tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1086301267004115992024-03-17T02:52:12.054+08:00Blog To ExpressA blogosphere learning experience to express with blogThimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.comBlogger611125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-30393220020775474632022-12-20T23:42:00.010+08:002022-12-21T05:50:59.500+08:00Gor Zhang Chiu Kar<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3b5AG0B_LUcV97ZU-U397e4jiZuRUBN98D1ToTSV-xY6CWNnbJa_6opqU8Fp0SfmqGgC1IQGnM2s2GRJDZzN80KMxQTzB30JokxnD1fQpNHT_wAqMJqvbr7vnXinBgb0lJSo0ExaI2wyrSpeykvypMfLE1kmLbVrNIvCY6oG0jKHg74HasEmW4SJq/s878/IMG_20221218_035839.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="878" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3b5AG0B_LUcV97ZU-U397e4jiZuRUBN98D1ToTSV-xY6CWNnbJa_6opqU8Fp0SfmqGgC1IQGnM2s2GRJDZzN80KMxQTzB30JokxnD1fQpNHT_wAqMJqvbr7vnXinBgb0lJSo0ExaI2wyrSpeykvypMfLE1kmLbVrNIvCY6oG0jKHg74HasEmW4SJq/s320/IMG_20221218_035839.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p>The spot where the five Angsana trees stand in Esplanade Park in popularly known in Hokkien as "<i>gor zhang chiu kar</i>", which means "under the shade of five trees". Between the 1960s and 1980s, this area was regarded as a popular dating spot for couples. The trees were removed when they were affected by the Angsana Wilt disease, caused by the <i>Fusarium oxysporium</i> fungus, which killed many mature Angsana trees in Singapore in the early 1990s.</p><p>To bring back memories of the once popular social landmark, five mature Angsana trees were sourced from Upper Serangoon Road and transplanted to where the trees were located.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0qq8Byl5XsXmvmc0_veHgDeDpD2L85iflxV0aVglKA0wWu8D1Hqzenwjj6isci_fCyK7eOLGPE3PX_d1sOTbkjdEA-vXWCd8DHyHTWhe80tLS3nV6NVnFvfA437oCoCIs_UzEcEhT4pTDS_sDFKBfaBL9j8_SXQq-yDy6-nSX9sS9LyxaP7uEXzrW/s693/IMG_20221217_150303.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="693" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0qq8Byl5XsXmvmc0_veHgDeDpD2L85iflxV0aVglKA0wWu8D1Hqzenwjj6isci_fCyK7eOLGPE3PX_d1sOTbkjdEA-vXWCd8DHyHTWhe80tLS3nV6NVnFvfA437oCoCIs_UzEcEhT4pTDS_sDFKBfaBL9j8_SXQq-yDy6-nSX9sS9LyxaP7uEXzrW/s320/IMG_20221217_150303.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>The Angsana (<i>Plerocarpus indicus</i>) is s large deciduous tree that grows up to 40 cm in height. It has a dense, dome-shaped, wide-spreading, and drooping crown, the yellow flowers occur in large bunches that are 15 to 30 cm long. It has disc-like pods with papery wings about 5 cm in diameter, and or more seeds in each.</p><p>The floral buds of the Angsana develop high up on the crown, and they bloom simultaneously with the right triggers. This brilliant display of colour lasts only for a day. after which they fall, leaving a soft carpet of yellow flowers on the ground.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXX6eQxpLAmEMe11OX0jeU3rRMUs84vjramz__L-FwQBWq_RRyee5g91Y1HyUguB3Uu65bODYCLunLoGufzO82NRNCK7KspLdRW_vsUm_7BD1mScWK41nuQC8c39w-jVeC9X6P55lSuhddXUEFotvsAZ-bvlGBurBSrXeVfJn2XA8t9pljHxwpDsoo/s701/IMG_20221217_150447.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="569" data-original-width="701" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXX6eQxpLAmEMe11OX0jeU3rRMUs84vjramz__L-FwQBWq_RRyee5g91Y1HyUguB3Uu65bODYCLunLoGufzO82NRNCK7KspLdRW_vsUm_7BD1mScWK41nuQC8c39w-jVeC9X6P55lSuhddXUEFotvsAZ-bvlGBurBSrXeVfJn2XA8t9pljHxwpDsoo/s320/IMG_20221217_150447.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p>[Source: National Parks]</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Gor Zhang Chiu Kar</b></p><p>When I was young and growing up at the Bukit Ho Swee kampong, I often heard my neighbors' daughters told their mothers they wanted to go to 'gor zhang chiu kar' with their boyfriends.</p><p>At that time, I did not understand what that means.</p><p>When I was older, I then know that they refer to the shade of five trees at the Esplanade (photo below).</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuF90IFlv_DYe5lzTU9RfAS4dHuqKn-kkax7VsEsU8jkfHR0mB-rmaQ8au_wfr_5OwtrNT_qb-cSR6LOCQ6j0IKSpxAYPhppBSRv5XFOPBt0JY0fitSPs-7B03HuNVv2H44Pg1CQ9JwPo6VGPmo5IyLvMTt4a5vF_VgRofA7aCSkNFt4NtkV7unO6I/s4608/IMG_20221217_111124.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuF90IFlv_DYe5lzTU9RfAS4dHuqKn-kkax7VsEsU8jkfHR0mB-rmaQ8au_wfr_5OwtrNT_qb-cSR6LOCQ6j0IKSpxAYPhppBSRv5XFOPBt0JY0fitSPs-7B03HuNVv2H44Pg1CQ9JwPo6VGPmo5IyLvMTt4a5vF_VgRofA7aCSkNFt4NtkV7unO6I/s320/IMG_20221217_111124.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc25HLw5sH-pXO8XxoJ6K-4lje-exwJwfseNCY3k_SyWumywMaHvB1i6cft0zKHiWLwLr45XBzCRgmCy7cgq9wlDUzC1qpkp9JQg68sgZ3iILQffOHUnYTNJGdt-5TvgJdFi7QzQuIG_EEho8p76beQTAXd3SsQmoBTlSHyQnf0YXi4ydNbTsEhIoP/s693/IMG_20221217_034915.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="636" data-original-width="693" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc25HLw5sH-pXO8XxoJ6K-4lje-exwJwfseNCY3k_SyWumywMaHvB1i6cft0zKHiWLwLr45XBzCRgmCy7cgq9wlDUzC1qpkp9JQg68sgZ3iILQffOHUnYTNJGdt-5TvgJdFi7QzQuIG_EEho8p76beQTAXd3SsQmoBTlSHyQnf0YXi4ydNbTsEhIoP/s320/IMG_20221217_034915.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik9YOQwXae8eHBuQlWSi1GWspD_FVwm9hvzJIPUYKgmCcSUF9enk68kneEWS1nhPvklb7-brYD9Z2jJdOga81IZUp1l3DWcCrUeiEB-oPclaXkNtF1QKPB1fHjYVAGlg-N1C9zfIMsYoq0asRdcmDB6tVlveVGVwhADVBSKUPscFVEXi_OgLcRLhny/s671/IMG_20221217_035100.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="671" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik9YOQwXae8eHBuQlWSi1GWspD_FVwm9hvzJIPUYKgmCcSUF9enk68kneEWS1nhPvklb7-brYD9Z2jJdOga81IZUp1l3DWcCrUeiEB-oPclaXkNtF1QKPB1fHjYVAGlg-N1C9zfIMsYoq0asRdcmDB6tVlveVGVwhADVBSKUPscFVEXi_OgLcRLhny/s320/IMG_20221217_035100.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-39814147740785935532021-10-20T22:46:00.022+08:002021-10-21T05:17:30.750+08:00NAS 'Zoom Live' Experience<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgF1JtUafiijs3VRAu8B_dm7uf28rFLKctl_1nG75mWRE3uFe-1LFxYmFnTj20RDFEgGMyCHDC33z1DvaNbGh1Lrzh5Xyxj8I7TRGwTMkV1bgOdJdzHAnlVIlcCNMQ2kV5OVgiMS5xalLmMQ2HMjMYg7MeaoAfmBsVzWv5c-BYRQ3f-t8g5qtCeeN_K=s720" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="720" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgF1JtUafiijs3VRAu8B_dm7uf28rFLKctl_1nG75mWRE3uFe-1LFxYmFnTj20RDFEgGMyCHDC33z1DvaNbGh1Lrzh5Xyxj8I7TRGwTMkV1bgOdJdzHAnlVIlcCNMQ2kV5OVgiMS5xalLmMQ2HMjMYg7MeaoAfmBsVzWv5c-BYRQ3f-t8g5qtCeeN_K=w400-h200" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>I would like to thank the National Archives of Singapore for giving me the opportunity to share my first personal experience and memories via 'Zoom'. </p><p>This is the first time I am
using 'Zoom' in the YouTube <a _blank="" href=" https://youtu.be/cdgre3MgpjM"> here </a>. </p><p>Due to the unforeseen circumstances, I was unable to present the talk in person last year.</p><p>The event was cancelled because Coronavirus disease was first reported from Wuhan, China on 31 December, 2019 and it spread to every country in the world.</p><p>In Singapore, the government took immediate action to cancel events for group gathering, everyone to wear medical masks in public and preventive measures include social distancing for the safety and avoid spreading Covid19 virus.</p><p><b><u>What is 'Zoom' ?</u></b></p><p>Zoom Video Communication, Inc (commonly shortened to Zoom) is an American communications technology company headquartered in San Jose, California. It provides videotelephony and online chat services through a cloud-based peer-to-peer software platform and is used for teleconferencing, telecommuting, distance education and social relations.</p><p>Zoom is compatible with Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, Chrome OS, and Linux.</p><p>The original author of Zoom by Eric Yuan. Zoom was first used in January 2013.</p><p><b><u>River Valley Pr Sch Concert Band</u></b></p><p>Karis Koh of RVPS Conert Band</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgc_7IuHjne0pddTls8J8AMNWP0TKIYf4mbXOIzjFlPnMq5zDqClPuSP1NJ9XrAFUX-vQmuT0hfYCF4xU-s5WZQalbrP0TsQk99vFN0E6mFLkrtj4psCmW4RMl0tNktynTcCFX2yjVezk_J9BJuoIzcTuh7SbrpNhY2M0fNTXNmb3-ya3SKmRDip_xQ=s983" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="688" data-original-width="983" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgc_7IuHjne0pddTls8J8AMNWP0TKIYf4mbXOIzjFlPnMq5zDqClPuSP1NJ9XrAFUX-vQmuT0hfYCF4xU-s5WZQalbrP0TsQk99vFN0E6mFLkrtj4psCmW4RMl0tNktynTcCFX2yjVezk_J9BJuoIzcTuh7SbrpNhY2M0fNTXNmb3-ya3SKmRDip_xQ=w400-h280" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpBmPVsEQRUGJm_r7k08NCtk8BIJKYN6CugPLK1waBnCq18ZaPkEFihb4FCbZAB-MgURfK3qsdJQUdTbCKRdtr8iFjWAc9MAatdGCvZKIRPbaWAZvHFIQFuWy5npjWHg6NI4zvlyzXldHMK5Lg-WvgXyG4eZbO4M_wljkqq5aAWeOvZArHo1UBa0Ii=s1092" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1092" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgpBmPVsEQRUGJm_r7k08NCtk8BIJKYN6CugPLK1waBnCq18ZaPkEFihb4FCbZAB-MgURfK3qsdJQUdTbCKRdtr8iFjWAc9MAatdGCvZKIRPbaWAZvHFIQFuWy5npjWHg6NI4zvlyzXldHMK5Lg-WvgXyG4eZbO4M_wljkqq5aAWeOvZArHo1UBa0Ii=w400-h264" width="400" /></a></div><br />With the courtesy of the River Valley Pr Sch, the young students of the band performed their musical instruments very well. <div><br /></div><div>Incidentally, I have posted a previous blog 'School Bands - Cultural Life of Singapore
<a href="https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2015/03/school-bands-cultural-life-of-singapore.html?m=1" target="_blank"> here </a>.
<div><br /><div><u style="font-weight: bold;">From Squatters Into Citizens" Book</u><p>Dr Loh Kah Seng, a professor history lecturer at the University of Singapore, interviewed me for his book "Squatters Into Citizens. The 1961 Bukit Ho Swee Fire And The Making Of Modern Singapore'." An introduction of the book is in the blog <a href=" https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2020/07/bukit-ho-swee-turning-point.html?m=1" target="_blank"> here </a>.
</p><p><b><u>National Day Rally 2011</u></b></p><p>In the National Day Rally 2011, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong mentioned about the 1961 <a href=" https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2011/08/national-day-rally-2011-building-our.html?m=1" target="_blank"> here </a>.
