesses or influences their food
choices.
The food hawkers in Yaowarat on the other hand as
depicted earlier are part of a larger group of food purveyors sharing
complementary
functions,
where
ethnic
identity
continues
unabated to be an important aspect of their economic transactions
and those of their clients.
54
2.4.1.2 Food, Memory and Identity in Place vs. Recreating
Place, Replacing Memories26
The vibrancy of the food street leaves little doubt that
Yaowarat is primarily a place for commerce and place sustains
business activities catering to the needs of the businesses in a
symbiotic synergistic relationship. It is quite overt that the main
aims of the businesses is sustainability in place and they seem to
have found that in Yaowarat, conducting business as Chinese
providing mainly the Chinese with services in a kind of strategic
essentialism that is bottom up and grounded based on realities on
the ground, where ethnic identity and business interest are
inalienably intertwined and interdependent.
This aspect can be observed from the distinct clustering of
shops selling bird‘s nest and sharks fin in the day as well as on the
food street itself; and is even more clearly drawn when we look at
the survey results of the street hawkers. As the survey indicates,
more than 80 percent of the hawkers (37; n= 45) who identify
themselves as Thai Chinese have been there for more than twenty
years, and of these over 90 percent (32 out of 37) are second or
third generation hawkers who inherited the business and recipes
from their parents. This reflects the apparent continuity and shows
that the food street is undergirded, supported, and held together by
26
Chang (2005), Chang and Huang (2005).
55
an invisible web of subtle ethnic social relations that are
generational and attributable to it is a kind of stable intergenerational transmission of memory located in place through
inherited business practices, given ethnic quality by virtue of
dealing with Chinese produce and catering to mainly a Chinese
clientele.
This notion of an inheritance is even more palpable when
asked why they (2nd and 3rd generation hawkers) chose to locate
there, they almost unanimously asserted that it is because this is
Chinatown and that it is because they have always been here.
From this we can see that inheritance and by implication
transmission of memory as embodied in the intergenerational
passing down of a family business is not simply individual but also
embodies within it a kind of ethnic quality. It seems from this that it
is not just the continuity of familial memories that are reposited in
the business as it changes hands over the generations, but imbued
in it, embodied within are memories of an ethnic identity that
seems as indicated by the responses to still have resonance and
currency in the contemporary moment though that relationship
between ethnicity and business as we have seen at the beginning
of the chapter was one engendered by virtue of being part of an
enclave economy that was necessitated owing to social relations
between the new immigrants and Thai society of that time. That is
still has resonance also brings up another issue for in the choosing
56
to locate there for that long, it proves that the decision to conduct
business there is a calculated move that appears premised on
business viability as much as ethnic considerations.
This means that Yaowarat continues to be a viable place for
Chinese people to conduct business and it seems that this is still
where most of the businesses congregate and concentrate
because there are economies of scale to be accrued and they are
aware that they are near their target markets. This can be inferred
from clustering of several food types such as bird‘s nest and
sharks fin which are popular ―Chinese food‖ and the fact that over
80 percent is able to identify27 and are privy to the reality that more
of their customers are Thai-Chinese and these constitute their
primary clientele (though when it comes to food) compared to the
other categories of local Thais and tourists. Though time has
evolved, it seems then that Yaowarat is still essentially a place by
the Chinese for largely the Chinese.
That is not to say that change has not occurred. While one
may imagine that being able to speak Teochew28 and or Chinese
would have been a distinct advantage in the past, the food street
hawkers assert that Thai not Chinese is the lingua franca of the
day to day wheeling and dealing there, and in fact some of them
asserted that speaking English was important, no doubt in light of
27
28
Some of the hawkers claimed to be unable to make such estimates.
Many of the earliest Chinese settlers are Teochew.
57
the food street being a popular tourist spot as well. This seems to
indicate a savvy awareness that it is in the contemporary society
impossible to be Chinese without being Thai as well, though
Chineseness continues to be meaningful and valuable in their
dealings.
The apparent reflexiveness shown in the responses of the
respondents reflects a kind of awareness of their dual identities as
simultaneously Thai and Chinese and business viability proves to
continue to be the main reason for their continued presence in
Chinatown. Ethnic identity is tampered or partnered closely with
sharp business acumen and instinct and it is quite clear that
because being Chinese still matters, is still salient and has
business consequences that the Chinese continue to conduct
business there.
This sense of an engendered place memory that continues
to embody and perpetuate a sense of antecedent historically
contingent ethnic identity arguably helps to make Chinatown and
its ethnic place identity stable and sustained in memory as a lived
in memory that continues to have cultural import in the daily lives of
those who inhabit it in commercial activities and those who
patronise it whom the respondents report are for a large part are
still Chinese. All these observations gravitate towards a sense then
that for these street hawkers, conducting business seems to
58
constitute a lifestyle, a way of life, powered forward by and
simultaneously dependent upon a sense of history in a memory
that is personal, familial and social ethnic at the same time, that
continues to be drawn upon and utilized effectively and by
implication sustainedly meaningful in daily life as constitutive of
one‘s identity rather than being merely a livelihood driven by
economic purposes alone, all in a fashion whereby place still
matters, where ethnic identity and place continue to sustain a place
imagery that is given changing yet persistent life through the daily
commercial activities conducted within it.
Change and continuity in Yaowarat is hence undergirded by
an ability to draw into the pool of memory in which ethnic identity is
embedded as a resource to reinforce that identity and enact it in
place through food. The hawkers on Chinatown SG on the other
hand are superimposed onto the landscape and are inserted
retroactively en site as a ‗replica‘ of what things were or should
have been; though in reality they are more of a superimposition
and is like the food street that was created, part of a recreation and
new set of memories.
The food stalls here are not ethnically marked and it was
clear from the responses of the hawkers and the profile of their
clientele that being Chinese was not crucial in sustaining their
business and in fact, business has not been viable. The food in
59
Chinatown it seems does not have an overt Chinese marker but
are engendered owing to serving the demands of the clients
(Geraldene Lowe, 1998; Thoo, 1983:11) who tended to be the
residents who lived in Chinatown or in the area. This seems to
indicate that the memories of hawkers in place is a highly placebased one rather than one that hinges on any ethnic overtones.
This means that food and memory contribute not to an ethnic
Chinese identity per se, but it seems, a Chinatown identity. The
hawkers of old Chinatown featured in Thoo‘s 1983 study were
relocated into hawker centres, and the fare available in Chinatown
SG today are similarly not sustained on an ethnic identity because
these foods have become widely available and are ‗localized‘. The
lack of an ethnic element in the food of the food street yesterday
and today seem to lend credence to the view that the food was
Chinatown food and not Chinese food.
This seems to help explain the reason for a lack of
businesses sustainability, as the STB seems to be inserting an
ethnic element to something that does not embody it anymore; and
that business sustainability has always hinged on a localized
clientele and is built upon those localized relationships the hawkers
used to share with their clients. Essentially then that is a
Chinatown memory, that has become dislocated and can no longer
be drawn from as it was always contingent upon social relations
built en site. It is hence a memory that has become distorted,
60
replaced and no longer has any life, and is inaccessible unlike the
memories of a localized ethnic identity that is both in its abstract
and concrete form utilized as a resource that perpetuates its
sustained ethnic presence that continues to give place a distinctly
engendered ethnic character, continuing to add to that memory
through food. Arguably then, it is owing to a combination of
superimposition of an ethnic character onto an element that did not
embody that identity; and the dislocation of place-based memories,
that together result in the overall dearth of memory reference to
place that can be drawn upon for hawkers today. This emptiness of
memory as a resource hence affects place identity for it neither
finds resonance as Chinatown as lived, nor Chinatown the ethnic
enclave.
2.5 Conclusion
61
In
this
chapter,
we
described
and
discussed
the
manifestations of the food streets in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG
and compared the social ecologies of the hawkers and also
simultaneously the profile of their clients. This is done in a bid to
understand the relationships between place, memory and ethnic
identity as embodied in food; with the larger aim of using this as a
framework with which to understand the constituents of place
identity in the two traditional enclaves today.
The comparisons of the two sites showed that food hawkers
in Yaowarat draw heavily on the advantages of locating where they
are (where there are economies of scale to be accrued and enjoy
product complementarity), and understand that ethnic identity is a
crucial part of their continued economic success. Their businesses
share a mutually reinforcing relationship with their clientele that
comprises
mainly
of
Thai-Chinese.
This
symbiosis
and
interdependence between the hawkers, their fellow hawkers and
their environment; and the hawkers and their clients is fostered
amidst a climate of remembering whereby ethnic memories tied to
food are constantly kept alive and ethnic identity itself is enacted
and re-enacted in the daily feeding rituals, inserted at the everyday
level in the routines that one carries out in a diurnal rhythm,
reproducing an identity that is tied to place, and at the same time,
tied to more abstract notions of historical identity.
62
The opposite is true in Chinatown SG whereby place-based
memory-identifications are inscribed by the state in a manner that
lacks resonance. In the state‘s recreation, the place-based,
localized relations are given an ethnic significance that social
memories of the place do not correspond to. Hawkers are hence
unable to leverage off any advantages that are accrued in
Chinatown SG through sheer location and ethnic identity, and
because of the overall lack of resonance (lack of emotive
attachment to place and to customers) and inaccessibility of
memories of place, Chinatown SG seems ‗soulless‘ and hawkers
are unable to sustain their livelihoods. Place identity thus spirals
downwards for it is not kept alive through the everyday enactment
and re-enactment of identities embodied in the everyday routines
for both the hawkers and their clients. This detachment to place
and to the memory of place creates a distinct lack of access to a
collective pool of social memory and is arguable the reason for the
state‘s constant efforts at coming up with activities to resuscitate
Chinatown SG. Without a memory regime that is constantly drawn
upon and re-enacted and reproduced in the daily rhythms, place
identity and ethnic identity becomes weakened and that is arguable
what has happened in Chinatown SG, where the consumption of
food is no longer tied to identity (both localized and ethnic).
Remembering does not occur in a vacuum how things are
remembered is a reflection of the social context. It is obvious that
memory, ethnic identity and place identity are strongly linked
63
through food in Yaowarat, and social memory is kept alive through
praxis. That social memory of an ethnic identity is still important
reflect the continued enclave quality of Yaowarat today. In
Chinatown SG, memory, ethnic identity and place are complexly
related due to state action that saw the removal and subsequent
partial restoration of a social habitat. This disruption cuts off the
social memories that are place-bound in the 1980s, and seek to
replace it with one that is ethnic and based on its enclave roots that
by the 1980s do not seem to be strong anymore in its bid to restore
it as heritage. These twin movements cut off the social memories,
ethnic or otherwise that give place identity, delinking the otherwise
close relations between place, identity and memory. It hence
appears that social memories are important aspects in locating
identity in place and it is the accessibility of these memories that
determine place identities and its perpetuation. Hence because of
the different configurations of these in terms of their accessibility,
food in Yaowarat contributes as a place-making element and adds
to that memory, locating it in space in a way that is absent in
Chinatown SG.
Chapter 3 Businesses and Ethnic Identity
3.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter I described and compared the
foodscapes in Chinatown SG and in Yaowarat. Using the food
64
streets found in the respective enclaves as tools with which to
study and understand the relationships between place identity,
ethnic identity and memory, I attempted to tease out the complex
interrelationships that govern/belie place identity formation. This
chapter replicates the approach adopted in the previous chapter
and discussion will devolve in similar vein, revolving around an
exploration of these recurrent themes. However, here we will turn
our analytical lenses away from food, shifting our focus instead
towards a systematic examination of the businesses located in the
respective enclaves as embodiments of social memory and ethnic
identities,
Scholars of ethnic entrepreneurship have long noted the
relations between businesses and ethnic identity and the Chinese
in particular have been often identified as one of the more prolific
―entrepreneurial ethnic groups‖, characterized as ―entrepreneurial‖
because their rates of business-ownership participation far exceed
that of other groups (Glazer and Monyihan, 1963; Valdez, 2002:2).
The significance of businesses in this study is drawn even more
sharply when contextualized in an enclave setting over time, the
time element adding to the complexity of this business-ethnic
identity dyad, by further overlaying it with the dyad of ethnic identity
and
memory.
When
contextualized
against
an
ethnic
neighbourhood setting, these form a complex triad with the notion
of place identity as well. Hence businesses form an invaluable part
65
of our analysis and it is what this chapter will be devoted towards.
The purpose of this chapter then is to explore the meanings and
representations of businesses in these enclaves today with a view
towards utilizing it as a foil that enables us to gauge its current
contributions to place identity through understanding its complex
relationship with ethnic identity.
The attempt at understanding the relations between
businesses and ethnic identity and how it is enacted in place will
be explored through ethnographic descriptions and discussions of
business institutions present in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG
today; as well as a through a selective cross-sectional study29 of
the social profile of the proprietors manning these. Simultaneously,
to
enable
a
more
holistic,
contextual
understanding
of
contemporary configurations of businesses and identity in these
traditional enclaves over time, these primary findings will be framed
and
understood
against
the
backdrop
of
historical
social
trajectories the relationship between businesses and ethnic identity
has taken over time in these two places as embodied in these
spaces of commerce and their proprietors. Tracing these
permutations will once again allow us to glean insight into the
social ecology of these shopkeepers over time and allow us a
contextualized understanding of the different constructions of
29
Because this is a comparative study, there is a need to juxtapose comparable
manifestations against each other. Hence here, the shops along Trengganu Street are
profiled alongside its counterpart street in Yaowarat Road.
66
ethnic identity over time in place in both Yaowarat and Chinatown
SG respectively.
Understanding the social ecologies will be a precursor to
and
facilitator
of
a
comparative
discussion
where
the
manifestations of businesses in the two sites will be juxtaposed.
The differences in the social ecologies of shopkeepers in Yaowarat
and Chinatown SG will then be discussed in a bid to look at what
businesses represent in each enclave today with regard to ethnic
identity and its impacts on place identity. This then forms once
again the basis from which we conduct a discussion with regards
to the contexts that give rise to memory conditions that contribute
to the formation of a strong, accessible, self-perpetuating ethnic
identity and hence place identity versus one that results in a weak,
inaccessible, dislocated place identity. This chapter will then
conclude
with
an
extrapolation
on
what
these
differing
constellations of food as a consumptive aspect of identity formation
can inform us with regards to understanding the placelessness that
has become synonymous with Chinatown SG, and allow us to
examine what is being consumed through businesses beyond
identity in weak memory regimes.
The assumptions that guide the approach replicated in this
chapter are the same as that before. The central idea is that the
everyday is often thought to be ordinary, private, taken for granted,
67
mundane, routinized, commonsense, obvious and unreflexive. Yet
it is imbued simultaneously with great analytical potential social
relations and memory is something whose ‗fragile power‘
(Schacter, 1996) in enacted in the daily mundane routines of
everyday life. Premised thus, it is hoped that such a framework will
illuminate how places come into being through praxis (Raffles,
2007), daily praxis (as opposed to the spectacular, the festive) and
how daily practices help locate memory and is simultaneously an
outcome engendered from that memory. Sociologists of memory
have unveiled that memory is localized, malleable, contextdependent; how we want to be known to others (i.e. identity) is
constructed through active, reflexive agency and is a process
(which means it is always ongoing and un-finalize-able) that is
selective and is also closely intertwined with and influenced by
larger social structures and ideologies; how we manage or
continually construct and reconstruct our identities/ narratives of
self as we negotiate our everyday lives in place (which is a
repository of our memories) can potentially unravel these larger
social structures and ideologies.
Memory is alive and animate or usurped and disrupted. Our
concern here is with the notion of what memory says about the
prevailing social context, impacts identity and place identity. The
following sections will lay out the ethnographic observations in
Yaowarat and Chinatown SG towards this end. This chapter is thus
an elaboration of the thesis‘s main theme and premise of looking at
68
place, memory and (ethnic) identity as a triad of interrelated
relationships and doing a ―sociology of place‖ (Gieryn, 2000:463)
that frames identity negotiation as a process that is emplaced and
has spatial outcomes that are dynamic, fluid and congruent with
the times.
3.2 Painting the Field: Businesses on Yaowarat — Unity and
Complementarity
When one gets within range of Yaowarat, you become
immediately aware of its difference from other parts of Bangkok.
While the bustle is of the same intensity, the place itself assaults
your senses and we all become sentients as we imbibe and take in
the aura of the place. Visually, Yaowarat is demarcated as different
because the vast majority of the shops spot signboards that are
written in at least two languages, Chinese and Thai and some in
English.
Besides this congregation of Chinese signs and characters
in one place, the roadside stalls selling all manner of trinkets such
as traditional knots, old Chinese CDs, and Chinese cakes and
religious paraphernalia such as candles, joss sticks and incense
papers folded into elaborate coifs skillfully by the shopkeepers and
their Laotian hired help, Chinese wedding paraphernalia shops,
create a mixture of smells and create compelling visuals of
69
livelihood in the making and life that follows the ebbs and flows of
the diurnal cycle. What is certain is that this is a place that is
textually rich, and is undoubtedly a place of business, livelihoods
and especially a place of the Chinese, that is palpitating with life.
