Chinatown Heritage Centre

I spent a few hours at the Chinatown Heritage Centre, and it was such a rich experience. The place really shows what life was like for Chinese immigrants in Singapore decades ago. The rooms, the objects, and even the stories make you feel like you’re stepping back in time. It’s educational, but also moving, as you get a sense of the challenges and achievements of these people. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in history, culture, or just wanting to understand Singapore’s roots better. Definitely worth a visit :)

Yes, touristy, but a great place for people watching or souvenir shopping. For good affordable food, go outside of the shopping area. Plenty great restaurants and away from most tourism. BTW, the entire area is great, definitely need to explore. As you can see from my pictures in the sky, it’s actually a big neighborhood . Enjoy !

I love everything about the gallery. Carefully curated, each display tells detailed story about Chinatown in the olden days. The audio in every section of the display also makes you feel like you're thrown back to the time. I am genuinely happy when visiting the gallery. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Very good exhibition to show the olden times of Singapore. It also helps the audience to relate how difficult life were for thr early immigrants. Highly recommended local and tourists to visit. Can book tickets online in case peak hours.

During my visit to Chinatown Heritage Centre, I felt I was transported back in time to the 1950s. The recreated living spaces and exhibits vividly showcase the migration, settlement, and daily lives of early Chinese migrants in Singapore’s Chinatown. For young Singaporeans, it offers a deeper understanding of our our ancestors’ resilience and hard work, for example, exhibition of the Samsui women and Majie, whose dedication helped build the foundations of modern Singapore. For the older generation, it’s a nostalgic journey that rekindles memories of a simpler yet tougher life, reminding us how far the community has come while cherishing the warmth and spirit of the old Chinatown. For tourists, the Centre offers an authentic and immersive glimpse into Singapore’s early migrant experience, an opportunity to see how the city once was before i The Centre also organizes free public talks on traditional trades and crafts. One fascinating series, “Secrets Behind the Artisan,” features master artisans such as the Fire (Straw) Dragon Maker, whose intricate work is beautifully reimagined through the artistry of Japanese artist Tsuyumi Miwa.

First time visiting this Chinatown Heritage Centre. I am very impressed and want to compliment the guide - Swee Lin for her excellent hospitality of showing us around and explaining to us those people residing in Chinatown with nice showcase of the living environment once upon a time in Chinatown. Will recommend to my relatives and friends for a visit.

We did the tour as part of our California University of Long Beach study abroad program. As someone that not very familiar with Chinese culture our guide, Catherine was exceptional. I learned a lot and the struggle that the recently immigrated community struggled. As a Mexican I realized how much we have in common. I appreciate the Centre giving us a guided tour prior to opening.

Disclaimer: I did not take a tour — I had only stopped by to collect the stamp. Visited the Chinatown Heritage Centre on 14th Jan afternoon as part of the 2nd edition Explore Chinatown stamp trail. I was informed that they no longer provide the stamp, and unfortunately this was the only location (out of the 10 listed) where I couldn’t collect one. I was only able to take a photo of the stamp instead. Sharing this review purely to inform others who may be following the stamp trail, so they’re aware that stamps are no longer issued here.

Step back in time at Singapore's Chinatown Heritage Centre. Located in three restored shophouses on Pagoda Street, this was a nice place to start learning about Singapore's history. Cheyenne from Indie Singapore Tours used this Centre to start the discussion about Chinatown. Traders. Immigrants. Laborers. Why people left their homes in China for a better life escaping famine, floods and civil unrest. How much they were paid. Where they lived. Who made the trip successfully on the ships. Who succumbed to illness and died on the journey. How many men and women lived in a house. Interesting to learn about the Samsui women who wore trademark red head scarfs as they worked. They arrived in Singapore in the 1930s and worked in the construction industry. There were immigration limited on male immigrants, but no restrictions on women immigrants which allowed more women to immigrate to Singapore. It often took the women decades to pay off their debt to immigrate. The red headdress was worn as a way to prevent accidents and to carry their belongings. A great Centre to learn about the history of Singapore's Chinatown.

This is currently closed for renovation and will re-open in the second half of 2015. My review is based on my previous visits and I hope the place will be even better after the renovation. I love this place for its way of bringing history to life. I have been here several times as I will usually bring visitors here or recommended them to take a look if they have time. Chinatown is not a place I visited as a child so this place is a great resource in learning more about the lives of the early Chinese immigrants and also to know the layout of a typical shophouse in Chinatown. Most people will never get the chance to explore a shophouse and its nooks and crannies. I never realized how long a shophouse is and that there is an airwell in the middle for ventilation. Or how the many cubicles on the upper levels actually housed many families. A family of 4 or 6 or more would actually live in a cubicle. How they lived then I had no idea, with today's concept of personal space. Besides the living conditions and various Chinese cuisines the Chinese immigrants brought to old Singapore, I also learnt more about the traditional Chinese culture and the opium and gambling dens as well as the work they did. It was just a very educational place but done in such a way that it was not boring at all. I am looking forward to the re-opening next year.

