How a Retired Teacher and a Former Banker Built Singapore's Most Intimate Heritage Festival

When Aminah Chong stepped down from her teaching post at a primary school in Clementi five years ago, she didn't plan to orchestrate one of Singapore's most anticipated annual celebrations. Yet today, the 58-year-old stands at the centre of a sprawling network that transforms the narrow streets of Kampong Glam into a open-air gallery of music, food, and community storytelling.

Alongside her co-founder Vikram Pillai, a former investment banker who left his Raffles Place office job in 2019, Chong helped conceptualise what has grown into the Kampong Glam Heritage Festival—an event that now draws over 15,000 visitors across its three-day run in July, with a budget that has swelled from $80,000 in its inaugural year to nearly $420,000 today.

"We wanted to tell stories that the neighbourhood itself was telling," Chong explains, recalling early morning walks through Bussorah Street and Arab Street where she documented the lived experiences of long-time residents and shopkeepers. Her background in education shaped the festival's philosophy: treat visitors as learners, not passive consumers.

The breakthrough came in 2019 when the pair partnered with the Malay Heritage Centre and a coalition of seven grassroots community groups operating within the 66-hectare precinct. What began as intimate fireside conversations with elderly residents evolved into a structured oral history project. Today, that archive forms the backbone of the festival's curatorial framework.

The logistics are deceptively complex. Pillai, who manages the festival's operations, coordinates with the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Singapore Police Force, and the Land Transport Authority for street closures—a process requiring approvals filed four months in advance. He also negotiates with over 40 heritage merchants and restaurateurs, many of whom have operated family businesses in the quarter for decades.

What distinguishes their approach is refusing corporate sponsorship that might dilute neighbourhood character. Instead, they've built a funding model combining modest ticket sales ($12 per visitor), grants from cultural foundations, and contributions from the participating business community itself.

"We had multiple opportunities to scale this into something much larger," Pillai reflects. "But Aminah and I believed that the moment you lose intimacy, you lose the essence of why the neighbourhood matters."

This year's festival, running July 10-12, expands its literary programming and introduces a night market on Jalan Sultan featuring only vendors with roots tracing back three generations in the area. It's a calculated move, reflecting the organisers' conviction that authentic cultural expression cannot be manufactured—only carefully stewarded.

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