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National Library Board
Story Maps

Mapping Middle Road: Prewar Japanese Community in Singapore

13 November 2024

learn about how Japanese individuals and institutions lived and worked alongside the other communities of colonial Singapore

Mapping Middle Road: Pre-War Japanese Community of Singapore, Start Your Journey.

A small Japanese community began forming in the area around Middle Road in the 1880s and 1890s. The core of this community were the karayuki-san, Japanese prostitutes who worked in a red-light district around Malay Street, Malabar Street, and Hylam Street (present-day Bugis Junction). Various shops like the clothier Echigoya and services like the clinic of Dr. Nishimura Takeshiro that catered to the karayuki-san were established near Middle Road. As the community grew, they were followed by new institutions such as the Toyo Hotel, the Harima Hall cinema, and the Japanese Association. Particularly after 1910, when many Japanese firms established offices in the present-day CBD, the impact of the Japanese community could also be seen well beyond Middle Road.

In this story map, you can learn about how Japanese individuals and institutions lived and worked alongside the other communities of colonial Singapore, as well as the isolation of this community in the late 1930s as a result of Japanese aggression in Asia.

View the story map in full screen (opens in new tab) or on your mobile device by scanning the QR code below.

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Notes

  1. This story map is based on research conducted under a Heritage Research Grant from the National Heritage Board of Singapore. The research team of this grant included Dr. Clay Eaton (opens in new tab), Prof. Naoko Shimazu (opens in new tab), and Dr. Chee Keng Lee (opens in new tab), with the collaboration of the National Library of Singapore, the National Archives of Singapore, the National Museum of Singapore, Mr. Lim Shao Bin, and Mr. Kazuo Sugino. We would like to express special thanks to our research assistant, Ms. Ayano Sato, and the Japanese Association, Singapore.

  2. Information on this map is based on a variety of sources, including several pre-WWII Japanese-language books on Southeast Asia that can be found digitally through the National Diet Library (Japan) (opens in new tab). A full reference list for this story map can be found here .

  3. This story map used related articles in NL Online (opens in new tab), BiblioAsia (opens in new tab), Roots (opens in new tab) and the collections of the National Archives of Singapore (opens in new tab) as references. Volumes held by Singaporean libraries consulted for this project include: Postcard Impressions of Early 20th-Century Singapore: Perspective from the Japanese Community (opens in new tab) (2020), Sekido o Yuku: Shingaporu An’nai (opens in new tab) (1939), and Prewar Japanese Community in Singapore: Picture and Record Revised Edition (opens in new tab) (2004).

  4. This story map made extensive use of prewar newspapers in English and Japanese to confirm the locations of the various Japanese community institutions it features. Many of these newspapers have been digitized and made available by NewspaperSG (opens in new tab) (National Library Board of Singapore) and the Hoji Shinbun Digital Collection (opens in new tab) (Hoover Institution).

Image Credit

Photo from The Japanese Association Singapore Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore (opens in new tab)