Today was all about the culture. We left out hotel and turned left - a direction we hadn't gone so far on this trip. We passed this cool building, which is the Ministry of Communications and Information. I love the coloured shutters!
Our cultural distinction for today was the Peranakan Museum.
There was a lot of information to take in at this museum, but I'm only going to give you the very short, Reader's Digest version of what we learned.
The Peranaken culture started way, way back. Most Peranakans are of Hokkien ancestry, although a sizeable number are of Teochew or Cantonese descent. Originally the Peranakan were mixed-race descendants, part Chinese and part Malay/Native Indonesian.
The language of the Peranakans, Baba Malay is a creole dialect of the Malay language, which contains many Hokkien words. It is unfortunately a dying language and its use is mainly limited to the older generation. The language and some of the traditions are a bit lost on the younger generation, which I guess is the same in a lot of cultures as people evolve and things change. I mean, I think I'm down with most of the kids, but sometimes I don't know what the hell they're talking about!
When we were there we spotted an older Peranakan lady.... cause we an spot them a mile away! who was there with her two grand daughters, showing them how things used to be. It was great that she was passing all that information down to them and that they were interested. They were Australian and the Nyonya now lives in Canberra, but she comes back once a year to visit her 94 year old sister.
This was a hand woven rug which would have been made by one of the servants of a wealthy family. How cool and now is the pattern.... fashions always come back around eventually!
One fashion that I'd love to see come back in is the hand made beaded shoe. They are first beaded onto this frame.
How beautiful are they?
This is one hell of a complex culture to try and understand in an hour visit to a museum. It is rich with traditions and rituals. They have their own style of food, which to Westerners would seem the same as Malaysian or Indonesian, but to the Peranakans, they have their own style and their own way of doing things.
This sweet statue was out the front of the museum. The plaque read:
"In memory of the cat that adopted this building and became the museum's mascot - 1998-1999"
Full of culture and still hungry for more, we jumped into a cab and headed over to Arab Street. This is a street lined with restaurants and fabric shops. There were 100s of them. I just don't understand how they can stay afloat when they all sell EXACTLY the same thing. It must all come down to how you lure your customers into your shop. They all had a similar way of doing it. Some would just say "Hello, You want some material?" Others would thrust rolls of fabric in your direction blocking the narrow passage. Then there would be the older characters who would sit on a low crate smoking and ignoring you as you passed by. It's hard to choose which shop to go into based on these techniques. However since we had no need for fabric - the point was irrelevant!
So, in a bid to get away from the shops, we crossed the street and spotted the top of market tents, which generally can only mean good things...
And outside a massive mosque was a long street lined with food stalls, all selling different types of food. Some hot and ready to go, others were selling prepackaged food and some home made take away things. I have to be honest and say that none of it looked appetising in the slightest.
Turning left, we found Harji Street, which was a tiny, one way street lined with little, narrow shops and makeshift restaurants and bars.
This was the outside seating for one bar.....
And this was the smoking area.
I do have to say on the subject of smoking that Singapore are well on their way to getting it completely right. This has been the first country we've been to where we haven't noticed people smoking. They are there, but they seem to move away from the crowds and out of walk ways. There are some strict rules about it and the government have recently extended the list of places where smoking is banned. There's a hefty fine if you don't comply, but it appears that most people are following the rules.
One man lit up on the footpath in front of me, and when I tried to blow the smoke out of the my way and waved my hands around - he apologised!
Let's take a leaf out of Singapore's book please rest of the world!
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