The burial ground, throughout the world, has for centuries been considered a sacred place. At the physical level, they provide the setting for laying loved ones to rest peacefully and for paying respects and remembering those who came before us. Throughout history, they can be seen as symbolic sites of power, memory, and identity. Lily Kong and Brenda Yeoh’s The Politics of Landscapes in Singapore: Constructions of ‘Nation’, however, has been a landmark publication analysing their competing role against the will of the ‘modernising state’.¹ Using this text as a foundation, this post aims to show that whilst one might expect such personal, spiritual and sacred spaces to contest modernisation and urbanisation, they have offered little resistance, especially in an Asian spatial context.

When studying the physical manifestations of Chinese burial practices and rituals, one is struck by the immensity of tradition, laws and its geomancy. The dead are considered to play an important role in family life, with Chinese custom believing them to have an important role in looking over their ‘earthly descendants’.² In accordance with feng shui, the Chinese burial space is carefully considered, planned and maintained.³ In China particularly, perhaps more so than in other places, they are sites of familial kinship and loyalty, of home comfort and spirituality and of personal exchange between the living and dead. As Kong and Yeoh have noted the importance of burial site configuration in ensuring ‘benign influences’ are drawn from earth and transmitted to descendants of the dead.⁴ Any interference with such a custom, would bring risk to the wellbeing of the deceased’s family. With these facts in mind, such sacred sites are widely considered to be immune from external influences and government intervention.

Yet, despite this, such Chinese sites and their stakeholders offered little resistance when modernisation and urbanisation efforts by the Singaporean government commenced in the second half of the 20^th century. Such sites, which occupied large areas of physical space, and which many considered to be focusses of disease, proved to be obstacles to expanding townscapes and cityscapes and land acquisition program. This was especially the case with specific regard to Singapore’s relative shortage of land to develop. Whilst some Chinese clans, the YFFK and SHHK sought a level of compensation for their burial grounds being disrupted or moved⁵, the Singaporean example shows these sacred spaces to have offered little challenge to the will of the state.

To move up the chain of abstraction, it is important to perhaps consider this phenomenon from an alternative, more critical perspective. Whilst Kong and Yeoh note that practices of cremation and the use of columbariums were promoted as a valid and useful alternative to traditional funerary sites, this lack of resistance may also have been a by-product of changing attitudes and perspectives amongst Chinese huangxi themselves. Whilst Kong and Yeoh cite several accounts that highlight the sentimentality in the very beauty, ‘finding’ and ‘activity’ of tending relative’s graves, there is evidence that communities throughout Asia felt less affinity to family and community and instead felt part of a larger, modern and cosmopolitan society. Su Lin Lewis’ Cities in Motion brings to light the rise of ‘globalisation in the public sphere’ and a growing sense of cosmopolitanism throughout Asia.⁶ Organisations such as the YMCA, YWCA and the Rotary helped foster feelings of community service and international consciousness across Asia. To provide a counter argument to Kong and Yeoh, perhaps communities felt less compelled to engage in the traditions of burial and with ancestral or clan connections and instead felt more kinship to the state.

If one critically unpacks the physical ritual of tending to the dead, such an activity often involves time, offerings and is a practice for entire families or communal groups. However, with modernisation comes displacement, geographical fragmentation and greater restrictions on time. Accompanying the building of new towns comes the relocation of communities and the foundation of new lives, ideas and identities. Affinity to home, albeit not lost, can become more ambiguous and obtruse. Whilst the ritual of visiting and supervising sacred spaces should not be underestimated in the spirituality and comfort it can bring to people, Kong and Yeoh’s analysis reveals the success the Singaporean example had in shaping the material landscape of columbariums to accommodate traditions and still offer meaning for loved one’s of the dead. Indeed, between in 1962, the Mount Vernon Crematorium was performing four cremations per week and by 1995 it was averaging 21 cremations per day.⁷  Niches could be selected and adjusted to suit the personal preferences of the family, providing an acceptable and more financially viable alternative.⁸

Whilst this blog has built upon and provided a critique of Kong and Yeoh’s article, further inquiry into the relationship between burial sites, national identity and the state would prove incredibly fruitful. In the contemporary world, disagreements still take place over burial and memorial sites. The removal of George Floyd’s memorial in Minneapolis in 2021 received much criticism with demonstrators protesting that it damaged the city’s collective memory of the incident.⁹ Such an example proves the power that such sites can have as symbols of resistance, community and identity. Burial grounds have the potential to be places of power, struggle and memory and will continue to provide a fascinating lens through which to study civil autonomy and the will of states.