The density of activities in Yaowarat is captured in the images
below30
Figure 11: Street scene: Yaowarat on a weekday.
30
These photos are used with permission of Dr Ho Kong Chong.
70
Figure 12: A Soi (side street) in Yaowarat: Note the density of commercial
activities.
One of the most striking features of Chinatown is its obvious
concentration
of
several
functions
amidst
other
related,
complementary ones. There is a palpable congregation of
goldsmiths, medicine halls, provision shops and shops and stalls
selling bird‘s nest and sharks fin sitting squarely in the midst of
printing
services,
spectacle
shops,
shops
specializing
in
photographic equipment, religious paraphernalia, clothes, all
coexisting alongside wholesalers dealing with hardware, rice, soya
sauce and other assorted services.
71
Figure 13: Toakang Jawaraj: One of the gold shops in Yaowarat with multiple
offshoots along the same road or in adjacent Charoen Krung. Gold is iconic and
ubiquitous in Yaowarat.
72
Figure 14 (above): The concentration of shops and medicine halls selling dried
provisions, sharks fin and bird‘s nests makes it a go-to place for those seeking
these products.
73
Figure 15: One of the many shops selling dried provisions such as dried fish
maw, and dried shrimp.
Figure 16: One of the numerous shops selling cooked sharks fin and bird‘s nest.
The complementarity in products is displayed here as both dried and cooked
forms of bird‘s nest are widely available here.
74
Figure 17 (above): Note the congregation of similar, complementary products
along the same street. The shop on the left sells waxed smoked meats while
that on the right sells bak kwa or dried barbequed pork.
75
Figure 18: The friendly proprietor of this provision shop says that she only
started selling birds nest and sharks fin as customers started to demand for it,
reflecting the demand-driven business sense that appear to guide many of the
businesses here.
These features appear to indicate firstly that there is a
certain kind of unity in products and functions located densely
within an area; second, it reflects that businesses here appear to
display a high degree of product complementarity with a range of
related goods (stalls selling dried sharks fin sitting alongside
provisions such as rice and other condiments) and bears insertion
at the everyday life level; and third owing to this concentration,
complementarity and insertion of goods and services at the
everyday life level, there appears to exist inherent in the
businesses a high level of mutual interdependence. Understanding
these constellations require that we address (a) what facilitates/
76
enables/ sustains these concentrations, complementarities and
interdependencies over time and (b) what can these in turn tell us
about the relationship between place, memory and identity as
embodied in the businesses and (c) its impact on place identity. It
is towards this endeavour we now turn our attention.
3.2.1 Concentrating on Yaowarat: Economies of Concentration
(Unity
Complementarity)
and
Its
Relations
to
Cultural
Continuity and Business Viability
The clustering of a particular function in an area usually
denotes that there are economies of concentration to be accrued
through sheer proximity of location to other similar functions. The
congregations of goldsmiths, medicine halls and provision shops
within Yaowarat imply then that these economies exist for these
trades. This observation is lent credence/ is confirmed when the
shopkeepers were almost unanimous in their responses when
asked why they chose to locate in Yaowarat that it is because ‗this
is the golden road‘ (goldsmiths), and ‗this is where people come to
buy these things‘, ‗this is Chinatown‘ (provision shops and
medicine halls).
Such unequivocal responses reflect the shopkeepers keen
awareness that their products are unique, ‗ethnic‘ and are sought
after in place and that they cater to a very specific clientele that is
77
reportedly predominantly Thai- Chinese. Their matter of fact
pronouncements/ acknowledgement that this is the go-to place for
these clearly ‗ethnic‘ products also implies a certain perception and
understanding of the importance of their ethnicity and product
complementarity (Thoo, 1983: 124) governed by proximity to other
producers
peddling
complementary
(and
simultaneously
competing) products and complementarity from being sought after
by the same largely Thai-Chinese clientele in the viability of their
businesses. This in turn expresses an unspoken interdependence
between the proprietors peddling the same items as well as an
interdependence between the proprietors and place itself, with
which the products appear to be synonymously aligned. Location
hence appears to be guided by good strategic business sense and
proximity to similar functions and a ready clientele.
At first glance, these are neither remarkable nor unique
traits but makes rather typical business sense. However, when
contextualized against the backdrop of reaping the same
economies located over time in a traditional enclave, it expresses a
sense of sustained viability guided by cultural continuity. Location
is not arbitrary or because of one‘s de facto Chinese identity. It is
because it still makes good business sense over time and viability
which is in turn dependent on a still resonant and meaningful
cultural symbolic exchange that has been sustained over time,
78
beyond the initial leveraging and mobilizing of ethnic resources that
characterized early ethnic enterprise.
The fact that they are continuing to thrive implies that
consumers
share
the
same
sentiments,
sustaining
these
businesses with their continued patronage, essentially consuming
and reproducing their ethnic identities together in Yaowarat. This
means that businesses represent a larger socio-cultural footprint
and have cultural significance beyond a mere provision of goods
and services. How this footprint is sustained over time and its
impact on place identity then become interesting questions to
explore.
Arguably then this is the dynamic of culturally guided
consumption that underlies much of the robustness of the ―enclave
economy‖, sustaining this robust commercial space over time.
What is being consumed here is clearly then an ethnic identity. A
meaningful interrogation of the businesses here is hence
imperative for us to fully understand what Yaowarat represents for
both the businessmen and their patrons today; and how that
memory is sustained over time in place, embodied in the business
rituals that are enacted en site; and ultimately the impacts of these
on place identity.
79
3.2.4 Gold and Being Chinese: The Construction-Consumption
of a Chinese Identity
The goldsmiths in Yaowarat are owned and operated mainly
by Chinese proprietors and most have been family businesses for
more than two generations. The shops are often bright and clean,
with showcases filled with gold bracelets of varying thickness,
amulets, frames for Buddhist pendants and even Buddhist
pendants plated in gold. Business is brisk and especially on
weekends, the crowd can be sizeable. Gold is obviously serious
business here and most of the goldsmiths interviewed are selfproclaimed members of the goldsmiths‘ association that are
involved in the setting of prices and quality control. That Yaowarat
is heralded as the place for gold and the fact that such an
overwhelming majority of the shops are run by Chinese proprietors
makes this an interesting point to begin our interrogation.
80
Figure 19: The density of gold in Yaowarat: The signboards all belong to gold
establishments. Note the dual language signboards that are characreristic of
most of the shops found in Yaowarat. They exemplify the straddling of dual
identities by the Thai-Chinese today.
81
Figure 20: Photos of generations in interaction with Thai royalty carefully framed
and proudly displayed in Tang Toa Kang one of the oldest and most reputable
gold businesses in Yaowarat.
Figure 21: Photographs of its founder Mr Tang Toa Kang and his wife. These
pictures of one‘s ancestors are sometimes seen in other shops as well, reflecting
an inheritance, a legacy and a kind of generational memory transmission. This is
82
arguably the kind of memory regime alive in Yaowarat today. These were
displayed in the private ‗museum‘ located above the shop.
As mentioned earlier, many of the shopkeepers when asked
why they chose to locate in Chinatown, point out that it is
Chinatown, which is also known as ―the golden road‖. This
response mirrors that of the hawkers also mentioned that part of
the reason for locating where they are, is definitely because this is
Chinatown, where they have and continue to successfully
conducted their businesses. That some goldsmiths have multiple
offshoots along the same road or in an adjacent street further
attest to their confidence in the viability of plying their trade here.
All these point to an evidently informed confidence that this is
where Chinese people will come for their wares; which is an
assertion that is supported by the data collected that shows that
across board, the clientele the goldsmiths serve are predominantly
Thai-Chinese over and above the percentage of Thais or
foreigners, with repeat customers coming mainly from the Chinese
group (consisting of a larger proportion of customers over the age
of fifty) of patrons.
That their customers are mainly Thai-Chinese, their
business counterparts are predominantly Chinese and has been
over sustained periods of time would mark gold in Yaowarat out as
a distinctive culturally significant symbolic ethnic good. Arguably
then, if consuming gold represents a consumption of one‘s ethnic
identity the goldsmiths and their patrons are in a tango of
83
consuming and trading ethnic symbols and identities, both of which
are produced and reproduced in these daily business rituals
enacted en site in Yaowarat ensuring it remains a place by the
Chinese for the Chinese.
3.2.4.1 The Dance: Strategic Essentialism
As Zhou (2004) and others have noted, ethnic entrepreneurs
often leverage off their social capital and are observed to use their
ethnic networks to mobilize resources and opportunities, which in
turn contribute to their above-average rates of business- ownership
(Light, 1972, 1982; Light and Bonacich 1988)31. That almost 90
percent of the gold here is Chinese-owned clearly indicates then
the strength of ethnicity as a resource that is strategically
leveraged upon. How then is ethnicity strategically employed as a
resource by the gold merchants and how this plays out vis a vis
their clients in the enactment of both the consumptive and
productive aspects of one‘s ethnic identity32?
It is clear from the data that the business confidence of the
goldsmiths mirrors that of the confidence the consumers have in
the goldsmiths. The regular clientele reported by the goldsmiths
reflect an element of trust. This trust is evidently built upon an
31
See also Light and Karageorgis 1994, Light and Bozorgmehr, 1994; Portes and Bach
1985; Waldinger et al. 1990; Waldinger 1998).
32
Explaining the network of gold merchants is beyond the scope and aims of this thesis,
and here, I will focus instead in the exploration of how as ethnic businesses
84
emplaced ethnicity embodied in the businesses over time. This fact
is evidently not lost on the astute business people who have
inherited the trade from their forefathers.
This is so when it is observed that the shopkeepers are very
cognizant of the fact that positioning oneself as Chinese is
important for the merchants Hence being Chinese is an important
ethnic resource and shopkeepers are keenly aware of that with
many of the shops retaining the Chinese characters on their
signboards, and many reporting that being able to speak Chinese
or a dialect like Teochew whilst not crucial in conducting business,
posited ―an advantage‖. This consideration of business viability
indicates that the businesses are highly attuned to economic and
the decision to locate in Chinatown is governed by business
acumen and driven by the profit motive. This means that the move
is strategic rather than de facto the outcome of being Chinese, but
is because being Chinese was a clear advantage. This point is
further illustrated by some of the newer goldsmiths that similarly
chose Chinatown as a place to conduct business by virtue of an
available market.
In other words, the location of their businesses is founded
on the premise that gold sells in Chinatown, which is a business
concentration that effectively links ethnicity to place. It can be
inferred from these responses that being Chinese is not the sole
85
reason for their setting up their business there but more
prominently, the location of the shop was given due consideration
from the angle of business viability. Most of the shopkeepers were
highly attuned to the label of Chinatown as the place to buy and
sell their gold, with prominent official attention lauding it as the
place where one gets the best buy back rates and quality control
as most of the goldsmiths here are part of the business association
for goldsmiths which
engenders and
injects a
sense of
trustworthiness that further cement its status as a gold hub that has
been around for generations which further lends it currency and
business authority and ensures that the memory of Chinatown as
an optimum place to deal in gold is kept alive through the daily
enactment and reenactment of rituals of selling, embodied within
which are allusions to an overriding ethnic identity.
The fact that some of the goldsmiths have multiple offshoots and
branches in the same vicinity seems to further attest to the veracity
of this view. This reflects that the shopkeepers are enacting a
certain kind of strategic essentialism. That is they are utilizing their
ethnicity in strategic, purposeful ways in order to garner the gains
that accrue from such a stance and social positioning.
Hence the production of ethnic identity in and through gold
by the goldsmiths mirrors the apparent consumption of a Chinese
identity through gold products for their customers. A crucial
86
component of this symbiotic relationship is the fact that this
patronage is built on the notion of trust and reputation built over the
years, where drawing upon the memories of quality gold trading
can be drawn and standards and reputations are upheld for these
customers, ensuring their continued patronage. Thus both the
merchants and their customers are able to draw from antecedent
social memories, and through them consume and reproduce their
identities through the rituals of buying and selling gold, and
undergirding these perpetuated exchanges is a powerful social
memory of trading quality, trustworthy gold products from reputable
Chinese merchants, who continue to cater to the needs of their
primary clientele and through these business practices and rituals
perpetuate and constantly reenact that ethnic identity that is crucial
for their business success, with ethnicity serving as a de facto
stamp of approval that is synonymous with quality, trust and the
simultaneous consumption of an ethnic Chinese identity.
This is interesting because it reflects two things. First, it
reflects that the shopkeepers are aware that being Chinese is an
important resource that still has currency in their business dealings
today. It was obvious from the bustling and frenetic pace of
business activities occurring in Yaowarat that this is a vibrant
centre of commerce and business sustainability is not an issue
based on the steady stream of customers that throng the shops.
Location was hence a strategic choice, an informed decision
87
stemming from knowledge that they are able to strategically
essentialize themselves in place, locating themselves to achieve a
competitive advantage in a niche market and achieve business
survival owing to this ethnic identity that it appears continued to be
fostered through the products the ethnic group continues to utilize
meaningfully as part of consuming their social identity. Second, it
shows that clientele patronizing these shops continues to be
mainly ethnic Chinese. This indicates a by the Chinese for the
Chinese element that is all the more amazing as it is organically
engendered. Third, if ethnic businesses are a good indication of
social identity then it appears that Yaowarat as a whole essentially
continues to be by the Chinese to serve their needs and demands
for services. All these point to the conclusion that Yaowarat as
seen through the businessscape in Yaowarat and the consumptive
patterns of the patrons of these establishments is still very much
enclave like in a way that Chinatown SG does not based on the
divergence and differences identified between the two business
scapes and their contrasting social compositions.
While gold trading was traditionally a province of the
Chinese and shops have a history ranging from 30 to more than
100 years, it seems that while the initial encounter between the
client and shopkeeper was based on a mutual sense of trust by
virtue of being fellow countrymen, this has molted and evolved to a
rather different kind of enactment of and leveraging off identity
88
/ethnicity. Now, the earliest memories of Chinatown and gold are
concretized and made visible and delivered to the public at large
as a brand of sorts, though this branding is one that stems from
and is rooted strongly and grounded in empirical experience, i.e.
the brand was a formalizing of a once informally grounded creation
and is something that seeks to describe that reality, that was
bottom up rather than being a top down effort at inscription. In this
way the memory of goldsmiths is perpetuated, through the
repeated patterns of the business rituals that are enacted daily in
place and this has arguably helped sustain memory and ethnic
identity in place and is not an insignificant force and have rather
important empirical outcomes for place: it makes it relevant in
business terms and conjures up memories of it as a Chinese
marketplace, continuing to link the traders to their trade which is a
linkage that has become emblematic over time.
It is apparent then that in Yaowarat, ethnic identity is
strongly grounded in gold, medicine consumption and similar
establishments in a way that is true to its enclave roots. It appears
that in Yaowarat the conditions remain such that place, ethnic
identity and memory (continuity) are perpetuated in a manner that
ensures that enclave businesses continue to represent a
consumption of ethnic identity and through its self-reinforcing self
perpetuating cycle perpetuate itself. The relationship between gold
and ethnic identity thus resonate strongly for both the businesses
89
and their clients, ensuring that the memory continues to live in
place, grounding place identity.
Hence, because of this currency, goldsmiths as a business
community continue to help make place; and by virtue of its
synergistic and symbiotic relationship with place i.e. the best place
to buy gold is in Chinatown and the best place to sell gold is in
Chinatown, the relationship between history, memory, place and
ethnic identity are thus solidified and memory powerfully grounded
through the fragile and unquantifiable quotidian rhythms of trade
that are stable, yet constant, and most importantly living memories
that bespeak of an ethnic identity located in place, and is still very
much a place by the Chinese for the Chinese. This is evident from
the fact that most of the shops dealing with products imbued with
cultural significance in Yaowarat estimate that more than 50
percent of their clientele is Chinese. This concentration of goods
and services that are repositories of an ethnic Chinese identity
continues to offer an array of goods arguably not assembled at
such a scale outside of Chinatown and hence continues to attract
local Chinese to partake in its reproduction as a living memorial
and tribute to a Chinese ethnic identity that is perpetuated and
constantly reinforced with the interdependence between the
shopkeepers and their physical and social environment; that is
further bolstered by their largely Chinese clientele who appear to
90
consume that same ethnic identity through the purchase of gold
products within which memory and identity is embodied.
The medicine halls and the provision shops present very similar
profiles and they will be discussed in greater detail in the next
section.
3.2.5 Embodying Chinese-ness: Medicine Halls and Provision
Shops
The strategic utilization and manipulation/capitalization of
ethnic identity to safeguard or shore up business advantages find
similar expression in the owners of medicine halls and provision
shops. Like the goldsmiths, the proprietors of the medicine halls
and provision shops selling dried goods such as dried shrimp,
mushrooms and other condiments common in Chinese cooking
such as wine report similarly report an awareness of the
economies of scale to be accrued from locating in a place where
there is a concentration of similar functions and product
complementarity. The answer to the reasons for location is
predominantly that ―this is Chinatown and this is where people
come to buy these‖. Almost unanimous in asserting that they are
here because this is where their clients are, ―this is a place for
Chinese people‖ is a refrain that is often encountered by this
91
researcher. That many of the shops in Talat Kao33 have been there
for more than 50 years, and continue to have purely Chinese
signboards further reinforces the notion of a culturally undergirded
viability.
That this is another classic embodiment of an age-old
Chinese identity is instantly illuminated in these responses that
also paralleled that of the goldsmiths: that many inherited their
family businesses, that they have been in business for more than
twenty years, that their clientele include a high percentage of
people who tend to be Chinese and are usually more than 50 years
old. However, Chinese and dialect, while being an ‗advantage‘ for
the goldsmiths was claimed by some of the respondents to be
‗important‘ and this is very telling as to the kind of legacy Chinese
medicine as embodied in these medicine halls.
As
mentioned
by several
medicine
hall
proprietors,
―prescriptions are often in Chinese and hence we need to be able
to read and write Chinese characters‖. That is not to say that
English is not important as well. This is so because most of the
medicine halls have both Chinese and Western medicine counters,
and have had both kinds for many years as they cater to
customers‘ needs.
33
It is called „Old Market‟. Many of the shops there are uniformly inherited businesses
and have been in the same location for over thirty years.
92
The notion of catering to their clientele is even more sharply
drawn when queried as to why some of these halls actually sell
items such as sharks fin and dried scallops and birds‘ nest. The
shopkeepers offered that it was down to simple pragmatism, simply
because ―customers asked after these things so we just decided to
sell some of these so that they just get everything here‖. The acute
practical element and sensitivity to making a livelihood and hence
selecting options that make sound ‗business sense‘ once again
highlights the point brought up earlier about the gold shops,
whereby economic viability was one of the main concerns of the
shopkeepers in terms of locating their stores.
This pragmatism and openness to change reflects the
organic nature of identity expression and shows that it is fluid and
evolving with the times. This shows that memories are constantly
referred back to and have ethnic character but are not inert, and
the shopkeepers are not averse to adding new elements to that
identity. This seems to provide further evidence that social
memories in Yaowarat are ethnically and place-based at the same
time in a manner that is open to change, and ethnic identity,
language merely are foils, tools to achieve the ultimate purpose of
business survival, that are readily played up when there is an
advantage to be gained, but not invoked as a static entity.
93
This flexibility and manipulation of an ethnic identity evident in
Yaowarat bears testimony to the assertion that memory of an
ethnic identity is alive. It also stands testament to the fact that
strategic essentialism is a hallmark of identity construction
amongst the shopkeepers.
3.2.6 Concluding Notes From Yaowarat
While
choosing
to
highlight
the
more
noticeable
concentrations of products such as gold and provisions, it must be
said that other goods and services such as watches, opticians,
religious periphernalia, traditional cakes are not less important. In
fact they are the cornerstone of the complementarity that we have
spoken at length about earlier, ensuring that Yaowarat remains
self-contained. Many of these have also been around for
generations. Besides the more abstract kinds of ‗memory
community‘, the sentiment on the ground is that these are
businesses that run in the family over time. There are provision
shops for instance right next to another that are owned by a pair of
brothers, the proprietor of a religious paraphernalia shop speaks of
her sister-in-law who has a shop in the next street. In fact she
mentions that should she run out of a certain product a customers
wants, she can simply go to her neighbours who have surplus of
the product and get it. This seems to mirror some of the
camaraderie observed on the food street though it is less clear
94
amongst the individual shopkeepers. Arguably this sense of
‗comradeship‘ is engendered from being concentrated and sharing
the same clientele, and even sharing the same memories.
From the forgoing discussion, it is clear that there are
concentrations of certain functions located in Yaowarat. For the
goldsmiths, Chinese provision shops and medicine hall proprietors,
location is based on economics of concentration enjoyed for over
twenty years, a legacy of inheritance, the knowledge that they are
peddling products that their Chinese clients go to Yaowarat looking
for, with an awareness that should they desire these produce,
Yaowarat has traditionally been, and still is a bastion of Chinese
ethnic identity consumption. It is very clear that ethnic identity is
employed strategically only when it made business sense as
evident in their knowledge that speaking Chinese or Teochew may
be an advantage, and also through their willingness to speak other
languages and incorporate other languages on their signboards,
diversify their products to better cater to their clients. Strategic
essentialism is thus at play here and is identity is arguably more
sustainable because it is a bottom up construction that is sensitive
to the realities on the ground For instance, many of the goldsmiths
have signboards that contain Chinese characters, English
alliterations of their names in Teochew and also in Thai. This is
evidence that shows that in Bangkok it is impossible to be Chinese
95
without being simultaneously Thai and increasingly a global citizen
as well.
That means that a Chinese ethnic identity, the memory that
is steeped in the legacy of their trades and embodied in the
products they trade are only played up when it made business
sense to do so. This implies a conscious and strategic application
of identity drawn from memory and that ethnic identity is a
purpose-driven one that is open and fluid. This also implies that
memory and ethnic identities are negotiated at an everyday level 34
and are inserted in the interactions between the shopkeepers and
their clients, as they produce and reproduce their social identities
in place35.
This cannot be further from that in Chinatown SG and it is to that
we now turn.
3.3 Chinatown SG
Chinatown SG differs from Yaowarat in several aspects. For
one, Chinatown SG on a weekday afternoon is almost devoid of
34
In my chats with the shopkeepers, it is palpable that they are family businesses as in
the shops usually are the old patriarch or matriarch together with the younger generation
who have taken over the business.
35
It should be noted as well that the other shops located in Yaowarat share a high degree
of complementarity in products and services in that though they may not be selling
ethnically marked goods, they are part of the same community who speak the same
language, celebrate the same events, go to and contribute to the same temples and
shrines. They locate in Yaowarat to enjoy the benefits of product complementarity as
well as access to a pool of.
96
human traffic, appearing rather somnolent and sedate compared to
the bustle observed at Yaowarat on a weekday.
Figure 22: Chinatown SG on a weekday afternoon. Note the yellow and
red umbrellas that are sponsored by the Chinatown Business
Association.
Emerging from the Pagoda Street exit of Outram Park MRT
station to street level, two rows of shops selling items such as bak
kwa, cameras and film come into view, greeting the visitor together
with multiple tailoring outfits, a coffee shop, a medicine hall
peddling large vessels of liang teh or traditional Chinese ‗cooling‘
teas and the Chinatown Heritage Museum and Restaurant.
Amongst these on Temple and Terengganu Street are other shops
97
carrying an assortment of Singaporean touristic paraphernalia,
Chinese knots, calligraphy and other ostensibly ―Chinese‖
decorations such as red lanterns and porcelain trinkets of
ornamental elephants and tortoises.
Figure 23‖ Street Furniture: These ‗lions‘ sit outside the colourfully repainted
shophouses that house beauticians and massage services.
With this initial foray into Chinatown SG, we will delve into analysis
proper to describe and discuss how Chinatown SG compares with
Yaowarat; and what businesses here can tell us about the relations
between place, memory and ethnic identity. This will be the focus
of the next section.
3.3.1 The Shopkeepers of SG
98
If the business scene in Yaowarat is characterized by (a) a unity in
products and product complementarity; (b) business continuity and
viability and (c) a consumption of culture, ethnic identity, and social
memories that are organically emplaced, the scene in Chinatown
SG takes on a distinctly different tone from that observed in
Bangkok.
(a) Unity in Products and Product Complementarity
Like in Yaowarat, along the two streets surveyed, there are
perceptible concentrations of particular trades here. Massage
services and body therapies for one are well represented, with a
dizzying array of ‗authentic‘ Thai, Javanese, Swedish and Chinese
tuina and foot reflexology massages. Many of these simultaneously
offer ear candling and assorted beauty, aromatherapy and facial
services, with one even offering phyto organic skin care; all housed
above and amongst shop fronts selling a hodgepodge of items
ranging from boutique clothes with loud Hawaiian flowery motifs to
frozen organic vegetarian food amongst other businesses.
Occupying some of the shop fronts are a hairdressing outfit, a few
karaoke pubs, and nightclubs, shops selling cameras and other
beauty services with men as their target clientele, and a German
sausage and bread shop. Amongst these arguably more ‗new age‘
offerings are Chinese medicine halls, shops selling incense,
tealeaves, traditional cakes and snacks, Chinese and Indian
99
tailors, a goldsmith, glassware, jade, Chinese desserts, restaurants
such as Yum Cha.
Given Chinatown SG‘s positioning by the state as an ―ethnic
quarter‖, the constellation of goods and services available here
appear oddly discordant from the notion of ―ethnic‖. Aromatherapy
massages and new fangled organic skin care and food strike a
distinctly discordant note and make odd bedfellows with the
traditional tea, incense, medicine halls and arts groups that coexist
alongside these establishments and they arguably do not
complement one another as well.
Overlying this lack of concordance, however, a unifying
chord can be found: An ostensible number of postcards, tee shirts
proclaiming ‗Singapore is a fine city‘, other tee shirts sporting
Merlions, bearing slogans of how Singapore is a ‗fine city‘, cotton
pants and T-shirts bearing Chinese characters denoting ―courage‖
and ―tolerance‖ which are much cherished Chinese virtues dot the
Chinatown business scape. These touristic paraphernalia are
almost ubiquitous within the parameters of official Chinatown SG
and in fact are spotted even at the tailor‘s and moneychangers.
They are in turn complemented by the faux Chinese trinkets such
as calligraphy scrolls printed on cheap bamboo, Chinese water
colour paintings, Chinese knots and other knickknacks such as
porcelain elephants and turtles, porcelain trinkets with ‗oriental‘
100
prints and other China that are best described as Chinese kitsch
found in a few shops, devoted to these ‗traditional‘ crafts, that are
poor quality renditions of the originals and other ‗Chinese‘
decorations such as the iconic red lanterns that are emblematic of
so many Chinatowns all over the world as well as palpable
concentration of arts and theatre troupes and groups.
This
simultaneous
discordance
and
apparent
complementarity between the ostensibly (and even a little
ostentatiously)
ethnically
marked
trinkets
and
decorative
ornaments and that of the traditional cakes, snacks, medicine halls
and arts troupes however bear closer examination and the state‘s
intervention in Chinatown which was discussed in Chapter Two will
be examined here in relation to its impact on the business scape
and subsequently the sense of place in Chinatown SG.
Choreographed vs engendered
(b) Business Continuity and Viability
The state‘s hand in the constitution of Chinatown SG has
been well documented. Henderson cogently maps out the initial
eradication in the 1960s and retroactive turn towards conservation
101
initiatives in the late 1980s by the state (Henderson, 2000), the
development-conservation dilemma (Kong & Yeoh, 1994; Yeoh &
Huang, 1996) the state faced in relation to Chinatown SG and the
overall turn towards harnessing a heritage that was overall
marketable as ―Uniquely Singapore‖ and ―New Asia Singapore‖
(Chang, 2005) for a slice of the global tourism pie. The changes on
the Chinatown SG landscape wrought by these policies have been
cited as the main reason for Chinatown‘s ―demise‖ and
placelessness, and blamed as the root cause of its identity as a
theme park that lacks resonance with Singaporeans at large.
These critiques are not unfounded.
The easy business continuity, confidence and symbiotic
relationships between the shopkeepers and the patrons who
sustain them in place through drawing upon a shared pool of ethnic
social memories as a resource that is emblematic of the trades in
Yaowarat are clearly not enjoyed by many of the shopkeepers
here.
102
Figure 24: Lau Choy Seng: One of the oldest ‗survivors‘ with 60 years in
Chinatown SG. It is also the only one selling glassware in the vicinity.
Out of the 23 shops surveyed, only three— Kwong Onn
Herbal Medicine Hall (60 years, 4th generation), Nam Supplies
(third generation) and Lau Choy Seng which sells containers and
glassware (60 years, 2nd generation)– have been inherited family
businesses with proprietors who are second, third and fourth
generation inheritors of their ancestors‘ trades, whose decision to
continue to locate in Chinatown SG despite the oft mentioned ―high
rents‖ because their businesses are still supported by their clients
whose profile largely mirror that of their counterparts in Yaowarat
i.e. most of their business consists of repeat customers who are
locals, with whom they have meaningful personal relationships with
and with whom there is an element of trust incorporated. For these
103
shops and their clients, location and patronage are not arbitrary but
carefully selective and beyond the merely transactional. This is so
because these shops do not sell items that are unique to
Chinatown SG but are easily found in all housing estates and ―new
towns‖. And the relationships between the shopkeepers and their
customers was keenly felt when I approached the proprietors for
the short questionnaire I have prepared.
Figure 25: Nam Supplies, one of the last remaining shops of its kind in
Chinatown on Trengganu street dealing with incense and other religious
supplies.
At Nam Supplies for instance which has been in business
for about 80 years, Peter the affable proprietor, and third
generation inheritor of his family business can be seen vivaciously
and enthusiastically serving the customers that throng his shop on
the Thursday afternoon. Together with his wife whom the
104
customers also seem happy to banter with they man his joss paper
and incense supplies business. While I was in the shop talking to
Peter, customers of various demographic groups (―I watched some
of them grow up‖) stream in and his sense of familiarity with them
was palpable. There were earnest greetings that reeked of
familiarity and knowledge of each other, light-hearted discussions
of what they are buying, enthusiastic conversations about what the
products are to be used for, a sense of trust in Peter‘s
recommendations of products, and warm friendly chit chat and
banter about life in general. It was obvious immediately the
personal relationships Peter shares with his customers.
This scene observed on an unremarkable weekday
afternoon appears to be a good snapshot of the profile of Peter‘s
customers. He reports that about 80 percent of his customers are
regular patrons and out of these about 30 percent to 40 percent he
estimates to be over the age of fifty. He banters good-naturedly
with his customers in mainly Cantonese reflecting his assertion in
the survey that speaking Mandarin and dialect is important for his
business, especially ―in relationship building‖. For him then these
are the people his business caters to and is sustained by, less so
the occasional tourist who purchases the incense out of novelty
and curiosity. Peter is conversant in Mandarin, English and
Cantonese but the lingua franca that makes most business sense
appears without doubt to be Cantonese. It was the marker of an
105
insider and the customer who speaks it is inducted into that inner
circle of friendship. These are people he knows and have
established interpersonal connections with that are beyond the
merely transactional whose continued patronage is valued and
sustains Nam Supplies, ensuring its viability.
Such conviviality was also encountered over at Huang Yao
Nan Medicine Hall36 (90 years, 3rd generation)37 which was also
bustling with life with many a grey-haired customer seated leisurely
bantering in Cantonese and Teochew with the proprietors across
the counter who were pounding, scraping, slicing, measuring out,
putting together the various herbs, whipping them skillfully with
practiced deft movements into neat packages. The familiarity and
warmth is again undergirded by regular patronage and the ensuing
trust that is developed over the years.
For these shops there is little doubt that their continuity and
viability relies upon their clients who continue to patronize though
there are other alternatives should they require joss paper and
incense, and even Chinese medicine and even more so, plastic
and glassware which are easily available island-wide. What is clear
from this then is the fact that despite bearing very similar traits and
customer profiles to many of their counterparts in Bangkok, there is
36
There are also other old establishments such as On Cheong Goldsmith and Tai Chong
Kok cake house, which are not included in the survey.
37
As one of the oldest establishments in Chinatown SG, it is interestingly not in the list
of „heritage brands‟ that is drawn up in the official touristic literature.
106
a departure from them in that unlike the culturally inscribed goods
located in place, emblematic of place with attendant guarantees of
high quality, full variety and assured pricing that ensures its
continued viability in place that is drawn from shared memories of
an ethnic identity that is still salient and relevant today in Yaowarat,
the notion of being an ―ethnic‖ good is not so clearly inscribed in
these goods and service that have ―lasted‖ in Chinatown SG over
time. While speaking a dialect remains a business advantage for
these shop owners, given the wide availability if the products and
services they carry, it is reasonable to conclude that the
relationships shared between the shopkeepers and their customers
are localized everyday place-based ones where an ethnic identity
is not overtly relevant in place.
This unlike in Yaowarat, is not ―the place Chinese people
come to buy these things‖ and though location was informed by
notions of inheritance, the shopkeepers did not once mention the
importance of being Chinese for their business location, reflecting
that while there are relationships between them and their patrons,
it is a more personal rather than ethnic identification. This is
perhaps not surprising given that the majority of Singaporeans are
ethnic Chinese, and ethnic identity has become diffused islandwide rather than concentrated in place like in Yaowarat, where
ethnic identity, memory, livelihood are anchored in place and
remain welded together in organically engendered interdependent
107
relationships that continue to guarantee business viability and
perpetuating continuity in an exchange of cultural symbols in place.