</p><p><b><u>Questions & Answers Session</u></b></p><p>During the 'Q & A' session, there were many interesting questions about Bukit Ho Swee which surprised me.</p><p>With thanks to the Emcee Lisa Wong for the selection of relevent questions related to the topic.</p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiQ3SyJWMq0ZxE4hL-gEqm0YvKECleHP3UuPASezf_1-Y1uEdJzX4VP3dQatUJcGIMe68UsLQUfJxa4Ufc2EPXfgMF8n_bdB11fhNgyattQZ62se7DaYlIaUjg0FJlX55Vc512eHOW_pmp1owT7y4FIyQoLRcplN3qZmYlT17009K0AbaI2lWhi2I5=s1187" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="1187" height="109" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiQ3SyJWMq0ZxE4hL-gEqm0YvKECleHP3UuPASezf_1-Y1uEdJzX4VP3dQatUJcGIMe68UsLQUfJxa4Ufc2EPXfgMF8n_bdB11fhNgyattQZ62se7DaYlIaUjg0FJlX55Vc512eHOW_pmp1owT7y4FIyQoLRcplN3qZmYlT17009K0AbaI2lWhi2I5=s320" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div>My favorite question asked about the "bucket system" in Bukit Ho Swee in the past.</div><div><br /></div><div>Please read the "Memories of Smell" blog <a href=" https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2012/02/memories-of-smell-sewerage.html?m" target="_blank"> here </a>.
</div><div><br /></div><div>More answers about Bukit Ho Swee in the Drama Box <a href=" https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/what-bukit-ho-swee-was-like-before-fire" target="_blank"> here </a>.
</div><div><br /></div><div><b><u>60th Anniversary of the Bukit Ho Swee fire.</u></b></div><div><b><u><br /></u></b></div><div>Incidentally, the Bukit Ho Swee fire which happened on 25 May 1961 is 60 years ago this year.</div><div><br /></div><div>I believe the 16,000 BHS fire victims, including myself, will not be able to forget the day of
disaster as posted in this blog <a href=" http://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2021/06/60th-anniversary-of-bukit-ho-swee-fire.html" m="1">here </a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>The End of the 'Zoom Live" webinar.</div></div>Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-64704284496514724382021-06-16T19:36:00.009+08:002021-07-05T19:30:16.338+08:0060th Anniversary of Bukit Ho Swee fire in 1961<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiudzIXFR1XAeIj1dYO7AgueTKoZnOxYLwaZCPEWFtQdHKW7lRujoGpD1cTLQ2fG1BZjX7u667Kj3Ie5VlJ5kBC1ighiQyyWUTd_y-_-YHw_9a8yN0MsSGt5N_VUaBmV9lQIBEmSmDwpT4/s560/IMG_20210616_190304.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="560" data-original-width="535" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiudzIXFR1XAeIj1dYO7AgueTKoZnOxYLwaZCPEWFtQdHKW7lRujoGpD1cTLQ2fG1BZjX7u667Kj3Ie5VlJ5kBC1ighiQyyWUTd_y-_-YHw_9a8yN0MsSGt5N_VUaBmV9lQIBEmSmDwpT4/w383-h400/IMG_20210616_190304.png" width="383" /></a>
With courtesy of The Straits Times published on 24 May, 2021 to remind Singaporeans the Bukit Ho Swee for 60 years ago <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/60-years-on-survivors-recall-fire-that-turned-squatters-into-citizens" target="_blank"> here </a>.</div></div></blockquote><p> </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The earlier Bukit Ho Swee fire happened when Singapore was then a British colony. The decision of the People's Action Party government was very different from the British government's decisions.</div></div></blockquote><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYbb8oyq11GPTg31HugGAHr3AZPZzj8jvlDLIi21Vz5m1xo62c_z1CvUBACYadGOQovbGDxmJPcD9d9UDDTdzQQNuZfir03irROSXNvmgJAB12_CvHskzWT8uRvWark1PnKnaRLBi3XM/s518/IMG_20210616_190049.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="448" data-original-width="518" height="346" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYbb8oyq11GPTg31HugGAHr3AZPZzj8jvlDLIi21Vz5m1xo62c_z1CvUBACYadGOQovbGDxmJPcD9d9UDDTdzQQNuZfir03irROSXNvmgJAB12_CvHskzWT8uRvWark1PnKnaRLBi3XM/w400-h346/IMG_20210616_190049.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU6iOmYDduS04-_YjVpbElxCapy4kR6jTf3w47JhBQdBqx4AJnmcwo-RS0cKXjHMcBOIGc2blHfAWEBUuO0EMAeeWBfNjMimW5ez0NoIcT7ut_6QYwR4w1Kv816YsfUgOCBwPloZrR3vk/s544/IMG_20210616_190134.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="544" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU6iOmYDduS04-_YjVpbElxCapy4kR6jTf3w47JhBQdBqx4AJnmcwo-RS0cKXjHMcBOIGc2blHfAWEBUuO0EMAeeWBfNjMimW5ez0NoIcT7ut_6QYwR4w1Kv816YsfUgOCBwPloZrR3vk/w400-h306/IMG_20210616_190134.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">After those earlier fire, the Bukit Ho Swee residents were allowed them to return to the kampong to build their own houses with wooden planks, attap or zinc roofs.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1hZ9twnLN-S_koomzVnI3TbTiI1-zANnIQu5EaGph2QPY3XmcSS6BuJVvfp4m3H7OFjCZ6fL5H9NFT67B7Xqe2q3vR3DA9rQS3MK1SdOVUl20Du0LSx8XSwlCJQlnfnV7NbpAYPvShx8/s778/IMG_20210616_185957.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="778" data-original-width="527" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1hZ9twnLN-S_koomzVnI3TbTiI1-zANnIQu5EaGph2QPY3XmcSS6BuJVvfp4m3H7OFjCZ6fL5H9NFT67B7Xqe2q3vR3DA9rQS3MK1SdOVUl20Du0LSx8XSwlCJQlnfnV7NbpAYPvShx8/w271-h400/IMG_20210616_185957.png" width="271" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKgixI6K8HHEdXowgKiLcKnG6DuU8hisfhoPXdFJOU6dNUN2wSUiasEfz-P1wSxP_UHw39xImYELfVo6YchRuD0fAq9mtCbv2niekfZymXp4Ya5kiAAdG6eYa7bT6ybwsT_cUsqXtGNU8/s791/IMG_20210616_190205.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="791" data-original-width="524" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKgixI6K8HHEdXowgKiLcKnG6DuU8hisfhoPXdFJOU6dNUN2wSUiasEfz-P1wSxP_UHw39xImYELfVo6YchRuD0fAq9mtCbv2niekfZymXp4Ya5kiAAdG6eYa7bT6ybwsT_cUsqXtGNU8/w265-h400/IMG_20210616_190205.png" width="265" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The Bukit Ho Swee fire in 1961, the government of independent Singapore acquired the land to develop the fire sites to build infra-structure, build more schools, preschools, nurseries, clinics and hospitals, public transport, improve the country's economy for overseas investment ventures which create more jobs for Singaporeans.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">There were gardens, parks and playgrounds for children to play games. Swimming pools and open spaces to fly kites.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">After independence, the Singapore constitutions were exercised in Parliaments to introduce new ways for law and orders.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The fire victims have suffered through hardship to adapt to the changes in Singapore for the education of young generations to find better jobs and earn better pay for the improvements of Singapore is worthwhile. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The HDB resettlement department changed and planned the new housing estates in Singapore. These are known as precints to plan and develop.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Every housing estate develop the schools, clinics, sports stadiums for recreation, bus interchange and MRT station for public transport.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Looking back 60 years in Bukit Ho Swee and other kampongs in Singapore.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In the past, there was no laws for use of public land, there was illegal pirate taxis, illegal pedler hawkers in the streets, illegal parking for vehicles.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Over the decades, hawkers were licensed to ensure safety of food, licensed taxi drivers and jobs in buses and MRT, parking tickets by HDB and URA.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The citizens are better disciplined and importance of law orders.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Introduction of national service for 18 years-old citizens to prevent youngsters to join traid societies to become gangsters. They are trained to learn useful jobs and they learn the importance of law and orders.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Community in every constituency and able-bodied Singapoeans to volunteer to help and protect the country to be safe and secure.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A letter to the editor of The Singapore Free Press on 6 June, 1961, the unnamed author wrote: "We must not have another Bukit Ho Swee."</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This is indeed a blessing for the Bukit Ho Swee fire victims for 60 years.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The nostalgic photos shared on this blog with thanks and courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh80JwpDVfXVOzYPPTEgGnAZ-2zDj71R__EKjpUCAZVRnT3mUu__Id1rOk4eMCjCPf6um7apsf54Q9iXRKqX555bMiYRCgBP-msyCz3VOy9cUL73bdRHPljVCaUo_ptfqc8K4OR698XziA/s673/IMG_20210616_190351.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="673" data-original-width="592" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh80JwpDVfXVOzYPPTEgGnAZ-2zDj71R__EKjpUCAZVRnT3mUu__Id1rOk4eMCjCPf6um7apsf54Q9iXRKqX555bMiYRCgBP-msyCz3VOy9cUL73bdRHPljVCaUo_ptfqc8K4OR698XziA/w351-h400/IMG_20210616_190351.png" width="351" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div></div>
With courtesy of Channel News Asia to share the documents of "Days of Disaster - Bukit Ho Swee fire <a href=" https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/video-on-demand/days-of-disaster/bukit-ho-swee-fire-11770004" target="_blank"> here </a> and Suria Channel Terbit 03 - Bukit Ho Swee and Tiong Bahru Area fires (in Malay with English Subtitles) <a href="https://youtu.be/XJtblASD8S0" target="_blank"> here </a>. <div><br /></div><div>Please watch these videos to learn more about the Bukit Ho Swee fire which happened in Singapore 60 years ago on 25 May 1961.</div>Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-66019511712961553622021-03-13T20:49:00.011+08:002021-03-14T04:33:05.362+08:00Zoom Teleconference Experience<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFGUu4fV5XQUwtInOFkdMaHyylSIV9ybKrJZQ8yIkZe3B-dBpHOtMfjZdtSNoxZ68YdpsqnAE1p6PNK-WhkvgHWY26HbF0ATa1CYokzL6ZLOCi3z-B1qqicXQ7B-DEIRUUiIMNwB8Zh4Q/s1224/IMG_20210312_195035.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1224" data-original-width="872" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFGUu4fV5XQUwtInOFkdMaHyylSIV9ybKrJZQ8yIkZe3B-dBpHOtMfjZdtSNoxZ68YdpsqnAE1p6PNK-WhkvgHWY26HbF0ATa1CYokzL6ZLOCi3z-B1qqicXQ7B-DEIRUUiIMNwB8Zh4Q/w285-h400/IMG_20210312_195035.png" width="285" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p>With the courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore, I am pleased and humbled to be invited to share my first person childhood memories of Bukit Ho Swee kampong.</p><p>Due to Covid19 safe distancing measures in Singapore to limit social gatherings with audience in crowded places, the Archives Invites event will be done digitally instead of physically.</p><p>The digital online event is with new "Zoom" teleconference technology on Internet.</p><p>I am thrilled to have the opportunity to learn this helpful experience. Thanks to NAS.</p><p>Zoom Video Communications, Inc. is an American communications technology company headquartered in San Jose, California. It provides videotelephony and online chat services through a cloud-based peer-to-peer software platform and is used for teleconferencing, telecommuting, distance education, and social relations.</p><p>Founder: Eric Yuan</p><p>Founded: 21 April 2011</p><p>The Eventbrite registration page
<a blank="" href="https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/archives-invites-james-seah-my-memories-of-bukit-ho-swee-registration-142472833079"> here </a>.
