Abstract

Amid Singapore's celebration of its semi-centennial, little trace is left in its post-industrialized cityscape of the vibrant night markets that dominated social life during the initial period of its independence. More than simply providing basic necessities to transplanted residents of the new housing estates, these ebullient open-air bazaars were important public spaces where families gathered to unwind after work. By the end of the 1970s, the second decade into Singapore's rapid economic growth, the itinerant hawkers that comprised them had vanished from the landscape of the island. Beginning around this same time, shopping malls, which epitomized Singapore's burgeoning image of First World prosperity, would be erected one after another along the 2-kilometre stretch of Orchard Road. At first, the assumption might be that the pasar malam or night market, with its seemingly rudimentary configuration, had existed in a primitive state of nature and innocence prior to the modernization of British Malaya. On the contrary, I would like to argue that the pasar malam formed an integral part of the process of modernization. It was a by-product of the extensive transformation of Singapore's spatial and social landscape, which marked the early stage of its national development. Furthermore, the chronological coincidence between the disappearance of night markets and the emergence of shopping malls could be seen as forming a genealogical relationship not simply in terms of commercial arrangement but also in terms of leisure practice. In this chapter, I examine the public culture of the 1960s to unearth how the pasar malam was perceived during its heyday. I suggest that this perception led to its elimination. Through the course of Singapore's robust development from a colonial entrepôt into a cosmopolitan hub, the pasar malam was effaced from its domain and replaced by the mall. According to this perception, night markets represent disorderly and recalcitrant realities whose forms of creativity and contingency have no place in a leading global city, which must compete in the world market to attract capital investment and expatriate professionals. These unmanageable forms of creativity and contingency have been superseded by neo-liberal ideals of ‘innovation’ and ‘buzz’.