Japanese Cemetery Park
Encyclopedia
The Japanese Cemetery Park (Kanji
: 日本人墓地公園; rōmaji: Nihonjin bochi kōen) is a cemetery and park in Hougang
, Singapore
. It is the largest Japan
ese cemetery in South East Asia at 29,359 square metres, consisting of 910 tombstones that contain the remains of members of the Japanese community in Singapore
, including young Japanese prostitutes, civilians, soldiers and convicted war criminals
executed at Changi Prison
in Singapore. It was gazetted (announced or published in an official journal or in a newspaper) as a memorial park by the Singapore Government in 1987.
to be used as a burial ground for young Japanese women who died in destitution. The British
Colonial Government officially granted permission for this use on 26 June 1891. Since then, it was used to bury Japanese
residents. During the Second World War, the cemetery was
used to bury civilians and soldiers who lost their lives in the battlefield or to illness. After the British repatriated all the Japanese in 1948, no Japanese were allowed back into Singapore or Malaya
for fear of their war past. The Singapore government took over ownership of the cemetery and left it disused. This policy towards the Japanese dead in Singapore remained until the Official Peace Treaty was signed with Japan in 1951. In November 1952, Ken Ninomiya, the first post-war Japanese Consul-General to Singapore was tasked to find out the fate of Japanese war remains in Singapore. Upon locating the remains, the aim was to repatriate the ashes of the dead.
However, the Japanese government eventually decided it would not remove the remains of the Japanese war dead to a separate cemetery nor would they repatriate the ashes. This was because the Japanese surrendered personnel had put so much effort to erect a memorial in the cemetery for their fallen comrades earlier and as such the memorial was a type of a shrine in itself as well as the fact that all ashes had been entombed in one single mound which made any form of identification impossible.
In 1969, the Singapore government handed back ownership of the cemetery to the re-formed Japanese Association which was now tasked with maintaining the cemetery. Burials continued until 1973 when the Singapore government passed an ordinance preventing the further expansion of the 42 cemeteries on the island.
) in 1818. In 1832, he was a sailor onboard the ship "Hojun-maru" which sail from Ise Bay
to Tokyo
. The ship drifted out of the sea at Toba in a storm. Otokichi managed to survive the disaster and was washed ashore at Cape Alava
on the West Coast of America
after one year and two months.
He eventually travelled around the world but the isolation policy of Japan at that time denied his return to his home country. Even after being rejected by his home country, he still stayed proud to be a Japanese and helped to promote the opening of the country.
He later became a successful trader. In 1862, Otokichi moved from Shanghai
and stayed in Singapore with his Malay wife to become the first Japanese resident here. He died at the age of 49 in 1867.
In February 2004, Mr. Leong Foke Meng of the Singapore Land Authority
(SLA) with the National Environment Agency
(NEA) helped to uncover facts confirming Otokichi's remains at the Choa Chu Kang
Government Cemeteries. On 27 November 2004, together with Mihama Town and the Japanese Association jointly initiated the exhumation of Otokichi's remains at the Choa Chu Kang Christian Cemetery. The remains were later cremated and ashes stored at the columbarium of the Japanese Cemetery. On 17 February 2005, a delegation of about 100 residents from Mihama Town visited Singapore and brought back to Japan a portion of Otokichi's ashes realising the home-coming of Otokichi's remains after 173 years.
took it upon themselves to commemorate their war dead. A group of them decided to clean up the cemetery and setting up Field Marshal Terauchi's tombstone in the eastern corner of the cemetery and three tombstones in the western corner of the cemetery with this inscription:
Their work remained undisturbed by the British authorities as they could not read the Japanese inscriptions on the memorials and were too busy rebuilding the city. Behind this memorial, the ashes of 10,000 Japanese war dead collected mainly from the destroyed Syonan Chureito (now known as Bukit Batok Memorial
) were put into a hole which was sealed with concrete. Terauchi's tombstone and three other distinctive memorials in the cemetery were completed by three Japanese prisoners in April 1947 by carpenter Kunio Higashituji, and stonemasons Tomokatsu Mizuya and Tokiyaki Tetsuka.
