The first junks filled with Chinese immigrants began arriving in Singapore in the early 1800s, shortly after Sir Stamford Raffles finagled an agreement with local authorities to set up a British trading post on the island.

The Lion City was little more than a sparsely populated fishing village when Raffles arrived in 1819 in search of a strategic location to challenge the Dutch dominance of key trading routes between the Far East and the West.

The Chinese immigrants who settled near the mouth of the Singapore River, an area known today as Telok Ayer, played a critical role in building and shaping the modern city-state - often under extraordinarily difficult conditions.

Today, the government is working to preserve the history of Chinatown. After the launch of Chinatown Food Street last November, the revitalization of the district enters its next phase with this month's opening of the Chinatown Heritage Center (CHC) on Pagoda Street.

"Chinatown has always been an integral part of Singapore's history," says Lim Guan Hock, National Heritage Board's (NHB) deputy director of the Singapore History Museum. "No effort has been spared to ensure that every detail is looked into. Each artifact and character in the CHC has been put together to tell its own story - whether of the lifestyle, living condition or tradition of Chinatown."

The center consists of three painstakingly restored Chinese shop houses, including a recreation of the living quarters and a tailoring shop. The CHC research team went to great lengths to track down the past residents who used to live in that unit to give their input in re-creating the authentic conditions then. It also features 15 exhibition galleries that trace the evolution of Chinatown and document the trials and tribulations of the early immigrants.

Roadmap for Renewal

"The Chinatown Heritage Center represents the next milestone in our efforts to rejuvenate Chinatown," says Edmund Chua, director for thematic development at the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). "The objective is to make the CHC the focal point for visitors when they visit Chinatown and offer them a more complete and memorable experience through understanding its rich history."

The development of the CHC is one of the proposals under the Chinatown Experience Guide Plan, which was drawn up in 1998 to provide the roadmap for the district's renewal.

The project, a collaboration between the STB and the NHB, is aimed at both local residents and foreign visitors to Singapore. According to a 2000 survey of overseas visitors, Chinatown is the second most popular free-access attraction in Singapore after Orchard Road, with some 3.5 million visitors a year.

The CHC is expected to serve as the gateway from which all visits to Chinatown would begin. The district is known for its mix of traditional Chinese stores and tourist-oriented stalls peddling everything from traditional medicine to kitschy kimonos, as well as the odd massage parlors.

The S$1-million Chinatown Food Street, which marked the return of street hawking to Singapore after it was banned in 1982 due to hygiene concerns, was the first project under the Chinatown master plan to be implemented. Since opening last year, the 260-seat open-air venue featuring 18 of the best hawker stalls in Singapore has been attracting an average of between 3,000 to 4,000 people daily.

Currently, minor work is being done on the al fresco-dining destination. The hawker stalls are being repositioned to create more walking space for pedestrians and to avoid obstructing the frontage of the existing restaurants, which have complained about their diminished visibility.

In addition, a shop house will be converted into a washing and storage facility for the hawkers.

"The objective we all share is to make Food Street more enjoyable to the patrons," Chua says. "When completed, customers will be able to see at a glance the full spectrum of food variety Food Street has to offer, from the hawker kiosks to the restaurants in the shop houses."