Singapore offers more than just food and shopping
By David Jardine
SINGAPORE (JP): Singapore is famous for its food and its shopping but for those with a nose for history there are also a number of interesting diversions in The Lion City. As a major port it naturally attracted the most dynamic merchants from around the world and among these was the community that gave its name to Armenian Street, which runs down toward the world-famous Raffles Hotel.
There are no signs today of the Armenians, those survivors of another 20th century holocaust, but the street itself now houses a building which one day will bear another kind of witness to them. The Asian Civilizations Museum, housed at number 39, is an ambitious project in keeping with Singapore's urge to cast itself as something more than a shopaholic's paradise. As museums go it is still as yet a fledgling, but one with great potential.
If the idea of a complete and unifying set of Asian values is chimerical the notion of Asian civilizations in the plural is not. The great continent which stretches from the shores of the Mediterranean to Japan's outlying islands has given rise to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism, to name but a few of the religions that it boasts. Thousands of years of history have thrown up a great range of powers that have in their turn faded and gone, leaving behind a kaleidoscope of artifacts and architecture. From Japanese might and unity under the shogun to the glories of old Baghdad under the caliphate and the splendors of Moghul India and Buddhist Borobudur, Asia has many sources of cultural wealth.
The Asian Civilizations Museum aims to bring to the public as much of this wealth of history as possible. A recently finished display, Jewel Power, featured jewelry from Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, and one had the opportunity not only to see the high standard of craftsmanship but learn a little more about the layered meanings of jewelry for various peoples in the region. On display were items from the Batak region of North Sumatra which the creators and wearers believed invested them with spiritual and magical powers. The Kenyah Dayaks of Kalimantan were represented too, their brass and gold pieces both large and striking.
A current display features Chinese snuff bottles, and here we see what one of the world's oldest civilizations did with one of the first commodities to penetrate it from the West. Snuff, of course, is a derivative of tobacco and arrived in China after the Europeans had discovered the smoker's leaf in the Americas. What the Chinese then did was put snuff into a range of exquisitely crafted and illuminated bottles. The museum's display, featuring 250 bottles mainly from the collection of Singaporean enthusiast Dennis Low, with its clearly written English guides gives full credit to this craftsmanship, pointing out the role played by specially commissioned Jesuit priest-craftsmen in the court of the 17th century Kangzi rulers. If you thought a snuff bottle was, well, just any old bottle, this collection disabuses you promptly.
The Indians of Singapore celebrate Deepavali, the Festival of the Lights, with great relish, just as their counterparts in Malaysia do. The Asian Civilizations Museum has not passed on the significance of this and a current display of Indian lamps highlights yet more outstanding craftsmanship in the intricate metalwork of the subcontinent.
Forthcoming exhibitions at the fine old Armenian Street building include Calendars and Time in Asia, a tribute to some of the many time-keeping systems that the continent has generated. The seam that may be tapped here is indeed rich, the Javanese alone having several different calendrical systems by which their lives can be ordered.
For lovers of Chinese painting, the museum will soon be hosting a display of some of the finest. This and a range of other interesting views of the enormous contributions made to world civilization by Asian cultures promise to make the Asian Civilizations Museum a must for any history buff visiting Singapore. Tired of shopping plazas? Well, head for where the Armenians once lent their vigor to the old colonial city.