This observation of a localized everyday memory regime is
corroborated further perhaps through Peter‘s notion of having
―lasted‖ in Chinatown over time and being one of the ―sole
survivors here‖. Being a sole survivor implies the collapse of other
similar business functions. Further probing about the kinds of
establishments unveils that ―there used to be about five or six
shops‖ like his in the vicinity. When prompted further about what
trades used to be here given that he has been here for such a
sustained period of time, he observes that and there were more
―tailors, jade sellers, people selling flowers, barbers, now they are
all mainly new‖. Arguably, if these products and services are
uniquely concentrated in Chinatown SG, and have any ethnic
cultural significance, they would have thrived despite the high rents
because then it will be the go to place for these products, in the
way
Yaowarat
is
for
the
Thai-Chinese
consumers
and
businessmen. The fact that they were driven out cannot be
attributable to the high rents alone, and by implication no longer
through state destruction alone. This appears then to support the
argument that Chinatown SG has moved away from being the
ethnic enclave it once was, and was being sustained through the
everyday livelihoods and daily routines of the business people and
their customers, that are embodied in the mundane routines, where
108
an ethnic identity was downplayed. There is little illusion to Peter
and others it seems that they are sustained by their regular
customers who come back to them despite the availability
elsewhere.
What the state appears to have done then was to inscribe
and superimpose through their heritage efforts an ethnic identity on
a place in a way that is not congruent with the lived realities and
memories of
the
inhabitants,
thereby inadvertently forcing
businesses out with the high rents. The notion of an overriding
―Chinese‖ identity was a resource that Peter and perhaps others
are unable to tap into, has little currency as it does not resonate
with their experience on the ground nor their memories as they
negotiate their everyday lives in place. Business continuity in
Chinatown SG then stands in marked contrast to that in Yaowarat
where there is a coherent, engendered sense of place undergirded
by an ethnic currency that organically and symbiotically supports
the enterprises found there, locating memory In place, solidifying
place identity in the process.
Having said that, If the older establishments were unable to
identify with the retrospectively inscribed place identity of
Chinatown, the lack of resonance affecting their viability, forcing
them out, and with some of the other unmarked services such as
camera equipment shops bemoaning the ensuing lack of business
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flow due to a lack of vibrancy as a commercial space, with new
establishments such as massage and facial salons locating
themselves ―because it is a central location‖, there appears to be
simultaneously a movement toward ―hyper Chinese‖ products that
are filling the void left by enterprises forced out by the disconnect
between the physical (overtly Chinese) and social (local)
composition the state has inflicted on Chinatown. If ethnic identity
is no longer salient to these shopkeepers and contributes little to
business continuity and viability, what is being consumed in
Chinatown SG again?
(c) Consuming Nostalgia vs. Consuming Identity: Theming
and Taming, Recreating Place, Replacing Memories
If ethnic identity continues unabated to be an important
aspect of their economics transactions and those of their
customers in Yaowarat, and place sustains the needs of
businesses with whom they enjoy a synergistic symbiotic
relationship, where ethnic identity and business interest are
intertwined
with
a
bottom-up
strategic
essentialism,
the
concentration of shops selling what is best describe as Chinese
kitsch offers an interesting contrast in the way ethnic identity is
invoked as a strategy for business success.
110
Many of these shops are new additions on the business
scape and it is quite apparent that these overtly ethnically marked
‗Chinese‘ goods are paddled for tourists who appear to be
privileged in the landscape given that postcards and other touristic
paraphernalia
can
be
found
even
at
the
tailors
and
moneychanger‘s premises. This observation is lent credence when
most of these shops surveyed when asked why they chose to
locate in Chinatown SG, report that they chose the location in a bid
to tap into the tourist market. Tourists hence constitute a large
proportion of their clientele, usually making up more than half their
customers. Because their clientele consists mainly of tourists, there
are correspondingly few repeat customers, and being able to
speak Chinese or a dialect do not provide a business advantage
for the lingua franca for business here is predominantly English
and there is mention that ―English helps unless you meet PRCs‖,
reflecting both the importance of English as the main business
language and reinforcing the fact that the main clientele consists of
tourists. This stands in marked contrast to that observed in
Yaowarat earlier whereby speaking Chinese remains a business
advantage for the functions concentrated there, and where the
Thai-Chinese populace constitutes the vast majority of their
patrons, many of whom are customers they have developed
relationships with and who in turn invest their loyalties, and inform
their decision regarding the feasibility of location and are the
cornerstone of their continued business viability and confidence.
111
Like their counterparts in Yaowarat, these entrepreneurs are
using their ethnic identity as aids towards their business
endeavours. However, ethnic identity it seem is applied here
superficially, given that the products they sell are distinctly noneveryday items but can be classified as Chinese Kitsch that is
veering towards tackiness. This ‗hyper-Chinese orientation and
pragmatism though similarly rooted in economic pragmatism and
business viability is distinctly in contrast to that in Yaowarat where
the business scape is marked by change and continuity, and ethnic
identity was reflexively positioned as an extension of one‘s social
identity over time in place in order to keep up with the times, and is
rooted in one‘s inheritance of both the family business and one‘s
ethnic identity.
In fact, some of the stalls and shops selling Chinese art
pieces and stone engravings are owned and operated by new
Chinese immigrants from the People‘s Republic of China (PRC),
together with many of the restaurants along Smith Street serving a
showcase variety of ‗Chinese‘ cuisine e.g. from Tianjin and Sze
Chuan province, which supports the notion that being Chinese
though similarly a resource, is one that is applied in a manner
detached from lived memories emplaced, that it‘s currency is
derived from an ―ethnic succession‖ not unlike the concept of
‗ethnopole‘ that Laguerre (2000) discusses. If the state‘s inscription
was not congruent with lived in memories, then this appears to
112
encourage entrepreneurs who take advantage of that inscription
and conform retrospectively to that new ethnic theme slapped onto
Chinatown SG. Ethnic identity then becomes an element used
deliberately loosely by business people (new immigrants) with little
attachment to place beyond how the inscriptions of place can
benefit them, owing to a distinct ‗other‘ orientation. This point is
brought home even more starkly by the disparity in treatment locals
get from the Indian tailor one meets as they exit Chinatown MRT
Station. Locals like this researcher got pretty much the cold
shoulder as he enthused in friendly banter with the foreigners,
cementing and confirming then the notion that many locals have
expressed, that Chinatown SG was not for them.
(d) “Dying Trades”
The notion of consuming nostalgia however, is a complex
multidimensional issue. The foregoing has shown how a lack of
congruence in memory regimes has affected the businessscape,
resulting in a disruption/ destruction of the initial businessscape
through inscribing an ethnic identity resulting in many shopkeepers‘
inability to access both the localized place-based memories which
are lost as trades move out; and also an inability to tap into the
new ethnic identity that is superimposed on the landscape to gain
business advantages as new ―ethnic Chinese‖ trades take up the
slots left empty by their predecessors.
113
As Peter notes when prompted further about what trades
used to be here given that he has been here for such a sustained
period of time, he observes that and there were more ―tailors, jade
sellers, people selling flowers, barbers, now they are all mainly
new‖, further adding that his is fortunately or unfortunately one of
the ―dying trades‖38. This sentiment is acknowledgement and
echoed by the lady proprietor of the Tea Shop who observes that
―young people these days know very little about tea leaves, they
rather have coffee at the new cafes!‖
What this implies, in the same way goods and services that used to
be unique to Chinatown are no longer so, is that social change has
occurred as well. The Chinese are no longer a minority cloistered
in Chinatown but are in fact the majority in a population of about
five million.
This seem to help explain the reason for a lack of
businesses sustainability as the STB seems to be inserting an
ethnic element to something that does not embody it anymore; and
that business sustainability has always hinged on a localized
clientele and is built upon those localized relationships the hawkers
used to share with their clients. Essentially then that is a
Chinatown memory, that has become dislocated and can no longer
be drawn from as it was always contingent upon social relations
38
Peter‟s son is studying overseas and will probably not take over the business, like
many of the shopkeepers mentioned to me in Yaowarat.
114
built en site. It is hence a memory that has become distorted,
replaced and no longer has any life, and is inaccessible unlike the
memories of a localized ethnic identity that is both in its abstract
and concrete form utilized as a resource that perpetuates its
sustained ethnic presence that continues to give place a distinctly
engendered ethnic character, continuing to add to that memory
through food. Arguably then, it is owing to a combination of
superimposition of an ethnic character onto an element that did not
embody that identity; and the dislocation of place-based memories,
that together result in the overall dearth of memory reference to
place that can be drawn upon for hawkers today. This emptiness of
memory as a resource hence affects place identity for it neither
finds resonance as Chinatown as lived, nor Chinatown the ethnic
enclave. Being the majority of the population also means that the
need to mobilize ethnicity as a resource is drastically reduced. All
these arguably contribute to the current state of Chinatown SG.
3.4 Conclusion: The Business of Remembering
In this chapter, we described and discussed businesses in
Yaowarat and Chinatown SG and compared the social habitat of
the shopkeepers and also simultaneously the profile of their clients.
This is done in a bid to understand the relationships between
place, memory and ethnic identity as embodied in business
practices and consumption; with the larger aim of using this as a
115
framework with which to understand the constituents of place
identity in the two traditional enclaves today.
The comparisons of the two sites showed that businesses in
Yaowarat draw heavily on the advantages of locating where they
are (where there are economies of scale to be accrued and enjoy
product complementarity), and understand that ethnic identity is a
crucial part of their continued economic success. Their businesses
share a mutually reinforcing relationship with their clientele that
comprises
mainly
of
Thai-Chinese.
This
symbiosis
and
interdependence between the businesses and their environment;
and the businesses and their clients is fostered amidst a climate of
remembering whereby ethnic memories tied to consumption and
livelihoods are constantly kept alive and ethnic identity itself is
enacted and re-enacted in the daily consumptive rituals, inserted at
the everyday level in the routines that one carries out in a diurnal
rhythm, reproducing an identity that is tied to place, and at the
same time, tied to more abstract notions of historical identity.
The opposite is true in Chinatown SG whereby place-based
memory-identifications are inscribed by the state in a manner that
lacks resonance. In the state‘s recreation, the place-based,
localized relations are given an ethnic significance that social
memories of the place do not correspond to. This concentration in
place in Yaowarat hence stands in direct contrast to the dispersion
116
in Chinatown SG, and accounts for the strength in ethnic
identification and identity in place in the former versus the
dissonance once again palpable in the latter. Chinatown SG seems
in this purview to be once again deemed placeless owing to the
fact that with the destruction of place-based memories and placebased trades, it then tries to insert upon the landscape an ethnic
identity that social memories of the place do not correspond to and
cannot support today and has no resonance. Shopkeepers today
are hence unable to leverage off any advantages to be accrued in
Chinatown SG through sheer location and ethnic identity and
because of the overall lack of of resonance (lack of accountability
to customers) and the inaccessibility of memories of place.
Chinatown SG seems ‗soulless‘ and businesses are unable to
sustain their livelihoods. Place identity thus spirals downwards for it
is not kept alive through the everyday enactment and re-enactment
of identities embodied in the everyday routines for both the
businesses and their clients. This detachment to place and to the
memory of place creates a distinct lack of access to a collective
pool of social memory and is arguable the reason for the state‘s
constant efforts at coming up with activities to resuscitate
Chinatown SG. Without a memory regime that is constantly drawn
upon and re-enacted and reproduced in the daily rhythms, place
identity and ethnic identity becomes weakened and that is arguable
what has happened in Chinatown SG, where the consumption of
food is no longer tied to identity (both localized and ethnic).
117
It is palpable from the discussion in this chapter that
businesses are a cornerstone that continues to locate ethnic
identity in place over time in Yaowarat. Both the shopkeepers
conducting their businesses there together with their clients are
able to, owing to the legacy of inheritance and continuity,
constantly
draw
from
a
still
relevant,
resonant
pool
of
simultaneously ethnic and place based social memories that
continue to have currency for both the business proprietors and
their clients. In Chinatown SG, place-based memories are
destroyed and replaced by a superimposed ethnic based one that
is not supported by social memories, meaning that both the
shopkeepers an their clients are unable to draw from it to construct
a coherent identity resulting in the dissonant heritage that has
become a hallmark of Chinatown SG, which increasingly cannot
sustain itself and requires the state‘s constant efforts at sustaining
it.
Inheritance and continuity alone however does not help
anchor an ethnic identity in place. It is because of the
concentrations of ethnically marked products such as sharks fin,
gold and Chinese medicine that together with that legacy and
inheritance continue to lock identity in place and makes place
relevant to the ethnic community. This contributes to Yaowarat‘s
strong ethnic Chinese character, where place, ethnic identity and
118
memory are strongly grounded and explains the apparent
‗placelessness‘ of Chinatown SG. The point to note here though is
that this concentration of ethnic produce facilitates ethnic identity
reproduction and contributed greatly to the ethnic positionings
allowing for a continued ethnic constructing-consumptive pattern in
place and is evidently as observed in Yaowarat, a crucial part in
sustaining place identity. The ethnic character of these products
and the fact that they are concentrated in place over time ensures
that both the proprietors and their clients are able to draw upon
antedecent social memories and continue to perpetuate them as
lived in memories, continuing to sustain the viability of these
businesses,
ensuring
then
that
through
their
proprietary
consumptive practices that are undergirded by an overriding ethnic
logic, the businesses remain in place, hence strengthening ethnic
place identity.
Remembering does not occur in a vacuum how things are
remembered is a reflection of the social context. It is obvious that
memory, ethnic identity and place identity are strongly linked
through businesses in Yaowarat, and social memory is kept alive
through praxis. That social memory of an ethnic identity is still
important reflect the continued enclave quality of Yaowarat today.
In Chinatown SG, memory, ethnic identity and place are complexly
related due to state action that saw the removal and subsequent
119
partial restoration of a social habitat39. This disruption cuts off the
social memories that are place-bound, and seek to replace it with
one that is ethnic and based on its enclave roots that do not seem
to be strong anymore in its bid to restore it as heritage. These twin
movements cut off the social memories, ethnic or otherwise that
give place identity, delinking the otherwise close relations between
place, identity and memory. It hence appears that social memories
are important aspects in locating identity in place and it is the
accessibility of these memories that determine place identities and
its perpetuation. Hence because of the different configurations of
these in terms of their accessibility, businesses in Yaowarat
contributes as a place-making element and adds to that memory,
locating it in space in a way that is absent in Chinatown SG,
contributing to its placelessness.
Having described and discussed the relationship between
place, memory and ethnic identity through an analysis of the more
consumptive aspects of identity formation, we will now turn to look
39
The delink between place, memory and ethnic identity as embodied in the businesses
needs to be contextualized against a backdrop of state intervention. Besides relocating
the hawkers (Thoo, 1983), part of the initiative of development also saw the systematic,
continuous and massive destruction of three out of four sides of the Chinatown
landscape and the removal of residents from their shophouses which were then
conserved in a bid to harness Chinatown as heritage for tourism and nation building.
Tearing down the residences and revamping them physically altered the landscape, and
post preservation, residents were forced to move out as rents skyrocketed. Less
compatible uses were also phased out of Chinatown SG. These changes created massive
upheavals to the social fabric of place and destroyed the place-based relationships
between the businesses (Huang and Teo, 1994) and their patrons and it seems replacing
them with ethnic-based, “themed and tamed”, “sanitized”, “dissonant” ones.
120
at other anchors located in place and discuss their impacts and
influences on place identity and memories.
Chapter 4 The Temples
In the previous two chapters we mapped out the ways in
which an ethnic identity manifests itself in Yaowarat, continuing to
find embodiment in the goods, services and daily business routines
that are enacted en site. We observed that because these continue
to embody an ethnic Chinese identity and that an ethnic identity
appear to continue to have resonance and currency for both the
businessmen and their clients, these businesses persist in locating
there over time, helping to engender the distinct unity in ethnic
products and also product complementarity that is a hallmark of
self-contained successful commercial spaces and also ensuring
business continuity and viability that is consciously welded with
cultural continuity as ethnic identity is consumed, produced and
reproduced in the daily rituals of commerce in Yaowarat.
Juxtaposing these observations with that in Chinatown SG draws
out the fact that an ethnic identity does not have the same kinds of
currency and we argued that these differences appear to bear
spatial expressions that are etched powerfully onto the respective
ethnic landscapes, engendering vastly different spatial outcomes,
121
making place in Yaowarat and it seems, breaking place in
Chinatown SG.
Having described and discussed the more material,
consumptive embodiments of ethnic identity that is expressed in
commerce, this chapter seeks to provide a more well-rounded and
holistic analysis of place by turning to examine the role religious
institutions such as temples may have in contributing to place
identity formation over time. Religious institutions are highly
symbolic edifices on which ethnic identities values and beliefs are
inscribed.
Further,
these
institutions
often
have
intimate
relationships with the spaces they occupy. For these reasons they
are potentially fruitful areas through which to analyze the evolution
of ethnic identity over time in these enclaves and hence in this
chapter I will examine the religious institutions in Yaowarat and in
Chinatown SG, singling out the most iconic and emblematic
religious institutions for comparison to draw out larger themes that
recur in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG, and the implications these
have for place identity.
In this purview, Wat Mangkorn Kamalawat and The Buddha Tooth
Relic Temple and Museum will constitute our analytic foci in this
section and it is to and it is to this endeavour we now turn.
