Kong Chow Cultural Centre

Kong Chow Wui Koon 冈州会馆, established in Singapore in 1840, is a clan association of the Cantonese community from the former Xinhui 新会 county, located to the southwest of the Pearl River Delta. Xinhui, currently under jurisdiction of Jiangmen city, is known for producing palm leaf fans as well as dried tangerine peel, which has culinary and medicinal uses.

During World War II, Kong Chow Wui Koon served as a clinic of the Red Swastika Society 红卍字会, providing medicine and porridge on a daily basis to the common people in Singapore as ‘Syonan-to’ under the Japanese Occupation. Unlike many school buildings of the Chinese community then, it thus managed to preserve precious artefacts and documents of the pre-war period.

In 2013, the building of Kong Chow Wui Koon was opened to the public as a Cultural Heritage Centre.