Yesterday, we visited the strangest park in Singapore, Haw Par Villa (formerly known as the Tiger Balm Garden). On paper, it is an Asian cultural park filled with sculptures depicting Chinese folklore, legend, and mythology. In reality, it is a creepy park with sculptures out of your nightmares, that perfectly pairs with the old timey music playing on speakers, making you feel as if you are in an episode of American Horror Story.
I won’t bore you with the history, because let’s be honest, no one is thinking of the park’s history as you wander through the 10 Courts of Hell, or stand staring at a half human half fish sculpture throwing a knife at the face of a half human half stingray. If you want to read the history you can find that here.
The definitive highlight of the park is the perfect place to traumatize your young children, the 10 Courts of Hell. Each court depicts what punishments await you if you commit certain sins throughout your life.
There are the obvious ones like having your head and arms chopped off if you commit the crimes of murder or robbery. Then there are some more questionable crimes whose punishments don’t quite seem to fit, such as having your intestines and organs pulled out if you cheat on an exam. Or my personal favorite, having your body sawn in two if you waste food. I’m no judge, but those two seem a tad bit extreme.
To top it all off, as if reading the crimes and associated punishments on signs isn’t enough, the park has taken the hard work of visualization away from you by creating sculptures in astonishing detail showing you just how much you’ll suffer in each court for your sins. It’s the perfect place to take your kids so they will always remain obedient children who study and eat their vegetables.
If you want to read about each court’s sins and punishments, check out this great article.
After we got our fill of morbidity, we ventured into the rest of the park to admire the strange myths, and even though there were explanation signs, I think we still only understood about 20% of the park. That might be generous.
Overall, it was a super weird experience that I will probably only repeat with friends who come visit us. And of course when my young nieces come see us. Better to scare them straight with terrifying sculptures of death and dismemberment then talk to them about being good people.
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