There is a small concrete pillar known as A memorial to the ashes of 135 martyrs, which marks the spot where the ashes of the 135 Japanese officers and men who were executed at Changi Prison are buried. A similar pillar on another corner of the west end marks the burial spot of the ashes of 79 Japanese who were executed in Malaysia.
was the son of Misatake Terauchi, the prime minister of Japan and a close relative of the Japanese Emperor
, Hirohito
. He attended the Japanese Military Academy and joined the Japanese Army after graduating the Academy in 1900. Terauchi spent time in Germany and worked as a lecturer at the Military Academy before taking command of the 5th Division and the Chief Of Staff of the Korean Army, and later as the head of the Formosa Army. In October 1935 he was promoted to full general and the Japanese War Minister in 1937. Terauchi was commander of North China Area Army before becoming Commander of Southern Army on 6 November 1941 - the Japanese equivalent to the British South East Asia Command - and devising strategies with Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto.
After leading the conquest of the Southern Area he established his headquarters in Singapore. Promoted to field marshal, he moved to the Philippines in May 1944. When this area came under threat he retreated to Saigon. After receiving bad news about Burma he suffered a stroke on 10 April 1945. Thus the Japanese Surrender in Singapore to Allied Supreme Commander Admiral Louis Mountbatten was represented by Lt-Gen. Itagaki Seishiro
, commander of 7th Area Army on 12 September 1945. After the formal surrender, he was flown to Singapore from Saigon to present his two samurai swords to Mountbatten, on learning that Mountbatten had expressed his wish to have the swords.
Terauchi was tried for his war crimes, and imprisoned in Johore, Malaysia pending war crimes investigations by the British, until his death in November 1945. His remains were cremated and some of his ashes are believed to be buried at the park. The inscription on his tombstone reads:
while waiting for repatriation after the Japanese surrender in World War II.
word for "Tiger") was a secret agent for the Japanese military who died in a hospital in Singapore. His life story has been depicted in novels and on film.
(1864—1909) was a famous author who first brought realism
to the Japanese novel. Fluent in Russian, he translated books written by realists like Ivan Turgenev
into Japanese while working as correspondent for Asahi Shimbun
in Russia
. On his way home, he took ill on a ship and died en route. The structure is not a tomb, but a memorial.
. The company is known for manufacturing and selling of stationery products.
s until World War II.
tree found in the park is designated as a Heritage Tree by the National Parks Board
(NParks). However, in Singapore climate it is unable to bear fruit. Another old 'resident' of the park, a rubber tree, is also a Heritage Tree, remaining from the time when the park was a rubber plantation.
The current tomb keeper is Lim Geok Qi who is the 2nd-generation tomb keeper and has been working for the Cemetery and the Japanese Association for the past 50 years. He was born in 1938, and lived most of his life in the Cemetery. His father found difficulty to find work when he first arrived in Singapore from China but soon recommended to a job as a tomb keeper at the Japanese Cemetery. Lim grew up in the cemetery assisting his father in the cremating bodies and arranging burials at the cemetery. When the young Lim came of age, he tried to seek other forms of employment but in 1960, his father fell sick, and requested him to take over his duties as tomb keeper. And so the young man in his 20s took over his father's duties to become the 2nd generation tomb keeper. Like his father, Lim was paid a minimal salary for the job, but given free accommodation and transportation. As he was thrifty in nature, he was able to start his own family, and expanded his living quarters when his family size grew. In 1973, new burials was not allowed, so Lim's main duties was to look after and maintain the Japanese cemetery, as well as serving as a cemetery guide for visitors from Japan.
Kanji
Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...
