It all started with this somewhat chinoi chic invite…

Haw Par Villa was where I found myself on Saturday evening. A place that once reigned supreme. A place that had been revamped a long while back. A place I thought had well and truly been abandoned, never to regain the glory of Tiger Balm Gardens of yesteryear.

Haw Par Villa was definitely the last place I would ever fathom to associate with a museum but Hua Song Museum looks set to bring a fresh lease of life to this mythical park.

Situated in the west end of Haw Par Villa, Hua Song Museum showcases the trials and tribulations of the Chinese diaspora.

For those of you who have lived overseas, having shops close during Christmas/New Year, complaining of the cold/heat, expensive and non-authentic Chinese food (like Singapore noodles?!), irregular public transport, these are probably the “sufferings” we had put up with. But for the early Chinese migrants, our grouses would have been blessings and nothing compared to the adversities they had to overcome to be the successful global community they are today.

Making the journey:

A picture of MM Lee’s home in China, in a village that is soon to be flooded. Note how all the other houses are facing the other way except for his which is in the opposite direction for feng shui reasons.

We travel by coach or plane, the early migrants had to go through “floating hell”…

Cue cutting. An imperial edict of the Qing Dynasty once decreed that those who cut their pigtails could not return to China:

(Yes, the familiar face is local thespian Lim Yu Beng)

Remember that SBC/TCS series Hong (2) Tou (2) Jin (1) or Samsui Women? Hua Song re-enacts the lives of these famous women in Chinese history:

Another famous female survivor was Hollywood actress Anna May Wong:

Nearby, a wall of traditional Chinese posters beckon…

A mannequin of a Chinese railroad worker stands at another corner. A reminder of the thousands of Chinese who helped build America’s railroads:

Other aspects of Chinese life included a real life fortune teller/palm reader:

And popular culture of the 1950s and 60s, complete with live miming cabaret girl and old skool photographer:

And what is a Chinese without his food?
In Hua Song Museum, there is a mock up of a traditional Chinese kitchen, complete with realistic chopper and snake:

In the Grand Food Hall, even more types of Chinese food are on display:

Some sort of olden day dispenser:

Ranging from a traditional rice husking machine, to the familiar longevity buns, to stomach-churning dried reptiles and even, erm…male animal appendages:

Yes, look closely and you can just about see the real snake coiled at the bottom of the bottle of wine:

And what better way to wrap up your tour of Hua Song Museum than to emerge from the Grand Food Hall into their very own restaurant in a museum? Right in the heart of Hua Song Museum is newest restaurant on the culinary block, Made In China Chinese Cuisine, an in-house restaurant that offers a one of its kind fine dining in a museum setting:

For that extra special occasion, there is even a private dining room in the “library”:

A perfect ending to a unique tour of a museum dedicated to the story of the overseas Chinese, tucked away in heritage-steeped Haw Par Villa, founded by Aw Boon Haw, an overseas Chinese himself.