East Side Story

Peranakan Tiles

Before moving to Singapore, I don’t think we had ever heard the term “Peranakan” before.  Peranakans means “local born” and are descendants of Chinese and Indian immigrants who married women from the Malay archipelago in the 15^th century.

The Joo Chiat area of Singapore, also known as Katong, is on the east part of Singapore and is known for its Peranakan food, culture, and tiles. It is unusual for Singapore in that many of its buildings are from the 1920’s.  (Growing up in California things older than 100 years were special—it’s even more so in Singapore.)

Tour Guide Diana

Julie went on a tour of the area through the American Women’s Association this week.  She was describing her adventure to me and I said that we should go again while it was still fresh in her mind—so we did.  And we thought it would be good to share it (and document it for the future).

Chew Joo Chiat was the owner of the plantation that was this area until the turn of the century.  The plantation was just coconut groves until wealthy Singaporeans began building seaside bungalows in Katong, mostly during the interwar period. (There has been a lot of landfill in Singapore in the last 100 years which is why Beach Road is now nowhere near a beach.)

In the late 20’s Peranakan Chinese started to leave the crowded Telok Ayer area of Singapore and headed east.  They began building shop houses in what is now Joo Chiat, just to the east of Katong.

Dumplings wrapped in banana leaf

The first place that we visited was Kim Choo Dumpling House.  This place is known for its wonderful dumplings, but head up the stairs to view the beading and a mini-museum of Peranakan culture.

Covered walkways 

in the CBD today, 

a reminder of 

the past

Shophouses are unique in their design.  Sir Stamford Raffles, who founded Singapore (at least from the British point of view), codified their design.  He required that shophouses be built to provide covering for pedestrians from the rain.  In essence, a covered sidewalk—REALLY useful when it pours here (which it does on a regular basis) and referred to as a “five foot way”.  (Even today you can see the impacts of this in the modern buildings of the CDB.)  The shop was typically on the ground floor with the living area above. The ground floor also had to be concrete, while the upper floors were typically wood for ventilation.  And they were narrow, but deep, to avoid British property taxes which were based on a property’s width, not building size.

Bat wing vents on
 ground floor and
Circle "coin" under
2nd floor eaves

In Joo Chiat the shophouses were built to meet this requirement, but had their Peranakan spin.  The woodwork and filigree on the eaves was Malay.  The bat shaped ventilation holes are Chinese (bats are good luck there) as well as the round ventilation holes modeled after a Chinese coin.  They also have French windows, Portuguese shutters, Corinthian pilasters (Ricardo Montalban LIVES!), and the plaster work was Indian.  The original Peranakan tiles (which are quite well known) are actually from Europe and served as ballast on ships coming to the Far East.

Reminder of
the past

There are quite a few beautiful examples of restored shophouses in Joo Chiat.  Sometimes whole stretches of the road are lined with these colorful buildings.  One of my favorites though is one that is not colorful, but they kept the original store sign for the “Lucky Book Store”.  It’s now a private residence.

While the restored shophouses were interesting, we also enjoyed the two temples that we visited, one Buddhist and one Hindu.  Growing up Catholic I never felt nervous at all about entering a church or cathedral.    But going into a temple is a little different.  About all I know is taking off your shoes is required.  Luckily Julie’s guide took them into two temples and explained what you can do and what you are seeing.  These were both neighborhood temples that were not in tourist track, so they were very welcoming.

Happy Buddha

The Kuan Im Tng Buddhist Temple is a beautiful place.  Happy Buddha (the future Buddha) welcomes you to the temple (it is always the first Buddha to greet you at a Chinese Buddhist temple).  This one is especially cool as it is two-sided—it has to make you smile. 

After we took off our shoes there were 3 older people sharing a meal and they were very welcoming, signaling to us to come in and enjoy the temple.

The initial temple was very small in size and surrounded by a coconut plantation (it is in Joo Chiat after all). In 1972, the temple underwent renovation and then further expanded in 1988.  It is obviously an important part of the community and worth the time to make a short visit.

Brian favorite
caption

The Hindu temple was Sri Senpaga Vinayagar.  It is here because in the 1850’s a small statue of Lord Vinayagar was found in a pond near there and it was deemed to be a sign.  Today there is a wall of small statues of Lord Vinayagar.  In fact, Julie’s guide heard of someone finding a statue at a construction site and the guide got it and brought it to the temple. 

You enter the temple and walk through it in a clockwise direction.  There are various quotes on the walls that are fun to read.  There was some sort of ceremony going on with chanting that just added to the experience.

And, like almost every other place in Singapore, we found a good restaurant.  You might expect it to be Peranakan or Indian, but no: It was German!  On Joo Chiat Road you will find Werner’s Oven and have some of the best homemade sausages (paired with a 0.5l hefeweizen) and bread (loaves available to go) that you have ever had.  And the owner, Nancy, just added to the experience.  Definitely a place to return to again and again.