Where did the dragon of Whampoa Drive come from?
In the heart of Whampoa Drive, just off the CTE, there is a dragon sitting on a rock that reaches for the sky.
The three-storey high sculpture, painstakingly adorned with bits of porcelain, once spouted water from its mouth as part of a fountain.
But where did the dragon come from?
A Moulmein-Kallang Town Council spokesman says it was designed and built by HDB in 1973. The fountain stopped functioning some time in the mid-1990s.
According to a The New Paper report in 2012, it then fell into disrepair, along with other dragon structures built in the heartlands in the 1970s and 1980s. The paint was peeling, and its basin became filled with dead leaves.
In 2012, it came under the administration of Moulmein-Kallang Town Council, which refurbished the dragon by applying anti-algae treatment to it and adding landscaping around the structure. It continues to maintain the structure.
Today, the fountain has been filled in, and hedges surround its base. The dragon looks pristine, and it stands as a silent sentinel in the heart of the housing estate.
Given the traditional association of dragons with good fortune and longevity, that can only be a good thing.
