Date: 16 January 2014, Thursday
Time: 3.00pm to 6.00pm
Coordinator for Library Tour at library@chinatown: Mr.Steven Chow
Coordinator for Walking Tour at Chinatown areas: Ms.Chia Wei Fun
There were 19 participants to the first event organized by the Programmes and Social Committee for the year of 2014. We would like to thanky Mr.Chong Thong Yang, Librarian from NLB for taking us through the library. This was the second visit from LAS to library@chinatown since the official opening on 31 Jan 2013. Our previous visit was on 4 April 2013.
library@chinatown is our first community supported
library in Singapore. With a total floor area of 1,000 square meters, it is the first themed library on Chinese arts and culture. library@chinatown offers a curated
collection that caters to both arts and cultural enthusiasts and the
general public, who are keen to learn more about Chinese arts and culture. More
than 60 per cent of the materials are in Chinese, around 40 per cent English and
there is a small collection of Malay and Tamil items.
There is also a small selection of books and audio-visual materials in Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese and other commonly spoken Chinese dialects that will appeal to older citizens which is unique compared with other community libraries. Besides that, the library is also embracing a lot of advanced library tools, for example: self-check machines, self-service newspapers readers, customer service portal/station which impressed all of us.
We took about an hour for the library tour. After which, we started our exciting walking tour of Chinatown which was coordinated by Ms.Chia Wei Fun. The places that we had visited were:
- The Yue Wah Emporium (formerly Southern Hotel, the tallest hotel in Chinatown during the war years. The hotel served as a rest and recreation place for high ranking Japanese officers . Some of the “comfort ladies” operated from here).
- The Street Markets (@Mosque Street, Temple Street and Pagoda Street)
- The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple
- The Masjid Jamae (Chulia). The mosque was built by the Chulia Community from India in 1827.
- The Sri Mariamman Temple
She shared with the participants about the history of the development of Chinatown. The journey started at Chinatown Point. Here are some photos that we had taken during the walking tour:
We spent 2 hours walking around the Chinatown area. Wei Fun really impressed us with her knowledge and background of Chinatown. There are so much more to learn about the history of Singapore than what can be found in the history textbooks. She brought all the participants on a journey to learn more about the rich heritage of Singapore. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the participants for helping to make this event a successful one. More exciting and interesting events will be coming soon, so stay tuned for more programmes from us!!
Reported by: Steven Chow and Chia Wei Fun
Members of Programmes and Social Committee (LAS)