We had some time to kill and I suggested that we should check out the Chinatown Heritage Centre, located near the hotel we were staying out. It turned out to be much more than I expected. I love the way the Centre utilizes the shophouse building to bring to life the stories of the Chinese immigrants who lived in these types of accommodations in the past. The thorough and engaging audio tour highlighted the struggles, hopes, and joy of everyday life. The second half of Chinatown Heritage Centre is designed more like a traditional museum with exhibits on relevant topics. I loved this section equally as much. Our visit enriched our understanding of Singapore's history and I highly recommend any visitor (or resident) of Singapore make the time to stop by.

Chinatown Heritage Centre is located right inside Chinatown. When I walked into the museum itself, I thought it is a store selling deco and keepsakes. I do like how the museum itself preserves and shows the tenants used to occupied the building including tailor, hawker, coolies, samsui women and people of different trades. There is also a restaurant, Singapore Heritage Restaurant on the premise if you want to try out famous Singapore dishes with a twist. Admission is $10. Great if you want to see how the life of early Chinese in Singapore were.

Well worth a visit. It's inexpensive and a cool way to get a feel for what things were like before Singapore turned in to an Asian megacity. The provided audio guide is nice, if not a little long (I was ready to move on from some items before it was done talking) and covers the first and second floors, which recreate a Chinatown shophouse. The third floor is much more dense, covering other portions of Chinatown history and nearby points of interest - supposedly the guide is being extended to cover the third floor, but that's going to take a lot of work. The museum staff was very helpful as well, recommending the nearest hawker center - "don't eat at street level, that's where tourists eat." Worth remembering.

One of the best museums I have visited in Singapore. It's very interesting, maybe because I'm of Chinese descent as well. Although I came from Indonesia and not Singapore, I could imagine that the living condition for the newly arrived immigrants from China was equally hard. Here you would be taken back to the time back in the early 1900s when the first waves of immigrants come from China and had to take hard labours and live in inhumane quarters as you would see in the museum. With the audio guide, it would feel like you relived the past as you walked through the exhibition in the museum. It's a must visit when you're in Chinatown.

Have not expected this place to be so great. Didn't look so interesting from the outside. But what a nice surprise. This place is definitely where you have to start exploring the China town. So interesting to see how people lived, actually be able to see how their homes looked like from inside. unforgettable experience.

This was an unexpectedly amazing experience. Very well done museum to bring alive history. Engaging and educational.

Omg I loved this place. I'm not sure when it opened, but I wish I had known about to sooner. So my mother was born and grew up in Singapore Chinatown in the 50s and 60s, which is the time period this museum covers. I had been to Chinatown a few times before, and my mom always pointed out the different shophouses where she had lived. Yeah the place looked dirty and rundown, but I really had no idea what things were really like until I visited this center. It's set up like a preserved shop house with an audio tour that describes the living quarters and the lives of the people who lived there (from what I can tell, the stories are about actual people and families who lived in Chinatown during this era). I have to say, this center really gives you a feel for how difficult life was and how little these people had. My mother had described to me living in a single room with her parents and four siblings and that they shared a house with different families. I always pictured a small studio apartment with a shared kitchen, kind of like a dorm. I was shocked to see the reality of the environment. There weren't rooms; there were cubicles that were offered privacy only by curtains and no doors. What immediately struck me was how small these cubicles were; about the size of my office at work right now (maybe around 8 ft x 8 ft). Imagine a family of 7 or 8 sharing this room along with all their possessions. The "beds" were hard wooden tables with straw mats on top. The shared kitchen was the size of my kitchen right now (which I think is too small) and had an outhouse toilet and shower at the back of it. Any by kitchen, I mean a narrow room with cement counters on either side where each family could place their portable stove (stove kind of a deceiving term now, since the stoves were basically stone cylinders that housed wood fires. It was really eye opening to me to understand how my mom actually lived and grew up. The audio tour also did an excellent job at explaining the history of Chinatown, where people came from and why, and how they ended up living in these unfathomably tiny and uncomfortable quarters. A very intimate and compelling portrait of history.