Photos from Singapore: Singapore's Historic Statues

These are the statues that tell the story of Singapore's past, and they are spread over quite a large area in River Quay.

The foreigner in the statues is Raffles dude, who founded modern Singapore after 'discovering' it first.

In the first picture, he is talking to the Chinese businessmen, and making deals with them. The Chinese were the first migrants into Singapore after the Brits made it their colonial outpost. Some small tribes of Chinese fishermen were already there along with the indigenous Malay fishermen before they were colonised, but almost all the later Chinese were migrants. At the museum, I read several stories about poor Chinese prostitutes for whom Singapore was the 'dreamland' where they would go expecting to get filthy-rich, but be very disappointed, their dreams shattered by exploitations, yet write touching letters to their families back in China, saying that they were having the best time of their lives.

This bull-cart on the right is owned by a Malay businessman. They were apparently a very common sight even until the 40's and 50's.

Again, a Malay bull-car unloading goods. Since Singapore is an Island, everything there had to come from Malaysia through ships(it was only in the mid-20th century that a bridge was constructed in the Singapore strait). These cars were the backbone of the local transportation industry, transporting goods from the port to the local bazars. Goods for the locals came from Malaysia, the white Sahibs imported everything from Britain, Australia, or Hong Kong.

It would be difficult for anyone from a developing country to believe all the changes Singapore has been through in the last 50-60 years. It was not very long time ago that local boys stripped naked and jumped into the Singapore River, much like as they do here in Bagmati or Manohara or pretty much any other river. The very idea that somebody might do that in the Singapore river sounds hilarious. There are posh restaurants and shopping centers on both the banks today. Small steamers carrying tourists pass every minute, and it's more of a pretty little rivulet, in a very prim and proper colonial kind of way, instead of a roaring river it once was.

This statue(series of statues?) celebrates that aspect of Singapore's recent past. It is ironic because it stands right outside The Fullerton, one of the dastardly expensive colonial-heritage restaurants. It is saying something like 'Look, over here, we have the symbol of our prosperity, and how we turned our colonial past to make profits for us, and right next to it some savage boys stripping naked to swim in the river. Ha haha, hohoho, funny, No?'

Again, a British sahib (most likely Raffles) dealing with a Chinese businessman. Notice that while the businessman is Chinese, the worker is of Malay origin. Like everywhere else, after being colonised, the Malays got to the lowermost social strata. The most respected were obviously the British, then the Chinese, the Indians(sp. from South India) with or below them, and the Malays at the bottommost rung.

A moneylender dealing with a British Woman. Notice that this scene is most likely from after the mid-twentieth century. The very fact that traditional moneylenders were extremely common even upto the sixties and seventies says a lot about the leaps the country has made.