Common Space in Chinatown

Common space in Chinatown: (Pagoda Street, Smith Street, Temple Street)  

-Coffee shops

-People's Park Shopping Centre

-Chinatown Complex

-Chess area 
-Events

These are some areas where people from different races, background and ideas interact with each other. Everyone in Singapore are free to go to these places. Events like singing competition and dancing practices are organised. Banners attract people and they gather to watch performances. The chess area in the bottom picture shown also facilitates interaction among people, mostly old folks. 


These interactions are important as the people will recognise themselves as members of the community, compromise with one another as well as create a common identity among themselves in Chinatown, cultivating a sense of belonging. 


Having temples for different faiths built in Chinatown like the Sri Mariamman Temple for the Indians, Al-Abrar Mosque for the Malays and Thian Hock Keng Temple for the Chinese, it allows the interaction between different races and religion. This peaceful co-existence of the different places of worship in the same area reflects our racial and religious harmony. This is especially important we are a multi-cultural society. Co-existing harmoniously prevents race riots and racial tensions. 


However, though this common space aims to create a common identity, it is diluting the orginal identity of Chinatown as more and more people that are not Chinese are gathering there. Moreover, those people who prefer old chinatown much more than the new chinatown (mostly middle-aged to elderly Chinese) would not have a sense of rootedness to the place. This defeats the purpose of having common space.