Chinatown Heritage Centre: activities for locals and tourists

Chinatown Heritage Centre: activities for locals and tourists

To those who love museums that present the past in immersive, gritty experiences, the Chinatown Heritage Centre at Pagoda Street is hard to ignore.

In this centre, Old Chinatown’s migrants come back to life in a compact yet endlessly layered glimpse. It’s a taste of Old Singapore and the lives that contributed to what it is today.

This makes the centre a wonderful place to visit for both Singaporeans seeking weekend inspiration and tourists from abroad seeking a first-time-visit checklist item.

What makes the Chinatown Heritage Centre unique?

The Chinatown Heritage Centre is the only establishment on the island that recreates 1950s Chinatown homes and businesses in fine, painstaking detail. There’s a degree of immersion and accuracy here that you won’t find elsewhere!

Housed within three restored shophouses that span three floors, the centre frees artefacts from the usual museum glass cases behind which they hide.

Visitors are given a chance to get up close and personal with the exhibits to learn the stories behind them. They walk straight into the cramped cubicles and bustling shops that once made up life here.

And what can they do once inside, you ask? Well, below are some of the best activities when you’re in the place!

Relive the 1950s shophouse life

Step into each of the levels and you’ll discover the old world surrounding you. The Level 1 galleries alone give you so much to look at and interact with, holding the Tailor Shop and Living Cubicles.

Here, you can touch and see the tools of the 1950s tailor’s trade and some of the things he could have worked on. You’ll even see the tools the tenants used for everyday life, like the traditional pots and pans used in old-fashioned kitchens!

Discover the end of the migrant journey and its legacies

Move up to the next level and you can see the Street of the Dead, or an illustration of what happened when a migrant moved on to the next life.

The gallery even highlights some of the great heritage brands that you may have bought from before, but never realised were established by Chinatown’s migrants. It’s an incredible way to see how the migrants’ legacies have endured to our time.

Chart the journey the migrants experienced

The Level 3 galleries show the journey the migrants endured, from the time they left China to their arrival and establishment in Chinatown.

This gallery realises the truth of that journey in various exhibits. You can see the challenges the migrants faced, the problems they were surprised by, and the way their clans and groups supported each other.

View engaging multimedia and character encounters

Presentations and multimedia exhibits abound at the centre, showing you the many colourful characters who once occupied the location. The characters themselves sometimes step out in reenactments, narrating their own struggles in both English and Mandarin.

Those who want character tours should visit the centre on Fridays and Saturdays, in particular. A costumed storyteller is paired with groups, providing a fascinating look at what the people of the past may have been like or done.

Shop for souvenirs, snacks, and more

You can cap off your visit to the Chinatown Heritage Centre with a trip to their shop, which offers a variety of curios and souvenirs.

This retail space is found on Level 1 of the establishment and even allows you to create a complimentary souvenir with your own hands.

Alternatively, you can purchase one of the ready items, which include beautifully boxed parfums representing Singaporean culture. Consider items like the Peranakan Oud for adults or the Finding Qixi book for little ones, for example!