Singapore
A muticultural scene in the city. ExpatSingapore.com
Jul 1, 2004
Silverchime
I just
thought I'd like to share an interesting slice of Singapore
and her people.
Here is the Sri Krishnan Hindu Temple built just next door
to the Goddess of Mercy Chinese temple.
According
to the tourist plaques, they were first built humbly in
the late 19th century with the Indian temple starting as
a simple shrine under a tree.
For
over 100 years, Indians and the Chinese have worshipped
alongside each other and both temples have clearly expanded
a great deal.
Today,
this is the result.
A steady
stream of Chinese worshippers come over to the Indian temple
from the Chinese temple and offer joss sticks and incense
to Hindu gods. There are so many of them that an offerings
table had been set up just in front of the Indian temple.
A Hindu
attendant is at hand to take care of the offerings.
On the
table, there is a donation box where the proceeds went to
a children's charity at the time I took this picture. There
is also a Chinese-style lion head incense pot on the table
for the Chinese worshippers to put their joss sticks.
What
do Hindu worshippers make of all this? I took this picture
of an Indian Hindu actually joining the Chinese outside
in using joss sticks to pray.
Clearly,
the Chinese worshippers had no qualms praying to Hindu gods,
even if they are not Hindus. The Indian Hindus had no qualms
worshipping Chinese style with joss sticks and incense and
both were very comfortable praying next to each other.
It was
obvious that nobody told these people they had to do this
and it happened spontaneously. These were ordinary Singaporeans,
not overseas highly educated types. There were no guards
around either and no trouble was expected at all.
It was
fascinating to watch, considering that all over the world
people were fighting because of religious and/or racial
differences.
I thought
it said a great deal about multiculturalism in Singapore,
how the different ethnic groups are encouraged to keep their
culture, language and customs while at the same time be
totally accepting of others.
Other
comments:
Christabel
Whinge all you want about Singapore, but honestly, this
is one of the good things about this country that people
tend to take for granted.
Admittedly
there may be rumblings of unhappiness over racism between
the resident population and even with the expatriate population,
but there will alway be such (mis)perceptions in any society
where people of so many different colours and religions
interact on a daily basis.
The
sight of Chinese temples next to churches, next to Hindu
temples, or just down the street from a mosque.... the sight
of worshippers entering their own temples to pray to their
gods and emerging peacefully to have a kopi at the nearby
coffeeshop after... is actually so common and unremarkable
to a typical Singaporean, who may not truly appreciate that
this seemingly effortless and natural co-existence between
religions is elusive to so many other people around the
world, where religion has become a rallying shield behind
which people spread their war mongering cries and begin
to treat their fellow human beings as the Despicable Other.
Thanks
Silverchime
Hi silverchime, thought I would quickly post a thank you
for posting something positive. I'm sure it's going to only
be a few minutes till this thread is filled once more with
a million and one comments about how much singapore sucks,
singaporeans suck, expats are the answer to singapore's
problems etc, etc
So thank you for noticing something positive. Just wanted
to chip in something positive too. Was at kent ridge park
yesterday and that's a really pretty park. there's a lot
of great things/people to be found in this little island.
taichi
it's also heartwarming to see indian aunties or malay makciks
in their tudungs doing tai-chi with the chinese folks in
the park in the mornings conducted for free by a chinese
man .....
buk
teeth
I think the phrase is 'mutton dressed up as lamb'. That
is the best way to describe multicultrualism in Singapore
ExpatSingapore
