Old Trades
Definition
The term "old trades" refers to the trades that have been around in Singapore for more than 50 years. Some of these old trades are laborious and may require special skill sets.
Why is it important to know them?
Old Trades are very important as they are a big part of the unique Singaporean heritage and history engraved within us.
Why are old trades vanishing?
Due to modernisation and rapid development in Singapore, many old trades have lost their popularity due to their lack of competitiveness in the market. Their business is then affected and they would close down soon after. Many owners also fail to find successors as the job may be tiring and laborious. Therefore, many of these shops have closed down and old trades are starting to vanish. Despite these difficulties, the stall owners persevere and stand strong. They continue to put in effort to promote their unique trades, working hard in the name of passion and preserving heritage. Some of them have been learnt how to use social media to promote their products, catching up with times and attracting new customer groups.
The pandemic, Covid-19, has however impacted these old trades too, causing many of them to hang by the thread:
Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/_yoLQf68HTs
The 6 Old Trades we are focusing on:
Other types of old trades include: Traditional Bakers, Second-Hand Book Selling, Street side Fortune Tellers, Old School Mama shops, Mobile Ice-cream carts and many more!
We would be sharing with you the origin of the old trades, what they are about and some places where you could go to explore them.