: 日本人墓地公園; rōmaji: Nihonjin bochi kōen) is a cemetery and park in Hougang
Hougang
Hougang is an urban planning area and a suburb in the north-eastern area of the city-state of Singapore. Under classification by the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the area is part of the North-East Region, an urban planning division. Hougang borders Sengkang in the north and Serangoon to its...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. It is the largest Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese cemetery in South East Asia at 29,359 square metres, consisting of 910 tombstones that contain the remains of members of the Japanese community in Singapore
Japanese expatriates in Singapore
There is a large community of Japanese expatriates in Singapore, consisting mostly of corporate employees and their families. The first Japanese person to settle in Singapore was Yamamoto Otokichi, who arrived in 1862...
, including young Japanese prostitutes, civilians, soldiers and convicted war criminals
Japanese war crimes
Japanese war crimes occurred during the period of Japanese imperialism, primarily during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. Some of the incidents have also been described as an Asian Holocaust and Japanese war atrocities...
executed at Changi Prison
Changi Prison
Changi Prison is a prison located in Changi in the eastern part of Singapore.-First prison and POW camp:...
in Singapore. It was gazetted (announced or published in an official journal or in a newspaper) as a memorial park by the Singapore Government in 1987.
History
A Japanese brothel owner, Tagajiro Fukaki, donated 7 acres (28,328 m²) of his rubber plantationto be used as a burial ground for young Japanese women who died in destitution. The British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Colonial Government officially granted permission for this use on 26 June 1891. Since then, it was used to bury Japanese
Japanese people
The are an ethnic group originating in the Japanese archipelago and are the predominant ethnic group of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 130 million people are of Japanese descent; of these, approximately 127 million are residents of Japan. People of Japanese ancestry who live in other countries...
residents. During the Second World War, the cemetery was
used to bury civilians and soldiers who lost their lives in the battlefield or to illness. After the British repatriated all the Japanese in 1948, no Japanese were allowed back into Singapore or Malaya
Federation of Malaya
The Federation of Malaya is the name given to a federation of 11 states that existed from 31 January 1948 until 16 September 1963. The Federation became independent on 31 August 1957...
for fear of their war past. The Singapore government took over ownership of the cemetery and left it disused. This policy towards the Japanese dead in Singapore remained until the Official Peace Treaty was signed with Japan in 1951. In November 1952, Ken Ninomiya, the first post-war Japanese Consul-General to Singapore was tasked to find out the fate of Japanese war remains in Singapore. Upon locating the remains, the aim was to repatriate the ashes of the dead.
However, the Japanese government eventually decided it would not remove the remains of the Japanese war dead to a separate cemetery nor would they repatriate the ashes. This was because the Japanese surrendered personnel had put so much effort to erect a memorial in the cemetery for their fallen comrades earlier and as such the memorial was a type of a shrine in itself as well as the fact that all ashes had been entombed in one single mound which made any form of identification impossible.
In 1969, the Singapore government handed back ownership of the cemetery to the re-formed Japanese Association which was now tasked with maintaining the cemetery. Burials continued until 1973 when the Singapore government passed an ordinance preventing the further expansion of the 42 cemeteries on the island.
Otokichi — First Japanese resident of Singapore
Yamamoto Otokichi, also known as "John Matthew Ottoson", was born in Onoura Village at Chita District of Owari (now Mihama Town of Aichi PrefectureAichi Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region. The region of Aichi is also known as the Tōkai region. The capital is Nagoya. It is the focus of the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area.- History :...
) in 1818. In 1832, he was a sailor onboard the ship "Hojun-maru" which sail from Ise Bay
Ise Bay
Ise Bay is a bay located at the mouth of the Kiso River between Mie and Aichi Prefectures in Japan. Ise Bay has an average depth of 19.5 metres and a maximum depth of 30 metres toward the centre. The mouth of the bay is 9 kilometres wide and is connected to the smaller Mikawa Bay by two channels:...
to Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
. The ship drifted out of the sea at Toba in a storm. Otokichi managed to survive the disaster and was washed ashore at Cape Alava
Cape Alava
Cape Alava, in Clallam County, Washington, U.S.A., is the westernmost point in the contiguous 48 states, with a longitude of . The westernmost point is located in Olympic National Park and the Ozette Indian Reservation...
on the West Coast of America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
after one year and two months.
