ABSTRACT
In the opening chapter of J. G. Farrell’s novel The Singapore Grip (1978), the narrator offers a panoramic vista of 1930s Singapore which contrasts the affluent European suburb of Tanglin, home to many colonial settlers, with the crowded, unruly and vibrant enclave of Chinatown and the docks, where the majority of the Tamils, Malays and Chinese live and work. Two different populations coexist in the same location, and their two contrasting experiences of the city inevitably are intimately connected. Yet colonial Singapore is also a deeply divided city: the maintenance of an apparent hierarchy and distance between people is central to its colonial existence, as the narrator notes with pointed irony:
