The Darker Side

The Darker Side


Singapore at night has well lit and safe streets. It is very much a modern metropolis with a skyline glittering with the lights of skyscrapers and towering office blocks. When night comes the streets are packed with merry makers looking for food, drinks and shopping. Even past midnight you would find workers like money dealers either going home or turning up for work. .It is as the saying goes a 24-7 city.





However, in the fifties it was a very different experience for many parts of Singapore. In the old town, the streets were dimly lit, pools of darkness encroaching on the street lamps struggling vainly to provide light. Occasionally, a door would be open and muggy yellow light spilled out onto the pavement hardly reaching the road. The houses would usually be lit with low wattage bulbs giving off a faint yellow glow.

For a short period of time, usually before 9 in the night there would be hawkers with their pushcarts or baskets strung on bamboo poles. Hissing kerosene lamps accompany their slow journey down the road as they beat out a monotonous "tok. tok" on two bamboo sticks to announce their wares. However, by the time it was past 9 the streets would be empty with only the occasional straggler making his or her way home. It was usually taken for granted that these night birds were engaged in less than salubrious business.

In addition there would be the incense sticks and candles burning along the road. Given the high density of population cramped into the old town, deaths were common. On the seventh day after the funeral, relative or friends would light joss sticks and candles and burn incense papers to the departed who would be returning for a "final" visit. Usually these incense and candles would be lit just before midnight. The whole atmosphere was mysteriously dense as if more than human beings were present. The darker side In those day literally meant that - it was dark, very dark at night.





The night belonged to those who walked a different path. This had nothing to do with ghost stories or superstitions. It was accepted that different inhabitants walk the streets at night. Woe betide the person who returning late at night bumped into one of these. The consequence would be a kind of "illness", a loss of self because of the fright. So once, you closed the door it would not be open till daybreak. A visitor at night usually mean bad or unwelcome news.