Tag Archives: Muslim district

Singapore – Bugis mosques and temples

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The ethnic names of places near Bugis–Little India, the Muslim district–reflect historical patterns of settlement in Singapore. But with the country’s powerhouse economic growth and its policy of achieving diversity in every area, there are no longer strong concentrations of ethnic folk in the area. Nevertheless, significant structures of worship remain. And are well attended.

On the pedestrian Waterloo Street is a traditional Chinese Buddhist temple, the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho temple, founded in 1884 at this location and enlarged a century later to accommodate the throngs of visitors who come there to practice divination with joss sticks. Believed to bring good luck to its visitors, the temple is enormously popular.

 

 

Right next door stands the Sri Krishnan Hindu temple, dedicated to Lord Krishna (an incarnation of the god Vishnu) and adorned with exuberant technicolor statuary.

 

 

Nearby, as it turns out, are also Christian churches and a Jewish synagogue, which (alas) I didn’t see. Singapore is truly an ecumenical country, tolerant of and fostering all religions.

The Masjid Abdul Gaffoor is a handsome mosque located in the Little India area.

Construction began on this mosque in 1907. It is an historic landmark and was extensively renovated in 2003. The juxtaposition of this handsome building, with its stars-and-crescent-moon motif and its cinquefoil windows, with the rather garish modern tower in the distance is–for better or worse–a typical tableau in Singapore.

An even more significant mosque, Masjid Sultan, with its splendid golden dome, dominates the Muslim district.

 

There are numerous other houses of worship throughout Singapore, where people of all ethnicities and believes mingle peaceably.

 

Singapore – shopping in and around the Bugis district

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Singapore is famous for many things, all good. It is a democratic society composed of myriads of ethnic and religious groups, all of whom live nonviolently together in harmony. No one lives in abject poverty. Everyone has housing, food, and probably a job. The economy is in overdrive. And what do people in a thriving capitalist economy do when they are relatively well off? We all know the answer to that question.

They go shopping.

Singapore is a shopper’s paradise. I don’t know the statistics, but I’d be willing to wager that Singapore has more retail space per capita than any country on Earth.

The place to go, of course is Orchard Road, which is jammed with block after block of shopping mall after mall. It’s number one on every list of Singapore tourist attractions, and so naturally, with only two days in the country, I avoided it. I figured I can go to malls at home any time I want. Dan, who has been to Orchard Road, tells me I made a mistake.

Maybe so. But I like to learn a place by walking the neighborhoods, and this is what I did.

Day One: Bugis and the surrounding areas, including the Muslim District, Kampong Glam, and Little India.

But this is Singapore. There is no avoiding shopping.

On the way from our hotel to Bugis and in the surrounding area there were numerous malls, both upscale and otherwise.

There was also a really nifty zone of pedestrian streets around Waterloo and Bencoolen Streets.

 

But that’s not all! I stumbled upon a blocks-long seemingly ad-hoc flea market.

 And of course, all this is in addition to Singapore’s famous shop houses, two- or three-story townhouses with retail on the first and sometimes second floor, and housing above. These may originally have housed a shop and its owner’s family, but now there’s not necessarily a relationship. Shop houses are the old urbanism, and a model for the New Urbanism as well. They can be funky or upscale.

 

With their exterior stairs, the backs can be as charming as the facades.

And what do they sell in these retail spaces on the street, you might ask?

Anything from groceries to gold.