Kheng Chiu Tin Hou Kong, Singapore新加坡琼州天后宫（海南会馆）

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

Singapore · Singapore · Rochor · 47 Beach Road, within the Hainan Association Building

First built

1857 · Built when the Kheng Chiu Association (today the Singapore Hainan Association) was founded; the original temple was demolished in 1963 and rebuilt within the association's new building in 1995

Overview

The Kheng Chiu Tin Hou Kong is the religious and native-place organizational center for Singapore's Hainanese (Qiongzhou) immigrants, built around Beach Road in 1857 alongside the founding of the Kheng Chiu Association; its principal deity is Tian Hou (Mazu), with subsidiary shrines to Shuiwei Shengniang and the “108 Brothers” (a Hainanese cult unique to communal victims of shipwreck), among other Hainanese local deities. The Hainanese were relatively few among Singapore's five major Chinese dialect groups, working mostly in catering and shipping trades, and their worship of Tian Hou and Shuiwei Shengniang reflects their livelihoods at sea. In 1963 the original temple building was demolished for redevelopment and its images temporarily relocated; after the Hainan Association Building was completed in 1995, the Tin Hou Kong was rebuilt within it. This site combines the dual character of a native-place association and a temple: its organizational core is a regional association, and its religious activity belongs to Chinese popular religion, not to an organized Daoist order or temple. The cult of the “108 Brothers” is unique to Hainanese immigrants, found in Southeast Asia only in areas of Hainanese settlement.

Highlights

• The religious and native-place organizational center of Singapore's Hainanese community
• Principal deity Tian Hou, with subsidiary shrines to Shuiwei Shengniang and the 108 Brothers
• The 108 Brothers cult, unique to Hainanese immigrants, honors victims of shipwreck
• Demolished in 1963, rebuilt in 1995 within the new Hainan Association building