On the corner of the street I live on is a Taoist temple dedicated to the Monkey God. Quite often I’ll step onto the balcony of my 2nd floor apartment to watch the mad athletics of lion dancers or the snaking procession that carries his empty throne to its position outside the temple. My friends laugh and say “that Monkey God sure loves to party”, and actually its true, he does. It’s written that he was arrogant and troublesome, but he was also mischievous, playful and definitely fun to be around.

A lot of people around the world will have seen some version of the Monkey God’s story on television or file. You’d think that he would be a populist choice for temples, but of the hundreds in Singapore, the one on my street is the only one dedicated to this deity. I did some work for the Chinese galleries of a museum here recently, and the curator explained to me that he’s quite a complex god for Taoists to categorise. An outcaste from Taoist heaven, the Monkey God redeemed himself and gained Buddhist immortality by escorting Tang Gan Zang on his pilgrimage to obtain the teachings of Lord Buddha. Like the Goddess Kwan Yin, that puts his feet in both the Buddhist and Taoist camps.

The area I live in, called Tiong Bahru, is an older inner-city area, and not much has changed in the last 40 or 50 years. It’s famous for its good food and postwar architecture and mainly the residents are older generation Chinese, so everyone is called Aunty or Uncle.

What I really love about the Monkey God is that he likes the same things in a party that the residents do. There are vegetarian buffets and street opera, popular with everyone. Around New Year there is “gertai”, which usually features scantily clad ladies singing old Chinese pop songs. Those shows are especially popular with the Uncles.

The Monkey God watches all this from his empty throne. I often think he probably gets a big kick out of the gertai.

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