He eventually travelled around the world but the isolation policy of Japan at that time denied his return to his home country. Even after being rejected by his home country, he still stayed proud to be a Japanese and helped to promote the opening of the country.
He later became a successful trader. In 1862, Otokichi moved from Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
and stayed in Singapore with his Malay wife to become the first Japanese resident here. He died at the age of 49 in 1867.
In February 2004, Mr. Leong Foke Meng of the Singapore Land Authority
Singapore Land Authority
The Singapore Land Authority is a statutory board under the Ministry of Law of the Singapore Government.-History:...
(SLA) with the National Environment Agency
National Environment Agency
National Environment Agency formed on 1 July 2002, is a statutory board under the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources in Singapore. As a statutory board, it gives NEA greater administrative autonomy to be more nimble in the protection of the environment...
(NEA) helped to uncover facts confirming Otokichi's remains at the Choa Chu Kang
Choa Chu Kang
Choa Chu Kang is a major residential town and neighbourhood and is a suburban area in the West Region of Singapore...
Government Cemeteries. On 27 November 2004, together with Mihama Town and the Japanese Association jointly initiated the exhumation of Otokichi's remains at the Choa Chu Kang Christian Cemetery. The remains were later cremated and ashes stored at the columbarium of the Japanese Cemetery. On 17 February 2005, a delegation of about 100 residents from Mihama Town visited Singapore and brought back to Japan a portion of Otokichi's ashes realising the home-coming of Otokichi's remains after 173 years.
Japanese War Memorials
Before their repatriation in 1947, the surrendered Japanese POWs who were used as manual labourers by the BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
took it upon themselves to commemorate their war dead. A group of them decided to clean up the cemetery and setting up Field Marshal Terauchi's tombstone in the eastern corner of the cemetery and three tombstones in the western corner of the cemetery with this inscription:
Their work remained undisturbed by the British authorities as they could not read the Japanese inscriptions on the memorials and were too busy rebuilding the city. Behind this memorial, the ashes of 10,000 Japanese war dead collected mainly from the destroyed Syonan Chureito (now known as Bukit Batok Memorial
Bukit Batok Memorial
The Bukit Batok Memorial is located on top of the tranquil Bukit Batok Hill upon which once stood two war memorials built by Australian POWs to commemorate the war dead of the Japanese and the Allies who fought during the decisive Battle of Bukit Timah in Singapore during the Second World War...
) were put into a hole which was sealed with concrete. Terauchi's tombstone and three other distinctive memorials in the cemetery were completed by three Japanese prisoners in April 1947 by carpenter Kunio Higashituji, and stonemasons Tomokatsu Mizuya and Tokiyaki Tetsuka.
There is a small concrete pillar known as A memorial to the ashes of 135 martyrs, which marks the spot where the ashes of the 135 Japanese officers and men who were executed at Changi Prison are buried. A similar pillar on another corner of the west end marks the burial spot of the ashes of 79 Japanese who were executed in Malaysia.
Field Marshal Count Terauchi Hisaichi
Born in 1879 Count Terauchi HisaichiTerauchi Hisaichi
|-...
was the son of Misatake Terauchi, the prime minister of Japan and a close relative of the Japanese Emperor
Emperor of Japan
The Emperor of Japan is, according to the 1947 Constitution of Japan, "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people." He is a ceremonial figurehead under a form of constitutional monarchy and is head of the Japanese Imperial Family with functions as head of state. He is also the highest...
