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Drawing on recent theorising on how landscapes and their cultural resources are manipulated in the selling of places, this paper focuses on the different strategies used to transform Haw Par Villa, a rich man's pleasure gardens, into Singapore's pioneer cultural theme park. Conceived by Aw Boon Haw, the man known as the “Tiger Balm King” to signify his standing at the helm of an empire of Chinese patented medicinal products, Tiger Balm Gardens was a landscape of mythology and morality which strongly reflected Boon Haw's flamboyant personality and philanthropy. In the post-independence era, with the dismantling of economic empires centred on charismatic individuals, Haw Par Villa as a biographical landscape became increasingly anachronistic. Its acquisition by a corporate body and transformation into a theme park renamed “Dragon World” in the 1990s was congruent with the present emphasis on inventing new and “different” modes of commodified leisure pursuits for Singaporeans and tourists. The remaking of Haw Par Villa drew upon the old moral landscape of Chinese myths and legends, but embellished these with “new” cultural elements enhanced by the possibilities and plausibility of technological innovations. Sold as a “pageant of 5000 years of Chinese history”, the theme park repackages and reinvents tradition and morality for a different clientele.
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