1. Lily Kong and Brenda S. A. Yeoh, The Politics of Landscapes in Singapore: Constructions of ‘Nation’, (Syracuse, 2003) [↩]
2. Wilson, B. D., “Chinese Burial Customs in Hong Kong”, Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 1 (1960), p. 115 [↩]
3. Michael Paton, Five Classics of Fengshui: Chinese Spiritual Geography in Historical and Environmental Perspective, (2013) [↩]
4. Lily Kong and Brenda S. A. Yeoh, The Politics of Landscapes in Singapore: Constructions of ‘Nation’, (Syracuse, 2003), p. 53 [↩]
5. Kong and Yeoh, The Politics of Landscapes in Singapore, p. 65 [↩]
6. Su Lin Lewis, Cities in Motion, (Cambridge, 2016), p. 120 [↩]
7. Kong and Yeoh, The Politics of Landscapes in Singapore, p. 61 [↩]
8. Ibid, p. 72 [↩]
9. Deena Winter, ‘Minneapolis Removes Memorials and Barricades From ‘George Floyd Square’, (2021), https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/03/us/george-floyd-memorial-minneapolis.html [↩]

When examining city planning in the Southeast Asian colonial context, a commonly held view is that ethnic or racial categories formed the main division of residential areas, reinforcing residential patterns that mirrored ethnicity divisions in society. Historian, T.G. McGee describes the colonial city as a “mosaic of ethnic quarters” with this trend of separation between different ethnicities persisting until the 1960s[1]. Although the Raffles Town Plan was based upon the spatial layout of Singapore, it is a great example of how spaces were reserved for a separate and specific race and function: i.e., the “European Town”, “Arab quarters” and “Kampong” areas within the colonial city[2]. Before independence in Indonesia, the same historical quarter system existed.

Ethnic divisions in colonial times were made more visible through the legal classification between indigenous, foreign Orientals and Europeans. The law code that was developed in the mid 19^th century required strict categorisation of a citizen as: European, non-European (which included Chinese and indigenous) and Foreign Oriental, which developed as a category later in the period. However, as the categories of classification expanded, so did their flexibility; you could apply to move categories based on a number of factors including income and profession. For example: in 1899 Japanese residents successfully transferred from ‘foreign Orientals’ to the ‘European’ category. In essence, this development show us that although racial distinction was common within everyday colonial life, it was not stringent in the same way of the African colonies.

Dutch historian Freek Colombijn proposes the ‘From-race-to-class-segregation’ thesis which postulates that residential patterns were strongly influenced by changes in the social status system. After independence in Indonesia, and de-segregation of society, Colombijn argues the main factor determining residential patterns and their divisions was no longer ethnicity but income and economic status. His maintains that even before independence, ethnic groups lived in more mixed communities than given credit for. For example: in Subraya, indigenous people lived in neighbourhoods designated for Chinese and Arabs[3]. This was because traders chose to live in the same communities; it was their profession in common (i.e., Earthenware and brass workers) that brought them to live in the same neighbourhood. Therefore, he promotes the idea that racial segregation as the basis for residential patterns is over-emphasised within the historiography because of the evidence supporting the claim that professional specialisation had an influencing factor on a person’s motivation to live in a specific neighbourhood.

In this way, it can be said that living in a neighbourhood based on class and economic status, was a general continuation of the pattern of living in areas based on professional specialisation. People that worked in the same jobs, would generally earn the same wage and therefore form a class amongst themselves. After conducting several interviews with those living in independent Indonesia, the author found a recurrent theme to be that housing was found through social networks, especially through work colleagues, strengthening the argument that it was social class that dictated residential patterns in the later twentieth century.

