From: March 31 – June 30, 2021
At: Taiwan Hakka Museum 2nd Special Exhibition Hall

The special exhibition “About Hakka Community in Singapore” gives an introduction to the history of Hakka people who migrated to Singapore through vivid and lively interactive displays and archive collections together with easy to understand text, taking us from the migrants’ early hardships to their putting down roots, through to becoming one of the indispensable ethnic groups in Singapore’s modernization up to the present day.

Going to Nanyang (South Sea)
Looking back on the boat to the old familiar home now growing farther and farther away. At the start of the 19th century, Hakka people from southern China, faced with a tumultuous political and economic situation, took the boat south in search of a new life.

Dialect Groups and Clan Associations
Hakka migrants come to Singapore looking for opportunities. In this foreign place they established dialect groups and clan associations to look out for each other, places they could turn to and which offered protection as they merged with immigrant society.

Traditional Industry
The opening of Singapore as a port-settlement attracted large numbers of Chinese to come south. Hakka immigrants who came to Singapore in this early period were chiefly involved in pawnbroking, tailoring and traditional Chinese medicine. They made a contribution to Singapore’s prosperity while also doing their best for the development of their hometowns.

Education and Life
Migrants to Singapore brought their life customs and education, but local policies and ethnic assimilation would give rise to a Hakka culture distinctive to Singapore. This section looks at faith, the evolution of Chinese language policy and at food, introducing the differences and similarities following localization and shows the Hakka spirit of finding peace in every situation and being inclusive.

Hakka Songs Moving Ahead
This section follows the singing of Hakka “mountain songs”, the rise of contemporary Hakka popular music and the cultural exchanges between Taiwan and Singapore to understand the development of today’s Singapore Hakka.