, Hirohito
Hirohito
, posthumously in Japan officially called Emperor Shōwa or , was the 124th Emperor of Japan according to the traditional order, reigning from December 25, 1926, until his death in 1989. Although better known outside of Japan by his personal name Hirohito, in Japan he is now referred to...
. He attended the Japanese Military Academy and joined the Japanese Army after graduating the Academy in 1900. Terauchi spent time in Germany and worked as a lecturer at the Military Academy before taking command of the 5th Division and the Chief Of Staff of the Korean Army, and later as the head of the Formosa Army. In October 1935 he was promoted to full general and the Japanese War Minister in 1937. Terauchi was commander of North China Area Army before becoming Commander of Southern Army on 6 November 1941 - the Japanese equivalent to the British South East Asia Command - and devising strategies with Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto.
After leading the conquest of the Southern Area he established his headquarters in Singapore. Promoted to field marshal, he moved to the Philippines in May 1944. When this area came under threat he retreated to Saigon. After receiving bad news about Burma he suffered a stroke on 10 April 1945. Thus the Japanese Surrender in Singapore to Allied Supreme Commander Admiral Louis Mountbatten was represented by Lt-Gen. Itagaki Seishiro
Itagaki Seishiro
was a General in the Imperial Japanese Army in World War II and a War Minister.-Overview:Itagaki was born in Morioka city, Iwate prefecture into a samurai class family formerly serving the Nanbu clan of Morioka Domain. He graduated from the Imperial Japanese Army Academy in 1904...
, commander of 7th Area Army on 12 September 1945. After the formal surrender, he was flown to Singapore from Saigon to present his two samurai swords to Mountbatten, on learning that Mountbatten had expressed his wish to have the swords.
Terauchi was tried for his war crimes, and imprisoned in Johore, Malaysia pending war crimes investigations by the British, until his death in November 1945. His remains were cremated and some of his ashes are believed to be buried at the park. The inscription on his tombstone reads:
Hinomoto Guardian Deity
Located near the main entrance, this memorial was built in memory of 41 Japanese civilians who died in the internment camp at JurongJurong
Jurong is the largest town in the western part of Singapore, consisting of 11 residential precincts, 14 industrial districts, 1 military zone and 1 Waterfront district. It resembles Woodlands, the largest town in the northern part of Singapore, which is smaller in size, has smaller industrial area...
while waiting for repatriation after the Japanese surrender in World War II.
'Harimau' Tani Yutaka
Tani Yutaka, known as "Harimau" (MalayMalay language
Malay is a major language of the Austronesian family. It is the official language of Malaysia , Indonesia , Brunei and Singapore...
word for "Tiger") was a secret agent for the Japanese military who died in a hospital in Singapore. His life story has been depicted in novels and on film.
Futabatei Shimei
Futabatei ShimeiFutabatei Shimei
was a Japanese author, translator, and literary critic. Born Hasegawa Tatsunosuke in Edo , Futabatei's works are in the realist style popular in the mid- to late-19th century...
(1864—1909) was a famous author who first brought realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
to the Japanese novel. Fluent in Russian, he translated books written by realists like Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Turgenev
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright. His first major publication, a short story collection entitled A Sportsman's Sketches, is a milestone of Russian Realism, and his novel Fathers and Sons is regarded as one of the major works of 19th-century...
into Japanese while working as correspondent for Asahi Shimbun
Asahi Shimbun
The is the second most circulated out of the five national newspapers in Japan. Its circulation, which was 7.96 million for its morning edition and 3.1 million for its evening edition as of June 2010, was second behind that of Yomiuri Shimbun...
in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
. On his way home, he took ill on a ship and died en route. The structure is not a tomb, but a memorial.
Ueyama Kano
The tomb of Ueyama Kano, the inventor of the mosquito coil, is a large and unique lantern-like monument. He died in 1942, when his plane crashed in Sembawang airport.Nagano Saneyoshi
Another noteworhy occupant of the park is Nagano Saneyoshi, the founder of the Yamato Company in TokyoTokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
. The company is known for manufacturing and selling of stationery products.
