Many journalists, commentators and scholars I've read lament how Singapore's Chinatown has lost its essence of being Chinese, giving up its authenticity for the tourist dollar. Comparing with other ethnic enclaves in Singapore, Little India and Geylang Serai sure have more flavour than Chinatown.

If you have walked through Little India, you would certainly feel that you have walked into an entirely different world. Stalls hawking their wares at the narrow alleys, people jostling for space at the fivefoot ways, Indians crossing the roads like it's theirs and Bangladeshi/Indians lying down on the grass (any grass patches! Got grass can already) - this is Little India. It is real, untainted by the sterility of tourism; it is essentially Indian. You can practically smell India in the air.

So has Chinatown really lost its essence then?

A stroll down Smith Street (Chinatown) made me realise that indeed, it is so clean, it looks fake. Stalls are neatly lined up in a row and there are no loud Chinese hawkers shouting for attention. It is what many scholars would call "staged authenticity".

But when I was in Chinatown for dim sum a couple of weeks ago, I feel that that place has still retained its Chinese-ness. Yes, I believe Chinatown has not lost its essence of being Chinese.

Yes, it is neat and highly sanitised for tourists' consumption and you don't get Chinese people cooking little delicacies on the street, shouting loudly for your attention, but think about it - isn't THAT fundamentally Chinese?

We Chinese are known to want "face". We want to make everything perfect so that we can preserve our reputation. Being fastidious about being perfect is Chinese and Singapore's Chinatown is the perfect epitome of striving to be perfect. The clean streets, the neat shops and the organized crowd reflect the culture of wanting to be the best to show others that we are tops.

Now this is something worth thinking about, right?