A key problem with the theory is that the issues of race and social class are strongly related to one another. Within the colonial system, native Indonesians failed to receive the same level of education and would often need to begin working earlier in their lives to support their families. With no access to high paying jobs, and limited accessibility into white collar work, the colonial system effectively froze the social mobility of the country. Therefore, the ‘from-race-to-class’ thesis becomes less convincing because even after independence was granted, natives born, and non-European citizens were not trained to take up jobs that were higher paying.

To answer the question first set out, I agree with the author that the ‘from-race-to-class’ thesis is a convincing argument, to an extent. I think that it has been proven to a reasonable degree that there were normalised exceptions to the racial classifications in society, such as indigenous people living in Arab and Chinese quarters. Although the categories existed and intermixing casually was not the norm, the racial segregation was not as embedded in society as African colonies which makes it more realistic to think that people would choose to reside in neighbourhoods based on other factors such as profession and income. I believe that there are faults with the argument too; firstly, that it invites a pro-Dutch perspective within the context of Indonesian colonialism, which is problematic. Secondly, that it infers after Indonesia gained independence that social mobility would be fluid and that the obstacles put in place by the colonial government would be gone just because the government was. Although there was a white-collar workforce of Indonesians, these were men born into their privileged positions and challenges remained for indigenous people to become qualified and educated to apply for bureaucratic jobs. Nevertheless, this thesis’s greatest strength is the focus on the changing status and economic power of the emergent middle class. These were the families who began working in fortuitous industries (i.e., traders and workmen) which encouraged them to move to neighbourhoods with people which they worked.

[1] McGee, T.G, The Southeast Asian City; A social geography of primate cities of Southeast Asia. London, Bell.

[2] Plan of the Town of Singapore, Lieut Jackson, Survey Department Singapore, Survey Department Singapore (London, 1828).

[3]Colombijn, Under Construction: Race, Class and Segregation, p.85

In the autumn of 1933, some two thousand workers at the Shanghai Power Company went on strike over the dismissal of a number of employees over the previous four years. With such a large strike at a company vital for the daily life of Shanghai’s citizens, the prevailing opinion was that the company would give in to the strikers demands instead of risking power outages across the city. However, after about three months of striking, the workers returned to the company, defeated and in need of wages, which the company loaned out to them upon their arrival. Using newspaper articles, correspondence between trade unions, as well as reports from the Shanghai Municipal Police, this essay examines the reasons for the failure of the strike, as well as how the factors influencing the strike’s failure offer insight into the legal and social realities present in Shanghai in 1933.

There has been a growing list of works on Labour movements within early twentieth century Shanghai. While S.A. Smith’s work “Like Cattle and Horses: Nationalism and Labor in Shanghai, 1895-1927” focuses on the time period before this strike, the conclusions drawn by Smith are still present in 1933. While a national identity is recognised by Chinese workers, struggles for recognition are still present during industrial action, as seen by certain opinion pieces covering the SPC strike. Furthermore, a lack of unity within these disputes still hampers the effectiveness of strikes, as Chinese public opinion was split over their necessity, and other unions offered little more than respectful financial support for the strikers.

This essay found that the factor offered by most media observers as having caused the failure of the strike was the fact that the Shanghai Power Company was foreign owned, having its headquarters in America and not China. This allowed the company to listen less to the opinions of Shanghai’s Chinese citizens, who were broadly in favour of the strikers at the commencement of industrial action. In particular, “the obstinate attitude on the part of the Company” was seen as a key reason why a settlement was not quickly reached – something which would likely be different had the Company been based within Shanghai itself.

However, it should be noted that the weak national government, as well as the legal complexities within Shanghai undoubtedly made the task of the strikers much more difficult. Both the strikers and the Shanghai Power Company used legally questionable methods over the course, the former by intimidating workers wishing to return to the Company, the latter by employing thousands of strike breakers and sequestering Chinese workers within the power plant so they could avoid interacting with the strikers. Here the narratives created around the strike by newspapers played a vital role in harming the objectives of the strikers. The intimidation of workers by those on strike was emphasised, and used as proof that the Water and Electricity Union was being run by violent radical individuals, who were holding the rest of the workers hostage during the strike. As the union itself struggled to combat these characterisations, public sentiment quickly turned against the strikers, leaving them without the motivation or financial support necessary to continue their action.

