Singapore | Chinatown

| Chinatown. 🇸🇬 Singapore | Chinatown|||🗺 Region: Singapore 📍 Location: Chinatown (Kreta Ayer) The three characters '牛' (niu), '车' (che), and '水' (shui) form the place with the densest Chinese population in Singapore — Chinatown. Here, you can find a variety of Chinese cuisines, an important historical gathering place for the Chinese community, characterized by Sino-Portuguese style shophouses, and also one of the famous tourist attractions. Wandering through the many alleys of Chinatown, one can see traditional Chinese arts and crafts with an ancient charm — calligraphy, carving, puppets, Buddha statues, and incense, etc. There are also traditional Chinese medicine shops with their numerous small drawers that dazzle the eyes. The night market in Chinatown is brilliantly lit, somewhat reminiscent of temple fairs in China. Besides the Chinatown Complex and Maxwell Food Centre, you can also visit Smith Street, one of the main streets in Chinatown. As dusk falls, it becomes the pedestrian-only Chinatown Food Street, where you can feast at the open-air 'big stalls'. Moreover, the area also gathers some religious landmark buildings, including Indian temples and mosques, which form an interesting contrast with the surrounding Chinese-style architecture. Sri Mariamman Temple and Jamae Mosque are among the oldest pilgrimage sites in Singapore. The grand Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum houses the precious Buddha tooth relic. 👣👣👣 In 1330, the Chinese Yuan dynasty merchant and navigator Wang Dayuan visited Temasek and recorded the existence of a Chinese community here. This is one of the oldest Chinatowns in Singapore, and also the largest. Before the landing of the British Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles in Singapore in 1819, Chinese laborers migrating southward had already been engaged in the cultivation of betel nut and pepper in this area. Subsequently, as more and more Chinese from the south came to Singapore, Raffles simply designated the area along Boat Quay southwest of the Singapore River as a residential area for the Chinese. At that time, Singapore had no water supply infrastructure, and all the water needed for the island had to be transported by ox carts from the wells at Ann Siang Hill and Spring Street, hence the area where water was supplied by ox carts came to be known as 'Chinatown'. In 1822, Raffles established Singapore's first urban plan, which designated Chinatown as the residential area for Chinese immigrants. Thereafter, with the development of Singapore and the booming population, Chinatown became overcrowded, and Chinese immigrants began to settle in other areas of Singapore. The emergence of public housing in the 1960s finally alleviated this situation.