4.1 Wat Mangkorn Kamalawat: Leng Nei Yee
122
Wat Mangkorn Kamalawat is Sampheng‘s largest and most
important Buddhist temple and was for many years the residence
of the patriarch of the Mahayana Order. It has a southerly
orientation, a propitious direction in Chinese but not Thai tradition
with its main entrance at Charoen Krung Road. It was built on land
provided for by King Chulalongkorn in 1873 and its construction
was financed by a group of Chinese merchants and government
officials. 1879 marks the completion of the temple and its formal
consecration as Wat Leng Nei Yi, the largest Mahayana Buddhist
temple in Thailand. King Chulalongkorn accorded it the Thai royal
name of Wat Mangkorn Kamalawat (the dragon and lotus temple,
equivalent Leng Nei Yi in Chinese.
Wat Mangkorn has been
headed by a series of abbots with six of the first seven having
served as the patriarch of the Chinese Mahayana Order in
Thailand40.
Because of the reputation of Wat Mangkorn, I expected to
be able to find it easily, anticipating that it would be highly opulent
and conspicuous. I was really surprised then to find it
unassumingly tucked away somewhere in the main thoroughfare of
40
In 1978 the senior monks of the Chinese Order in Thailand and the members of Wat
Mangkorn‟s lay committee invited King Rama IX and Queen Sirikit to attend the
opening of the nine-storey monastic school erected over the temple‟s main gate. It was
an edifice that originally contained a museum and a religious school. In 1990, it was
converted to the Mangkon Kamalawat Withayalai School, a monastic secondary school
taught by a complement of 15 Chinese monks, with capacity of 200 student places
primarily intended to serve the temple‟s novices though it also admits lay students from
the surrounding community. It was the first such school established by the Chinese
Mahayana Buddhist Order in Thailand.
123
Charoen Krung Road (above), the only indication that it might be
there being the sudden concentration of shops peddling religious
paraphernalia such as incense paper and other related offerings.
Were it not for the ornate temple gate fronting Charoen Krung
Road between the shophouses, Wat Mangkorn would be quite
inconspicuous behind the multi-storey buildings lining the lively
thoroughfare. The overall interior décor also reeks of a certain
humility and it comes across as unpretentious (as opposed to
ostentatious).
Figure 26: The narrow, inconspicuous entrance to Wat Mangkorn
124
Figure 27: Patrons on a weekday afternoon
That this is a textually rich, extramundane place comes into
view in the initial survey of the people observed in the temple on a
weekday afternoon. As I entered the temples, there were a good
mixture of young and older folks going about their rituals, offering
incense, prayers and donations. There were also a smattering of
tourists with their cameras mingling in their midst, who are told
politely that they are not allowed to take photographs within temple
grounds, though that did not deter many who still try to sneak in a
few shots whilst the staff are not looking. This mixture of localforeign, everyday and foreign seems to coexist very comfortably.
There is a sense of non-intrusiveness and harmony between life as
125
lived and life as observed by the foreign eye, through a foreign lens
from which the everyday is an object of fascination.
That this is a living quotidian space, owned by the locals
was palpable, and it appears that it is understood by the ‗outsiders‘
in their unspoken compliance to the rules of engagement, set
informally by the inhabitants of this ritualistic space that is imbued
with much meaning for their users. Newcomers to this space are
creatively engaged it seems, and are attracted here owing to the
presence of people and practices that continue to sustain and
relate to this space and reproducing its meanings in their daily
rituals and patterns of behavior that has roots in history, and owing
to its constant reinvention on a daily basis, constitutes a living
memory.
126
Figure 28: The resident young monks at prayer. In Thai culture, serving a stint in
a monastery is a rite of passage in a man‘s Buddhist life.
This is corroborated by Edward Van Roy‘s observations, in which
he describes his own observations in Wat Mangkorn,
He further observes that,
The open area in front of the ordination hall is crowded each
morning with visitors offering alms to the resident monks. As the
day wears on, the stream of visitors seeking spiritual guidance,
personal catharsis, or simply a moment‘s contact with the
extramundane grows thicker. Many merit makers offer donations at
the desks manned by elderly lay volunteers near the various
devotional chambers. Others offer symbolic alms… Each day the
127
temple is crowded with worshippers who have come to express
their devotion to the various altars.
In addition to being Sampheng‘s best- known Buddhist centre for
Mahayana Buddhist religious rites, Wat Mangkon is a renowned
landmark for many visitors from overseas who simply come to
experience ―a bit of the exotic east‖ or more tellingly pay fleeting
homage in hope of gaining good fortune for themselves and their
families.
This further illustrates its straddling of both the local and the
foreign, the everyday and the unique experience of the new and
importantly that it inserts itself as an icon that belongs to both
touristic literature and marketing, while at the same time
unwaveringly belongs to the local community and the Chinese
community at large without confining itself to either mould,
continuing to stay true to its early missions of helping the poor and
fostering Buddhist studies and precepts. This reinforces the
assertion that in Wat Mangkorn, proceedings are simultaneously
mundane and extramundane, or more precisely mundanely
extramundane, for these are rituals that people appear to repeat as
part and parcel of their daily and religious lives.
This view is further supported by the fact that the majority of
the shopkeepers (69 out of 76) surveyed report that they frequent
128
the temple, with some asserting that they visit it up to twice every
week, and donate to the temple to make merit and pray for divine
blessings for both themselves and their businesses. This is a
significant finding because shopkeepers as discussed in the
previous chapters are crucial agents that enact and reproduce
ethnic identity in place over time, and purvey largely ethnically
significant goods and services, and share symbiotic relationships
with place. That their commitment and relationship to Yaowarat is
grounded even more strongly in religious precepts that are further
captured and locked in place by Wat Mangkorn seems to inflect
that ethnic identity is further cemented and entrenched in physical
space. The linkages between place and identity are hence clearly
drawn here and appear to be intertwined in this religious institution
and are powerfully reinforced through it and undergirded by it.
129
Wat Mangkorn: The Community Icon from Below
Figure 29: The patrons of the temple (above). It is clear that Wat Mangkorn has
both a community footprint as well as a larger social footprint and is a Chinese
religious icon.
This makes Wat Mangkorn a sort of community icon. Van Roy for
instance further notes that,
This notion of being a community icon is brought home further by
the temple secretary‘s41 revelations that the donations from patrons
go towards funding the monastic schools in Mangkorn as well as
for general maintenance of the temple grounds and subsistence
needs of the monks.
41
Interview conducted 10 June 2008.
130
The young temple secretary also notes that previously the
temple provides scholarships for the poor to study in external
schools, but have recently built one within the temple ―so that poor
people who cannot afford secondary school education can come
here‖. He tells us that the purpose of running the schools, in which
curriculum is supplemented by ―moral classes‖, stems from the
desire to ―build a strong community so that they (the graduates)
can go out and make a good society‖, to ―go out to society to teach
others‖. This notion of paying it forward and giving back to society
through funds gathered by virtue of the strength of bonding
between place, memory and a Chinese (plus more general
religious) identity over time and the physical building of institutions
that manifest this relationship i.e. it is cemented in the school built
can then be inferred to further locate place, ethnic identity, memory
in Wat Mangkorn, drawing on references that have traditionally
existed, yet adding nuance to it by adding new elements to
constantly update and reproducing the relationships between place
identity in new configurations that develop from the preexisting
bulwark of memories that are already steeped in Wat Mangkorn.
This arguably helps to sustain its status as a local community icon
as it ensures it remains relevant today, and continue to resonate
with its ‗clientele‘.
Interestingly, the monk lets on that there is a kind of ‗old
folks club‘ formed by old people ―who have little to do‖, ―who have
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money but no friends and no society‖ who gather from all over
every month to pray together and have vegetarian meals together
and when needed come together to donate and raise funds for the
temple. The fact that this is a haunt the caters to emotively attach
old people to one another appear to further reflect its openness to
reinvention which in turn indicates that it is truly a space by the
people for the people, where older and new functions develop next
to one another and build on that antecedent good will and
memories, and truly opens itself up to the people who need it42,
who need community, emotive attachments today. This is further
evident from the huge amounts of money the temple collected for
victims of natural disasters overseas such as the victims of cyclone
Nargis as well as those adversely affected by the Sze Chuan
earthquake, and the special section set aside for donating money
specifically for the purchase of coffins for the poor who cannot
afford to bury their dead relatives.
Another important overlap that further cements its status as
a
community
icon
is
perhaps Wat
Mangkorn‘s
everyday
functionality as well as its being the congregation place in which
festivals are celebrated. Van Roy‘s observations again prove
instructive here,
42
The temple collects donations of coffins as well for people whose families are
unable to afford them. That is not to say that they donate caskets, but their
donations come in the form of monetary goodwill that the temple has discretion
to utilize. The notion of mutual trust is also evident from this.
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The annual cycle of events associated with Wat Mangkon comes
to a peak during the seventh lunar month with the ―basket
discarding‖ festival when rice and other useful consumer staples
such as clothing and blankets are distributed to the needy, and the
ninth lunar month when the vegetarian festival brings to the temple
hoards of visitors in search of savoury vegetarian dishes to mark
their abstinence from animal products. Wat Mangkon today is
considered an especially important temple by both Theravada and
Mahayana Buddhists and even by many Thai-Chinese Christians
who continue to recall their preconversion rituals.
Van Roy‘s observations are corroborated by data collected
from speaking to the temple secretary at Wat Mangkorn, who also
reflected that the Vegetarian Festival and the Hungry Ghosts
Festival are events that bring the crowds to Wat Mangkorn as
people from all over the city come together in celebration of these
events. That the festive and the everyday coincide43 as a matter of
course is arguably yet another indication that the temple is strongly
rooted to place, memories, identities and the wide-ranging people
and purposes they serve.
Having described and discussed the positionings of Wat Mangkorn
in the Yaowarat landscape, I will now juxtapose this with its
equivalent in Chinatown SG.
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4.2 The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum (BTRTM)
Figure 30: The ostentatious building that houses the BTRTM. Note the man and
the woman standing in front of it. The close- up is at Figure 31 below.
On the Singapore Tourism Boards Uniquely Singapore
website, the Buddha Tooth relic Temple was described thus:
The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum is a living cultural monument in the
heart of Chinatown housing what Buddhist leaders regard as the Sacred Buddha
Tooth Relic in a magnificent Relic Stupa composed of 420kg of gold donated by
devotees. Everyday the inner chamber will be unveiled at stipulated timings in a
ceremony conducted by resident monks and the public can view the Relic Stupa.
The Temple is dedicated to Maitreya Buddha. Entering the breathtaking 27 feet
high main hall of the temple, visitors can see the beautifully carved wooden
Maitreya Buddha image. From the grandeur and fine detail seen in this hall
alone, visitors can appreciate the work of dedicated craftsmen who contributed
their skills to the building of this Temple. The architecture, interiors and statuary,
are inspired by the Tang Dynasty, an era where Buddhism flourished in China in
a golden age of artistic and cultural vibrancy.
Other highlights of a visit to the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple & Museum include
the Buddhist Culture Museum, Eminent Sangha Museum, Tripitaka Chamber,
Exhibition Hall where exhibitions relating to various facets of religious arts and
134
culture of Singapore will be held regularly and a Theatre for cultural
performances, talks and films.
On the roof, visitors can admire the pure elegant blooms of the Dendrobium
Buddha Tooth, an orchid species specially named after the Buddha Tooth Relic
Temple & Museum. Visitors can also rest and enjoy refreshing tea and healthy
vegetarian snacks in the cozy Lotus Heart Tea House on the 2nd floor or visit
the Dining Hall in the basement where free vegetarian meals are distributed
daily. A shop on the ground floor allows visitors to purchase offering items,
including the Dendrobium Buddha Tooth orchid and a range of books, CDs,
handicrafts and commemorative souvenirs.
The BTRTM was built to much fanfare and was officially opened in
2007. That this was such a recent addition in the Chinatown
landscape, built right in the area officially conserved by the state is
noteworthy.
This is so because land use is rather strictly regulated to
and limited to purposes congruent to the state‘s goals and visions
of what Chinatown means and should be. In fact the land it is
currently standing on is under the purview of the Singapore
Tourism Board44 (STB), and hence from its successful inception to
its construction to its current existence means its utility is approved
by the state as represented by the statutory board the STB. The
website provides comprehensive data on the events and vision of
the Temple and we shall scrutinize them more carefully and see
how this may be more a spectacle, a spectacular icon rather than a
community icon and how this once again reflects the state‘s efforts
in Chinatown which can be summed up as one of fossilization and
44
It was stated on the Temple‟s official website that on January 14, 2005, a land lease
agreement was signed with the Singapore Tourism Board.
135
attempts at strategic essentialism (why this is so will be picked up
in the final chapter).
3.2.2 Edging for A Closer Look at the Buddha Tooth
Figure 31: The close- up shot. Tourists seeing a photo opportunity at the
entrance of the BTRTM. This reflects its novelty as opposed to being part of the
everyday. Contrast this to Figure 34 which shows that THK has closed for the
day. The photographs are taken within the same half-hour (6pm-630 pm). Wat
Mangkorn similarly closes at 6pm daily.
First and foremost, what is striking about the Temple is the
language it is described in. Notions of ―highlights‖ imply a certain
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kind of experience and people who go there are called ―visitors‖;
and the mention of pure elegant blooms of the Dendrobium
Buddha Tooth, an orchid species specially named after the Buddha
Tooth Relic Temple and Museum‖, meant that the nationalistic,
touristic overtones are well and alive. The fact that thee ―visitors
can also rest and enjoy refreshing tea and healthy vegetarian
snacks in the cozy Lotus Heart Tea House on the 2nd floor or visit
the Dining Hall in the basement where free vegetarian meals are
distributed daily‖ further implies a desire to mix viewing with
comfort. Finally ―a shop on the ground floor allows visitors to
purchase offering items, including the Dendrobium Buddha Tooth
orchid and a range of books, CDs, handicrafts and commemorative
souvenirs‖. This makes it almost unmistakable that this is an
establishment closely tied to tourism and is a place people ‗visit‘,
not patronize as faithfuls. This is obviously not a community
temple, a community icon but once again seems like a statesponsored one that seeks to weld the religious elements (temple)
with the secular (tourism).
This fact is perhaps even more clearly evoked in the mission
and objectives of the Temple. The stated vision, mission, and
objectives of the Temple as found on the website are as follows,
Vision
137
In accordance with The Great Compassionate Vows of The Maitreya Buddha,
Buddha Tooth Relic Temple (Singapore) seeks to be the best Buddhist cultural
complex in the region.
Mission
To promote and impart the Teachings of Lord Buddha.
Objectives
1. To develop a new Chinese Buddhist cultural complex to venerate the Sacred
Buddha Tooth and Relics;
2. To promote and showcase Buddhist, Chinese, Chinatown and Singapore
culture
3.To provide Buddhist Education and Research;
4. To support other Voluntary Welfare Organisations; and
5. To provide welfare services to the sick, poor and needy, regardless of race or
religion.
In seeking to be the ‗best Buddhist cultural complex in the
region‖, it seems to exhibit a desire to create a social footprint
beyond the nation‘s oft conceded narrow boundaries. The building
of this latest addition to the landscape seems to attest to the fact
that the Singaporean government is highly savvy to the impacts
that iconic structures have in defining place identity (Marshall,
2003; Newman and Thornley, 2005), indicating an awareness that
in an increasingly competitive world, place promotion is a critical
activity of city governments (Doel and Hubbard, 2002) that has to
be undertaken in order to differentiate it from others. The state‘s
138
other similar endeavours exemplifies the dominant ideology and
highlights clearly a distinct ‗other orientation‘ that is a sentiment
that has actually been lamented often by locals in the forums of
newspapers i.e. that these additions are not for them, and a
concern that Chinatown SG was not for them.
It is in this sense then that the Budhha Tooth Relic Temple
and Museum appear to be a kind of iconic trophy building that is
utilized in place marketing and as part of Singapore‘s campaign in
the inter-city competition for the tourism dollar. The construction of
iconic structures, ―conspicuous high-profile buildings‖ (Olds, 1995:
1713), the development of ‗managed attractions‘ (Henderson,
2000) of which conservation of heritage as a resource for tourism
is a part (Henderson, 2003) is arguably as old as the Singapore
Tourism Board, whose very existence marked the birth of
attractions development here. Contextualized against the state‘s
typically
interventionist
hand
in
tourism
promotion
and
development, the overt purveying of touristic paraphernalia and
choreographed religious rituals seems less schizophrenic.
However, having said that, the claim to seek to ―promote and
showcase Buddhist, Chinese, Chinatown and Singapore Culture‖ is
still equally confounding and jarring. As a nascent addition to the
Chinatown SG landscape, how is it supposed to showcase
―Chinatown Culture‖? This also stands in contrast to the claims that
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they have recreated Chinatown ―as it once was‖ because this is
something totally new and did not exist prior to 2007.
