Chinatown

Chinatown during the Chinese New Year celebrations is an amazing place to be. The bustle of people is constant and the sounds and smells are unique. It is also very different from the rest of Singapore, and all you need to do is walk a few blocks any direction to find this out.

In Singapore, Chinatown is not just a single street that has been blocked to traffic, like it is in Brisbane. It's a region of five or six streets, some of which are permanently blocked to traffic. However, just because they are blocked to traffic doesn't stop some really intent people trying with cars and, more often, precariously packed motorcycles or scooters, inching through the throngs of people who give no purchase to the vehicles. I have seen a car get caught in a sea of people unable to move forward or backward. They just sat there looking out like fish in a fishbowl, unable even to open the doors.

Pagoda Street, Chinatown, Singapore

The stalls start to get set up at about 8am and remain active until late into the evening. I was heading to bed around 11pm and they were still going strong. These stalls are only a few meters across, but some are extensions of shops that provide a real depth to them. Others are just a few square meters of packed wares, including tailors, clothes, tourist bits (like shirts, hangings, gems, and trinkets), food, drink, delicacies (like pork, mushrooms, peanuts, jellies, and fruit), stone stamps, tattoos, and many other strange things. I was expecting to see a little wooden box with a mogwai in it, but no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find one... yet. I get some strange looks when I ask, but how could you not?

When I first got here, I was shuffling along with the other lines of westerners, taking photos and stopping at each offering of free wares, trying the delicacies cut open and shoved into your hands. After a few days, even I started to get pissed off with these damned tourists who just stopped in the middle of the street to eat something or take a photo of something utterly ridiculous. Now, I am able to slice through the crowds like a local, angling my shoulders to indicate my next sudden direction change, dodging the slow tourists and receiving grunts of acknowledgement from the locals because I am tall enough to see the traffic snarls ahead. I don't even respond when live animals are shoved in my face with serving suggestions, terrified eyes clearly understanding their fate. Initially, I actually said "No, thank you". In the interim, I waved them away, but now, seasoned as I am, I ignore them unless I am looking for something specific to eat.

Year of the Snake, Chinatown, Singapore

A friend took me out to try some of the local delicacies, which I really recommend, including the char kway teo and chili crab. This was the best meal I have had in Chinatown. The two of us went to five or six different places bargaining for 2 crabs for SGD $28 total plus a long neck beer for SGD $5. He disappeared off to find a hawker stall to grab a chicken and mushroom char kway teow version that had noodles and sprouts, being careful to order the mild spice for my benefit. It could have been hotter, but the black bean crab was even hotter than the chili crab. The crab, initially protesting with its eye stalks at that Buddhist part of me, was cooked to perfection and by the end of the feast, I was covered in crab and juices. The 660ml beer washed it all down nicely. Who said auditors are boring?

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum

As a side note, I had a fellow backpacker who was a vegetarian and he found very little in Chinatown for him to eat outside the fruit vendors. Be warned, if you are a vegetarian, you will have more luck in Little India than in Chinatown.

When it comes to the clothes, I was very impressed. I am planning on picking a few pieces up and replacing some of my silly heavy Western clothes, especially the pants. I was warned not to wear jeans, but I brought some to use on the motorcycle and at high altitudes, but they are sweat collectors in Singapore. There are some amazing wares on sale, although I found a beautiful red and black silk tai chi shirt that I really wanted. It stopped me in my tracks while I was walking and the elderly Chinese man ushered me into the store, but would not sell it to me. He showed me another three or four that were not as good, some not even silk, and the one he really recommended was a black and pink number. I gave him a look that he read very well and he tossed it back into the shop, but would still not relent on the gorgeous creation out the front. I have tried him daily for the last week, but he remains unconvinced I am the right person for it.

The Tai Chi jacket that got away

And it would not be Chinese New Year without a dragon dance.