Eventbrite provide you with a customised experience. Please share our collective childhood memories of Bukit Ho Swee kampong.</p><p><b>Advantages in Advancement of Communication Technology</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9GuxYzOs-QMdn-wEqCdKUr2j2Mt5rEafJJhBDhbhzoLDNBzSEYEbw6B_pvim_U_VjxLN2X1N6y0AbZDUPhHdSijJfE8ytb1qrVvHPWpn3Ibg-YwIJXrsDDZS3sV6Qdsp8537dpAD4OU/s977/IMG_20210314_042259.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="740" data-original-width="977" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA9GuxYzOs-QMdn-wEqCdKUr2j2Mt5rEafJJhBDhbhzoLDNBzSEYEbw6B_pvim_U_VjxLN2X1N6y0AbZDUPhHdSijJfE8ytb1qrVvHPWpn3Ibg-YwIJXrsDDZS3sV6Qdsp8537dpAD4OU/w400-h303/IMG_20210314_042259.png" width="400" /></a></div>Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-77752996106064563612020-07-18T17:49:00.001+08:002020-07-20T04:46:26.494+08:00Bukit Ho Swee: The Turning Point<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1VArXGFT9PrrZQv4CCsYQmDvUjIutEM85kG0DsAm5wPszfucsPuqeiX8w6uW_0R9YoL0lnvox0zTE6j9oizfvPZAU0AoSz1OyUDFFmTvHfc7NpcUib4EVMiUEk7IgskNuM9mzPVS62yw/s1600/IMG_20200714_104944.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="534" data-original-width="510" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1VArXGFT9PrrZQv4CCsYQmDvUjIutEM85kG0DsAm5wPszfucsPuqeiX8w6uW_0R9YoL0lnvox0zTE6j9oizfvPZAU0AoSz1OyUDFFmTvHfc7NpcUib4EVMiUEk7IgskNuM9mzPVS62yw/s400/IMG_20200714_104944.png" width="381" /></a></div>
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Dr. Loh Kah Seng</div>
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The title of this blog "Bukit Ho Swee - The Turning Point" is the chapter based on Dr Loh Kah Seng's contribution to ICAS Publications Series. The International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) was founded in 1997.</div>
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The topic on this blog is excerpted from his article "The Politics of Fires in Post-1950s Singapore and the Making of the Modernist Nation-State.</div>
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<b>Introduction</b></div>
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Present-day Singaporeans, four-fifth of whom reside in modern flats built by the Housing and Development Board (henceforth HDB) generally do not worry about losing their lives, homes or belongings to an unforeseen blaze. However, while they do not fear fire, many older Singaporeans still remember the infernos of the past, and - what is significant in this closely managed state - often do so independently of the government's representation of the fires. Admittedly, the official story of the biggest conflagration in Singapore's history, the 1961 Kampong Bukit Ho Swee inferno, which narrates how the HDB successfully re-housed the fire victims in emergency flats built on the fire site - akin to a modern public housing estate rising literally from its ashes - is told in school textbooks, exhibition galleries and official public histories. However, both elderly and younger Singaporeans also remember the fire in distinctly different ways in homes, coffeeshops, and online forums. These opposing memories of the Bukit Ho Swee fire are symptomatic of the contested history of the kampong clearance and fires that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the ambivalence with which elderly Singaporeans have come to regard that past.</div>
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Across space and time, fires have had a profound social and political impact on state-society relations. The outbreak of an inferno, which straddles that grey area between natural cause and human responsibility, is nonetheless merely a 'trigger' of longer-term social pressures, which are demographic, social, economic, and environmental in nature. Fires are thus also political events in that they reveal how successfully the state dealt with a formidable fire hazard. Conversely, blazes are indicative of a community's autonomy and dynamism, which enable ordinary people to build effective formal and informal social networks against the threat of conflagration.</div>
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<b>Bukit Ho Swee: The Turning Point</b></div>
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The Bukit Ho Swee fire of May 1961 was the biggest fire in Singapore's history, destroying 2,200 dwellings and rendering </div>
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2,833 families (or 15,694 people) homeless. However, it was the subsequent emergency re-housing which distinguished it historically from kampong blazes of the 1950s. The PAP's response, unlike those of the British and Labour Front governments, was characterised by political resolve and speed. On 30 May, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew promised that in nine months' time a sufficient number of units will be completed by the Housing and Development Board to house every fire victim family' (Straits Times 30 May 1961).</div>
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In a special Legislative Assembly session convened the following day, the PAP government passed a motion to acquire the site for rebuilding and amended the Land Acquisition Ordinance to enable the government to acquire sites at one-third of the value of the land. The educated public similarly understood the importance of the re-housing operation in the creation of the new state. The <i>Nanyang Siang Pau</i> urged that since the observance of law and regulations is the first lesson for the citizens', citizens will cultivate good civic habits and refrain from building unauthorised houses for their own convenience, thus marrimg the look of the city and showing the cause for future fires.'<br />
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By the time of the Bukit Ho Swee fire, the HDB, unlike the SIT, had also adopted a clear policy towards emergency housing. Although the Board viewed the two-room flat as its minimum housing standard, it accepted the necessity of building at least 10,000 one-room flats, most of which served as emergency units, near the Central Area of Singapore as a short-term measure to house the low-income population living in inexpensive wooden and shop-house accomodations. The Board's members recognised that the political consideration, were more pressing and that the Housing Board might have to sacrifice its ideas on what units should be constructed. In November 1960, the PAP government had instructed the Board to continue the SIT's experiment with one-room emergency housing. Within a week of the Bukit Ho Swee fire, a preliminary plan to redevelop the site had already been prepared, while the HDB made the rebuilding of Bukit Ho Swee its top priority.<br />
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In September 1961, the 904 one-room emergency flats at the Tiong Bahru cemetery site, partially - built at the time of the May fire, were completed. More than 700 of the flats were allocated to the Bukit Ho Swee fire victims. The first of the HDB's building phases on the Bukit Ho Swee fire site itself was only completed in November, 1962, 18 months after the fire, with two subsequent phases that were realised in early 1965. By the end of 1963, of the 2,600 families registered with the HDB for re-housing, 2,166 families had been successfully accomodated. That year, the Board proudly declared that the appearance of the Bukit Ho Swee Fire Site had been completely changed from one of the worst congested slums in Singapore into a healthy housing estate with modern community services and amenities'. The HDB consequently could be very thankful to the SIT for having commenced construction on the cemetery site after the 1959 Tiong Bahru fire. The Board partially acknowledged the strategic knocks-on effects of fire removing the urban kampongs.<br />
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Singapore has just experienced two of its worst fire in recent year, one in Kampong Tiong Bahru and the other in Bukit Ho Swee, and it is a rather ironic coincidence that the flats erected at the first fire were completed just in time to house the victims of the second fire.<br />
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Bukit Ho Swee Estate was a high-modernist housing estate, in which formerly semi-autonomous kampong dwellers were being moulded into disciplined citizens. The development of public housing constituted, Lim Kim San, the first Cbairman of the HDB in 1964 proclaimed 'a minor revolution in the social and living habits of a sizeable portion of the population.'<br />
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Residents were instructed, among other things, not to keep livestock in their homes, obstruct the common corridors and stairways, illegally sublet the flat, or make unauthorised alterations to the flat. Moreover, its social amenities sought to draw former kampong dwellers firmly into its official orbit.<br />
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The estate's community centre, completed in 1965, sought to transform the local youth into 'loyal and efficient people to collectively shoulder the responsibility in nation building'. The hawkers and street sellers also fell under more official regulations. In 1966, at the opening of a 2-storey street sellers centre on the estate, a government official enthused that hawkers would no longer block traffic or present health hazards and could now 'do their business in sheltered comfort', while the residents could 'enjoy the many varieties of cooked food in clean, sanitary surroundings'.<br />
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Crucially, the Bukit Ho Swee flats served as springboard for the government's kampong clearance operations and, subsequently, its urban renewal programme to clear the shop-house dwellings in the Central Area Out of this social transformation of the urban margins, and thereafter by the urban core, thd HDB announced that 'a planned new city will be built'.<br />
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The key to urban renewal was to first resettle the families from the Central Area into flats built on the urban periphery. As Teh Cheang Wan, the HDB's Chief Architect, later remarked, the Board's 'construction plans would have run into difficulties if not for the God-sent opportunity of the Bukit Ho Swee fire in 1961, where a site was made available for 10,000 housing! Two-thirds of the people who eventually moved into the Bukit Ho Swee Estate were not victims of 1961 fire, however. In September 1962, a number of two-and three-room flats in the estate were reserved for kampong families affected by the clearance of nearby Redhill for industrial and housing development. In July 1963, another cluster of flats was allocated, in order of priority, to evicted families from the clearance areas; victim of the Bukit Ho Swee fire; victims of the Bukit Ban Kee fires; and general applicants on the housing register. After the 1963 Bukit Ban Kee blaze, the HDB temporarily rehoused 206 of the 230 fire vicims families in Bukit Ho Swee. In October 1964, the Board made more vacant flats in the estate available to applicants evicted from nearby South Precinct I due to the urban renewal programme. By 1970, there were more than 12,000 flats in the estate, having 45,066 tenants, an increase of 25,000 residents over figure from 1957.<br />
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The emergency flats, as a re-housing expedient, had accomplished their goal: to shatter the vicious cycle of proliferating unauthorised wooden housing, the migration of low-income Chinese families into the urban periphery and the repeated outbreak of kampong infernos. They also remained deeply unpopular with even the low-income families. Numerous fire victims allocated one-room emergency flats in Bukit Ho Swee soon required bigger flats.<br />
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The HDB quickly realised that 'the general opinion of the public is that there is no marked improvement from moving out of a one-room cubicle in the slum area to a one-room Housing Board unit other than cleanliness. In 1966, the government decided to build less one-room emergency units and to restrict them to areas further away from the Central Area. By this time, modern HDB estates had steadily replaced the kampongs in Singapore. By 1965, the Board had built 54,430 housing units, compared to only 500 wooden dwellings annually being built at that time in 1965. In the new urban perphery within a five-mile radius of the Central Area stood more than 50,000 units of public housing, accomodating 430,000 people or 23% of the population, and rising.<br />
<br />
The social and political margin, which the British colonial regime had sought to erase had been restored by the PAP government in the form of high-modernist public housing. The result was a marked reduction in the autonomy of families, which hitherto had had the freedom to move and sublet, rent, build or rebuild their accomodations on their own terms. The loss of this individual autonomy was the social price paid for citizenship, as the families were moved from spontaneous, unauthorised wooden housing into public housing in the 1960s. By becoming, first, tenants and subsequently, owners of HDB housing, these families were progressively transformed into citizens of the emergent nation-state.<br />
<br />
<b>Conclusion</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Modern Singapore was born out of fire, and the kampong infernos that lit up this period of history hold an ambivalent place in contemporary society. As historical events, the fires belong to the past but they also remain an integral part of present-day critique of the PAP government and the high-modernist pbilosophy of development which it has robustly implemented . The uncertainty with which the citizenry regard both the government and the forms and consequences of the high modernity is indicative of the scale and economic transformation, which took place during the birth of modern Singapore.<br />
<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Memories and experiences of a Bukit Ho Swee fire victim.</b><br />
<br />
With thanks to Dr Loh Kah Seng for the knowledgeable and informative articles about the wide ranging aspects of the kampongs and fires in Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s.
I would like to share the related video clips <a href="https://youtu.be/ijIRFys1YAs" target="_blank"> here </a> and <a href="https://youtu.be/DM1XaB6xH6s" target="_blank"> here </a>.<br />
<br />
I was one of the fire victims of the Bukit Ho Swee fire on 25 May, 1961 and these are vivid memories and stories for me to learn in my life.
