Singapore is home to many expatriate communities, one of the oldest (as in longest-staying in Singapore) being the Japanese community. In a recent copy of J-Plus, the magazine for the expatriate community in Japan, kinkonkid discovers the Little Japan of Pre-war Singapore.
kinkonkid writes:
You have Chinatown, Little India, and well where Little Tokyo is – you may ask – considering the profusion of Japanese restaurants in Singapore lately?
If there is such a place – it was perhaps in Cuppage Center then in the 1970’s and 80′s, and now at Mohd Sultan Road, with a concentration of Japanese restaurants, izakaya – 居酒屋 – traditional drinking joints, karaoke lounge, and where the Japanese expatriate would gather.
Well, pre-War Singapore certainly had one – an authentic Little Tokyo – that spread over a much bigger area.
The area in question is Middle Road which was known to the Japanese in the pre-war days as Chuo-dori or The Central Thoroughfare. If you can read Japanese, you might want to pick up a copy of the 5 August edition of J-Plus and find out the buildings in the Middle Road area associated with the Japanese before World War II. For the rest of us Anglophiles, you can read kinkonkid’s excellent summary here.
2 Responses
is that Singapore? unbelievable
Posted on September 10th, 2010 at 5:34 pm
is that Singapore? unbelievable
Posted on December 21st, 2010 at 3:35 pm
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