Little India Information Booklet - Methodist Girls' School
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Little India Information Booklet
MAP:
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction to Little India 3
Introduction to Little India Arcade 4
Tekka Market 5
Residence of Tan Teng Niah 7
Fun Facts 8
Bibliography [Credits] 11
For more information:
http://tinyurl.com/explorelittleindia
2
INTRODUCTION TO LITTLE
INDIA
Little India (Tamil: ) is located near Rochor Canal. It is
also commonly known as Tekka which is actually the name of the market in Little
India. The market was originally known as Kandang Kerbau (or just KK), Malay for
"buffalo pens", referring to the slaughterhouses operating in the area until the 1920s. In
Hokkien, the market was known as Tek Kia Kha, literally meaning "foot of the small
bamboos", as bamboo plants once grew on the banks of the Rochor Canal. This was adapted
into the popular name Tekka Pasar(笛卡巴刹), where pasar is Malay for "market".
Little India is not just for the Indians. You can see other races visiting Little India to
shop and eat. One of the best examples of multi-culturalism in Singapore is that many
Chinese parents in the early days used to go to the flour mills in Little India to grind
rice to make congee for their infants. The machinery was flown in from India to grind
spices into powder for use in Indian cuisine. As you will see on the trail, Little India
differs from many other neighbourhoods in Singapore in many ways.
Buffalo Road was one of the first roads in the Serangoon area, appearing on maps as
early as 1836. This road got its name as cattle were kept there. It was also named after
a village that once stood there. It was called ‘Kam Kong Ka La Bu’, a Chinese
pronunciation of the Malay name ‘Kampong Kerbau’, which means ‘where buffaloes
are kept’.
Apparently more than a dozen Tamil astrologers lived together in a house on Buffalo
Road which doubled as a fortune tellers’ centre. Apart from astrologers, various other
types of fortune tellers also operated there: palmists, numerologists and parrot-
astrologists. The parrot-astrologists trained parrots to select a card from a deck
containing various prophetic messages. They then went to various places offering their
services, especially during religious festivals.
3
LITTLE
INDIA
ARCADE
Little India Arcade’s cluster of shop house buildings date back to the 1920s. They are
home to a variety of renovated novelty shops and eateries. The buildings have been
carefully preserved to retain the essence of the Indian aestheticsof the past. The
winding alleys in the arcade are home to sweet shops, restaurants, and bookshops.
A prominent landmark in the Little India
district, it is a favourite haunt of tourists and
locals looking for the best Indian buys. It
not only sells silk saris, gold jewellery,
knick knacks, silverware, handicrafts,
souvenirs and other goodies from the Indian
subcontinent, but also electronics and
traditional Indian clothing.
The Little India Arcade is the place to go to
if you want to sample some of the
scrumptious Indian food offered, like curry served on a banana leaf. A
few of the Indian food stalls in the arcade are run by Chinese and
Malays!
Click on the subpage ‘Little India Arcade Cont’ and read
up on Indian Sweets!
4
JOTHI STORE & FLOWER
SHOP
Indian garlands are used in Indian weddings, to
symbolise a proposal of marriage. Consisting of
flowers and thread, the garland signifies happiness,
enthusiasm, excitement, aspiration, zeal and beauty,
while the thread secures and links all these feelings
and emotions together. Just as the thread never
leaves the flower, married couples take vows never
to leave each other, through the ups and downs in
life. The Indian flower garlands can be seen as the
true representation of a married couple sharing their
lives with mutual understanding, love, trust, respect, faith and passion!
TEKKA MARKET
Named after bamboo clumps known as “Tekka” in Hokkien, the market is one of the
main landmarks in Little India, where different ethnic communities come to shop.
Tekka Market is also a good place to buy traditional Indian attire or shop for
inexpensive casual clothes.
Stop and listen!
Do you hear the stall holders? Some Chinese shopkeepers speak fluent Tamil, while the Indian
shopkeepers may converse in Mandarin dialects! In order to make their customers more comfortable,
shop owners speak to customers in their preferred language!
5
The above mural is part of an
SG50 project to revamp and
decorate various hawker
centres all over Singapore, to
celebrate our nation’s Golden
Jubilee. The project is named
‘Our Hawker Centres - A
Heritage and Art Project’. Art
students of many different
races, from various schools,
gather to paint these wall
murals together, adding colours to the food centres.
The wall painting of fish, at Tekka Centre, is one of the masterpieces by the
LASALLE Art students!
6
RESIDENCE OF TAN TENG NIAH
The history of this building dates back to 1900, when Tan Teng Niah, one of the few
prominent Chinese businessmen in Little India, built it for his wife. This building is
one of the last surviving Chinese villas in Little India. Said to be a hybrid of Southern
Chinese and European architectural influences, the building won the Singapore
Institute of Architects Honourable Mention Award in 1991.
Not only can you experience Singapore’s Indian culture, you can also explore a
Chinese Villa in the same place - Little India.
7
FUN FACTS
Did you know?
Unlike Chinatown and Kampong Glam which were places set aside for the Chinese
and Malay community respectively, Little India was not planned as a designated area
for the Indian community.
Instead, the Indians were living in Upper Cross Street which was known as 'Kampong
of the Indians' by the Chinese, while the Malays referred to it as 'Kampong Susu'. The
Tamils called the street 'Pal Kampong' meaning 'Milk Kampong' because there were
many Indian milk vendors there. In the early days, the various ethnic groups coined
their own names for an area in their own languages.
89
10
BIBLIOGRAPHY [CREDITS]
1. Unknown Author (January 1995). Little India Historic District. Singapore: URA
Urban Redevelopment Authority
2. Johnny Chen (2012). Residence of Tan Teng Niah and Chinese Industries in Early
Little India. Retrieved from: http://www.ghettosingapore.com.
3. Silk & Stone: Unknown author (2014). About Henna. Retrieved from:
http://silknstone.com.
4. Unknown author (unknown date of publish). History of Indian Food. Retrieved from:
http://www.haldiramusa.com.
5. CITI SKETCHA (February 2015). Musings of a Citi Sketcha Chinese New Year in
Chinatown. Retrieved from: http://citi-sketcha.blogspot.sg.
6. Joanna Seow (April 2015). New Artwork for over 40 hawker centres before National
Day. Retrieved from: http://www.straitstimes.com.
7. Unknown author (n.d.). Little India. Retrieved from: http://www.yoursingapore.com.
8. Unknown author (unknown date of publish). Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple
Introduction. Retrieved from: http://www.yoursingapore.com.
This Little India Trail was put together by the students of Methodist Girls’
School, Class of 2018
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