</div>
Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-90029172306790370302020-03-31T15:08:00.002+08:002020-04-02T13:47:22.613+08:00Memorium of Madam Kwa Geok Choo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<strong><u>MM LEE'S EULOGY TO HIS WIFE</u></strong><br />
<br />
By Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew<br />
[Source: Straits Times, 7 October 2010]<br />
<br />
Ancient peoples developed and ritualised mourning practices to express the shared grief of family and friends, and together show not fear or distate of dealth, but respect for the dead ones; and to give comfort to the living who will miss the deceased.<br />
<br />
I recall the ritual mourning when my maternal grandmother died some 75 years ago. For five nights the family would gather to sing her praises and wail and mourn at her departure, led by a practised prosfessional mourner. Such rituals are no longer observed.<br />
<br />
My family's sorrow is to be expressed in personal tributes to the matriarch of our family.<br />
<br />
In October 2003, when she (Mrs Lee Kuan Yew) had her first stroke, we had a strong intimation of our mortality.<br />
<br />
My wife and I have been together since 1947 for more than three-quarters of our lives. My grief at her passing cannot be expressed in words. But today, when recounting our lives together, I would like to celebrate her life.<br />
<br />
In our quiet moments, we would revisit our lives and times together. We had been most fortunate. At critical turning points in our lives, fortune favoured us.<br />
<br />
As a young man with an interrupted education at Raffles College, and no steady job or profession, her parents did not look upon me as a desirable son-in-law. But she had faith in me. We had committed ourselves to each other.<br />
<br />
I decided to leave for England in September 1946 to read law, leaving her to return to Raffles College to try to win one of the two Queen's Scholarships awarded yearly. We knew that only one Singaporean would be awarded.<br />
<br />
I had the resources, and sailed for England, and hoped that she would join me after winning the Queen's Scholarship. If she did not win it, she would have to wait for me for three years.<br />
<br />
In June the next year, 1947, she did win it. But the British colonial office could not get her a place in Cambridge.<br />
<br />
Through the Chief Clerk of Fitzwilliam, W.S. Thather, was a good friend of the Mistress of Girton, Mis Butler. He game me a letter of introduction to the Mistress.<br />
<br />
She received me and I assured her that Choo would most likely take a "First", because she was the better student when we both were at Raffles College.<br />
<br />
I had come up late by one term to Cambridge, yet passed my first year qualifying examination with a Class 1.<br />
<br />
She studied Choo's academic record and decided to admit her in October that same year, 1947.<br />
<br />
We have kept each other company ever since. We married privately in December 1947 at Stratford-upon-Avon.<br />
<br />
At Cambridge, we both put in our best efforts. She took a first in two years in Law Tripos II. I took a double first, and a starrred first for the finals, but in three years. We did not disappoint our tutors.<br />
<br />
Our Cambridge firsts gave us a good start at life.<br />
<br />
Returning to Singapore, we both were taken on as legal assistants in Laycock & Ong, a thriving law firm in Malacca Street. Then we married officially a second time that September 1950 to please our parents and friends. She practised conveyancing and draftsmanship, I did litigation.<br />
<br />
In February 1952, our first son Hsien Loong was born. She took maternity leave for a year.<br />
<br />
<br />
That February, I was asked by John Laycock, the senior partner, to take up the case of the Postal and Telecommunications Uniformed Staff Union, the postmen's union. They were negotiating with the government for better terms and conditions of service. Negotiations were deadlocked and they decided to go on strike. It was a battle for public support.<br />
<br />
I was able to put across the reasonableness of their case through the press and radio. After a fortnight, they won concessions from the government.<br />
<br />
Choo, who was at home on maternity leave, pencilled through my draft statements, making them simple and clear.<br />
<br />
Over the years, she influenced my writing style. Now I write in short sentences, in the active voice. We gradually influenced each other's ways and habits as we adjusted and accommodated each other. We knew that we could not stay starry-eyed lovers all our lives; that life was an ongoing challenge with new problems to resolve and manage.<br />
<br />
We had two more children, Wei Ling in 1955 and Hsien Yang in 1957. She brought them up to be well-behaved, polite, considerate and never to throw their weight as the Prime Minister's children. As a lawyer, she earned enought to free me from worries about the future of our children.<br />
<br />
She saw the price I paid for not having mastered Mandarin when I was young. We decided to send all three children to Chinese kindergarten and schools.<br />
<br />
She made sure they learnt English and Malay well at home. Her nuturing has equipped them for life in a multi-lingual region.<br />
<br />
We never argued over the upbringing of our children, nor over financial matters. Our earnings and assets were jointly held. We were each other's confidant.<br />
<br />
She had simple pleasures. We would walk around the Istana gardens in the evening, and I hit golf balls to relax.<br />
<br />
Later, when we had grandchildren, she would take them to feed the fish and the swans in the Istana ponds. Then we would swim.<br />
<br />
She was interested in her surroundings, for instance, that many bird varieties were pushed out by mynahs and crows eating up the insects and vegetation. She discovered the curator of the gardens had cleared wild grasses and swing-fogged for mosquitoes, killing off insects they fed on. She stopped this and the bird varieties returned.<br />
<br />
She surrounded the swimming pool with free-flowering scented flowers and derived great pleasure smelling them as she swam. She knew each flower by its popular and botanical names. She had an enormous capacity for words.<br />
<br />
She had majored in English literature at Raffles College and was a voracious reader, from Jane Austen to J.R.R. Tolkien, from Thucydides' History of The Peloponnesian Wars to Girgil's Aeneid, to The Oxford Companion To Food, and Seafood Of South-east Asia, to Roadside Trees Of Malaya, and Birds Of Singapore.<br />
<br />
She helped me draft the Constitution of the P.A.P. For the inaugural meetings at the Victoria Memorial Hall on Nov 4, 1954, she gathered the wives of the founder members to sew rosettes for those who were going on stage.<br />
<br />
In my first election for Tanjong Pagar, our home in Oxley Road became the HQ to assign cars provided by my supporters to ferry voters to the polling booths.<br />
<br />
She warned me that I could not trust my new-found associates, the left-wing trade unionists led by Lim Chin Siong.<br />
<br />
She was furious that he never sent their high school student helpers to canvass for me in Tanjong Pagar, yet demanded the use of cars provided by my supporters to ferry my Tanjong Pagar voters.<br />
<br />
She had an uncanny ability to read the character of a person. She would sometimes warn me to be careful of certain persons; often, she turned out to be right.<br />
<br />
When we were about to join Malaysia, she told me that we would not succeed because the UMNO Malay leaders had such different lifestyles and because their politics were communally based, on race and religion.<br />
<br />
I replied that we had to make it work as there was no better choice. But she was right. We were asked to leave Malaysia before two years.<br />
<br />
When separation was imminent, Eddie Barker, as Law Minister, drew up the draft legislation for the separation. But he did not include an undertaking by the Federation Government to guarantee the observance of the two water agreements between the PUB and the Johor state government. I asked Choo to include this.<br />
<br />
The drafted the undertaking as part of the constitutional amendment of the Federation of Malaysia Constitution itself. She was precise and meticulous in her choice of words. The amendment statute was annexed to the Separation Agreement, which we then registered with the United Nations.<br />
<br />
The then Commonwealth Secretary Arthur Bottomley said that if other federations were to separate, he hoped they would do it as professionally as Singapore and Malaysia. It was a compliment to Eddie's and Choo's professional skills.<br />
<br />
Each time Malaysian Malay leaders threatened to cut off our water supply, I was assured that this clear and solemn international undertaking by the Malaysian government in its Constitution will get us a ruling by the UNSC (United Nations Security Council).<br />
<br />
After her first stroke, she lost her left field of vision. This slowed down her reading. She learnt to cope, reading with the help of a ruller. She swam every evening and kept fit.<br />
<br />
She continued to travel with me, and stayed active despite the stroke. She stayed in touch with her family and old friends. She listened to her collection of CDs, mostly classical, plus some golden oldies. She jocularly divided her life into "before stroke" and "after stroke", like BC and AD.<br />
<br />
She was friendly and considerate to all associated with her. She would banter with her WSOs (woman security officers) and correct their English grammer and pronunctiation in a friendly and cheerful way. Her former WSOs visited her when she was at NNI (National Neuroscience Institute). I thank them all.<br />
<br />
Her second stroke on May 12, 2008 was more disabling. I encouraged and cheered her on, helped by a magnificient team of doctors, surgeons, therapists and nurses.<br />
<br />
Her nurses, WSOs and maids all grew fond of her because she was warm and considerate. When she coughed, she would take her small pillow to cover her mouth because she worried for them and did not want to infect them.<br />
<br />
Her mind remained clear but her voice became weaker. When I kissed her cheek, she told me not to come too close to her in case I caught her pneumonia. I assured her that the doctors did not think that was likely because I was active.<br />
<br />
When given some peaches in hospital, she asked the maid to take one home for me for my lunch. I was at the centre of her life.<br />
<br />
On June 24, 2008, a CT scan revealed another bleed again on the right of her brain. There was not much more that medicine or surgery could do except to keep her comfortable.<br />
<br />
I brought her home on July 3, 2008. The doctors expected her to last a few weeks. She lived till Oct 2, two years and three months. She remained lucid. They gave time for me and my children to come to terms with the inevitable.<br />
<br />
In the final few months, her faculties declined. She could not speak but her cognition remained. She looked forward to have me talk to her every evening.<br />
<br />
Her last wish she shared with me was to enjoin our children to have our ashes placed together, as we were in life.<br />
<br />
The last two years of her life were the most difficult. She was bedridden after small successive strokes; she could not speak but she was still cognisant. Every night she would wait for me to sit by her to tell her of my day's activities and to read her favourite poems. The she would sleep.<br />
<br />
I have precious memories of our 63 years together. Without her, I would be a different man, with a different life. She devoted herself to me and our children. She was always there when I needed her. She has live a life full of warmth and meaning.<br />
<br />
I should find solcace in her 89 years of life well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sorrow and grief.<br />
<br />
DOCTORS:<br />
<br />
<strong>National Neuroscience Institute</strong><br />
Lee Kim En (Neurology)<br />
Ivan Ng (Neurosurgery)<br />
Francis Hui (Neuroradiology)<br />
<br />
<strong>Tan Tock Seng Hospital</strong><br />
Suresh Sahadevan (General Medicine), Chin Jing Jih (Geriatric Medicine), Karen Chua (Rehabilitation Medicine), Kwek Tong Kiat (Anasthesia), Thomas Lew (Anaesthesia)<br />
<br />
<strong>Singapore General Hospital</strong><br />
Fong Kok Yong (Rheumatology),<br />
A. Balakrishnan (ENT)<br />
<br />
<strong>National Dental Centre</strong><br />
Yuen Kwong Wing (Senior Consultant), Marianne Ong (Consultant)<br />
<br />
<strong>NURSES</strong>:<br />
<br />
<strong>NNI</strong>: Tan Li Fan<br />
<strong>TTSH</strong>: Wong Mui Peng, Ranbhir Kaur, Lily Ng, Tina Tng, Ten Siew Hwa, Heng Mui Chu, Lily Toh<br />
<strong>SGH</strong>: Elaine Yek, Eileen Robert Jacob, Li Ying Jacqueline Teo<br />
<strong>Khoo Teck Puat Hospital</strong>:<br />
Liu Xiao Yan<br />
<br />
<strong>THERAPISTS</strong>:<br />
<strong>Physiotherapy</strong>: Susan Niam, Seah Wei Wei<br />
<strong>Occupational therapy</strong>: Chan Mei Leng, David Zhang<br />
<strong>Speech therapy</strong>: Leiw Li Pyn, Sharon Wu<br />
<br />
<strong>MASSEURS</strong>:<br />
Heng Li Hoong, Lynne Teo<br />
<br />
The archived photos with courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore and the National Library Board.<br />
<br />
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<strong>One Last Goodbye</strong></div>
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Amid the grief and sadness, a celebration of an extraordinary life</div>
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<br /></div>
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By Chua Mui Hoong</div>
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Deputy Review Editor</div>
[ Source: Straits Times, 7 October 2010)<br />
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In the end, there was just a man who loved his wife till the end.</div>
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He walked to her casket and placed a single stalk of red rose, green leaves still on its stem, on her body.</div>
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He raised his 87-year-old body and walked half a step towards the head of the casket, supporting himself on the frame.</div>
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Then, he bent towards her and reached for her face with his right hand. He brought his hand back to his lips and planted a kiss on her forehead.</div>
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As though he could not bear to part, he did that again. And then he walked away, composed and un-aided.</div>
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Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew gave his wife two final kisses as she lay peaceful in her casket at the Mandai Crematorium. Madam Kwa Geok Choo - his beloved Choo - had died on Saturday, aged 89, after being bedridden for over two years as a result of a series of strokes.</div>
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His kiss was a private gesture of love, but will linger in the memories of those who witnessed it, as a public affirmation of the abiding love they shared.</div>
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Earlier, in his eulogy, he spoke of their years together, as starry-eyed lovers at Raffles College and Cambridge University. He spoke too of her support as he fought for independence, and through his many years as prime minister as he and his colleagues built a new nation.</div>
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He spoke of their public life together, reminding his audience of her role in helping to draft legal documents at pivotal moments in Singapore's history, and of her role as his confidente and adviser.</div>
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Of his private feelings at losing his wife, he would only say he would have been a different man without her, with a completely different life, adding at the end, with his head bowed: "I should find solace in her 89 years of her life well lived. But at this moment of the final parting, my heart is heavy with sorrow and grief."</div>
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After lying at Sri Temasek for two days, Mrs Lee's casket was borne on a gun carriage to the Mandai Crematorium. Hundreds gathered outside the Istana gates to send her off.</div>
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Her casket travelled down roads bordering the Central Catchment and nature reserve areas, down Thomson Road past MacRitchie Reservoir where she went courting with her then-fiance more than 60 years ago, past the Lower Pierce Reservoir, down leafy Upper Thomson Road lined with the beautiful albizia, to her final stop at Mandai, a route apt for one who love botany and enjoyed watching birds in the Istana grounds.</div>
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Thousands of Singaporeans and foreign dignitaries had gone to Sri Temasek, the official residence of the Prime Minisster, to pay their respects over the last two days. The crowd included a stenographer she had encouraged to become a lawyer, and a butler's son she had encouraged to become a policeman. Others came to pay their respects to a woman they had never met, but whom they admired for her faithful support of her husband and for her quiet grace in public.</div>
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But yesterday's funeral service at the Mandai Crematorium Hall 1 was private, a family affair with about 300 guests - colleagues, friends and relatives, as well as representatives from the PAP and grassroots organisations, and the doctors, nurses and others who cared for Mrs Lee over the years.</div>
