Culture & Religion

Source A: A photo taken from History textbook

From Source A, I can tell that Chinese immigrants of the same clan before has strong relationship with one another. This can be seen from how "the huay kuan would give" the sinkeh "a place to stay, provide money and food, and help them look for job". The sinkeh only had the same surname as them. Despite that, the huay kuan members continued to donate money to help the sinkeh.

   Source B: A photo from History textbook

From Source B, I can tell that the Chinese had the most population in Singapore as they contained so many different dialect groups such as the Hokkiens, the Teochews, the Cantonese, the Hainanese and the Hakkas. These dialect groups all took part in different businesses such as "trade in tropical produce and foodstuffs" and they also "operated coffee shops and restaurants". This shows that they dominated most of Singapore's workforce before World War 2.  

Source C: A picture of Fuk Tak Chi temple (Chinese: 福德祠)

One of the first things Chinese immigrants did after setting foot on Singapore is to pay their respects to their deity and give thanks for protection and a safe journey. One example of a temple like that is the Fuk Tak Chi temple. It is now our Fuk Tak Chi museum. A temple like that was important for Chinese immigrants as people in the past were quite superstitious and they felt that if they were at a dead end, their god would help them overcome their problems. This gave them hope to not give up no matter how terrible their living conditions were.