Heritage Sneak Peak

As I rush around in the Raffles Place City Business District (CBD), Mondays to Fridays, from carpark to office to meetings to lunch, I sometimes see foreign tourists walking the CBD with their cameras in tow, and I've always wondered what in the world is there for them to snap in this steel and glass contained concrete district.

So, a couple of weekends ago, I took my camera out for a walk in the CBD. But this time around, instead of taking wide-angle shots of steel mammoths and towering glass reflections, I settled for 'sneak peaks' into Singapore's heritage tucked into little corners of the CBD hustle and bustle. Looking through my camera's viewfinder, hopefully I will be able to show you a bit of that 'exotic' heritage that some foreigners find intriguing, and which has beauty worth rediscovering for ourselves.

1st view - a pair of golden ancient guardians

This happy pair graced the entrance doors to the Fuk Tak Chi Museum at Far East Square along Telok Ayer Street, and is a sight which can only be seen in the early morning or late evening when the Museum doors are closed to the public. The rich golden hues and the intricate lined drawings on these doors are good enough reasons to visit this small street museum, which contains only a single square courtyard and a shrine room. The first Chinese temple in Singapore built in the 1820s by Hakka and Cantonese immigrants, it was dedicated to Tua Pek Kong (the Earth God, but more commonly considered as the God of Prosperity).

2nd view - lotus trunks

Moving away from the doors, my viewfinder found these carved 'lotus' trunks that were set at the two ends of the entrance beam - lovely carpentry-work that one hardly ever sees nowadays with our preference for modern simple lines in our furniture and homes.

3rd view - delicate curly wurly

At the tip of the roof beam of this traditional Chinese temple architecture, a beautiful wood carving curves in a wavy leaf pattern, its lines enhanced by the yellow wall in the background and tiny weeds growing on the roof.

4th view - treasures of old

A silver or more likely pewter container with intricate engraving in the background and a jug in the foreground. Converted into a museum in 1998, this heritage building is no longer used as a temple and now contains old artifacts, probably used by Chinese immigrants once upon a time.

5th view - a sienna scene

More of these lovely artefacts, but the shot has been color-processed to create a warmer tone in order to highlight the copper-paint on the basket-container and the dark-red wall in the background.

6th view - what's beyond this wall?

Walking another five minutes or so towards Philip Street, I find these beautiful embossed blue tiles lining the outer wall of the courtyard of the Wak Hai Cheng Temple. It's so sad that we don't build houses anymore using such intricately detailed tiles.

The Wak Hai Cheng Bio Temple was built in the 1820s by Teochew Chinese from Guangdong Province and dedicated to the goddess of the sea, and is one of Singapore's oldest Taoist temples. The temple is also known as Yueh Hai Ching Temple, which means Temple of the Calm Sea. Traders and travelers of old returning from China visited the temple on disembarking to offer their thanks for a safe journey.

7th view - coils of wishes

Beyond those blue-tiled walls, my viewfinder saw rows of incense coils/spirals hanging from strung wires across the courtyard of this Taoist temple. Cast your wishes onto the red pieces of paper and stick them in the center of the coils and as the incense slowly burns, the smoke carries your wishes to the heavens! Apparently, these coils can burn for days and hopefully your wishes come true by then.

These two temples are unusual in that they are sited right in the midst of the CBD area, the first in a row of shophouses and sandwiched on its left and right by small restaurants and eating houses, and the second sitting in its little courtyard with hazy incense smoke rising up to the skies surrounded by concrete skyscrapers all around.

The little gems in CBD that perhaps, you may wish to pause for 5 seconds to admire when you next pass them along your route to office!