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Mr Lee Hsien Loong spoke not as Prime Minister but as the grieving son, clad in mourning garb of plain white T-shirt and black trousers, addressing the Minister Mentor as Papa for the first time in public.</div>
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After two days of standing for hours by his mother's casket to receive well-wishers, there were shadows under his eyes. However, his face lit up when he spoke of her hand-knitted sweaters, and his voice swelled with grief when he recalled how she had taken care of his two older children when their mother died.</div>
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On behalf of the family, he said: "Over these last few days, I, and my family, have been deeply touched by the outpouring of condolences and fond recollection of people from all walks of life. We stood receiving the visitors, all moved that so many had come."</div>
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She was a doting Mama, so attuned to her children's needs, she seemed to know just when daughter Wei Ling needed a toothbrush, or when youngest child Hsien Yang needed medical attention.</div>
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The family's eulogies gave glimpses into life in the fiercely private Lee family. One highlight was Sunday lunches at Oxley Road with three, or even four generations - with the grandchildren tending "to eat far too fast and play too loudly", as grandson Shengwu put it.</div>
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Granddaughter Xiuqi, in a fond tribute, celebrated the zest for life her beloved Nai Nai (Chinese for granny) had, relating how she, in her last years, developed a fondness for dessert and ribbons. As Mrs Lee grew frail and her husband became more attentive to her every need, she "acquired the flow of a girl who knew she was adored".</div>
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What Mr Lee, a traditional Chinese gentleman in his restraint and composure had declined to reveal, his children and grandchildren chose to say for him, describing how he learnt to care for his wife after she became frail.</div>
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As Hsien Yang said, looking teary-eyed: "He adjusted his routine to accomodate her changing circumstances and physical condition. His abiding love, devotion and care must have been a great comfort to her, and an inspiration to Fern and me on how to manage a lifelong partnership, through good health and illness."</div>
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His wife Suet Fern, and PM Lee's wife Ho Ching, were present by their husbands' sides throughout the wake and funeral.</div>
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Historians will accord Mrs Lee Kuan Yew an illustrious place in Singapore history, for her pioneering legal career, her quiet contributions to constitutional draftsmanship and as the wife of Singapore's founding Prime Minister.</div>
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But in her final journey yesterday, she returned to the roles she most valued - that of wife, mother and grandmother. And listening to her family members' moving tributes, there is no doubt that she loved them all, and was much loved in return.</div>
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In the end, there was just a woman who stood by her husband over a lifetime and cared for her children and grandchildren. That woman was Madam Kwa Geok Choo.</div>
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<strong>A tribute in cartoons</strong></div>
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By Akshita Nanda</div>
[ Source: Straits Times, 9 September 2011]<br />
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Madam Kwa Geok Choo, Mr Lee Kuan Yew's wife, now has a book of sketches in memory of her.</div>
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Wife of Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew and mother of the current Prime Minister, the late Madam Kwa Geok Choo was often captured on camera - and now, in cartoons.</div>
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A new book by well-known artist Morgan Chua, in Memory of Madam Kwa Geok Choo (1920-2010), sets out her life story in a series of affectionate, light-hearted sketches. She died in October last year at the age of 89.</div>
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The drawings, many inspired by photographs in the National Library Board archives, emphasise her achievements as a lawyer, breadwinner and home-maker, as well as her public persona as Mrs Lee Kuan Yew.</div>
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The 72-page self-published volume begins with a note from former president S R Nathan. He writes: "I hope that it would stir interest among younger Singaporeans to get to know this remarkable lady better."</div>
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Historian Kwa Chong Guan, who is Madam Kwa's nephew and in his mid-60s, says: "I think the book is a nice balance between historical accuracy and artistic creativity."</div>
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The head of external programmes at the S. Rajaratna,m School of International Studies lent cartoonist Chua family photos for reference.</div>
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The author, Singapore-born Chua, 61, was the editorial cartoonist for the now-defunct Far Eastern Economic Review in Hong Kong for 25 years until 1997. His work also appeared in the Singapore Herald in 1970; a best-selling illustrated history of Singapore, My Singapore (2000, Raffles Publishers); and Chronicle Of Singapore (2009), in which Editions Didier Millet condensed 50 years of newspaper history.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF1VvyC6GUKZYyOet4QJ9pJMjWhiGP-2Jw-J9qnUCHT8qCRzN_7V-3mG5azFJmWI_ccpRJAlObi1ocT8DQR9lJehVjYIDbo1GiZsx_GG_fatsokKtgaOLpRGEPMa2AKtPC3uI80YxtmtU/s1600/20200331_125643.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1028" data-original-width="1600" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF1VvyC6GUKZYyOet4QJ9pJMjWhiGP-2Jw-J9qnUCHT8qCRzN_7V-3mG5azFJmWI_ccpRJAlObi1ocT8DQR9lJehVjYIDbo1GiZsx_GG_fatsokKtgaOLpRGEPMa2AKtPC3uI80YxtmtU/s400/20200331_125643.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Artist Morgan Chua</div>
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Chua never met Madam Kwa but last November, a month after she died, he says he felt driven to begin researching her life. "Everyone was talking about her, but I felt they just echoed what Mr Lee Kuan Yew had written in his books. Nobody went beyond what he said."</div>
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Though based in Tanjoung Pinang on Bintan island with his wife and one-year-old daughter, Chua began spending up to five days a week in Singapore, reading microfilms and old school magazines in the National Library Board collection. He unearthed interest photos, such as one of Madam Kwa riding an MRT train in the 1980s, when the train lines opened for use. </div>
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"She played a part in the history of Singapore and she deserves a place in the history of Singapore and she deserves a place in the history books," he says.</div>
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In his sketches, he adds his own signature twist to well-recorded events, such as the 1940s courtship of Mr Lee and Madam Kwa in Singapore and England. Drawings based on photos of the couple together in a park, for example, include curious animals in the background.</div>
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Chua also mingles facts about Madam Kwa's family, career, hobbies and pets with snippets of Singapore history. A page about her days at Methodist Girls' School also summarises that institution's origins.</div>
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When done with the draft in June, he enlisted friends such as heritage buff and National University of Singaproe's law professor Kevin Tan as fact checkers.</div>
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Dr Tan, 50, who just retired as president of the Singapore Heritage Society, says he was impressed by Chua's determination to get the facts right - and also the detailed, tongue-in-cheek drawings.</div>
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"I've always thought, 'This guy has something special'," says the self-confessed fan who devoured Chua's work for years in the Far Eastern Economic Review.</div>
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"There have been all these sombre tribute to Madam Kwa Geok Choo but this is a lighter touch. I think he did a fantastic job."</div>
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<strong><u>My personal acquaintance with Morgan Chua</u></strong></div>
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The first time I met Morgan Chua at the photostating room at Lee Kong Chien Reference Library at Level 11 of the National Library Building, Victoria Street many years ago. I did not know he is the famous and popular artist of Singapore and he is a friendly and modest guy. It is my pleasure and honor to know him in person.</div>
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Many years ago, we often meet at the library when both of us were doing our research at the reference library, a "goldmine" for published resources and material.</div>
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We were at the library for many hours and once when we were hungry for dinner time, we decided to have chicken nasi bryani at an Indian stall at the coffee shop opposite the library.</div>
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I have lost contact with him for many years now, long before he published the book on Madam Kwa Geok Choo.</div>
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A few selected drawings from the book are shared on this blog, with thanks to Morgan and hope more readers would like them and learn from an interesting book.</div>
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<br />Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-87778373704481008412020-03-18T14:54:00.000+08:002020-03-18T15:02:26.399+08:00Making Memories Count<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Emotional connections: A photograph of Mr Gene Tan, director of the Singapore Memory Project, with his mother and three older siblings growing up in a one-room flat in Circuit Road.</div>
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By Jennani Durai</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTi_DpIiT6Nzrf_AKFnfJYFZ4fGCOsB1DA1nxTIGX1jtFOx4BKogu_Q9MM5-ZOwIlGfF6x-9QiyxLoRxAENCAHvXpAC8o46Qf6-UQTARenLlFg76QCWAFAUeBla9ba7YDDPxzHF3_Olc/s1600/IMG_20200318_120446.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; height: 188px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; width: 169px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="887" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTi_DpIiT6Nzrf_AKFnfJYFZ4fGCOsB1DA1nxTIGX1jtFOx4BKogu_Q9MM5-ZOwIlGfF6x-9QiyxLoRxAENCAHvXpAC8o46Qf6-UQTARenLlFg76QCWAFAUeBla9ba7YDDPxzHF3_Olc/s200/IMG_20200318_120446.jpg" width="196" /></a>
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The Singapore Memory Project shifts its focus to quality instead of quantity of memories.</div>
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I started with big dreams of collecting five million memories before Singapore's 50th birthday, but the Singapore Memory Project now wants quality, over quantity.</div>
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Mr Gene Tan, director of the Singapore Memory Project, says the project is "beyond numbers now". "We feel that Singaporeans can feel something for the project and people are responding more to the emotions behind the memories," he says. "So we are moving towards memories that are able to connect with other people."</div>
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He elaborates: "Once, we put up a picture of a Singer sewing machine on our Facebook page, and the memories came flooding in. People talked about how they got their clothes sewn by their mother or grandmother. That sparked off more memories of the people they love. The most powerful memories people connect to have to do with relationships."</div>
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Heritage experts here say the project's change in focus is for the better.</div>
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Dr Chua Ai Lin, historian and vice-president of the Singapore Heritage Society, agrees with the move, saying that the richness of the contributions is more important than the number. She says: "People could submit just one line, and it might not even be meaningful. The things that will speak to people who look at these contributions are rich descriptions that evoke textures and memories of the past, that create emotional connections."</div>
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Similarly, Dr Hui Yew-Foong of the Institute of South-east Asian Studies says memories can revolve around just recollections of everyday life. He says: "Memories are important not because we have many of them, but because some of them are meaningful to us and define who we are."</div>
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The project, initiated by the National Library Board in 2010, was envisioned to hit its target of five million memories by 2015. However, in the last three years, it has garnered over 800,000 contributions - a far cry from its original lofty aim.</div>
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But Mr Tan adds that the shift away from numbers does not mean they are no longer important. "For any project, 800,000 members are sufficient to build a story. Now we must try to figure out whether there are any areas of the Singapore experience which we may not have memories yet," he says.</div>
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Anyone can submit memories through the project's online portal (<a href="http://www.singaporememory.sg/">www.singaporememory.sg</a>), or through its various roadshows at libraries, community centres and housing estates. There are also more than 180 volunteers in the Memory Corps, says Mr Tan, who help collect and document the contributions at the project's outreach events.</div>
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Writer Justin Zhuang, 29, who contributed an e-book on retro playgrounds to the project, feels strongly that the project's success should not be discounted. "Although the Singapore Memory Project may look like it's lacking in numbers at the moment, I think it has created an awareness of the values of our past and a platform for people to explore historeis," he says.</div>
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He adds that the project is important in that it "signals the state's recognition that every Singaporean is part of its history, not just great men or women".</div>
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Mr Alvin Tan, director of the National Heritage Board, says the project could consider highlighting particularly evocative memories that have been submitted and leveraging on them to generate more memories.</div>
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Historian Dr Chua adds that collecting any oral history can take a lot of effort. "It takes a long time for people to warm up and share in the vivid way that the project is looking for. You may have to meet someone four or five times before they really begin to talk," she says.</div>
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She adds: "It may not be as straightforward as just telling people to come forward and share."</div>
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Civil servant Jacky Tan submitted this photograph of his late father selling kueh tu tu from a tricycle stall in Chinatown in the 1970s.</div>
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Human resources coordinator Petrina Edema submitted this 1975 shot of her with her mother and brother outside the National Theatre after a visit to the Van Kleef Aquarium.</div>
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[PHOTO COURTESY OF GENE TAN, JACKY TAN & PETRINA EDEMA]</div>
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<strong>One S'pore, many pasts?</strong></div>
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As the nation turns 50, does its history matters to Singaporeans?</div>
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The debate continued in the post-live show segment of Thursday's VoicesTODAY</div>
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[Source: TODAY, 22 February 2014]</div>
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<strong>Gary Gan</strong>: History must be taken in context. If it is being used to educate and help people shape their decisions that would dictate their future, then it is an important tool and we can learn from the lessons the pioneer generation taught us in building this nation.</div>
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If history is used as a crutch because we want to hark back to the good old days and do not want to let go, then it is difficult for Singapore to progress.</div>
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We hear (talk) that buses were not so crowded, there were not so many foreigners, cars were cheaper and roads were less busy ... People should ralise this is progress.</div>
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<strong>Chua Ai Lin</strong>: There aree different aspects of history and Gary is referring to the sense of nostalgia. Earlier, another caller talked about the past being something traumatic.</div>