Overall, this essay argues that the three broad reasons for the failure of the strikes – the international nature of the SPC, the lack of government adjudication of the strike, and media characterisations of the strikers, show how Shanghai’s political and social situation in 1933 limited the progress trade unions, particularly Chinese-based unions, could achieve. Such a confused legal space, with strong divisions surrounding ethnicity, allowed strike breakers to be employed within days of industrial action commencing, crippling the impact of such strikes. Furthermore, the fears present in Shanghai surrounding Communism made it easy for strikers to be presented as subverting the state, a characterisation which diminished their popularity. In Shanghai, a city socially and ethnically distrustful, as well as one so legally complicated, creating a labour movement that could remain united against foreign-owned companies was a difficult task, and one which the 4^th District Water and Electricity Workers’ Union were unable to achieve in the latter half of 1933.

‘It probably would be safe to bet that more people take pictures of cherry blossoms than any other subject in Japan – but of all the millions of pictures captured, only a small percentage capture the subtle beauty on film. ‘¹

The space which Cherry blossoms occupy is difficult to categorize because of its temporality.  Therefore, springtime in Japan has become a favourite time for tourists to visit the country and flock around cherry blossom trees in full bloom.  As a consequence of the cherry blossoms’ appeal to both tourists and the Japanese, many of the spaces which these trees occupy have become public spaces such as parks and pedestrian routes. Despite modernity taking over and urbanizing Japan, sacred parts of nature have ensured that modernity has had to be built around them, rather than over them. This is similar to the alun-alun in Malang, which is a large space occupied by the banyan tree. The alun-alun holds similarities because the sacredness of the banyan and the beauty of the cherry blossom ensuring that these spaces cannot be remodelled into a product of modernity. Not only that, but the act of cutting down these types of trees was and still is associated with superstition and uneasiness. Therefore, tourism and superstitions have aided in the progress of creating these green spaces into a social setting in which tourists or locals could benefit from.

However, much like the alun-alun in Malang, there is difficulty in defining what the spaces in which trees such as the Banyan and cherry blossom occupy are. The people who gather in these spaces are not there to primarily consume or socialize, but as a result of planting such trees, products of consumption and space for socializing are created. Therefore, defining such spaces becomes complicated due to the conflictive uses of the space. Without the cherry blossoms, these spaces become pathways, parks, and green spaces, but the temporality of the trees allows these spaces to transform into a place to consume, observe, socialize, and entertain.

Although the alun-alun is different in its purpose, the banyan tree aids in how spaces can be defined differently depending on how it is used. ‘The banyan tree, which was once considered sacred in the context of Javanese culture, was deprived of its aura as the crowd of modern-day tram passengers used it casually as a tram shelter.’ ² Therefore, what the banyan tree provides is a safe place for indigenous Javanese to step out of the exclusiveness that westernization has brought to society and seek sanctuary under the banyan trees in the alun-alun. Sacred attachments to nature allow spaces such as the alun-alun and those which cherry blossom trees occupy, to strengthen the cultural value which modernity has threatened.

‘However, if the indigenous people could not take part in the colonial social activities inside the buildings surrounding the alun-alun, they could at least defy the Western life-style.’³ Furthermore, this ability to escape into a space that functioned outside of westernization and modernity was aided by the banyan trees which allowed not only shelter but a connection to culture and history that was being overshadowed by a changing society. Although this is perhaps an environmental factor, the trees construct how a specific space can be used for social and leisure means.

‘In Hindostan, where it reaches the greatest perfection, a famous tree stood on the banks of the Nerbudda. It was said that formerly 7,000 men could find shelter beneath its shade.’⁴ 

The result of this has meant that urbanisation has had to be shaped in a way that accommodates trees such as the cherry blossom and Banyan because they are rooted into local culture and history. In cases such as the banyan, superstition has protected them because of the act of cutting it down being to risky. Therefore, enabling a unique space to be formed around them. However, in terms of the Cherry blossom, there are multiple factors which have enabled their survival, which are centred on culture and tourism.

