Friday, January 17, 2014
Asian Civilisations Museum 16 January2014
Asian Civilisations Museum, located at Empress Place building, was built between 1864 and 1867 by Indian convicts. It used to be the government court house and government offices. It faces the Singapore River which used to be an important and thriving port in the 19th and 20th century.
In 1983, the last 300 twakow大䑩 (or lighters) on the Singapore
river were moved to Pasir Panjang and the clean river project began. Lighters or twakow 大䑩 are boats that transport goods
between the harbour and the river. The eyes painted on the bow of the twakow
denoted whom the twakow belonged to - if the color around the eyes was green,
it was Hokkien twakow; if it was red, it belonged to a Teochew.
In 1819, Stamford Raffles landed in
Singapore which he described as 'everything we could desire'. Stamford Raffles’ mission was to break the
Dutch monopoly of trade in South East Asia.
Between 1824 and 1826, a new balance of power between the British and
Dutch was established - the British was able to break the Dutch monopoly of the
important waterway along the straits of Malacca i.e. Melaka and Penang.
Chulia
Street, a street in nearby Raffles Place was probably named after the Tamils
from south India who were known popularly as chulia.
Nearby Empress Place, stood Fort Canning Hill, previously known as Bukit Larangan (the forbidden hill). Fort Canning Hill may have been the site of the palace of the ancient Malay king and a burial ground for royalty. On the hill was the supposed tomb of Iskandah Shah, the last king of Singapore.
Orang Laut was the indigenous people, original inhabitants of Singapore. However, with the vast and rapid development in Singapore especially at the Singapore River, the Orang Laut was eventually forced to disperse - to join similar communities in the Riau Islands Indonesia or be absorbed into the mainstream Malay population in Singapore.
Nearby Empress Place, stood Fort Canning Hill, previously known as Bukit Larangan (the forbidden hill). Fort Canning Hill may have been the site of the palace of the ancient Malay king and a burial ground for royalty. On the hill was the supposed tomb of Iskandah Shah, the last king of Singapore.
Orang Laut was the indigenous people, original inhabitants of Singapore. However, with the vast and rapid development in Singapore especially at the Singapore River, the Orang Laut was eventually forced to disperse - to join similar communities in the Riau Islands Indonesia or be absorbed into the mainstream Malay population in Singapore.
# posted by Mae @ 1:50 PM 
