Peranakan Museum

This unique museum sits inside the former Tao Nan School, where pupils once enjoyed three hours of physical education every week. Progressive for 1906, though one suspects the Confucian classics still won out in sheer endurance training.

The school’s name came courtesy of Chen Baochen, tutor to Puyi, China’s last emperor, who clearly had time between lessons on how to rule a crumbling dynasty. A decade later, Tao Nan became the first school in Singapore to ditch Hokkien for Mandarin, setting the linguistic standard for every institution that followed. It was a fitting move for a community that excelled at adaptation. The Peranakans were known as the King’s Chinese for their loyalty to the British Crown, merchants and intermediaries who could sweet-talk their way between empires.

Today the museum houses the world’s finest collection of nonya porcelain and a wedding bed where Mrs. Quah Hong Chiam gave birth to seven of her eleven children. A pair of black cast-iron eagles still guard the entrance, warding off evil since 1906.