1. Pacific Stars and Stripes, Cherry Blossoms expected to lure millions to Parks (Tokyo, 1961) p.7. [↩]
2. Purnawan Basundoro, The Two alun-alun of Malang (Brill, 2015) p.282 [↩]
3. Ibid, p.281 [↩]
4. Scientific American, The Banyan Tree (1890) p.215 [↩]

The life of a gangster is never simple or pleasant. Not least the life of the ‘Godfather’ of Shanghai, a city crawling with endless opportunities for ambitious criminals. Du Yuesheng’s life of lawlessness was borne out of a troubled childhood, with the early loss of his parents and his sister being sold into slavery. From an early age, Du grew an appetite for gambling and gaming, an aspect of his personality that Martin claims, ‘instilled in him a certain self-discipline that curbed his natural outbursts of violent temper.’¹ This is likely a trait that aided his rise to leadership of the Green Gang, one of the world’s most infamous secret criminal organisations. This blog aims to consider the life of the gangster against the unique backdrop of extraterritoriality and Japanese occupation. Whilst his full story is worthy of a full and extensive biography (see Zhang Jungu and Xu Zhucheng’s accounts), this post will highlight his rise to prominence and maintenance thereof in the labyrinthine political environment and dark and murky spaces of Old Shanghai.

²

After a childhood of petty hooliganism, theft and mischief, he impressed the then ‘bigshot’ of the Green Gang, Huang Jinrong, whose power derived from his illustrious and efficient career as the leader of the Chinese detective squad in Shanghai’s French Concession. His ability to negotiate and extort from his network of informants and contacts was paramount to his power. Wakeman’s depiction of these detective squads highlights their inescapable association with the criminal underworld.³ Whilst supposedly ‘solving crimes’, they were also assisting their allies in trafficking opium, running brothels, casinos and protection rackets.⁴ Having impressed Huang, Du swore the oath of brotherhood to the Gang and quickly began to make his impression. Martin notes how his full embracing of secret society values  and rituals and ‘rags to riches’ story helped generate influence of ‘legendary proportions’.⁵Indeed, power over the Green Gang was his after Huang Jinrong’s arrest in 1924. It is extremely important to note this ‘reputation’, which, comparably to Chicago’s Al Capone won him political clout and influence in elite government circles. His dominance of the opium trade, which remained rife throughout the Nanjing Decade, drew him close to General Chiang Kai Shek, leader of the Republic. Images like the one below, have in many ways come to crystallise the social space of Shanghai as decadent, debauched and rife with vice. The narco-economy was seen as a vital source of income for the Republic, and it is characteristic that Du was put in charge of the ‘Shanghai Opium Suppression Bureau’, which ultimately gave the Green Gang a monopoly of the market and extra income from tax and license fees.⁶ Such a bureau indeed simply acted as a guise for the government to control and earn more revenue.

⁷

The spaces Du Yuesheng controlled and operated were spaces of shade and criminality and in a city like Shanghai this made him important to the invading Japanese force in 1937. By 1939, the Japanese had offered Du safe passage and protection to Shanghai (having fled after backing the Kuomintang Army), to mobilise the Green Gang and operate the opium trade on their behalf.⁸Perhaps in a move out of character, he turned down the opportunity, instead favouring to find his own ways of smuggling opium into Japanese territory. Why he did this is unclear, however it is likely he was still ideologically committed to Chiang and Dai Li and preferred to supply his narcotics to the Nationalists. This puzzling decision is perhaps representative of the complex network of relationships between gangs, their rivals, businesses, municipal councils and invading forces in Shanghai. Indeed, Du himself could not conquer all of Shanghai. The Shanghai Municipal Police were a constant foe in his battle to deal opium legally in the International Settlement.⁹

A key aspect of Du’s administration of power was his extensive network of secrets and his control over hierarchy. An example of this was his ‘Endurance Club’, which was a smaller collective of individuals with social standing considered useful to Du. Elites such as industrialists, financiers, police and government officials were all brought into a clandestine arrangement which Du administered personally.¹⁰The operation of such a club relied on the practice of secrecy. Sworn oaths, rackets and protection payments kept the Endurance Club running. One can imagine the teahouses and mansions such meetings Du would have held and the spatial practices that would have characterised them. A meeting with Big-Eared Du would have been intimidating and daunting. Those to displease him or speake out of turn would have been few and far between.

