Haw Par Villa is a Chinese theme park, probably the only one in the world. It is built by the brothers who founded the Tiger Balm brand, which I think is world famous. The brothers were born in Burma (Myanmar), and then grew up in China. They were sons of a pharmaceutical and they learned how to combine the Burmese and Chinese traditions, creating the famous brand. The second of the brothers were the one who was an aggressive sales-guy and who managed to make the local Burmese balm into a world famous brand.
This is the mighty dragon on the entrance. You walk into the dragons mouth into the "Ten courts of hell", see more pictures below.
I had learned from this theme park through the Economist magazine, who named it "the hell on earth".
Inside the first gate:
The gate, which was built for the original villa. In the beginning, the Villa was the home of the Tiger Balm brothers. Tiger was the nick-name (they were three brothers, Tiger was the second).
The biggest of the many laughing Buddha's.
Mia by the entrance to the ten courts of hell.
Inside hell. I think you see one of the judges.
Here you see people (and a bit of Mia) on the way to the judge. The punishments were extremely hard and painful. All in Chinese mythology.
One of the sentences were to be thrown onto a tree covered with knives. Let's hope you are not guilty!
To be cut by a saw was another cruel punishment.
Prostitutes were thrown into a sea of blood filled with other drowned people. We did not find what punishment to be given to men using them.
MG Mia Asia 1997 Home page Keep on to part 2 Back to Raffles Singapore home page