These
manipulations appear to further support the notion that this is
cultural showcase given life by state initiatives as what it seems to
showcase is contemporary, present day Chinatown; and reflects
the desire to link religion, ethnicity and place in the present
moment. That contemporary inclination is well encapsulated in its
clockwork schedule of rituals and events and its aforementioned
privileging of the ‗visitor‘. Overall then it seems that there is a very
presentist inclination here and the fact that the link between
ethnicity and place is captured in another iconic building, and
another museum, begs the question why it is done this way 45.
That it is new and its patrons are but nascent ones who do
not have a time-tried nor place-based investment to it, that its
rituals are largely formalized and large-scale, that it partakes in
festivals like the lantern festival and is surrounded on all sides by
the 12 zodiac signs all point to its primary function as an iconic
spectacle.
45
Providing Buddhist Education and Research is rather interesting for the state has
traditionally shunned religious affiliations, but this can be read in the frame of the stated
objective of wanting to be the best Buddhist cultural complex in the region, with all its
attendant trappings. Singapore is trying to be a hub for several things and this is perhaps
part of that initiative.
Providing support for those in need is a function that religious institutions have often
stepped forward to fill and there are numerous ways to donate. Arguably this is the most
„community‟ element of the temple whereby there is a notion of social amenity passed
on to larger society, to those who are in need of handouts. However, this element is
dwarfed in comparison to the very clear and overriding top down vision of the place.
140
Figure 32: The light fixture in the shape of the zodiac sign of the monkey, that
sits outside the BRTRM. This is not distinctly related to the temple nor Buddhism
but is added to make the temple appear more interesting. This stands again in
contrast to Wat Mangkorn and Thian Hock Kheng‘s plain-ness, functionality and
lack of ostentation. This is clearly an effort by the tourism board.
141
Figure 33: The lantern decorations at the BTRTM during the mooncake festival
in 2008. These colourful Japanese inspired lanterns adorn the temple grounds,
creating colourful, spectacular hues reminiscent of the equally brightly painted
refurbished conserved shophouses.
The STB claims that this ―is a living cultural monument‖ but
what it is propped by is arguably largely the hand of the state. Its
place as a festivalscape is undeniable and is a new spectacle and
is it seems the latest and most ostentatious piece of street furniture
for Chinatown SG that contributes to that alienating notion of
Chineseness that the state has inscribed.
The iconicity of community buildings, such as schools and
churches are different from buildings of the private sector or state.
Iconicity is understood as the ability of a building to be meaningful
to a wider group of people. Built with the support of a particular
142
community, community iconic buildings derive symbolic values by
reflecting shared memory, identity and solidarity of a society. The
Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum hence cannot be
categorized as such46 and at the moment it appears to be but an
icon instituted from above, a way through which the state tries to
link place, memory and identity of Chinatown being a place for the
Chinese, who tend to be Buddhist.
Hence, unlike in Yaowarat, the links between the temple,
Chinatown and the Chinese are not engendered but are conferred.
If iconic buildings also have the effect of grounding identity in
place, such a spatial outcome is evidently missing in Chinatown
SG with this relatively new addition onto the landscape. It does not
have the strong relations Wat Mangkorn has with business people
within Yaowarat and the social environment beyond. If Thian Hock
Kheng is still functioning, it also begs the question why there is a
need to install a new religious icon to help makes place. It is to this
we now turn.
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4.3 The Creation of New Memories: Overlooking Thian Hock
Kheng The Original Icon From Below
Figure 34: Emplaced: Thian Hock Kheng in Telok Ayer Street, Singapore's
oldest temple, which had been the centre of worship for the Fujian Chinese. It is
closed for the day at 630 p.m.
Once the temple was a focus for the community, as well as containing ancestral
tablets. As with most other Chinese temples, it was built on principles
established since the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220). Symmetrically aligned
courtyards and walled compounds are key elements. Geomancy (feng-shui)
dictated the alignment of buildings with natural features of the landscape. The
temple here originally enjoyed an excellent location in these terms, facing the
sea to the front and with hills to the rear. Before the twentieth century the hills
and the sea had disappeared from site as reclamation and development
proceeded.
The roof is supported by cantilevered structures supported by pillars. Roof
ridges are swept up at the ends in the 'swallow tail' manner, with a pair of
cavorting dragons facing each other at either end. These symbolise the male
144
and female principles of yin and yang. Their eternal conflict represents the quest
for perfect truth. Colours play an important role too. Red represents fire and
blood, symbolising prosperity, good fortune, virtue and the male yang principle. It
is typically used on walls, pillars and decorations.
While there is clear indication that BTRTM is supported
mainly by the long arm of the state there are a number of temples
that grew out of efforts of members of society. Many of these have
disappeared, become defunct or have followed their main clientele
who have been since relocated to HDB estates all over the island
or have been demolished. THK is one of the exceptions and its
location in the vicinity of Chinatown SG and its roots as an effort by
the Chinese community of yesteryear and given that it names Tan
Tock Seng, a prominent businessman and philanthropist as one of
its earliest founders47. This is an initiative to meet the religious
needs of the community that is led by the Chinese business
community who played an instrumental part meant that a closer
examination may prove fruitful for our purposes here given its close
mirroring of Wat Mangkorn‘s roots.
It is noted by the author that, ―The Thian Hock Kheng temple
represents a continuity over time in Singapore, and beyond
Singapore to China. But outside the temples the temper and
function of whole streets changed dramatically over time‖.
It is quite interesting that the same website that gave such a
47
http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_118_2005-01-22.html
145
glowing appraisal of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum,
Thian Hock Kheng was introduced to prospective tourists as
follows:
The more well known temples and mosques in Telok Ayer are Tak Chi Temple,
now restored as a museum, the Thian Hock Keng Temple, the Nagore Durga
Shrine, and the Al Abrar Mosque.
The difference in treatment is palpable and can be keenly felt.
Whereas the former was shrouded in terms bespeaking of promise
and grandeur as discussed above, with clearly expressed missions
that seem very congruent with that of the STB, the latter appears in
comparison to be glossed over, as part of a series of religious
monuments. The blasé attitude towards the latter is curious
because arguably, this is the one temple that can be heralded as a
community icon of yesteryear.
4.4 Thian Hock Kheng and Wat Mangkorn: Emplaced
Religiosity
In fact according to an employee at Thian Hock Kheng who
declined to be named and refused to provide further details about
himself, Thian Hock Kheng sees a fair share of patrons who are
repeat visitors who tended to be ―people who work around the area
in the offices and also visitors from all over Singapore‖. This group
is estimated to be ―about fifty percent of the visitors to the temple,
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the rest are tourists‖. This reflects that Thian Hock Kheng is a part
of the everyday lives of its patrons just like Wat Mangkorn though
its patrons have become office workers48.
However, an important point of departure is that most of the
shopkeepers surveyed in Chinatown SG reflect that they are either
not Buddhist or even if they were they did not patronize either of
the temples in Chinatown SG but tended to gravitate towards the
more famous Kuan Yin Temple in Waterloo Street and also the
Koo Chye Bah Shuang Lin Si. This means that the patrons tended
to be not those who operate shop front businesses (who as a
group has shown to have a higher tendency to harness their ethnic
identities as a business advantage), but those who worked in
offices in the area which includes law firms, theatre groups
amongst other massage and spa services, whereby an ethnic
element of their identities tended to be less palpably expressed as
a form of business advantage (a central location tended to be the
main reason for location in Chinatown SG).
This implies that there is a lack of emplaced-ness in the
enactment of religious rituals in that convenience appears to be the
order of the day for many of its patrons over and above localized
place affiliations to Chinatown SG as a place of significance and
attachment. There is also a palpable sense of religious differences.
48
This reflects that „emplacement‟ is not a static concept. Wat Mangkorn though has
managed to remain emplaced by the place community while THK has seen an
evolvement.
147
This stands in stark contrast to the scene surveyed in Yaowarat
where Wat Mangkorn stands as a revered meaningful, powerful
symbol of a Buddhist identity that has currency and a social
footprint that is powerfully anchored in the business inhabitants of
Yaowarat who powerfully harnessed their ethnic identity in place
through their businesses as well as observed in Chapter 3, and
who importantly appear to be homogeneously Buddhist in religious
orientation. This homogeneity is observable as well in the altars
found in the shops.
Figure 35: This is an altar in an incense shop in Yaowarat. The owner kindly
allowed the picture on request though she has a sign on that says ‗no photo‘,
interestingly written in Thai and English. Altars are seen in the majority of the
shops surveyed, indicating religious homogeneity that has proven to be
important in anchoring ethnic identity in Yaowarat.
What this means is that essentially, in Yaowarat ethnic
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identity embodied in the businesses and both are perpetuated over
time, undergirded by a religious homogeneity that appears to be
anchored in place in Wat Mangkorn. Wat Mangkorn hence further
anchors ethnic identity over time in place, in a kind of emplaced
religiosity that is interlaced with businesses and ethnic identity
owing to Yaowarat‘s current perpetuated status as an ethnic
business stronghold. Arguably it is an important cornerstone of
emplaced ethnicity, and has undeniable currency to the inhabitants
of the commercial space that is Yaowarat.
In contrast, the relative lack of an emplaced religious
homogeneity compounded by a lack of ethnic currency are the
hallmarks of Chinatown SG and arguably, if the practice of
emplaced religion by the local business folk is another anchor
towards solidifying place identity over time, then conversely, this
element is evidently missing in Chinatown SG and it is plausible to
infer then that this lack is potentially a large compounding part of
the reason for Chinatown SG‘s lack of identity. The installation of
an ostentatious and almost monumental new temple in an area
gazetted as a place of heritage and conservation, and the sidestepping of an age-old temple that though has a place as part of
the everyday lives of people in Chinatown SG is not a strong
arbiter of ethnic nor place identity appears to be an admission as
such to the void that is perceived in the Chinatown SG landscape,
and a bit to add soul and showcase Chinese tradition, though once
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again this sense of Chinese tradition is not engendered, but
installed and superimposed as it fits the overall theme of the park.
4.5 Concluding Notes
The objective in drawing out a comparison between the
Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum and Thian Hock Kheng
is neither to document the demise of community organizations, nor
to demonstrate how a powerful state has exerted its influence
through control of land nor on how the existing social organization
was eroded by the new organizations that came about with state
formation. Rather it is to highlight (a) the fact that community icons
have become disregarded, neglected and destroyed in the social
memoryscape that the state seems to be painting for Chinatown.
This strategy appears to be congruent to what we have observed
so far with regards to its strategy of remembering Chinatown i.e. it
is a strategy that seeks to steep Chinatown SG in a freeze-framed
‗timeless‘ or decontextualized, impersonal, irrelevant, inscribed,
ethnic Chinese tableaux with the overall effect of fossilizing and
museumizing (with a new icon) from the top, rather than allowing
for actual community icons to have a voice in the memoryscape
that is Chinatown SG. The other aspect highlighted is (b) the fact
that the relationship shared between the inhabitants of a space and
the religious institutions in that space can have important placemaking import. As reflected in the observations made, this
150
potentially is one aspect that has contributed to the strength of
place identity in a particular locale as apparently evident in
Yaowarat, which in comparison is plausibly an aspect of
placemaking that has been under-explored in understanding the
placelessness in
Chinatown
SG
and been
overlooked in
explanations of Chinatown‘s lack of resonance.
If as mentioned earlier ―iconicity is understood as the ability of
a building to be meaningful to a wider group of people‖, ―built with
the support of a particular community, community iconic buildings
derive symbolic values by reflecting shared memory, identity and
solidarity of a society‖ the Thian Hock Kheng is a much more
emblematic symbol but it seems to have been cast aside, its
significance undermined in some part and appears to have been
dismissed and relegated to a secondary role though it did and was
a symbolic religious building inaugurated by the earliest Chinese
immigrants. Its architecture intricacies and that fact that it was
mapped out as a landmark in the Chinatown landscape but seems
side-stepped in favor of a more spectacular state-invested building
seems to imply just as what Ho (2006) has observed in his work on
community buildings in Singapore that ―the redefinition of state –
society relations (in this case state control over religion in general
and religious buildings and the movement of residents out of
Chinatown SG) has affected the symbolic value of the architecture
towards the community‖. THe state‘s actions can be said to have a
151
part to play in dissociating the local society.
However, while this (the state‘s clearing out of Chinatown
residents was to have played a part) is part of the reason for the
lack of resonance of Chinatown SG, the building of the Buddha
Tooth Relic Temple and Museum simultaneously appears to be
testament to a perceived lack in the ability of religious institutions
to make place which is an aspect of place-making that is powerfully
demonstrated in Yaowarat. Building a new iconic temple in the
heart of Chinatown, and by implication adopting such a strategy of
locking identity and place through the apparent creation of new
memories while side stepping the older more established ones
appears to then be a reflexive response to harnessing the power of
religious institutions to make place that is so well showcased in
Yaowarat.
Wat Mangkorn as a community icon powerfully makes place
because it is ―underpinned by social and civic relations of locals‖,
and helps ―ensure greater cultural diversity, participation and the
reproduction of life spaces‖, and most crucially that it is
undergirded by a set of religious precepts that are enacted in
place, and have clear connections to place. Arguably is only
possible owing to the religious homogeneity amongst the
inhabitants of Yaowarat, a still largely ethnic Chinese commercial
space where ethnic identity is powerfully reproduced in daily
business rituals and continue to have currency for both the
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Chinese business people and their clients who share the same
ethnicity, religious beliefs and overall attachment to place as they
reproduce their identities symbiotically in mutually reinforcing ways.
Layered on with religious precepts anchored in place and
enshrined in Wat Mangkorn, it makes place formidably, drawing
together expressions of both ethnic identity in commerce with that
of religious beliefs to Yaowarat, further strengthening its identity.
In Chinatown SG religious institutions do not enjoy that complex
layering of ethnic identity in place and clearly that lack is expressed
spatially, giving rise to a dissonant landscape that lacks resonance
for the locals.
Chapter 5: Other Anchors
5.1 Introduction
In the previous chapter we moved discussion away from the
material, more consumptive aspects to look at religious institutions
and its role in the place-identity dyad, which has so far proven to
be crucial in place identity formation/sustenance. We explored the
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role of temples in the two Chinatowns and saw how Wat Mangkorn
subtly anchors ethnic identity in place and has significant import
amongst the business people who patronize it, powerfully
emplacing ethnic identity, commerce and religion in Yaowarat,
contributing crucially to place identity as it rides on the strength of
an emplaced religiosity in ways that the BTRTM and Thian Hock
Kheng were unable to replicate owing to cultural-specific, socially
contingent factors such as a lack of religious homogeneity.
If an emplaced religiosity (Kong, 2000) powerfully links
businesses
and
religion
and
increased
the
strength
of
emplacement of ethnic Chinese identity in place in Yaowarat, these
linkages are arguably even more sharply drawn if we examine
community foundations. Here, we will describe and discuss the
work of three foundation-hospitals in Yaowarat — Thien Fa, Kwong
Siw, and Hwa Chiew-Poh Teck Tung – in relation to how it
manifests the tension between place and ethnic identity, a tension
that have shown has contributed in important ways to Yaowarat‘s
strong place identity as an ethnic space over time. These social
formations will be discussed without a direct parallel in Chinatown
SG as the two community initiatives identified that mirror the
foundations in Yaowarat – Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Kwong
Wai Shiu Hospital and Nursing Home— have been relocated from
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the Chinatown SG area49, which means they have in some sense
already been displaced.
Arguably, despite their displacement, they are nonetheless
worthy of closer examination and tracing the evolution and
trajectory they have taken over time from their initial ethnicChinese community roots may be instructive and through these
contemporary evolutions offer interesting insights into the influence
and confluence of ethnicity and religion in affecting/engendering
spatial outcomes, which is our main objective in this chapter.
As immigrant societies, community foundations often
constitute the first outpost from which the new migrant receives
help. The provision of social amenities in an enclave is possibly
what encourages congregation of a particular ethnic group in a
particular area in the first place. As initiatives that began as being
by the Chinese for the Chinese in situ, looking at how this has
evolved over time will help shed light on the strength of ethnic
identity and whether it still has resonance and currency today, as
well as how the Chinese relate to place today through these
institutions. Temples and Foundations are also often symbolic and
that symbolism is place-bound as people attach meanings to them.
Thus it is hoped that an examination of these institutions may allow
49
http://www.kwsh.org.sg/abt_history.htm
155
us to gain further insight into the intangible affective aspects of
identity in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG.
These constitute the aspects to be examined in this chapter and it
is to the foundation-hospitals we now turn before we expound on
and draw our conclusions in the final chapter.
5.2 Yaowarat: A Word About Hospital-Temple-Foundations
As mentioned earlier, foundations are institutions put in
place by the early Chinese migrants as self-help mechanisms to
plug the perceived gap in amenities and social safety nets as new
migrants move into Thailand often poorly connected and
unemployed. They are interesting because (a) these were strongly
place-ethnic based elements that were built by the Chinese for the
Chinese community, as a pay-it-forward kind of social exchange
and its perpetuation over time in place it seems has engendered
positive spatial outcomes and hence require greater analysis; (b)
these social exchanges and provision of social amenities for the
less fortunate appear to be underpinned by religious overtones and
donation practices are largely congruent with and attributable to
both Buddhist and Confucian ideologies and precepts of ‗making
merit‘, once again reflecting a link between ethnic identity and
religion ; (c) these foundations partake in the practice of Chinese
medicine that is the distinct province of the Chinese. The
interrelations between the apparent continued existence of these
156
ethnic- business- help communities; the initial observation that
giving behaviors appear to be enshrined in religious precepts; and
lastly the fact that these institutions continue to provide a
specialized ethnic service are hence intriguing and will be analyzed
more closely in the next section.
