Geylang

Geylang is a neighbourhood in the city-state of Singapore east of the Central Area, Singapore's central business district. It is located to the east of the Singapore River, an area that locals have associated, from the days of Sir Stamford Raffles, as a Malay kampong opposite facing two islands Batin and Rokok (where the former National Stadium used to stand), reclaimed to make space for Singapore's first commercial airport opened in 1937. The airport control tower has been preserved that served, in its day, as an observation deck and is today used by the People's Association. The location of Old Airport Road bears witness to the fact that Geylang, under the British administration, was thought to be outside the limits of the city proper and, therefore, suitable for the siting of Singapore's first commercial airport. The hangars for repair for the light aircraft can still be seen today that have been slated by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) for redevelopment into commercial and shopping precincts linked by the nearby Kallang MRT station.

The development of Geylang through the next 50 years through to the contemporary era can best be observed along the main trunk road that leads eastward toward Paya Lebar (military) Airbase, in a straight line that terminates at Changi (International) airport. Micro-businesses founded by Malay, Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs seized start-up opportunities as mechanics in bicycle or motor repair workshops, suppliers of wood for making boats, houses, furniture and as merchants in iron, of floor and roofing tiles, in rubber and later plastics for all kinds of marine, industrial, factory and home use, including the mosaic of temples, mosques and churches in Geylang that have its roots serving local worshippers in search of spirituality and the divine.

One of the distinctive hallmarks of Geylang architecture is the preservation of its shophouses used by the clan (kinship) associations, set up as a (first) point of contact for newcomers in the migrant wave between 1840 and 1940 for the purpose of integrating the newcomers into the ways and customs of locals. At present the Geylang neighborhood accurately reflects demographic changes in Singapore (2011) where out of every four Singaporeans, one is a foreigner (Goh, Mar, 2011 paper on PRC Immigrants', Social Work Dept, National University of Singapore).

As a strategic and military outpost for the British, the sea lanes off the Straits of Malacca were important to be kept free from pirates and open for shipping. As the British expanded in influence and power, so Singapore stood in the gap between East and West interests as a natural deep-harbour destination that played host to the French, Portuguese, Dutch and other European navies and their men. Other seaports in Asia, from Shanghai to Calcutta, also played a role in the traffic of women and girls for prostitution.

James Francis Warren has studied the death (coroner's) reports in that colonial era that attest to the lives of the Hokkien, Teochew and Hakka and other dialect groups cast out of the Chinese mainland due to famine and abject poverty. His research tells the story of illiterate Chinese migrants working as coolies and rickshaw pullers and gives an accurate description of what life might have been for the poorest of the poor living in Singapore under the British and immediately before the Japanese Occupation.

In his 2008 edition of Pirates, Prostitutes & Pullers, the author traces the roots of prostitution in Singapore and gives an explanation of the eastward shift of Singapore's red-light district from Chinatown that was east of the Singapore river, toward the Hylam Street– Beach Road locality where many Chinese, Japanese and European girls were pimped, and finally across the Kallang river to its present location. Warren's research gives an accurate ethno-social background to prostitution of the young men and women who came to Singapore a hundred years ago, having little or no education, who could not converse, read or write in English and resorted by any and all means to survive the ravages of war, hunger and privation back in the country of origin.

After the war, the heart of the city centre expanded rapidly outward with residential shophouses, hotels and restaurants making their mark on the history of this area including the Gay World amusement park situated just outside the main gate of the old Kallang airport. Remnants of this pre-war history survive to this day that can be seen in the stereotypical Singapore shophouses along and just off the main Geylang thoroughfare. It is in this context of the Asian settlers that stumbled off boats and sampans into mosques, temples and churches to give thanks for journey mercies, that the history of Geylang's red-light district must be read and understood.

Peter Neville, British author of The Rose of Singapore (Monsoon, 2006) writes a novel of Lai Meng, a once famous prostitute in the Geylang area, that falls in love with an R.A.F. serviceman and through marriage crosses over and out of the street communities that were off-limits to the British troops stationed in Singapore during the second world war. The detailed account of life in Geylang during and immediately after the war, the visits to Haw Par Villa, the types of food and services available among the main truck road toward Changi and all of its varied businesses (including the sex trade) stands at back of the reasons why prostitution, while officially illegal and outlawed in the Singapore constitution, is nevertheless seen as an accessible, public expedient and necessarily so in view of the large numbers of single male foreign workers and expatriates on the island.