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SINGAPORE'S DISAPPEARING TEMPLES AND THE DECLINE AND APPARENT DEMISE OF A POPULAR RELIGION CULT
KEITH STEVENS
I first passed through Singapore in the mid-1940s and scarcely noticed Chinese temples even though, as I later discovered, they were everywhere. Then, during my first comparatively lengthy stay on the island in the early 1960s, during a carefully planned tour of each of the squares on the Street Guide, I found that there was hardly an area without at least one and often two or three, ranging from small single hall temples to the largest multi-hall and airy Buddhist temples. The majority were popular religion shrines and temples, relatively small and certainly far removed from the comparatively spotless cleanliness of the Buddhist temples. However, the atmosphere and the friendliness of the devotees more than made up for it.
If we look back at dynastic China there has been a rigid continuity of tradition in temples and temple life and even today we can be in the present and yet in temples in communion with the past. Nothing changed over the ages despite temple contents being comparatively flimsy. Roofs remain the same, vermilion pillars have kept their colour and shape, images have varied little apart from the liberal use today of bright chemical paints and monks wear the same garb. Unlike the edifices of Ancient Egypt, Babylon and Sumer, built to last forever, temple contents and structures have remained century after century being rebuilt as and when necessary and are still in use, though often in mainland China the images are in a parlous state and covered in dust.
Each of the popular religion temples in Singapore had some unique aspect, something which rewarded my diligence. This might not necessarily be part of worship. It could be the tales told about the deities, or the origin and development of the temple. At that time I was primarily interested in identifying the deities and sorting them into categories. It took some time to find the most convenient way to record the information I was collecting. Eventually it began to fall into place and, of course, the more I discovered the more questions I raised, and so it went on,