Here's another story
The Gloomy Past of Haw Par Villa
Save Haw Par Villa from being torn down
Haw Par Villa was a big attraction in the 1960s and 1970s. But in the fad-happy Singapore of today, it may have outlived its usefulness. Should it go? The king of Tiger Balm left a gaudy mark on Singapore's landscape 67 years ago - and the Lion City has been left holding his cub ever since. Managed since 1990 by International Theme Parks, a joint venture between beverage group Fraser & Neave and Times Publishing in shares of 75:25, the operator of Haw Par Villa announced last month that it would return the loss-making park's keys to the Singapore Tourism Board by March 31 next year. Life! conducted a straw poll on whether the park should be spruced up or shut down for good, among 80 men in the street this week. These were the top-of-mind impressions of 49 of them: "Close it down." "It is incurring massive losses." "It is boring." Still, many of those in the minority, who were older singaporeans, said that the park should be preserved for sentimental reasons. But does that fact alone warrant its conservation in land-scarce Singapore, in this day and age? Says architect Tay Kheng Soon, without hesitation: "Tear it down. It's so old and out-of-date. Singaporeans don't have any sentiments left for it. I went there once as a child and I have no intention of ever going back there again." Mr Tay made a case recently for preserving the National Library building, which is slated to make way for the Singapore Management University.
A Burmese by birth, Mr Aw Boon Haw, a Hakka, built Haw Par Villa in 1937, at the cost of $1 million. It was the magnate's way of rewarding his younger brother, Boon Par, for helping him hit the jackpot by their medicated balm, Tiger Balm. The villa and its grounds were destroyed in World War II but he rebuilt it from 1950 to 1959. Then, in a twist of fate, Mr Aw died in Hawaii in 1954, so he never did get to see what the restored compound looked like finally. Today, tourists and trek-happy locals see it as a uniquely quirky attraction, while others would go so far as to call it a national monument. With its hundreds of garishly-hued statues and figurines depicting famous characters from Chinese myths and legends, no one would dispute that, as a park, it is in a class of its own. Recalls Mr Chin Kean Kok, 28, an architectural associate, who first visited the villa as a boy: "Even the floors of his swimming pools were crammed with gaudy figurines. I remember wondering how anyone could swim in such pools. It was so weird." Caught in a sudden afternoon shower on Wednesday, first-time visitor to Singapore Nirmal Agarwal, 40, huddled under the Laughing Buddha pavilion together with his wife, two daughters and son. The chartered accountant, who had flown in from New Delhi that day, says: "My brother, Raj, recommended this place as a must-see for my kids. But when I asked staff at the hotel where I'm staying if tour guides would cover Haw Par Villa in their itineraries, they said 'No'. So, after lunch, I decided to take my family here first, before we join our tour group for all the other attractions." Says Ms Amanda Yeo, a sales executive with International Theme Parks: "Apart from placing Haw Par Villa brochures in hotels island-wide, we've done zero aand promotions since we closed down the flume ride and amphitheatre in 1997." Ms Jenny Meng, a stall hand at the park's Pavilion cafe, says: "Four to five years back, tour guides would bring groups of tourists -- mostly Indonesians -- here. But, once they were in the park's grounds, they'd leave the visitors to wander around on their own, while they sipped their drinks. "When I asked them why they wouldn't explain the myths and legends of the park to visitors, they replied, 'Why should we take them around if we're not paid any commissions?' "
For Singaporeans in earlier days, much of the thrill of visiting the park lay in the fact that they were being allowed to tour the private grounds of a larger-than-life millionaire. Now, 67 years on and one failed multi-million dollar theme park later, the Singapore Tourism Board wants to revive its grounds. Architect William Lim, 67, supports the move. Says the former president of the Singapore Heritage Society: "Tourists will be more interested in visiting if they can get to know more about folk mythology and legends from the park." He adds: "They should go back to the original concept of a public access park like the Botanic Gardens. Just look at how many people visit the Botanic Gardens."
The issue, then, is: Does Singapore need two Botanic Gardens? Plus, while the Botanic Garden is just a stone's throw away from Orchard Road, the Villa sits along a slip road in out-of-the-way Pasir Panjang.
Of course, in recent years, it did not help its image that International Theme Parks used to charge $15 (and, later, $16.50) for admission. Before Haw Par Villa turned into a theme park, admission was free.
The entry fee per person has since been slashed to $5 for adults and $2.50 for children (NOW IT IS ABSOLUTELY FREE OF CHARGE), but checks with the handful of shopkeepers scattered about the park confirmed that visitors are fast-dwindling.
Looking at the park, then, strictly as a recreational feature, what it suffers most from, perhaps, is its "once is enough" shock value. It is, for instance, hard to shake off the profusion of True to Singapore's pragmatic spirit, it may well be better to close the park as it is, and put the hilly land to better (inevitably commercially-viable) use The issue it all really boils down to, then, is: Haw Par Villa may be a sleeping tiger, but what price memory?