5.2.1 Social Exchange Today: Thien Fa, Poh Teck Tung and
Kwong Siw
Of the three foundations, PTT is perhaps the largest and
most established. It owns Hwa Chiew Hospital, which is a fully
private hospital that caters to the ‗wealthy Chinese‘. It is a wellorganized outfit with 20 departments and is involved in a wide
range of functions that include accident rescue and international
disaster relief ―such as collecting donations for victims of the Sze
Chuan earthquake, and those affected adversely by the Typhoon
Nargis‖ in neighbouring Burma. It has a fleet of ambulances and is
reputed to be more efficient in accident rescue than the
government agencies, often being the first to arrive en scene of
such events. In fact because they are so involved in relief missions
that they have become almost synonymous with unfortunate
mishaps, with the Thais privy to the fact that ―if you see a Poh Teck
Tung vehicle, that means something bad has happened‖.
157
Figure 36: Kwong Siw Association, which like Hwa Chiew and Thien Fa consists
of a shrine, a hospital/clinic and a foundation office.
Figure 37: The donation centre at Thien Fa.
158
While Thien Fa and Kwong Siw are relatively smaller in
scale of operations, they provide similar services and also collect
donations for victims of natural disasters, sometimes using these
donations to purchase rice as part of their relief efforts. At all three
foundation-shrine-hospitals, there are counters for the collection of
these donations for international victims, as well as a counter that
collects ―coffin money‖, that is money that a temple faithful donates
for the purpose of purchasing coffins for the poor who cannot
afford to bury their dead or for the homeless who have no family to
bury them after their passing. All three foundations also report that
they make donations to schools both in Bangkok and in the
provincial areas. This is part of ―merit making‖ which is a recurrent
motif that is constantly reiterated by the three informants,
bestowing upon it a religious cum Chinese Confucian overtone.
159
Figure 38: The shrine at Poh Teck Tung. This is the counter where collections of
money for coffins for the poor take place. The Thais believe that making
donations is merit making. The fact that the picture is taken on a weekday shows
the power of belief and practice in the everyday lives of Thai Chinese.
The provision of social amenities to fellow countrymen who
cannot afford basic provisions such as food and medical services
has appeared then to be a continued, modern day legacy based on
the interviews conducted with personnel from these foundations in
which an estimated 80 percent of whom are Thai-Chinese. At all
three institutions it is reflected that a large percentage of their
committee members are wealthy Chinese businessmen. Mr.
Zhang50, a director at Thian Fa and himself a businessmen
50
Interview conducted 10 June 2008. He was very kind and was very generous in
sharing. He took me on a walking tour of the compound, showed me with great pride the
new wing that is being built, the new air-conditioning and other improvements such as
computerizing the database and setting up a web platform. Most importantly he showed
great heart when he brought me to the 7 th floor, the only non air-conditioned floor that
160
awaiting retirement for instance lets on that the temple was started
by businessmen more than a hundred years ago as a paying it
forward kind of gesture ―because they are very grateful that when
they were poor and had no food to eat, fellow countrymen who
were benevolent and generous provided them with a bowl of rice
and helped them survive‖. Hence being ―very grateful‖ they were
eager to ―give back and pass on the kindness to others who are
poor and make merit‖.
This finds concurrence in Kwong Siw and PTT who report similarly
that their board of directors tended to consist of wealthy ThaiChinese businessmen, some of whom ―have businesses in
Chinatown or have expanded out of Chinatown‖. According to Mr.
Zhang, there are overlaps and ―members on the committee at
Thien Fa may also be a committee member at PTT‖.
When queried as to whether the patients at Thien Fa are
Chinese, he asserts, like the director of Kwong Siw that ―all are
welcome, especially if you are Chinese‖ and that ―we just want to
help poor people who cannot afford treatment‖. Donors according
to the directors at Kwong Siw and Thian Fa tended to be Chinese
though both assert that it is ―increasingly difficult to differentiate
housed resident patients who are old and twisted, who are mentally ill or have other
disabilities, people who are abandoned by their kin. He looked at them with sadness and
with much compassion. The passion he has for his work is palpable and it touched this
researcher so much she felt the impulse to give the man a big hug before she left.
161
between the kun jin and the kun Thai‖51 with the intermarriages.
Hence while the estimate that a large part of the donations ―come
from Chinese people‖, they are not able to ascertain or are
possibly unwilling to divulge or unable to share data about the
proportion.
51
Indeed it may be the case that many middle class Thai people have Chinese ethnicity
but as Tong and Chan (1995) reminds us, “While the Chinese elite in Bangkok continue
to nurture and manage their relationships with the Thai in the form of alliances,
agreements and contracts, most Chinese in Thailand speak both Thai and Chinese,
worship in both Thai wat and Chinese temples and join Chinese as well as Thai
associations. However, one also “witnesses the tenacity and survival of a primary
Chinese identity: Chinese schools and associations persist, and Chinese customs and
religious rituals are still being practiced daily.” (Tong and Chan, 1995:36)
This also supports the case this thesis is making that following Harney, enclaves are
powerful sites as they were and can remain the symbolic heart of in this case a Chinese
ethnic identity where rituals and cultural practices are reenacted and reproduced and
consumed by both inhabitants and visitors. This reinforces the earlier point that it would
be unfair to say that residence is a prerequisite to place making in ethnic enclaves.
162
Figure 39: These photos of the early founders of the PTT Foundation. These
displays are likewise observable in Thien Fa and Kwong Siw, which reflect a
historical memory that is still relevant today. The business committee has
continued to be a pillar of these foundations today.
These observations are noteworthy as it reflects firstly that
the guardians of these ethnic community foundations continue to
be pillars of the Chinese business community and while some have
moved out of Yaowarat, the motivations and sentiments that
prompt continued patronage remain attached to memories of place
and are place-bound and still heavily contingent upon ethnicidentity. Second, as an extension of the previous point, prevailing
donation and patronage patterns indicate that these enterprises
have to a large extent remained an effort by the Chinese for the
Chinese people though its outreach efforts have evidently
expanded beyond Yaowarat to incorporate the urban poor, the
provincial areas (PTT), other temples such as Wat Plabahtnampu
the HIV temple (Thien Fa) and even encompass international
victims of natural disasters such as those incapacitated by the
Tsunami, Sze Chuan earthquake and Typhoon Nargis (PTT, TF
and KS). The statement ―all are welcome, especially if you are
Chinese‖ perhaps best captures and encapsulates the essence of
the enterprises. Third, there is a distinct correlation between the
religious notion of ―merit-making‖ (note also building of shrines that
are attached to the foundations) that undergirds this charitable
work and appear to have similar impacts like that observed earlier
with Wat Mangkorn, where giving behavior is tied to one‘s religious
163
beliefs about karma. The link between religious homogeneity,
businesses, ethnicity and giving is once again drawn here.
These three factors (place-bound ethnic memories, ethnic
based donation and patronage patterns and religious homogeneity)
appear to work together in perpetuating the continued survival of
these foundations by ensuring that ethnic identity is constantly
evoked and find expression in the enactment of donation and
patronage practices available at these institutions. These continue
to be outlets that expressions of ethnic-based charitable acts find
justification and resonance, and arguably contribute powerfully to
its perpetuation over time as the feelings of gratitude of being
blessed continue to be important as karma is constantly evoked in
the background. Also, if Chinese businessmen both in the area and
beyond are at the helm of these enterprises, then it means that
there is constant motivation to do good because in some sense
this paying it forward is an attempt to ensure continued business
success brought forth by accumulation of good karma. These
considerations hence appear to have the overall effect of holding
the foundations in place as viable, sustainable units.
164
Figure 40: The patrons who help to anchor the shrines in place.
While religious precepts appear to have great impact on
bringing about consistent giving behaviors, which is one aspect
that keeps these foundations in place, its physical manifestation in
shrines attached to these foundations arguably also bolsters its
presence in the same physical space. Shrines are religious places
invested with much symbolic value and meanings and uprooting of
religious sites are usually bring about a loss of meanings for the
patrons and typically brings forth much dissent (Kong, 2000).
Given the strength of patronage of these institutions by people with
ostensible connection to it as an ethnic and business space and
bolstered by a religious symbol in its grounds, it is palpable the
kinds of meaning embedded and embodied in its physical location.
165
This makes it plausible to conclude that in Yaowarat the influence
and confluence of ethnicity and religion in affecting/engendering
spatial outcomes in these foundation-hospital-shrines, and that
once again there is a certain kind of emplaced religiosity powerfully
underpinned by ethnic identity.
It is clear then that ethnic identity is a very important aspect
of donation patterns and from the profile of patients, (the vast
majority are Chinese though while the percentage hovers at more
than 80 percent for Thien Fa and Kwong Siw, it is about 60 percent
for PTT which owing to its larger scale, is able to cater to a larger
external group) it appears that help-seeking behavior is also
heavily ‗ethnicized‘. This is perhaps due to the fact that all three
foundations are the main bastions of Traditional Chinese Medicine,
which is the distinct province of the early Chinese with Hwa Chiew
at the forefront having an extensive wing devoted to TCM.
Spending about twenty minutes on a weekday afternoon standing
at the entrance of the wing it was clearly observed that most of its
patrons are elderly Chinese over the age of 50. Thien Fa and
Kwong Siw also have Chinese in house physicians, areas for the
collection of free or subsidized prescription herbs and even have
an area where elaborate brewing and concoction takes place. Like
the medicine halls in Yaowarat discussed earlier, it is perhaps not
166
surprising that so many of their patients are Chinese as Chinese
medicine is a culturally ascribed philosophy of treatment52.
Figure 41: The Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) clinic at Thien Fa. Treatment
is either heavily subsidized or free.
Having said that it should be noted that though all three
foundation hospitals have TCM, they simultaneously also have
Western medicine wings. As the director if Kwong Siw53
deadpanned, pointing to an old lady strolling into the clinic, ―she is
an old lady but she wants an injection!‖ This is an interesting
52
Which is not unlike Ayurvedic medicine, both of which are systems steeped in
tradition and in the words of the director at Kwong Siw, are not well-researched nor
supported with “scientific hard proof” and are usually thought of by non-believers to be
“unreliable”.
53
Interview conducted 10 June 2008. Another interesting man who spent time talking
with my interpreter and me. He dished out advice and stressed the importance of being
filial to our parents, to fulfill our obligations to them while they are still healthy, which
are principles with very Confucian and simultaneously linked to religious precepts.
167
comment
because
it
reflects
that
these
institutions
and
practitioners of TCM are sufficiently self- aware of the changes that
have taken place with modernization and the ascent of western
medicine that claims scientific proof. The director at Kwong Siw,
like Mr Zhang at Thien Fa, is fully cognizant that TCM has been
overtaken by western medicine and that TCM ―cannot cope with all
the diseases now‖, that the age-old practice of taking one‘s pulse
for diagnosis will eventually become obsolete as ―most people do
not want Chinese medicine‖.
This view seems to be further exemplified by Thien Fa‘s
modernization efforts that include the acquisition of electromagnetic acupuncture needles, a new machine that measures
blood pressure (which he proudly made me try out) and spending
―10 million baht to buy a laser machine‖. While Hwa Chiew appears
to continue to uphold the TCM tradition with the hospital where an
accredited Chinese wing for the practice of TCM exists together
with the ―university that trains students in TCM54‖, Kwong Siw and
Thian Fa have scaled back markedly on their TCM operations. For
instance, according to Mr Zhang, ―(Thien Fa) hospital started out
only providing TCM treatments and served mainly the Chinese and
the hospital can see up to 1300 patients a day then. However, as
54
The Robin Hood mentality is at work here in It is said that while the fees for the rich
remain high while for the poor, the fees are offset from that accrued from the rich. In that
sense the idea is to serve all social classes but there they „separate them so that the rich
will come but the poor benefit‟. Doctors reportedly receive a reduced salary and give
back to the hospital anything beyond their basic salary.
168
times have changed and as the Chinese became more affluent,
western medicinal treatments are also made available and
treatment is made available to all who come to their gates for help
regardless of race or nationality and the clinic and hospital see
about 200 patients daily.‖
While these are signs of change, with these foundations, it
is still palpable from donation patterns, the fact that adjacent to
these foundation hospitals are religious shrines and the fact that
Thien Fa spent ―30 million baht to build the new wing‖ 55 that there
is also a lot of continuity that continues to lock these foundations in
place. Scaling back TCM operations and updating equipment
reflects an awareness of modernization and sensitivity to what a
Chinese identity means today and responding accordingly.
Arguably, this reflexivity makes an ethnic identity stronger rather
than weaker and improves its enduring power. If donation patterns
are because one‘s ―first meal was provided by PTT so they have
been donating to PTT for generations‖, it is clear that ethnic
patterns of donor-ship and help-seeking behavior continue to help
ground these foundations in place and keep its memory alive.
55
Based on data collected on 10 June 2008.
169
5.2.2 The Foundations of Ethnic Identity: Concluding Notes
From Yaowarat
It seems then that today, Thienfa, Kwong Siw and PTT
continue to display much of the earlier characteristics it started out
with and continues to carry out many of the functions and serve the
tasks it was pledged to carry out by their founders who are
respectfully commemorated in their halls. Servicing the needs of
the underprivileged countrymen was the main activity targeted by
the early founders and in that sense there appears to be continuity
as medical treatment continues to be meted out to meet the needs
of the community, which still consists largely of the ethnic Chinese,
though not exclusively leaving out others who seek relief. While
there appears to be continuity on this front, it has also moved on
with the times to include western medicine in its range of treatment
of patients, indicating that change and continuity was moving on
hand in hand, in tandem with forces of modernity.
Started by the Chinese, these foundations continues to be
sustained with largely Chinese funds, continues to serve mainly the
Chinese though are not limited to just this group, that there is
obvious evidence to suggest change and continuity and resilience,
that a Chinese identity is important in sustaining the efforts through
networking amongst Chinese businessmen and that these are all
undergirded by religious precepts of merit making. These are all
170
agencies that had ethnicity localized in space and they have all
continued that legacy with changes that prevents it from becoming
obsolete while being supported by a strong network of Chinese
business activity and philanthropy and continuing to be located in
that physical space while looking out to reach other frontiers. The
self-reflexive attitude towards negotiating social change is a
reflection of a constant evaluation of social memory of practices of
yore and because of this, and perhaps because of the kinds of
generational legacy the businesses along Yaowarat seem to have,
place and ethnic identity continue to have import and continue to
constantly touch base with that pool of social memory which keeps
it alive and locks ethnic identity in place, anchoring it in the present
in Yaowarat.
5.3 Community Hospitals in Singapore
There are three main hospital categories in Singapore
namely public or general hospitals, private hospitals and
community hospitals. Out of these, of interest to us here will be
Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital and Nursing Home (KWSH), as well as
Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH). These institutions are interesting
as they were both charitable/ philanthropic initiatives of early
Chinese settlers and businessmen and used to locate in the vicinity
of the wider Chinatown area (Pearl‘s Hill). This makes them good
comparative case studies for the foundation-hospitals in Yaowarat
171
for they are similarly constituted by successful businessmen and
were previously similarly located in Chinese strongholds. However,
the similarities end there as despite their initially strong ethnic roots
TTSH has evolved to become a general hospital over time and
KWSH has been officially awarded community hospital status and
they have since been relocated to Novena and Serangoon Road
respectively. There has also been a marked shift in terms of the
respective hospital‘s vision and mission, a shift in their clientele
and patronage patterns. Hence a look at the trajectory these two
initiatives have taken over the years and what its current
configuration and location informs us about place identity in
Chinatown SG compared to Yaowarat will be analyzed in the next
section in a bid once again to shed light on what makes place in
Yaowarat and how that potentially affects Chinatown SG.
5.3.1 Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital and Nursing Home (KWSH) and
Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH)56
On its website KWSH‘s history and heritage was introduced as,
Kwong Wai Shiu Hospital (KWSH) is one of the oldest charitable healthcare
institutions in Singapore, founded in 1910 by a group of Cantonese merchants,
56
Through the Kwong Wai Shiu Free Hospital Ordinance, a 6-acre piece of land,
along with 3 colonial-styled buildings, was parcelled off from Tan Tock Seng
Hospital and given to KWSH to run a hospital for 99 years, locating both in
Pearl‘s
Hill.
172
whose aim was to provide Cantonese immigrants from China with free in-patient
and out-patient services.
Although outpatient services have always been available to all races, inpatient
facilities were initially only for Cantonese people. In 1974, the Constitution of
KWSH was changed to allow people of all races to be admitted. While we
preserve our proud legacy of compassion and care, we will keep up with the
evolving healthcare needs of the nation and position ourselves to serve
Singaporeans better.