The remainder of Du’s story, outlined in detail by his biographers, is one of relative anti-climax. After the conclusion of Japanese occupation, he was not welcomed back to Shanghai, bringing an end to his premiership as the City’s mob boss. He appears to have travelled to Taiwan and Hong Kong, but much of this period remains unclear.

A fascinating spatial history of his houses and meeting places is waiting to be written. One suspects it may lack the glitz, glamour and romanticism of his American counterparts; however, his operation was remarkable and had a profound effect on Shanghai’s reputation as the Asian capital of vice.

1. Brian G. Martin, “The Shanghai Green Gang: Politics and Organized Crime, 1919–1937” (Berkeley, 1996) p. 41 [↩]
2. Du Yuesheng, c. 1930, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Yuesheng#/media/File:Du_Yuesheng2.jpg [↩]
3. Frederic Wakeman Jr., “Policing Modern Shanghai”, The China Quarterly, No. 115 (Sep. 1988), p. 415 [↩]
4. Zou Huilin, “Du, the godfather of Shanghai”, Shanghai Star, (June, 2001), Accessed 7 March 2023, https://web.archive.org/web/20070821130553/http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/star/2001/0607/cu18-2.html [↩]
5. Martin, “The Shanghai Green Gang”, p. 40 [↩]
6. Zheng Yangwen, “Shanghai Vice”, in The Social Life of Opium in China, (Cambridge, 2012), p.191, Frederic Wakeman Jr., The Shanghai Badlands: Wartime Terrorism and Urban Crime 1937-41, (Berkeley, 1996), p.11 [↩]
7. Opium Den,1932, https://audiovis.nac.gov.pl/obraz/236216/ecf2fad8b7dbbd753701f03be2bbef34/, [↩]
8. Wakeman Jr., The Shanghai Badlands, p.12 [↩]
9. Martin, “The Shanghai Green Gang”, p. 180 [↩]
10. Ibid, p. 181 [↩]

In 1949, Sir John Forsdyke, Director of the British Museum, lectured to the Royal Society of Arts on how ‘the most important educational service, common to all museums is the entertainment and instruction of children’’.¹ He explained how museums could feature two forms of popular entertainment; ‘music and the cinema’.² Forsdyke’s lecture reflected Gareth Knapman’s observation that during the 19^th century, museums were ‘as much about entertainment as research’³ , and the audience that museums attracted ‘was looking for entertainment’.⁴ I found this shift towards museums becoming spaces for popular entertainment instead of practices for solely academically important topics interesting, as this shift also occurs within Singapore’s Botanic Garden. This blog post focuses on how the development of the museum into a space of entertainment also occurs in Singapore’s Botanic Gardens. This is an important focus as it is a useful contribution towards my broader long essay idea that the Singapore Botanic Gardens was Singapore’s first museum. The Singapore Botanic Gardens strayed from its defined purpose of a space for ‘the scientific study of plants’ as it increasingly accommodated entertainment practices.⁵ The specific entertainment practices in the Singapore Botanic Garden that this blog post will examine are the Gardens’ weekly band performances.

The significance of band performances within the Singapore Botanic Gardens is immediately apparent through their mention in the first by-law published in the Official Guide to the Gardens, printed by the Singapore government in 1889.⁶

‘The Botanical Gardens shall be open to the public daily from sunrise to sunset, and, on nights when the Band plays, to 11 p.m.’⁷

This specific mention highlights the importance of entertainment to the Gardens because the by-laws represented the official rules of governance and conduct indicating that entertainment was a formally approved function of the Gardens. Furthermore, extending the opening hours from their regular timings illustrates the Garden purposely catering to the performances and their audiences, suggesting entertainment practices were not only approved but encouraged. The official guide served as the principal medium by which the government communicated to visitors how they wanted the gardens to be viewed and used. Thus, this reference to band performances within the first page publicised not only to officials but also to ordinary visitors that the bands, and other entertainment events, were an integral, standard, and unquestioned service of the Gardens despite their lack of relation to the Gardens’ traditional focus on scientific research. The performances were also a focus of the Garden’s Annual Reports, which featured a section for ‘concerts’.⁸ This section recorded the number of performances that year and other shows, such as ‘variety shows’ staged in the Gardens.⁹ This official practice of recording the entertainment practices further emphasises how the entertainment function of the Gardens was considered important because it was monitored in the same way and within the same medium as the Gardens’ scientific practices. This illustrates how similar to museums, the Singapore Botanic Gardens developed into a space that was ‘as much about entertainment as research’.

