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Malay Heritage Center

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marseilles
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Malay Heritage Centre

  • July 1, 2008
  • Rated 4 of 5 by marseilles from Metro Manila, Philippines
Malay Heritage Centre

The Malay Heritage Centre is a small museum dedicated to Malay culture in the old Muslim Malay neighborhood of Kampong Glam.

Singapore used to be part of the Malaysian federation before it became independent in the 1960s. Malays continue to comprise Singapore's second-largest ethnic group (next to the dominant Chinese), and even though the language of business, commerce and law is English, Malay is still considered the national language on paper. (The national anthem of Singapore is in Malay.)

The Malay Heritage Center was my last stop in Kampong Glam. There was an exhibit about the Malay people in general, including their traditional culture and art forms. What I personally found interesting, however, was the small section about kampong life.

See, I used to live in Singapore, and this was first visit back in 20 years. When I first arrived, I'd been shocked at all the changes and the Westernization of Singapore's city streets.

Reading the blurb for the exhibit on kampong life, I began to sense that other people in Singapore felt the same way I did. Many decades ago, most of the ethnic Malays in Singapore lived in "kampongs," traditional villages comprised of wooden huts on stilts, similar to the rural villages you can still find in other parts of Southeast Asia. Walking through the exhibit, my mind flashed back to the sight of kampongs that I could still remember from my childhood. Even then there weren't many kampongs left--the ones I saw were probably the last ones--but they were there, part of the Singaporean landscape. In the 1980s, the government mandated the relocation of almost all Singaporeans into public flats, something which, arguably, was a good thing, since it democratized housing, provided cheap quality housing for everyone, and helped alleviate Singapore's problem of lack of land space. And yet ... I could understand why the blurb at the exhibit lamented how this had eroded the "kampong culture" of the Malays.

After two days in Singapore, the Malay Heritage Center was the first place in Singapore where I felt any attempt to clearly assert a self-formed identity: "I don't necessarily have to repeat the government propaganda on what 'Singaporean identity' is; rather, this is what being Singaporean means for me." I was impressed. For the first time, I was seeing a sense of pride not only in one's government but also in one's people.

And of course ... I wondered ... and so before I left, I asked .... "Is this museum government-run?" I asked the receptionist.

She hemmed and hawed a bit. "Ummm, it's government-owned, but it's self-supported."

"Oh," I said, "is that typical of museums in Singapore? Are most museums self-supported?"

"No," she replied, "this is actually one of the few museums in the country that are self-supported."

Oh.

Ah.

"Why is that?" I asked.

She made a face, as if she was about to say something then decided against it. "I don't know," she said softly.

"Well, thank you so much for this," I said. "I really learned a lot."

It makes me wonder ... if the Singaporean government hadn't required its Malay community to move out of kampongs and into public flats, how different would Singapore look like today ...?

Tourists who aren't really interested in Singapore's history might not find the Malay Heritage Center very interesting, but if you are a history buff like myself, you may find this an educational way to spend a few hours.

Entrance: S$ 3 (adults)

From journal Culture and History in Singapore

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