WALKING DOWN MEMORY LANE: 13A TRENGGANU STREET, CHINATOWN

I must say that Chinatown has a very special place in my heart.

This was the place my beloved & late first wife Catherine was born & brought up by her parents. Her father was a TCM practitioner & her mother a librarian in the National Library.

During my early years of courtship with Catherine - that was the tail end of sixties - I often visited this particular place of residence, designated as 13A Trengganu Street, as captured in my foregoing snapshots, to visit her & also her parents.

Their residence was located on the second floor. Access to the upper floor was through a small & narrow staircase at the rear end of the building.

From the standpoint of geographical landscape, Trengganu Street has one very unique feature: it connects four popular streets of Chinatown: Pagoda Street/Temple Street/Smith Street/Sago Street.

I remember clearly the first time I had met her parents, - to be frank, it was also the first time I had stepped into the heart of Chinatown - her father told me, in no uncertain terms, that should I be accosted by any unruly characters in the Chinatown area during any of my visits, I should just mention his name. Naturally, I felt very reassured.

Apparently, her father, Dr Liang Siang, was well-known in the area because of his traditional medical practice, & also owing to the fact that her grandfather ran a popular roasted pork outlet on the ground floor premises in the early 1900's.



Of course, today, Trengganu Street, & in fact the whole of Chinatown, is radically different from the Chinatown I once knew in the late sixties.

The premises on the ground floor of 13A Trengganu Street is now occupied by a small departmental store, while upstairs, there is a small bar/lounge.

Sad to say, in a way, Trengganu Street & its surrounding streets are now occupied predominantly by the tourist trade. The streets are really crammed.

There is also the Chinatown MRT Station, with access from Pagoda Street, plus a relatively large landscaped overhead pedestrian bridge to the People's Park Complex.

To me, in some ways, the Chinatown Conservation Project had done a lot of damage to its original glamour.

One of my social buddies, James, has once remarked that Chinatown has lost its soul character.

I recall during my early visits to Chinatown, particularly Trengganu Street, the area was bustling with shopkeepers retailing a myriad of household knick-knacks, as they jostled with street hawkers pedaling fresh seafood, raw meat, fresh fruits, vegetables, & flowers.

There were also numerous food hawkers with their exotic & specialty recipes, like brewed tonic soup from a concoction of tortoises, turtles, snakes & lizards.

I also remember, right below 13A Trengganu Street, there was a fish ball noodle stall as well as a poultry stall, which were often patronised by Catherine & her parents, plus yours truly.

There was also an elderly guy who often used a block of wood to clobber live cat fishes prior to cooking for waiting customers.

Amusingly, during those courtship days in Chinatown, Catherine did not have a phone at home. So, sometimes, she had to go downstairs to use the poultry seller's phone for communication.

Unwittingly, the poor guy had to act as my "relay station" when I needed to call Catherine, & vice versa.

About two years later, Catherine & her parents relocated to Queenstown.


On a historical note, Chinatown actually dates back to about the time when Stamford Raffles landed on the island to explore a strategic outpost for the East India Company.

It was also about the time the first Chinese junk had arrived from Xiamen, Fujian province of China. All the passengers onboard were apparently men, who came to Singapore to set up home around the south end of the Singapore River, which is known as Telok Ayer Basin today.

To the local residents, Chinatown is Niu Che Shui (literally translated from Mandarin, bullock cart water). In those days of the early Chinese immigrants living in Chinatown, the only fresh water was available from the nearby Ann Siang Hill. Each household had to collect the fresh water in bullock drawn carts.





The following snapshots show the access to the Chinatown MRT Station & a viewpoint of Pagoda Street from the overhead pedestrian bridge that connects to the People's Park Complex.



The following snapshots show the entry views of Temple Street from South Bridge Road. Part of the Hindu temple, one of Singapore's oldest temples, can be seen in the snapshot.



The following snapshots show the entry views of Temple Street from New Bridge Road.




The following snapshots show Smith Street as well as Pagoda Street from New Bridge Road.



A snapshot of the street map of Chinatown.