Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall

A pioneer of China’s revolutionary struggle in the early 20th century, Dr Sun Yat Sen made numerous trips to South-east Asia; a sympathiser, Teo Eng Hock, turned over this villa to the cause. It was here in 1906 that Dr Sun formed the Singapore branch of the Chinese Revolutionary Alliance, and he would return several more times before his success in deposing the emperor in 1911 – whereupon a new battle for the future of China began.

The story told here fleshes out the political history of the Singapore Chinese, and makes a change from the more usual focus on migrant labour and World War II. While there are a few videos, replica objects and waxworks, the spacious halls and galleries are overwhelmingly reliant on captioned black and white archive photos. Next door is the Burmese Buddhist Temple, containing a 3m (11ft) marble Buddha, the largest Burmese Buddha image outside Burma.