Arab Street in Singapore

The Arab Street is famous for its unique perfume - a traditional product that has caught a huge attention for ages. The kind of perfume being sold has strong fragrance and expresses the typical characteristic of this culture. In addition, they sell perfume glass bottle with sophisticated designs, made from Egypt. This aroma shop has been through three generations since 1930. This clearly shows that this typical perfume has lasted for an extremely long period of time and become an identity of this place as well as Muslim culture. However, tourists and young generations may not know exactly how much this place have changed which part of its identity it had lost throughout the years. Many parts of Arab Street as well as the surrounding area have been affected by globalization, meaning applying what other places use to increasing tourists.

An example we collected is the row of houses selling Singapore souvenirs on Bussorah road. The construction and arrangement of products look just like other tourist spots in Singapore. Hence, there is nothing special in this area and just create a too normal or even boring feeling for the visitors. Moreover, this block also has similarity with some areas in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam or Thai market place, which have tendency of towards commercial purposes. I think through globalization, they begin new kinds of trade and change one part of the street to catch up with the pace of others although it does not bring back as good results as they've expected since tourists and locals usually look for something unique and typical of a particular place.