Thieves Market

Had seen the transformation of this flea market from the early 1980's to the present days. I remembered vividly when I was young, there were a lot of shophouses in the places where it is all being fenced up now.

And the reason why this place was known as the Thieves' Market was that in the beginning most of the goods sold here were acquired through illegitimate means. The name also had a double meaning as the items purchased here were considered a great steal. Probably because of the abundant choice of goods, the thieves market was colloquially referred to as Robinson petang, meaning "evening Robinson", a cheeky reference to the large Robinson Departmental Store, except this market catered to the poor man.

In the past, alot of shops were selling things like second hand audio systems, video players, cassette tape players, cassette tapes, those big black music discs ( I think its called 黑胶带）that were played on a gramaphone, etc. There were also a lot of people selling clothes, "masak" (toys), shoes, housewares such as bamboo poles and stuff.

But then in the mid 1980's or early 1990's, all the shophouses had been demolished and the shop owners had to either wind up their businesses or continue peddling their goods by the roadside, which is what we see nowadays.

And nowadays, the variety of goods had also changed quite a fair bit. While some things like the big black music discs still can be found, you can also find people selling those rings having huge gemstones or jade, for the uncles. There are also ppl selling old notes and coins, second hand bicycles (which are still in good condition), handphones (no contract but nt really that cheap either thou u can bargain over here), old clothes, CDs and VCDs of those old shows and songs (be it Chinese,English or other lanaguages).

Not forgetting also are keyboards, printers, home use phones, clothings, fans and the fans' blades,etc.

Of course now, I think most of the items sold here wouldnt be stolen goods, but rather discarded by people whom have deemed them to be useless and have been refurbished by the peddlers here and resold them for a small sum of money.

This place is a favourite sight of interest for tourists and you can always see tourists riding on trishaws coming from the Rocher Centre and taking a tour veryday, though they dnt normally go into the lanes cos' its simply too crowded.

So even though I have already shifted house, I still go back and walk around whenever I am popping by Sim Lim Sq, just to reminisce the old times, where a part of history still is evident. And I can see some familiar faces whom have been there for the past one to two decades.

So do go down and take a look. Who knows you can get a good bargain there for something that you have been searching high and low for? But if you are planning to go on a Saturday or Sunday, do note that the crowd can be quite packed. Especially on Sundays, where there will also a mini food bazzar for the Indian community nearby.

And to end off your trip there, you can just take another 5-10 mins walk to Blk 27 for the famous laksa. (",)