Street Names Long Ago And Now

Held at the National Library over Level 7 and Level 8, 'Stories Behind Singapore Streets' gives you an inkling into how our streets are named so. I had piecemeal information over the years and was most interested to see how a curated exhibition puts them altogether into a coherent format.

Couldn't stop laughing at what Raffles said in his brief to the Town Planning Committee back in all those days. "It is well known that the people of one province are more quarrelsome than another, and that continued disputes and disturbances take place between people from different provinces; it will also be necessary to distinguish the fixed residents and itinerants - between the resident merchants and the traders who only resort to the port for only a time." Heh. Nothing has really changed eh? I'm not going to say what, how and where. Find out at the exhibition!

I find the exhibition so quaint, and fairly interesting. I confess I don't know much about my country's history nor the naming of the streets. The activity book and information booklet (exhibition guide) have been well thought-out, comprehensive and almost fun, and it's printed out so very nicely. Very cool. The RazorTV segment on 'Unusual Street Names' is a fun touch. On a weekday, we had the space to ourselves; there wasn't anyone else crowding around trying to watch it.

Awesome info and activity booklets.

Another display of 'Colonial and Colloquial Street And Place Names' caught my eye, "Not only did they Chinese have their own names for streets, their use of a similar name for dozens of streets was extremely frustrating to the Europeans. Often, addresses could not be ascertained accurately for instituting arrests, serving court summons or tracing the spread of infectious diseases." Oof. Colonial masters talking.

What we now know as Chinatown Complex used to be Sago Lane. Sago Lane was known as in the local dialects as 'Coffin Street' or 'The Street of Dead People' because coffin shops and death houses lined the lane. (Don't mistake this for Sago Street where the brothels were. Fun contrast, ain't it?) These death houses housed humans who were about to die, and their eventual funerals held on the ground floor. Death houses were banned by the government 1961. (View youtube clip of the past here.) I suppose many residents in Bukit Timah and Woodlands (and probably many more areas) reject the idea of Eldercare Centres because they're viewed as modern-day death houses, something similar to the concept of 'pariah'. SIGH.

While browsing through, the word "expunged" jumped at me. Urban development has obliterated many old roads and names. But it's especially poignant when the word is used so many times. Such a great effect on the audience. Merriam-Webster stated the word to mean "to efface completely"......"to eliminate (from memory) from one's consciousness." Definitely. So efficient till many of us don't know the history of the names, the reasons behind the names, or even that old roads exist in another form today.