Chinatown Heritage Centre - Life in a Shophouse

A stop on Singapore: Marina Bay to Chinatown, a free self-guided tour.

Halfway along Pagoda Street, three restored shophouses at numbers 46 to 50 hold the Chinatown Heritage Centre, which opened in 2002. Inside, its creators rebuilt the rooms of the shophouse tenants of the 1950s: cramped cubicles where whole families slept, shared kitchens blackened by smoke and the bare bunks of laborers.

This is where the story of the street becomes personal. Most early Chinese immigrants arrived poor, often as new arrivals called sinkheh, and worked off debts as rickshaw pullers, dockworkers and coolies. They built clan associations and temples to help each other, and the city's Chinese majority grew from these families.

If you have 45 minutes, the visit is worth it; there is an admission fee, so check the website for current hours and tickets. Even from the street, look at the narrow, deep plan of the building - the ground floor for business, family rooms stacked above.

Getting here: Walk about two minutes farther along Pagoda Street; the Heritage Centre is on your right, just before Trengganu Street.

Did you know?: Chinatown's Chinese name, Niu Che Shui, means "bullock-cart water," and its Malay name, Kreta Ayer, means "water cart" - both recall the carts that once brought fresh water to the district.

Photo op: From across the lane, frame the restored facades of the three shophouses together, with their louvered windows and the market canopy below.

More on Wikipedia: Chinatown, Singapore · Shophouse · Kreta Ayer Road

Chinatown Heritage Centre - Life in a Shophouse

Stops on this tour