Alongside the band performances featuring in the Gardens’ official publications, multiple Singapore newspapers published articles on the performances and advertised when they would occur. For example, the Singapore Monitor included a column covering the time and specific band that would be performing that week in the Gardens.¹⁰The bands performed ‘every Sunday’, and the types of bands ranged from school bands, such as the ‘Bartley Secondary School Band’, to official police bands, such as the ‘National Police Cadet Corps Combo’.⁹ This inclusion of school bands demonstrates the Garden’s spatial practices again aligning with Forsdyke’s focus on museums entertaining children indicating how the themes within the development of museums’ spatial practices are also applicable to Singapore’s Botanic Gardens. Moreover, newspapers detailing the time and type of bands reveals how the public were interested in attending the Botanic Gardens for these events. This again suggests how not only in official discourses such as the by-laws and annual reports was the Garden considered a space for entertainment purposes, but within general society, the Garden was consistently advertised and considered as a space of entertainment.

Overall, the process of entertainment activities becoming an increasingly central spatial practice within museums also occurs in Singapore’s Botanic Garden. The Gardens hosted weekly music performances that it would stay open longer than usual for, and ‘concerts’ were tracked and monitored in official government reports on the Gardens. These characteristics reveal how, within official discourses, entertainment was considered a dominant spatial practice within the Gardens. Furthermore, national newspapers continuously informed the public of these performances highlighting how the Gardens were also becoming known in popular society through these entertainment practices signalling how entertainment became a critical service within a space, that similar to the museum, was traditionally confined to non-entertainment services. This similarity between the two spaces demonstrates a characteristic that indicates the Singapore Botanic Gardens should be considered Singapore’s first museum.

 

1. John Forsdyke, “The Functions of a National Museum,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 97 (1949): pp. 506-517, https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41363863, 513. [↩]
2. Ibid., 514. [↩]
3. Sarah Longair and John McAleer, Curating Empire (Manchester University Press, 2012), 91. [↩]
4. Ibid., 82. [↩]
5. John William Purseglove, “History and Functions of Botanic Gardens with Special Reference to Singapore,” Gardens’ Bulletin Singapore, 1959, pp. 125-154, 125. [↩]
6. Guide to the Botanical Gardens (Singapore: Government Printing Office, 1889). [↩]
7. Ibid., 1 [↩]
8. Annual Report of the Botanic Gardens Department (Singapore: Government Printer, 1950), 4. [↩]
9. Ibid. [↩] [↩]
10. “Miscellaneous Column,” Singapore Monitor, March 9, 1985, 18. [↩]
11. Singapore Listens, Malaya Tribune, November 29, 1948, 8. [↩]
12. Ibid [↩]

The unique political status of extra-territoriality meant the treaty-port city of Shanghai was split into three settlements which were each policed independently by four different police agencies: the Shanghai Municipal Police (SMP) for the International Settlement, the Concession Police for the Frenchtown and the Nationalist Garrison Command’s military police and the Chinese Special Municipality’s public safety bureau.¹ Isabella Jackson explores how policing within the SMP was shaped by the opinion that ‘all anticipated threats were Chinese’.² Police forces partly act to enforce social norms, and this is significant in colonial contexts when social norms were new and artificial.³ Thus, this post argues that the SMP’s heavy-handed tactics towards the ordinary Chinese population evidences an attempt to consolidate Britain’s unofficial influence within Shanghai through reproducing a colonial social hierarchy. The post will demonstrate this by examining the Sikh branch of the SMP. It will use a letter to the editor of the North-China Daily News concerning the behaviour of a Sikh constable towards a Chinese coolie, to evidence the everyday role of the SMP within the Settlement and the everyday low-level violence towards the Chinese population.

In 1892, the North China Herald published a letter from an ‘eyewitness’ addressed to the editor of the North-China Daily News. ((“The Sikh Police,” The North-China Herald, September 16, 1892, 416.)) It recounted the author witnessing a

‘Sikh constable on duty at the corners of Chekiang and Nanking Roads called to the ricsha coolie to stop, walked up to him, struck him with a full blow on the breast, turned him round, kicked him from behind, and then pointed to him to go on the Chekiang road.’ ((Ibid.))

