Way Of Life
FROM BARBERS TO FORTUNE TELLERS, knife sharpeners to scribes, a plethora of small businesses were set up on the walkways of Singapore to attract the attention of passers by in need of some quick services.
Five-foot-ways, or gho kha ki in Hokkien, are walkways that are five feet wide often found in old Malayan shophouses. When the influx of immigrants made work harder to find, many of the old and unemployed made do with running small, inexpensive businesses along the five- foot-ways - earning the title five-footway traders.
These traders include fortune tellers, "medicine men" or bomoh in Malay, knife sharpeners, stamp dealers, barbers, locksmiths, scribes, newspaper vendors, tinsmiths, garland makers, and food vendors. The walkways were attractive to them for a number of reasons, such as involving little capital investment, flexible working hours, and access to human traffic.
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