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As an academic, I see history as being about learning information. So, there are different ways to thinak about the past and, as Gary said, they have different outcomes.</div>
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<strong>Philip Chew</strong>: Everybody has a story to tell. In my case, it happens to be Chew Joo Chiat and I want his descendents to know his humble beginnings. He kept such a low profile that hardly anybody knows he was one of Singapore's pioneers.</div>
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<strong>Gene Tan</strong>: The collective sentiment that comes from all these stories is instructive, I think the past is, currently and shockingly, slowing us down in a good way. We look back at things we used to love and the kampung spirit is cited often.</div>
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While we cannot get it back, that talk of inclusivenes and pulling people together has made us now more conscious about those whom we need to pay attention to and include. So the past can slow us down in powerful ways.</div>
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<strong>Gary</strong>: I agree. An image comes to mind: Looking at pictures in the past of how Mr Lee Kuan Yew sat with his Cabinet colleagues - Malay, Indian and Chinese - and would sup together. That was the norm. Nowadays, people have their groups and are going in different directions. Gene mentioned the kampung spirit so, maybe, such things will help us take a sstep back to say that society should still be "like this" in the 21st century.</div>
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<strong>HISTORY AND IDENTITY</strong></div>
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<strong>Gene</strong>: I feel that people are averse to reducing the Singapore identity or spirit to only a few words or pictures. If we can make the Singapore identity a little messier, a little more complex, with something that represents all the minutiae that comes with feeling Singaporean, that would sound more authentic.</div>
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<strong>Ai Lin</strong>: Maybe the mould we have been given so far does not reflect the messiness Gene is talking about and not everybody can find their reflection in that simplified identity. So, it is about finding ways to connect and, maybe, we need more ways in which people can connect to a sense of self.</div>
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<strong>Amos Lee</strong>: If there is one way history has helped us, it is to show us the aspects we can incorporate into our identity. But we are still debating what makes a Singaporean ... For the young, history ties in with our culture and tradition, especially when it comes to food.</div>
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<strong>Gene</strong>: It should be mandatory to have many versions of what the past was like and I hope we have many versions of the present, so the future can continue to debate the Singaporean identity.</div>
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<strong>TO TEACH HISTORY</strong> ... </div>
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<strong>Gary</strong>: I would hazard a suggestion that, if Singapore history was an examinable subject, people would take keener interest. That may seem cynical but, if we want to drum it into our youngsters, maybe a bit of force is required, rather than to let them think about it casually.</div>
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<strong>Ai Lin</strong>: (Learning about history) should be about experiencing the past beyond textbooks and we are getting better at it. Instead of making it compulsory through the exam route, which turns people off, I am more interested in getting them to see it in a fun way; to connect with it. I think the landscape is powerful. For example, to me, Byjut Brown is a story of people who were not terribly interested in history before, but have been so taken by the place that they have educated themselves about various aspects of Singapore history.</div>
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* Gene Tan is Director of the Singapore Memory Project.</div>
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* Chua Ai Lin is President of the Singapore Heritage Society</div>
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* Philip Chew blogs about his great-grandfather Chew Joo Chiat and other memories</div>
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* Amos Lee is a social science student</div>
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* Gary Gan was a caller on the show</div>
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<strong>In search of Singapore's past</strong></div>
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Young Singaporeans are responding to the rapid pace of change by documenting lost places and memories</div>
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By <strong>Jennani Durai</strong>[Source: Straits Times - 2nd Edition, 14 April 2013</div>
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Nostalgia has surged of late in Singapore, if the recent proliferation of heritage projects, stores and eateries harking back to bygone days is anything to go by.</div>
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Against a backdrop of the very prominent closure of longstanding landmarks such as the Bukit Brown cemetery and the Tanjong Pagar Railway station, as well as aggressive documentation efforts by the National Heritage Board, a groundswell of nostalgic feelings from Singaporeans has arisen.</div>
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Books, films, apps and photo exhibitions documenting the past and chronicling changes in Singapore have flourished. Film-maker Royston Tan, for example, has released Old Places (2010) and Old Romances (2012), two documentaries recording the sights and recollections of an older time. Heritage blogger Lam Chun See last year compiled several entries from his blog Good Morning Yesterday into a book of the same title.</div>
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Meanwhile, stores that evoke the past with ther merchandise and decor, such as childhood memorabilia store The Damn Good Shop in Maxwell Road and eatery Old School Delights in Upper Thomson Road, have also popped up and proved popular.</div>
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Experts suggest the recent surge in interest may be a reflection of the stage Singapore is in as a society, immediately following a phase of accelerated growth and change.</div>
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Mr Alvin Tan, 40, director of the National Heritage Board, says: "Perhaps we have reached a stage of maturity in our national development where we start to feel nostalgic for aspects of our heritage that were eroded or lost during the recent decades."</div>
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The recent groundswell of interest in Singapore's heritage could be "attributed to our need for visible and tangible markers, such as landmarks, as well as shared memories and experiences to anchor ourselves in times of change as we attempt to define what makes us Singaporeans", he adds.</div>
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Historian Chua Ai Lin agrees, saying that the phenomenon is "a response to the pace of change".</div>
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"Much like elderly people who don't want to leave the house anymore because they don't recognise things around them, when things are changing too fast, we want to hang on to a few things we feel comfortable with - and that's what this surge of nostalgia is about," says Dr Chua, who is in her 30s and is vice-president of the Singapore Heritage Society.</div>
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Dr Hui Yew-Foong of the Institute of South-east Asian Studies believes that the recent surge in interest in heritage can be largely atributed to two things.</div>
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"Demographically, a generation of Singaporeans who have grown up with Singapore have reached an age where they are more likely to reminisce about the past and feel more keenly the changes that Singapore has undergone," says the academic, who conducts research on cemeteries and Chinese culturazl heritage in Singapore.</div>
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He and his team are documenting about 5,000 graves at Bukit Brown Cemetery where a road is slated to cut through.</div>
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At the same time, the growth of social media platforms has also allowed a discourse of nostalgia to develop further, he adds.</div>
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Dr Chua agrees and adds that the emergence of nostalgia blogs and Facebook groups, and more seniors learning how to share pictures and stories over the Internet, have meant that "people inspire one another to share their memories".</div>
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"When people see something they recognise from the past online, they think 'I remember that too!" or 'I have a similar photo!'," she says. "This platform for interaction is very, very important. When people share this publicly, they provide an information resource for everyone who didn't live through it."</div>
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The proliferation of heritage projects now may also be fuelled by a sense of regret at not having appreciated things that are no longer around, says naval architect and heritage photographer Jerome Lim, 48.</div>
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Mr Lim, who was approached by the National Heritage Board to showcase his photographs of the old Tanjong Pagar Railway Station before it closed, and who recently launched a series of photographs on Singapore's five-foot-ways, says he began documenting old places as he regrets "not having captured all the things that have changed".</div>
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"I was struck by a sense that a lot of plaes in my memories have vanished," he says. "So now, I feel an urgency to capture these remaining places."</div>
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Cafe owner Olivia Teo, 39, who opened eatery Old School Delights with her brother three years ago, says she has been stunned by the overwhelming reaction from customers to the "old school" interior and details in her cafe.</div>
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We certainly didn't expect customers to get so excited about the five stones, erasers and old card games such as Happy Family, Donkey and Old Maid in our toy boxes which we place at every table in our eater," she says.</div>
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Such nostalgic memorabilia triggers a universal reaction in customers, she adds.</div>
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"I never fail to be amazed by the responses and comments we get on our Facebook page whenever we post nostalgic pictures, from an old-fashioned Toyota cab to old school toys, to our heritage buildings such as the Van Cleef Aquarium or the National Theatre," she says. "This just shows how much people reminisce about the past and get sentimental about it."</div>
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Dr Hui, 40, says the recent surge in nostalgia "bodes well for Singapore", a nation which turns 48 this year.</div>
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"As we approach 50 in a couple of years, it is important to ask and know who we are," he says. "This national soul-searching will strengthen us as a people and help us to stand on the global stage not only as an economic entity, but also as a cultural entity."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmy5eMxoOCMCPQyw2ZFD8CPyFClE5SZHnYQtbi_AM8Y1R_QDYtJh6gTCgzAnos7uHE_zb1LHuJVQSnFK4BjkhhVtYiWQ7jK0EfDmplm5ZWq63owswL3DyhEqvi9wqUFelEsRiFcbwFZIc/s1600/IMG_20200318_120630_edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="1600" height="366" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmy5eMxoOCMCPQyw2ZFD8CPyFClE5SZHnYQtbi_AM8Y1R_QDYtJh6gTCgzAnos7uHE_zb1LHuJVQSnFK4BjkhhVtYiWQ7jK0EfDmplm5ZWq63owswL3DyhEqvi9wqUFelEsRiFcbwFZIc/s400/IMG_20200318_120630_edit.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-25085825521364406352020-03-10T15:18:00.004+08:002020-03-11T16:44:55.783+08:00Royal Charter: From "Town of Singapore" to "City of Singapore" on 22 September, 1951<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhchyphenhyphenX-tkjAjYi7QAZSuob8utF2k3qn413El2q0LocQlJWVIONtt3xEIzANGJPlpqPESppnPJBMBB1zQMoeduQwxH0dENDWsT-HB8O4KdY2nDabaNjSoYbhjqn5V1AKn2gQk2NhZh5o7rU/s1600/img0157.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="640" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhchyphenhyphenX-tkjAjYi7QAZSuob8utF2k3qn413El2q0LocQlJWVIONtt3xEIzANGJPlpqPESppnPJBMBB1zQMoeduQwxH0dENDWsT-HB8O4KdY2nDabaNjSoYbhjqn5V1AKn2gQk2NhZh5o7rU/s400/img0157.jpg" width="400" /></a>
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This blog is inspired by Dr Tan Wee Kiat's latest "Singapore Stamp Stories" blog <a href="https://singaporestampstories.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-tale-of-two-cities.html" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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I haven't heard about 'City Day' in Singapore until this is mentioned in his blog. Every stamp tells a story. There are many interesting Singapore stories through stamps which he has written in his books and blogs for everyone; especially the younger generations of Singaporeans to share.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIXIA4oRM6bn165HZEd3Dt7q46usz4SdQ21V1mUp7EkAfDqB5M8iAEjPUp3zWsOQLzN0Dvbxy1Gk1fraFL6HiY5Cv32zCnRocGIOscwLmu9bPgY2kvRr7to4wN_wUs_Ank3bS3pcc6J0/s1600/Tale+of++2+Cities+pg53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1402" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIXIA4oRM6bn165HZEd3Dt7q46usz4SdQ21V1mUp7EkAfDqB5M8iAEjPUp3zWsOQLzN0Dvbxy1Gk1fraFL6HiY5Cv32zCnRocGIOscwLmu9bPgY2kvRr7to4wN_wUs_Ank3bS3pcc6J0/s400/Tale+of++2+Cities+pg53.jpg" width="350" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtkL5SR6TG5POA9PSd2vT0Bb00jVybLtb13-Sy8DOvlP-SJ7EQa-GE_2GYhFm4rHIY9jZkKEUHBPelzMfw989D1uepILps6VDSOEUPsyBX_9eOs1QZ82ppwoBZKYX7l9EzBTbtpSG7GfU/s1600/Tale+of++2+Cities+pg54.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1406" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtkL5SR6TG5POA9PSd2vT0Bb00jVybLtb13-Sy8DOvlP-SJ7EQa-GE_2GYhFm4rHIY9jZkKEUHBPelzMfw989D1uepILps6VDSOEUPsyBX_9eOs1QZ82ppwoBZKYX7l9EzBTbtpSG7GfU/s400/Tale+of++2+Cities+pg54.jpg" width="351" /></a></div>
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To find out more about 'City Day', I did some help from the National Archives of Singapore and NewspaperSG of the National Library Board.</div>
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[Source: The Singapore Free Press, 20 September 1951]
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeRHK62OsYs33aqpqTgrCno-lKJoFxd_I3Lb_X1q0KAPOoi6XRWkKslAooWq7BgXRH-n-QFuSmow1I3o1WIKQqio8vPuwjIbiS2cKLE-jrX1jCqAe9YNbvM3iVwnykU-rmzSnneUXiDrg/s1600/img0102.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="468" data-original-width="694" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeRHK62OsYs33aqpqTgrCno-lKJoFxd_I3Lb_X1q0KAPOoi6XRWkKslAooWq7BgXRH-n-QFuSmow1I3o1WIKQqio8vPuwjIbiS2cKLE-jrX1jCqAe9YNbvM3iVwnykU-rmzSnneUXiDrg/s400/img0102.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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City Hall, Singapore in 1951
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View of arch in front of Supreme Court depicting Singapore's status as a city state. Photograph was taken during City Day celebration, the day when King George VI conferred the status of city upon the municipality of Singapore. Date: 22/9/1951.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJirfP8KJmHzT5w4BdXxhmXAc2VYg6hn322ud_iq4Ya1h5fp3InuqWd9rEBWsUVz4l8drxSm21PMB8hbPIdwkthq1VsdqSylp3i2zW6p4avzYVgheBDVnydc3E8pJ5n3hWN3EJEFFWOM/s1600/img0031.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="508" data-original-width="648" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxJirfP8KJmHzT5w4BdXxhmXAc2VYg6hn322ud_iq4Ya1h5fp3InuqWd9rEBWsUVz4l8drxSm21PMB8hbPIdwkthq1VsdqSylp3i2zW6p4avzYVgheBDVnydc3E8pJ5n3hWN3EJEFFWOM/s400/img0031.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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A booth at Singapore City Day on 22 September, 1951.</div>
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<strong><u>Peal of Bells Heralds Birth of Singapore City</u></strong></div>
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By James Peter Chin
[Source: Sunday Standard, 23 September 1951]</div>
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Dawn broke over a city of colour, gaiety and joy yesterday (22 September 1951) as Singaporeans in thousands thronged the street making for the Esplanade to see the birth of a city.<br />
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At 7.15 a.m., official guests in uniform and national costumes arrayed with medals and decorations began to stream in. School children from Singapore and Johore were already in their best in their uniforms. As time moved on, the crowd packed St. Andrew's Road from one end to another nd an air of expectancy prevailed over the whole Padang.</div>
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A roll of drums announced the arrival of the Chief Justice, Sir Charles Murray-Aynsley. Next came the High Commissioner for the Federation, Sir Henry Gurney, followed by the Commissioner-General Mr Malcom MacDonald.