Karayuki-san
During the Meiji era, many Japanese girls from poor households were sold to work in East Asia and Southeast Asia in the second half of the 19th century to work as prostitutes. Many of these women are said to have originated from the Amakusa Islands of Kumamoto Prefecture, which had a large and long-stigmatized Japanese Christian community. Referred to as Karayuki-san (Hiragana: からゆきさん, Kanji: 唐行きさん literally "Ms. Gone-overseas"), they were found at the Japanese enclave along Hylam, Malabar, Malay and Bugis StreetBugis Street
Bugis, in the city-state of Singapore, was renowned internationally from the 1950s to the 1980s for its nightly gathering of trans women, a phenomenon which made it one of Singapore's top tourist destinations during that period....
s until World War II.
Flora
An old lycheeLychee
The lychee is the sole member of the genus Litchi in the soapberry family, Sapindaceae. It is a tropical and subtropical fruit tree native to Southern China and Southeast Asia, and now cultivated in many parts of the world...
tree found in the park is designated as a Heritage Tree by the National Parks Board
National Parks Board
The National Parks Board is a statutory board of the Singapore Government.The National Parks Board is responsible for providing and enhancing the greenery of Singapore. NParks manages around 300 parks, the park connector network and the roadside greenery in Singapore...
(NParks). However, in Singapore climate it is unable to bear fruit. Another old 'resident' of the park, a rubber tree, is also a Heritage Tree, remaining from the time when the park was a rubber plantation.
Today
Today, the Japanese Association of Singapore still continues to maintain the cemetery which has since became a memorial park in 1987 for the appreciation of history and for its natural flora and fauna. As a legacy of the history of Japan and Singapore, the cemetery park is often visited by Japanese students, veterans, residents and tourists.The current tomb keeper is Lim Geok Qi who is the 2nd-generation tomb keeper and has been working for the Cemetery and the Japanese Association for the past 50 years. He was born in 1938, and lived most of his life in the Cemetery. His father found difficulty to find work when he first arrived in Singapore from China but soon recommended to a job as a tomb keeper at the Japanese Cemetery. Lim grew up in the cemetery assisting his father in the cremating bodies and arranging burials at the cemetery. When the young Lim came of age, he tried to seek other forms of employment but in 1960, his father fell sick, and requested him to take over his duties as tomb keeper. And so the young man in his 20s took over his father's duties to become the 2nd generation tomb keeper. Like his father, Lim was paid a minimal salary for the job, but given free accommodation and transportation. As he was thrifty in nature, he was able to start his own family, and expanded his living quarters when his family size grew. In 1973, new burials was not allowed, so Lim's main duties was to look after and maintain the Japanese cemetery, as well as serving as a cemetery guide for visitors from Japan.
See also
- Bukit Batok MemorialBukit Batok MemorialThe Bukit Batok Memorial is located on top of the tranquil Bukit Batok Hill upon which once stood two war memorials built by Australian POWs to commemorate the war dead of the Japanese and the Allies who fought during the decisive Battle of Bukit Timah in Singapore during the Second World War...
- Poh Ern Shih TemplePoh Ern Shih TemplePoh Ern Shih is located on a small hilltop at Chwee Chian Road, off Pasir Panjang Road, on Singapore's southern coast. The Buddhist temple was built as a memorial to those who lost their lives during the Battle of Pasir Panjang in 1942, villagers as well as Allied and Japanese soldiers...
- Middle Road, SingaporeMiddle Road, SingaporeMiddle Road is a road located in the Downtown Core and Rochor within the Central Area of Singapore. It starts from its junction with Selegie Road and ends at Beach Road. Middle Road was already in existence in early Singapore, appearing in George Drumgoole Coleman's Map of Singapore in 1836...