Celine Tham

Entrance to the museum

Doris columns found in the museum

Upon entering the Asian Civilisations Museum, you would notice that the building has a neo-Palladian style architecture. There are huge Doric columns on the second level which are complements for the strong grooved facades on the ground level. This style of architecture gave the museum a very classical look and it is soothing and pleasing to look at.

Stairs leading to the exhibit

View of the Singapore River from the exhibit

Ascending the magnificent flight of stairs to the second level, you would be able to spot the Singapore River exhibit at a corner. It is situated at the perfect spot where you get to see the spectacular view of the Singapore River from one of the windows. Compared to the rest of the museum, this is the only exhibit which allows light to penetrate in. This is different from the conventional thinking that museums are dark and creepy places with really old and ancient artifacts and it was a really nice and refreshing change.

The exhibit contains remnants from the past and present states of the Singapore River. The Singapore River is a very significant part of Singapore for it was where trade all started. (Sir Stamford Raffles made it the first trading port in Singapore.) Also, it has a very rich cultural history. For one who wants to fully understand the culture of Singapore and importance of trade for Singapore, one should visit this exhibit for it would reveal not only the answers, but also new insights about the Singapore River. Everyone knows trade was the most dominant factor in transforming Singapore into what it is today, but how many people actually know about the hardships and sufferings the people in the past - merchants, coolies, businessmen and more - had gone through for this to be possible?

Singapore River in the past

The artifacts displayed were of a diverse range. From the past, there are photos of how the Singapore River used to look like and interesting facts about the culture and lifestyle of each of the races who used to live along the Singapore River. From recent years, the first duck to cross the finishing line for the first Singapore Million Dollar Duck Race has been displayed.

The first duck which crossed the finishing line

Out of all the things that were there, I was drawn to the unique jobs that were introduced by various races, in particular, the Indian chettiars, whom some had said they came to Singapore even before Sir Stamford Raffles did. The chettiars are money-lenders whose business houses were known as kittangis - warehouses which were long buildings with no partitions. They aided many of the businessmen then, when trade was first established, by loaning them huge sums of money to help start their businesses. Something I found intriguing was that each of the chettiars would have a space where they had a cabinet and a wooden cashier's box, which they kept in the cabinet at the end of the day. Most of them kept records of their loans and it is fascinating that these records can still be found today, kept safely by their descendants.

Wooden box with records of loans inside

Later, together with my group of friends, we decided to head down to the Singapore River itself. I tried to imagine the Singapore River as it was then in the past, dirty and congested, but looking at how great the changes have been, it was really hard to even believe that the clean and clear waters of the river now could have been contaminated by any kind of rubbish before.

We must really grateful to our ancestors for moulding Singapore into the great nation it is today.