Firstly, the letter evidences the routine police work of the SMP’s Sikh branch. All police have the principal priority of maintaining social order, and the Sikh branch, because of their intimidating physical stature, were tasked with bringing order to the heavy and disorganised traffic within Shanghai’s urban space.⁴ This spatial distribution of the Sikh constables resulted in them having a constant physical presence in all the busiest areas within the International Settlement. This was significant as they became the most visible and interacted with symbol of British presence in Shanghai.

Alongside the letter exemplifying Sikh constables’ traditional policing roles, the letter’s description of the constable’s violent actions supports Jackson’s observation that ‘Indian constables had a particular reputation for violence’.⁵ The author expands in their letter to write that they ‘have seen several instances of Sikh policemen maltreating natives’,⁶evidencing the significant tensions between the Chinese population and the Sikh police. However, unlike the letter suggests, the tension should not be only considered a result of the Sikhs’ nature, as Jackson noted the Sikhs ‘were encouraged [by the SMP] to employ corporal punishment against Chinese.’⁷This reinforces this post’s exploration of how the SMP had an aggressive attitude toward the Chinese populace; thus, it is unsurprising that their officers replicated this attitude. The SMP’s entrenched discrimination towards the Chinese reflects an attempt to replicate official colonial societies where local populations were subdued to create a social hierarchy to establish urban control. As Jackson explores, there was a ‘racist logic operating in Africa and India that force was required to prevent crime among colonial population’.⁸ Furthermore, the violence not only being shown by the Sikh branch but also the wider SMP emphasises how the British were attempting to create this social hierarchy and secure their uncertain presence. This is also implied by how the letter was sent by an ‘eyewitness’ suggesting the author wanted to hide their identity, implying unjust violence towards ordinary Chinese was not uncommon within the Settlement, and it may have even been frowned upon for a non-Chinese to find an issue with it.

Furthermore, the letter notes, ‘it is a disgrace to the Model Settlement to have Sikhs knocking people about as they do.’⁹This suggests how the eyewitness was concerned with the actions of the constable impacting the broader reputation of the Settlement. It illustrates how the police represented the public face for both the Settlement and the British empire, reinforcing how police were considered to embody and enforce the desired social norms of the governing nation. Thus, it is evident why even within the everyday roles of SMP’s officers, there was a significant focus on recreating a colonial hierarchy within society to achieve urban control.

Overall, the letter published in the NCH exemplifies Sikh police brutality towards a Chinese coolie. The violence, as the author indicates was not a unique event. This blog post’s examination of the letter, in conjunction with Jackson’s conclusions on policing in Shanghai, supports how violence towards ordinary Chinese was a common event. However, it more significantly helps to reveal how the violence towards the local population was not only confined to Sikh constables; the SMP encouraged and held an unofficial policy of active discrimination against the local population. This policy reflects a desire to create an illusion of colonialism by replicating the social hierarchy of official colonialism which helped achieve urban control.

1. Frederic Wakeman, “Policing Modern Shanghai,” The China Quarterly 115 (1988): pp. 408-440, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0305741000027508, 408. [↩]
2. Isabella Jackson, “Policing and Conflict in Shanghai,” in Shaping Modern Shanghai Colonialism in China’s Global City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 113-163, 114. [↩]
3. Robert A. Bickers and Christian Henriot, “Who Were the Shanghai Municipal Police, and Why Were They There? The British Recruits of 1919,” in New Frontiers: Imperialism’s New Communities in East Asia, 1842-1953 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), pp. 170-191, 173. [↩]
4. Isabella Jackson, “The Raj on Nanjing Road: Sikh Policemen in Treaty-Port Shanghai,” Modern Asian Studies 46, no. 6 (2012): pp. 1672-1704, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0026749x12000078, 1690. [↩]
5. Jackson, “Policing and Conflict”, 119. [↩]
6. “The Sikh Police,”NCH. [↩]
7. Jackson, “The Raj”, 1691. [↩]
8. Jackson, “Policing”, 114. [↩]
9. “The Sikh Police,” NCH. [↩]