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<strong>The Trumpets</strong>
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The Guard of Honour drawn from the S.V.C, M.R.N.V.R., M.A.A.F. and the Police stood to attention whilst the National Anthem was being played.</div>
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At exactly 8.10 a.m., the Governor of Singapore, Sir Franklin Gimson, arrived escorted by three A.D.Cs and bearing the Royal Charter. The National Anthem was again played after which he inspected the Guard of Honour.
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R.A.F. planes led by two Vampires dived down in salute.
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Sir Franklin Gimson then made a speech after which Sir Charles read the full text of the Royal Charter which was in a red and gold case. <br />
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Following is the text of the Royal Charter which confers the City Status on Singapore:<br />
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<strong>GEORGE THE SIXTH</strong> by the Grace of God of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyong the Seas, King Defender of the Faith to all to whom these Presents shall come Greeting:
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<strong>WHEREAS</strong> We for diverse good causes and considerations Us therunto moving are graciously pleased to raise the said Town to the rank of a City. </div>
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NOW <strong>THEREFORE </strong>know ye that We of Our especial grace and favour and mere motion do by this Our Royal Charter will ordain, constitute, declare and appoint that Our said Town shall on the twenty second day of September in the year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and fifty one and forever thereafter be a City and shall be called and styled THE CITY OF SINGAPORE instead of the Town of Singapore and shall thenceforth have all such rank, liberties, privileges and immunities as are incident to a City.
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<strong>AND</strong> we do further declare and direct that the Municipal Commissioners of Singapore shall thenceforth be one body corporate by the name and style of <strong>THE CITY COUNCIL OF SINGAPORE </strong>with all such powers and privileges as they would have had as the Municipal Commissioners of Singapore and as if they had been incorporated by the name of the City Council of Singapore.
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<strong>AND FURTHER</strong> know ye that We trusting in the discretion, fidelity and care of Our trusty and well beloved Sir Franklin Chales Gimson Knight Commander of Our Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George Governor and Commander in Chief Presents unto the said Sir Franklin Charles Gimson full power in Our name to declare and make known Our Pleasure herein </div>
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IN WITNESS WHEREOF We have caused these Our letters to be made Patent Witness Ourself at Westminser the twenty-fourth day of July in the fifteenth year of Our Reign.<br />
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By Warrant under the King's Sign Manual.
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<strong>Mr James Griffiths' Statement Recalled</strong><br />
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On July 25 the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr. James Griffiths, announced that His Majesty the King had been pleased, by Letters Patent under the Great Seal bearing the date July 24, 1951, to ordain that the town of Singapore should be raised to the status and dignity of a city with effect from September 22, 1951, and should from that date be called and styled "the City of Singapore". In receiving this honour Singapore become the second town in the British dependencies to be granted <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-YmoKM1NPZjpxGdGkwYLjtbCFPybeZZzNNR1U34oW93ExE-jkV2BKNr8O7T2jCSDWH0yjyxfMENZ_g086wzMB4OUbM8fPpdhpxAcX7NhZWWiqoRPssE05zzePh8DF9rt8MQTcGK_SD2c/s1600/img084.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="743" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-YmoKM1NPZjpxGdGkwYLjtbCFPybeZZzNNR1U34oW93ExE-jkV2BKNr8O7T2jCSDWH0yjyxfMENZ_g086wzMB4OUbM8fPpdhpxAcX7NhZWWiqoRPssE05zzePh8DF9rt8MQTcGK_SD2c/s400/img084.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Singapore City Day's Royal Charter enclosed in a beautiful red and gold case lined with green velvet and framed in glass.</div>
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He then handed the Charter to the Governor of Singapore who in turn presented it to the President of the Municipal Commission, Mr. T. P. F. McNeice.</div>
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As the Municipal President received the Royal Charter there was a fanfare of trumpets by the trumpeters of the 12th Royal Lancers accompanied by the roll of drums.</div>
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A burst of hand-clapping greeted the birth of Singapore City.</div>
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The Municipal Secretary then read messages of congratulations from the Government of Canada, the Lord Mayors of Norwich, Shefield, Leeds, Oxford, Hendon, Hull, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff, Liverpool, Manila, Quezon, the Mayoreess of Baguio City, the Malayan Agent in London, the Secretary of States for the Colonies, Sir Shenton Thomas, Governor of North Borneo, the High Commissioner, Federation of Malaya, the Municipal Commission in Kuala Lumpur, United States of America, the President of the Annual Conference of the Assoiation of Municipal Corporations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and other public bodies in Singapore and the Federation.</div>
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Congratulatory messages were also received from the Mayors of New York, San Francisco and Detroit.</div>
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Sir Charles Murray-Aynsley, Sir Henry Gurney, Sir Franklin Gimson, Mr Malcom MacDonald and Mr McNeice stood at the steps of the Municipal Building whilst the National Anthem played for the last time marking the end of a colourful ceremony, long to be remembered in the minds of the present.</div>
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A sudden peal of bells from the St. Andrew's Cathedral told the people that a city was born.</div>
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The crowd satisfied with the hours of patient waiting began to surge the streets and handshakes were seen everywhere. With greetings of "we are now real citizens" they entered the Municipal Building to see the Royal Charter.</div>
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<strong><u>City's Future in Youths' Hands</u></strong>
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By George Rasiah
[Sunday Standard, 23 September 1951]
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<strong>Gimson Presents Charter Amidst Pomp, Splendour</strong></div>
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Pomp and heraldry amidst resplendent Oriental setting, marked the presentation of the Royal Charter by the Governor, Sir Franklin Gimson to the President of the Singapore Municipality, Mr T. P. F. McNeice yesterday (22 September 1951), granting Singapore City status.</div>
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More than 50,000 people, including the City's leading citizens saw the ceremony, and millions more in Singapore and the Federation listened to the speeches and the fanfare of the trumpets over Radio Malaya's Blue, Red and Green networks.<br />
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Bestowing the civic charter as the representative of the King in this Colony, the Governor said: "This Charter dignifies but does not create a city. The grant of a Charter has scarcely ever since the earliest days, settled the constitution of a City.
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Added the Governor: "Chartered were frequently granted for the purpose of crystallising rights which already existed. In fact practices and custom in many cases already delegated to the leading residents of centres of population certain responsibilities, especially for the maintenance of law and order, and the Charters merely conveyed a recognition by His Majesty that the citizens concerned were capable of being entrusted with the discharge of those responsibilities.</div>
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"His Majesty, therefore, in graciously granting this Charter of Singapore, has recognised that the leading citizens through the Municipal Commissioners, can and have discharged to His Majesty's satisfaction, the responsibilities entrusted to them.</div>
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"His Majesty feels that the welfare of his subjects in Singapore is in capable hands and that their interests can best be promoted by the bestowal of authority on the leading representatives of the people.</div>
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<strong>Youths' Vow</strong>
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Continued the Governor: "This honour conferred on Singapore gives not only a recognition of the past but an opportunity for the future. The greater the honour the more we will have to live up to. In accepting this honour, we are all honoured as citizens but we all face a challenge to build a Singapore worthy of its new title.</div>
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"Honour and responsibility in a democracy imply greater duties as well as greater rights.</div>
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<strong>"It is for this reason I welcome the presence here this morning of so many of our younger generation. They are a reminder to us that it is in them that the City of Singapore will be realised and they will carry away not only a memory of a memorable day and generation the City of Singapore will achieve higher quality of life for her citizens than has ever been achieved by the Town, great as its achievements have been".</strong></div>
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Concluded the Governor: "In the past Singapore has been faced with many difficulties but these difficulties have been overcome.</div>
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"Many problems are facing us at the present moment; problems which are not only our own but those of all the democratic world.</div>
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"I am confident that the wisdom of Singapore's citizens which in the past has been able to find solutions to her problems, will find solutions for them in the future and Singapore raised to the status of a city will go from strength to strength.</div>
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"I am sure we can all invoke with virile and active confidence in the future, its proud motto, all the prouder today: "MAJULAH SINGAPURA".</div>
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<strong>ON MUNICIPAL STEPS A CITY WILL BE 'MADE'</strong>
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A non-denominational service of dedication in the St. Andrew's Cathedral is to be arranged as part of City Day celebrations on September 22.</div>
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Foreign consuls in their ceremonial uniforms and trade commissioners will be invited to attend the ceremony of the presentation of the Charter making Singapore a city.</div>
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The ceremony of the presentation of the Charter by the Governor, Sir Franklin Gimson will take place between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.</div>
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It will be held in the Municipal building if wet and on the front steps of the Municipal building opposite the Padang if fine.</div>
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A military band and Singapore police band will play.
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Guests will be on a covered section of the Padang opposite the main entrance of the Municipal building.
