Fuk Tak Chi

This museum- this snug little museum in a shop house along Telok Ayer Street on the Far East Square side- is one of those places that seem to have made it through the tests of time. 

Ok, so it sounds cliche, but if you know anything about Singapore, and the speed in which her cityscape alters, you'll know what it means to have an entryway that still looks like this, dark wood, dark wood shutters and all.

Nearly every shop house I've been to has since removed the high wooden board you see in the forefront- but not Fuk Tak Chi. 

Theirs still remains.

I don't know if every other shop house had a board this high.

If they did, it certainly made one's entry to the house a very grand thing. 

Because you can't just saunter in like we do for everywhere else. 

You have to take a literal step.

A literal, deliberate step over the threshold. 

And you have to be very nimble. 

I'm not nimble. 

So I have to be deliberate, and careful. 

Fuk Tak Chi Museum is a place that (I think) serves as a memoriam specifically to the coolie workforce of the long-thriving shipping trade industry in our country.

This was an industry where the business owners were called merchants and towkays, the warehouses were godowns and the labor force coolies. 

Much has been said about them, their living quarters, their addiction to opium, and their unbearably difficult life. 

Little (however) has been said (elsewhere) about the community, by the community. 

Fuk Tak Chi Museum is probably the most notable one. 

This place is a memoriam.

A memoriam to those who might have been unseen.

A memoriam to those whose names we might remember no more.

The first thing that catches your eye as you enter Fuk Tak chi is a replica of a Chinese junk. 

It sits at the far end of the hall in an alcove where at another place the altar or ancestral tablets might be. 

This replica is not a poorly made one. 

It's been made with great detail, and been made to size. 

It would have been lovely had I had been able to take a  closer look- the level of detail was amazing- but there were others waiting to see the replica,  and  I didn't want to hog, so I simply took the picture, and went elsewhere. 

Fuk Tak Chi doesn't have much in terms of displays- except for the diorama display that takes centerstage- but the architecture is remarkable.

It feels like it's been unchanged through the years. 

One of the things I noticed whilst looking around were the high beams. 

I think they're original. 

Without addition of modern lights. 

Without addition of false ceiling boards. 

Whoever manages this place has left it as it is. 

In the same way so have they left the space of the small square courtyard, building nothing around to block it. 

You might wonder why I'm fascinated by the courtyard.

You see, I used to not understand what people meant when they said some shop houses had good feng shui with spacious interiors and plenty of light. 

Now I do. 

This small square courtyard within the walls of the shop house is an opening to the world that exists outside. 

This space in the structure is an opening that lets in light, air, wind, and rain from the Earth inside.  

Everything just swirls around. 

In a very 360 degree sort of way.

There's a sense of timelessness in this place that I find difficult to explain. 

It might be because the presence of light, wind and space.

It might be because the presence of furniture or the high ceiling beams. 

But I can't tell for sure from where its source. 

I know I felt it when I studied the diorama display. 

And I felt it stronger when taking the pictures. 

Maybe the sense of timelessness stems from the overwhelming detail in the diorama.

Maybe it's there because of the lifelike realism in the display. 

You'd think that in a memoriam like this they'd feature just the tongkangs and the backbreaking work of the coolie workforce, but no, they didn't. 

They featured more than that. 

There was the wayang performance stage, there were the festivities on the street, there were the groups of people talking by the waterfront next to the tongkangs, there were the women doing their shopping. 

In the diorama there were children playing and running around. 

There were even street strays. 

I loved how the textures of the ground had been carefully recreated. 

I loved how they'd put in the exact number of slats on the shutters.

And I loved seeing the fabric of the cloth shelters that hung over the makeshift roadside stalls.

We will probably never know who these people were or whom they were  meant to represent, but to the very least we have a glimpse of their routines, their habits, their living, their life. 

It will not be forgotten. 

It will not be neglected.

It will not be left behind.