History
The park, originally called "Tiger Balm Gardens", was built in 1937 by brothers Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par, the developers of Tiger Balm, as a venue for teaching traditional Chinese values. The site was purchased by Aw in 1935. The brothers are originally from Burma (Myanmar) and they were famed as the Tiger Balm Kings from Rangoon (Yangon), the former capital of present day Myanmar. The Aw brothers moved their business to Singapore in 1926 and achieved great heights. While expanding their business empire was important, Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par firmly believed that one should contribute to society. In 1988, the Singapore Tourism Board took over the running of the Tiger Balm Gardens and renamed it as Haw Par Villa Dragon World. The statues were restored while retaining the original flavour. Plays, acrobatic displays and puppet shows were also organised. However, visitors were charged entrance fees. The high fees discouraged the public and the management incurred a loss of S$31.5 million after 10 years of management. The gardens made money for the first year of operations after renovations in 1994, broke even in 1995 but lost money for the next 3 years and was forced to have free entry in 1998. In March 2001, the Singapore Tourism Board renamed it Tiger Balm Gardens and entrance fees dropped. Currently admission to the park is free every day from 0900h to 1900h.
Read more about this topic: Haw Par Villa
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Look through the whole history of countries professing the Romish religion, and you will uniformly find the leaven of this besetting and accursed principle of action—that the end will sanction any means.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)