Murals

While having a walk in Chinatown recently, I came across these murals. I believe murals in Singapore are quite a recent thing. I don’t remember seeing them so often before. They are a good idea because murals brighten up the place making the place more interesting. Sometimes, where space is possible, the authorities installed sculptures too. Apart from that they also install signboards telling the history and/or story of the murals and the place.

Here are some murals which caught my attention.

Shophouses in Chinatown. The ground floor is the shop and the storey above is the residence. Sometimes, hawkers set up stalls outside the shophouses. In the mural, you see a woman lowering a basket. Sometimes, when they do not bother to come down from their residence, they would just shout out to the hawker, and they use the basket to deliver the goods and payment.

A hawker hawking his wares of toy swords, and masks on his tricycle.

A street opera. During festivals, there is usually a stage set up for opera performances. As kids, this is what we look forward to. Although we don't really understand what was going on on the stage, we still get the gist of the story from the acting and actions. Unfortunately, this is a dying art. There are very few opera troops left now.

People watching the street opera, also known as Chinese Wayang. When and where there is street opera performances, there are hawkers selling sweets. And there is always the ice-cream man.

Two samsui women waiting for their transport to pick them up for work. Samsui woman are woman from China who came to Singapore to work at the construction sites. There are no more samsui women now.

This is a present scene. A mural on the side street showing people queuing up to buy drinks from a coffee shop.

This looks like an unfinished piece of mural.

This is in the train station. The scene shows Singapore during the pre-colonial times to the colonial times.