From the foregoing, it is clear that KWSH had strong ethnic
business underpinnings and like the foundations started out to
cater to a very distinct ethnic group (here the Cantonese). The
changes that have occurred since 1974, culminating in its official
award of the status of community hospital in 2007 appear then to
move it away from its ethnic roots, with its constitution changed to
accommodate ―people of all races‖, a change that is justified as a
part of modernization and of contemporary healthcare needs.
Importantly, these changes are often couched in terms nationhood,
―the needs of the nation‖ and ―Singaporeans‖, which is a concept
that privileges one‘s national identity over one‘s ethnic identity57
and dialect affiliations. KWSH‘ s mission and responsibilities are
now to ―patients who come from the lower-income families whose
hospital charges are subsidized by KWSH and the website asserts
that ―We are therefore heavily dependent on the public's support
57
It should be noted that race (CMIO) is often privileged over ethnicity in SG. This
removes one pillar of the ethnic community in SG, which is an important pillar propping
up the Thai Chinese community and their institutions today.
173
and donations to meet our annual operating expenses of about
S$16 Million‖ (emphasis mine). With a mission statement that says
―KWSH is a charitable organization, established to provide health
care services to the needy in Singapore regardless of race,
language or religion, a phrase that mirrors that of the Singaporean
pledge, and having as its patron Minister of Home Affairs Wong
Kan Seng, who is not a prominent Chinese businessman seems to
further align KWSH to a national agenda, free of specific ethnic or
racial reference. This overall nationalization of an ethnic project
finds expression in TTSH as well.
Like KWSH, TTSH, was built with donations by early
Chinese settlers, the most notable of which was by Tan Tock
Seng, ―a businessman who contributed generously to charity and
became a renowned philanthropist amongst the Chinese‖, in 1844.
Like the founders of the foundations in Yaowarat, Tan ―was known
to provide burial costs for the Chinese poor‖ though religion was
not mentioned in the sources as a reason for his seemingly purely
altruistic deeds. That TTSH then was Tan‘s bid to help the Chinese
settlers in Singapore was palpable in that the hospital was initially
named ―Chinese Pauper's Hospital‖, and was only later named
after him in 1849. TTSH has evolved to become a general hospital
that does not discriminate (used loosely here) patients based on
race/ethnicity as well and like KWSH purports as its mission the
provision of medical care to add ―years of healthy living to the
174
people of Singapore‖ and ―building on our tradition to reach out to
the community‖. Once again there is an eradication of any mention
of ethnicity and it is evident that by ―community‖ it meant a national
imagined community rather than the overtly ethnic one it also set
out to be.
The state is the main purveyor of healthcare services and it
is perhaps unsurprising that these early initiatives have become
subsumed under the state‘s ambit as well. Further, the state has
often utilized the siege mentality in its dealings with Singaporeans,
often emphasizing the importance of racial and religious harmony
and meting out swift and stiff deterrent punishment to perpetrators
who violate or threaten to upset that painstakingly crafted
semblance of stability and of carefully choreographed58 images of
harmonious living (Heng and Devan, 1995 in Ong and Peletz
1995). Civil society is something that is carefully outlined and
almost neurotically, overzealously guarded (Rodan, 2006) and
these changes in directives in these two traditional ethnically
constituted charitable hospitals need to be contextualized against
that in order to be fully understood. Further, it should be noted that
in SG, the Chinese constitute the majority of the population and
hence any overt sign of favouring the Chinese as a group can be
misread and the state has generally steered clear of these
complications by focusing and using the gambit of nationhood in
58
Housing Development Board (HDB) racial quotas determined the racial ratio in each
HDB block.
175
any important political discussions. Hence in SG unlike in
Yaowarat, there is a distinct whiff of state interventions and while
we saw how the shopkeepers and patrons in Yaowarat reflexively
modernize and evolve that Chinese identity and straddle that
duality of simultaneously being Thai and being Chinese, that
identity is hijacked and transfigured (Goh, 2004) complexly into a
nationalistic, ethnically undifferentiated one.
Having been stripped of its ethnic affiliations through
nationalization59, these establishments were also displaced from
their places of inception, effectively destroying the place-bound
memories in these places. If place-bound ethnicized memories of
gratitude were important in sustaining the giving behaviors that in
turn ensure the sustenance of the foundations in place, this is
effectively disconnected with relocation. Cantonese businessmen
who aspired to provide much needed healthcare services to their
fellow countrymen located TTSH and KWSH in Pearl‘s Hill to be
near their target help group. With this relocation, the relationship
between
place
and
service
provision
and
other
affective
attachments to physical space are erased just as the symbolic
meaning behind these institutions have become neutralized and
desensitized from its conceptual roots. Place-based gratitude
patterns are virtuous circles that remind the Chinese business
people of their common history, and that potential in Chinatown SG
59
It should be noted that while the „public‟ are now called on for donations, owing to the
fact that majority are Chinese, it is likely that the donating profile will be similar to that
of the past.
176
is disrupted with state intervention as help patterns are
nationalized and are no longer differentiated based on ethnic
identity. Instead help and healthcare falls under the purview of a
social contract that the state utilizes to maintain its legitimacy. The
power of donation efforts is also no longer mobilized and organized
according to ethnicity with nationalized donation drives.
With this change in social profile and physical severing of
memory and place, ethnicity is downplayed and evidently less
important in the SG context. However, if ethnic identity continues to
be an important component of donation patterns and help seeking
behavior that sustains the foundations in Yaowarat and ensures
they stay viable, and undergirded by religious homogeneity gives
birth to an emplacedness and link between ethnic identity, religion
that is also tied to place and memory, these are distinctly missing
in Chinatown SG with the displacement of these institutions and
with a change in their missions. Hence once again, what appears
to ground ethnic identity in place in Yaowarat, in its absence
appear to be the unraveling of Chinatown SG.
177
Chapter 6: Conclusion
The comparative approach adopted so far has yielded
observations that provide indication that what makes place in one
context, the absence of which breaks place in the other. The
juxtaposition with Yaowarat‘s strength as a commercial and
178
culturally significant place has hence provided interesting insights
into the possible explanations for Chinatown SG‘s sense of
‗dissonant heritage‘. Yaowarat has so far proven to be where
ethnic identity is strongly embodied in the food, businesses and
religious practices enacted and reenacted en site everyday; and by
implication, where ethnic identity has continued to an important
albeit reflexive arbiter of the continued business success for the
inhabitants
of
that
commercial
space.
Importantly,
these
embodiments of ethnic identity are also powerfully emplaced in
Yaowarat and appear to share the heavy spatial dependencies
reminiscent of that engendered by their ancestors out of necessity
and culminate in positive spatial outcomes in terms of reinforcing
that spatial expression of ethnic identity over time in place. They
exist
in
reinforcing,
symbiotically
interdependent
virtuous
relationships with place, ensuring that both place and ethnic
identity continue to be mutually salient, intertwined, and thriving,
with often tangible contributions to the perpetuation of business
sustainability and successful entrepreneurship in Yaowarat for the
descendents of some of the more enduring businesses that have
left behind legacies spanning up to four generations, effectively
cementing Yaowarat‘s continued legacy as an ethnic stronghold
with a strong ethnic flavour.
In contrast, in Chinatown SG there is a perceptible
disconnect between ethnic identity and business capabilities, an
179
observation that coincides with lamentations of palpable alienation
between community and place which has long incited comments of
a dissonant inauthentic heritage and a certain placelessness in
Singapore‘s Chinatown. The comparative discussion so far has
thrown into sharper relief the fact that that if ethnic identity is a
crucial component of place making in Yaowarat, it finds little
expression in Chinatown SG where ethnic identity has a marked
lack of currency, relevance and import and was not an important
part of business wheeling and dealings, owing to a set of distinct
social circumstances. This arguably contributed to its current
configuration.
The findings observed in the material, more consumptive
repositories of ethnic identity are complemented in a closer study
of
religious
institutions
and
its
role
in
place
identity
formation/sustenance, discussing the role of temples in the two
Chinatowns. We saw how Wat Mangkorn subtly anchors ethnic
identity in place and has significant import amongst the business
people who patronize it, powerfully emplacing ethnic identity,
commerce and religion in Yaowarat, contributing crucially to place
identity as it rides on the strength of an emplaced religiosity in
ways that the BTRTM and to a lesser extent Thian Hock Kheng
were unable to replicate for cultural-specific reasons such as a lack
of religious homogeneity as well as a top-down inscription that
180
does not benefit from the development of place-based affective
connections that are developed over time.
If an emplaced religiosity powerfully links businesses and
religion and increased the strength of emplacement of ethnic
Chinese identity in place in Yaowarat, these linkages are arguably
even more sharply drawn in the community foundations, which we
have shown to be powerful in relation to sustaining a place identity.
These social formations have largely been co-opted and taken
over by the Singaporean state under a nationalistic spell cast by
the state. The influence and confluence of ethnicity and religion in
affecting/engendering spatial outcomes they was so successfully
engendered and supported by a strongly relevant and resonant
ethnic identity was unable to be retroactively reengineered on the
Chinatown SG landscape though there are undeniable efforts at
inscription and these differences as we have reiterated throughout
this thesis have important impacts on engendering vastly different
spatial outcomes in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG.
All in all, this thesis sought to show that the reasons for
Chinatown SG‘s dissonance are multi-faceted. In looking at the
meanings of food in Yaowarat, it was clear that food was a
commodity in which ethnic identity was embodied and marked. It
was ‗Chinese food‘ that was unique in its concentration and it was
congregated
meaningfully
in
place
through
family-based
181
inheritance that invokes a place-bound ethnic affiliation for both the
purveyors of this ethnic good and their patrons who arrive at
Yaowarat with the intent of finding exactly this that is not replicated
elsewhere. By contrast food on the food street in SG while touted
to be unique and a reflection of the old days, are actually
ubiquitous all over Singapore in the estates now, and does not
bear the distinctiveness of an ethnic Chinese identity but a rather
localized Singaporean one. It was a misplaced ethnic identity on
what was arguably ‗Chinatown food‘ which coupled with the
apparent reduced relevance of an ethnic identity in the conduct of
business meant it does not have the same anchoring power in the
sense that ethnic identity is not enacted in place and not in the
perpetuation of an identity that is kept alive through praxis. It is
akin to an empty signifier compared to the full active sign that is
Chinese food and businessmen in Yaowarat.
Similarly, the congregations of products such as Chinese
medicine, provisions and gold in Yaowarat is engendered out of
economies of concentration and the fact that once again these are
unique and that Yaowarat guarantees the best quality available
and these merchants have built up trust over the years and have
built up a place brand that is locked by a shared cultural identity,
language and perpetuated with inheritance. Chinatown SG is not
anchored this way because of state intervention e.g. introduction of
rent control and again the fact that these medicine halls are not
182
unique and good quality is not synonymous with Chinatown SG in
the way that it is in Yaowarat.
With
temples
and
foundations,
a
lack
of
religious
homogeneity meant that the strong spatial expression found in
Yaowarat in Wat Mangkorn is not replicated and because of this
weak religious underpinning foundation-hospitals in Singapore do
not have the same drawing power and its relocation further
decimates and negates the legacy of Chinatown SG as an ethnic
space.
These reasons are not discrete and a recurrent motif
threads through them. It is clear that in Yaowarat, the strength of
an reflexive, resonant Thai-Chinese identity rooted in inheritance
and memory enabled that anchoring of identity in place; while in
SG, a contrived hijacked identity finds little expression in a place
that is fully inscribed with an ethnic identity that no longer mirrors
reality, that it can no longer sustain. In Chinatown SG ethnic
identity has dissipated from place and has infused wider society. In
some sense this meant that Chinatown SG‘s current configuration
is the consequence of a myriad of interrelated factors undergirded
by the main theme, which is a flagging relevance in ethnic identity.
Prologue
183
The story is not bleak for Chinatown. nterestingly, lined up
along Smith Street on both sides are two corresponding rows of
restaurants with many offering a pantheon of ‗Chinese‘ cuisine
from Tian Jin, Beijing, Shanghai, that are run by Chinese nationals.
Interspersed between these restaurants are institutions located in
Chinatown under the Arts Housing Scheme that include the
Harmonica Aficionados Community, Xin Sheng Poets Society and
Singapore Association of Writers, Ping Sheh, Chinese Theatre
Circle, Shi Cheng Calligraphy and Seal Carving Society, Er Woo
Musical and Dramatic Society, TAS Theatre Company and Toy
Factory Productions Limited.
The food street is well lit at night with coloured streetlights
zig-zagging their way along the street overhead in the alfresco
setting. These are accompanied by red swaths of cloth artfully
draped adorned with traditional Chinese red lanterns interspaced
similarly, all zigzagging artfully above the street creating a distinct
ethnic overtone. That these were installed by the CBA and not the
hawkers themselves add to the notion of contrived, deliberate
attempts to foster a, hyper-Chinese ambience that reeks of an
ethnic overtone. This attempt at re-ethnicization or re-sinicization of
Chinatown SG may be deemed inauthentic by the community of
users today, but how the relationship between place, ethnicity and
authenticity will develop remains to be seen as Chinatown SG sees
184
a new group of users equally capable of creating their own
memories in place.
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[...]... problematic The place-identity dyad and how it is interlinked affects the authenticity of a place like Chinatown for its users (both within and without) and it is hoped 13 that a comparative analysis can offer us more insight into broader social changes that have taken place in the Singapore case and allow for a more nuanced and sensitive reading of Chinatown s contemporary configuration and perceived inauthenticity... deliberate ―festivizing‖ and embellishments From this vantage point, the state‘s intervention is part of the cause but also appears to be a consequence of wider social changes that have taken place and arguably a cross-comparison can shed light on what these social changes can be, and how these changes have spatial impacts Thus, this is a strategy aimed at exploring how place is made in Yaowarat and seeks... broad-based, nuanced, textured explanation for Chinatown SG‘ s current configuration by reconstituting the state‘s oft mentioned heavy hand at urban redevelopment as a cause of Chinatown SG‘s ―inauthenticity‖, ―placelessness‖ becoming a space ―that speak little of local identities and lifestyles‖ rather than the state as the final arbiter of the dissonance of the Chinatown landscape today It will also help... Yaowarat and Chinatown SG today; as well as a through a selective crosssectional study8 of the social profile of the proprietors manning these Simultaneously, to enable a more holistic, contextual understanding of contemporary configurations of food and identity in these traditional enclaves over time, these primary findings will be framed and understood against the backdrop of historical social trajectories... (above) was inaugurated 10 years ago, the brainchild of the Singapore Tourism Promotion Board in 22 collaboration with the Chinatown Business Association (CBA) as part of a larger overall overhaul of Chinatown in a bid to rejuvenate it The CBA itself was the brainchild of the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) who inaugurated the CBA to act on its behalf in matters pertaining to businesses in Chinatown As... places, the target respondents were the hawkers on the food streets in Chinatown SG (Smith Street) and Yaowarat; the shopkeepers conducting businesses in Pagoda and Trengganu Street and Yaowarat Road and Charoen Krung Road and members of the temple and foundation hospitals As this is a comparative study, the choice of streets to conduct the survey in were as closely matched in terms of function and. .. ultimate objective of this thesis is to offer an alternative, more broad based explanation of Singapore‘s Chinatown s current configuration To fulfill this aim, Yaowarat is used as a contrast case through which to understand the constitution of place and identity over time and explore what varying strategies of memory say about the larger social context It marries urban sociology with social memory and. .. available on the food street are not uniquely ‗Chinese‘ but consist of local favourites that can be found in most hawker centres and coffee shops located island-wide Fishball noodles, kway chap18, handmade noodles, bak kut teh, prawn noodles, steamboat and the like are all easily available and at much lower prices all over the island 14 It is a clear, peppery pork broth with pork ribs It consists of. .. identity in weak memory regimes 2.2 Chinatown SG Chinatown SG offers an array of cuisines for the visitor to pick from Available are Korean restaurants, vegetarian cuisine, Chinese food hailing from different parts of China, Thai food, local fare served in a kopitiam and other local snacks such as desserts and Chinese yam cake, mooncakes and other assorted Chinese biscuits interspersed between the various... Sociologists of food have long established the relationships between food and one‘s identity (Caplan, 1997; Narayan,1995; Searles, 2002) and also by implication memory (Holtzman, 2006) This makes food a useful analytical tool with which to study the embodiments of identity and memory present in Yaowarat and Chinatown SG today, allowing us to trace the social trajectories that place identity, ethnic identity and ... Street) and Yaowarat; the shopkeepers conducting businesses in Pagoda and Trengganu Street and Yaowarat Road and Charoen Krung Road and members of the temple and foundation hospitals As this is a comparative. .. 13 that a comparative analysis can offer us more insight into broader social changes that have taken place in the Singapore case and allow for a more nuanced and sensitive reading of Chinatown s... day‟s labour is palpable and as the day draws to a close, that which permeates the air is a relaxed atmosphere 39 sidewalk rhythm20 that is part of urban land use in Thailand (Dovey and Polakit,
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