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Other plans:</div>
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<strong>THE COAT OF ARMS</strong> of the Municipal Commissioners will be displayed on the balcony of the Municipal building, which is to be illuminated at night.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_MvSOtN2aYoHZ2ru81CZGQ4E3bqqrtVXIOf8PUcJVbUZEoRrHsgp1y6_7x4T7lMllj4mw2jLfLCTkOypU20cMPbHIJ_ikWsF8Zy0el5LpCjPl6G717U9WmjSuY0Hj_4peu52lakOPwwE/s1600/img0024.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="454" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_MvSOtN2aYoHZ2ru81CZGQ4E3bqqrtVXIOf8PUcJVbUZEoRrHsgp1y6_7x4T7lMllj4mw2jLfLCTkOypU20cMPbHIJ_ikWsF8Zy0el5LpCjPl6G717U9WmjSuY0Hj_4peu52lakOPwwE/s400/img0024.jpg" width="283" /></a></div>
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The <strong>CHINESE</strong> Chamber of Commerce is to be invited to arrange a lantern procession.<br />
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The Master Attendant will ask captains of <strong>SHIPS</strong> in the Harbour to "dress ship."<br />
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An appeal is to be made to the public to fly the <strong>UNION JACK</strong> on the day.</div>
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<strong>FILM</strong> shots of the ceremony, including the presentation of the charter, are to be taken for free shoing in parks.</div>
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<strong>City of Singapore</strong>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuCFxrOPZaNSPPGUIN2f_4lgXpE4CmeCKeczjnPxrxL95rO_7Vo3_S6tCTqMEZiV3QD_liqMQFXIZWGbK6XRulZVKqK1RloBCoga7vtkP77MtHbJxe2cwTZbTbB0gm2n1r_Gc44Y1T9uA/s1600/img0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="408" data-original-width="636" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuCFxrOPZaNSPPGUIN2f_4lgXpE4CmeCKeczjnPxrxL95rO_7Vo3_S6tCTqMEZiV3QD_liqMQFXIZWGbK6XRulZVKqK1RloBCoga7vtkP77MtHbJxe2cwTZbTbB0gm2n1r_Gc44Y1T9uA/s400/img0002.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-55832703796344213212020-02-29T15:20:00.002+08:002020-03-01T11:18:29.649+08:00Old Buses in Singapore in the Past<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEco1kX9WlTgZDTzlCqOBYCBhyphenhypheniKnbDTw1VJKVQEoutB0vgSyfm_WIfzciIKRZ4DgIUJQ3WntdGdwt9Imr5fe9FxrwQB-a5f9Qr6hDGORMMNhv0nZjbH5Ru1j1D-Ql3qlifH7IWkF8GlU/s1600/img0030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="750" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEco1kX9WlTgZDTzlCqOBYCBhyphenhypheniKnbDTw1VJKVQEoutB0vgSyfm_WIfzciIKRZ4DgIUJQ3WntdGdwt9Imr5fe9FxrwQB-a5f9Qr6hDGORMMNhv0nZjbH5Ru1j1D-Ql3qlifH7IWkF8GlU/s400/img0030.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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My pioneer generation friends will remember how risky it was to cross the road after boarding the old bus in the 1960s.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHdg7XFTgUqmMIGrSVMfCwnk0zsINGk2RJoCwqBiOCSGa-l0RD5CJC85K6i13YbYRPS5DJn7OzxW51mYQ6-ImwytujStW2reauRQnK7AYx520Rtt2mDG1Efv_75aJnBSDY2ftL-DBIaA/s1600/img094.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="508" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFHdg7XFTgUqmMIGrSVMfCwnk0zsINGk2RJoCwqBiOCSGa-l0RD5CJC85K6i13YbYRPS5DJn7OzxW51mYQ6-ImwytujStW2reauRQnK7AYx520Rtt2mDG1Efv_75aJnBSDY2ftL-DBIaA/s400/img094.jpg" width="396" /></a></div>
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The bus commuters did not bother to queue and would rush for the bus once it arrived. Here is an archived photo of the office workers at Robinson Road on this blog.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8UHnFR3JJ0dtE76Sgp98ER6Jb4tAS6nmISn6QCVoJfMP1rKfBgmp3v3VtRILxv-ZtZxQ4GjPU3rncMHsjm9P1TduvqKG8YAlHveZOhhcpbbuu8dx7YslwSXCVg5DFvoPSorRQv69EG8/s1600/img0070.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="512" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8UHnFR3JJ0dtE76Sgp98ER6Jb4tAS6nmISn6QCVoJfMP1rKfBgmp3v3VtRILxv-ZtZxQ4GjPU3rncMHsjm9P1TduvqKG8YAlHveZOhhcpbbuu8dx7YslwSXCVg5DFvoPSorRQv69EG8/s400/img0070.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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Did you notice that there is only one door for the commuter to board and alight. No aircond, no folding door on the bus when travelling on the road.<br />
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Please watch a YouTube video-clip of the old bus in Singapore in 1960 <a href="https://youtu.be/aW7ekj0fDeQ" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-86QODJp0Xgbuvkglr-jsSSkA63AB9OqSqhDWmXoK8WXcSKrBqoVVMlySUALcorlm94Zq5AzWUNF4072bJs6lnFJLXWAsLHvtKKNyRSIDCPAVXSgTBTTmuOinRiEvKEF-plABaC6Lvg/s1600/img0083.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="512" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG-86QODJp0Xgbuvkglr-jsSSkA63AB9OqSqhDWmXoK8WXcSKrBqoVVMlySUALcorlm94Zq5AzWUNF4072bJs6lnFJLXWAsLHvtKKNyRSIDCPAVXSgTBTTmuOinRiEvKEF-plABaC6Lvg/s400/img0083.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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Commuters queuing for the Singapore-Johore Express bus to Johore Bahru at Queen Street on 03/12/1978. Floods, unleashed by the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in a single day. Swamped Singapore for the second day at Queen Street. There were long lines of commuters waiting for buses to return to Johore Baru. The service had been cut off by the floods along Bukit Timah and Woodlands Road. [Source: National Archives of Singapore].</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8KGBZDJsG_JjZz3J0CKAvcKAEMdRCwkyUh5HuVuA_P-X3NLWU6mpM-SK_yzh2GdVL4yCedWI_A9iPcjrAaKV6Tcb4EUHN1XQxtJ-5tjHhjcuiupccS9zZLveaQNfto_Wr8vRr-Gi0E4/s1600/img0082b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr8KGBZDJsG_JjZz3J0CKAvcKAEMdRCwkyUh5HuVuA_P-X3NLWU6mpM-SK_yzh2GdVL4yCedWI_A9iPcjrAaKV6Tcb4EUHN1XQxtJ-5tjHhjcuiupccS9zZLveaQNfto_Wr8vRr-Gi0E4/s400/img0082b.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<strong><u>People movers of the past</u></strong><br />
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Trolley bus were common here from 1920s to 1962.</div>
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[Source: The Straits Times, 6 November 2004]</div>
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The earliest buses on Singapore's roads were trolley buses which were brought in during the 1920s to replace electric trams.</div>
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Like trams - and unlike today's diesel-fuelled public buses - trolley buses were powered by overhead electric lines. They ran on roads rather than tramlines.</div>
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The Singapore Traction Company (STC) had a 30-year monopoly to run trolley buses and motor buses in town.</div>
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By 1929, 90 trolley buses plied a distance of 30.5km. Two years earlier, the tram service, which started in 1905, had been phased out.</div>
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The fare then? 10 cents.</div>
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Because of the electric lines that powered the buses, journey could be eventful.</div>
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Whenever a bus turned a corner, the conductor had to hop out and grab ropes connected to the lines. Otherwise, the connection would be broken.</div>
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When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I had the opportunity to travel on a trolley bus with my mother.</div>
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I think it was at the Finlayson Green and raining that day, I looked at the sky and thought there was lightning and thunder. But no. The bright spark for a fleeting moments from the wire above the trolley bus. That was the only and last time I had the trolley bus experience in this lifetime. Please share your personal memories and trolley bus travelling experiences and your comments are welcome.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKs5qIqJPg8apyiOdYKRfI3SOlC_DYWNTv9MotShSWXdCkcBZv0NMA3Vrcm3cSQlCfk2wOwlNdKPhqvcwI6O4SBdWEisltkoUHdH8OX_mkM0sNIafl8MPga9zlpUXrZeitjLL_mKnf-8/s1600/IMG_20200228_123520.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="990" data-original-width="1600" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKs5qIqJPg8apyiOdYKRfI3SOlC_DYWNTv9MotShSWXdCkcBZv0NMA3Vrcm3cSQlCfk2wOwlNdKPhqvcwI6O4SBdWEisltkoUHdH8OX_mkM0sNIafl8MPga9zlpUXrZeitjLL_mKnf-8/s400/IMG_20200228_123520.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Improving technology meant faster modes of public transport, such as motor buses - called <em>wu xian dian che, </em>or wireless vehicle.</div>
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Mostly Leylands, Albions or Chevrolets, these buses ran on fuel. From 1935, "mosquito buses" - so called because they could weave in and out of traffic - began to serve rural and fringe areas.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFNmLDmvkAzG6u3YUfxaGAAruNXMwLnoSU_zmIUrL8xADRAr3ossTflPcNlLwU6fn8dyKempS6SHj-AUf1dEh_LWyiNusL-AwhCXnWM2KFNMYTA-1JQPM3uee7iApDjHZnhlKTvL8Hs0/s1600/IMG_20200229_113618.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="974" data-original-width="1600" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQFNmLDmvkAzG6u3YUfxaGAAruNXMwLnoSU_zmIUrL8xADRAr3ossTflPcNlLwU6fn8dyKempS6SHj-AUf1dEh_LWyiNusL-AwhCXnWM2KFNMYTA-1JQPM3uee7iApDjHZnhlKTvL8Hs0/s400/IMG_20200229_113618.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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By the 1940s, there were more motor buses than trolley buses on the roads. Trolleys were completely replaced in December 1962, and the electric lines that powered them came down. </div>
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The Singapore Traction Company collapsed in 1973.</div>
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<strong>Transporting you back to the past</strong></div>
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* 1905: Electric trams begin service</div>
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* 1920s: Trolley buses, also powered by overhead electric lines, are brought in to replace the trams. By 1929, there are 90 trolley buses on the roads.</div>
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* 1927: Trams are phased out.</div>
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* 1935: Motor buses begin to serve rural and fringe areas.</div>
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* 1962: Trolley buses are completely replaced by motor buses.</div>
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<strong>First Class and Second Class of Trolley Buses</strong></div>
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According to The Straits Times, 11 December 1948 headlined "One Class Of Passenger":</div>
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Weight restrictions which compelled the Singapore Traction Company to ignore many of the standard bus models produced by manufacturers, are modified in amendments to the Singapore Traction Ordinances gazetted by Government on 10 December, 1948.</div>
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Abolition from trolley buses of first class and second class accomodation and the substitution of a single class is also proposed by the amendments. </div>
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The Municipal Commissioners have agreed to both measures.</div>
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<strong><u>Swatting "Mosquito Buses"</u></strong></div>
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How has transport in Singapore changed over the years? In the fifth of a six-part series, Little Red Dot looks back at a time when buses were seen as pests.</div>
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By Elsen Teo
[Source: Straits Times, 6 November 2012]</div>
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Ten years after the first motor vehicle appeared in Singapore, a single double-decker bus is imported from Britain into the colony by a man whose identity remains unknown.
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The bus serves Orchard Road, a streeet lined with fruit trees and the houses of rich Europeans. The business does not take off though, and not long after, the man stops the service.</div>
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<strong>First registered motor car in Singapore</strong></div>
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Mrs G.M. Dare and her husband on their Adams-Hewitt bearing the licence plate S-1 (1930/31)</div>
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<strong>1910s</strong></div>
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Seven-seater motor buses appear, and their drivers, usually Chinese immigrants, start charging passengers fares. By 1920, there are about 100 buses.</div>
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It is a new form of public transport; the other forms are rickshaws, the electric tram and carts pulled by horses and donkeys. It becomes popular because it moves much faster than other vehicles.</div>
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However, drivers are reckless and accidents occur frequently. There are also no fixed routes and a driver could chase passengers off his bus halfway through a ride.</div>
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<strong>1930s</strong></div>
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There are now more than 400 motor buses in Singapore, and they are called "mosquito buses" for they move around quickly and recklessly. <em><strong> Many drivers are former rickshaw pullers.</strong></em></div>
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Many buses ply the same routes as those of trolley buses, and are stiff competition for trolley bus owner, the Singapore Traction Company.</div>
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In 1935, the municipality passes laws to allow the existence of these buses, on the condition that their owners form proper companies. In all, 12 companies emerge, each covering a different part of Signapore. They are: The Katong-Bedok Bus Service, the Changi Motor Bus Service, the Paya Lebar Bus Service, the Ponggol Bus Service, Tay Koh Yat, the Seletar Motor Bus Company, the Green Bus Company, the Jurong Omnibus Service, the Ngo Hock Motor Bus Company, the Soon Lee Bus Company, the Kampong Bahru Bus Service and the Keppel Bus Company Limited.</div>
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A ride costs 3 to 12 cents. Bus stops are not sheltered and terminals in rural areas are little more than attap huts.</div>
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<strong>1971</strong></div>
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Buses become the main form of public transport service in Singapore. Trolley buses, rickshaws and animal carts have disappeared, while the trishaw is falling out of favour. However, bus services are still unreliable, and many vehicles are old and unsafe.</div>
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To enable bus companies to pool resources, the Government merges them into three, then one company in 1973. The unified company, the Singapore Bus Service (SBS), has 2,079 buses.</div>
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<strong>1972</strong></div>
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To allow for a smoother flow of buses, Singapore's first dedicated bus lane opens along New Bridge Road. Other vehicles are not allowed to use this lane.</div>
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<strong>1970s</strong></div>
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As the Government builds New Towns in the rural areas, feeder bus services - shorter, more frequent services - are introduced to serve smaller areas in each town. Still, queues of 50 to 100 people are common. But bus stops now come with roofs - finally, shelter from the heat and rain!</div>
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<strong>1977</strong></div>
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The double-decker bus is reintroduced into Singapore Service 86 runs from Tampines to Shenton Way.</div>
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<strong>1982</strong></div>
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A second bus company, the Trans-Island Bus Service (Tibs), is formed to serve Woodlands, Sembawang and Yishun in the north.</div>
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<strong>1989</strong></div>
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Respite from the heat! The first air-conditioned buses. Service 76, run along Upper Serangoon Road.</div>
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<strong>2001</strong></div>
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The Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT), a rail company, merges with Tibs; Tibs is renamed SMRT BUSES.</div>
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<strong>2002</strong></div>
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Singapore's first air-conditioned bus interchange, with automatic sliding doors separating the building from buses, opens at Toa Payoh. Since then, similar air-conditioned interchanges have been built in Ang Mo Kio, Sengkang, Serangoon, Boon Lay and Clementi.</div>
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We have come a long way in the evolution of public transport in Singapore ... from donkey and horse carts, jinrickshaw, trishaw, "mosquito buses", electric trams to latest buses to MRT. These are the public transportation developments which young generations of Singaporeans could discuss with our grand-parents and great grand-parents to spend over their dinners and share with our inter-generational Singaporeans how much have changed and improved in Singapore over the decades.</div>
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Better for the future to work, play and live in our homeland as we work together as One Singapore!</div>
Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-65433700836323547552020-01-17T15:26:00.001+08:002020-01-19T17:11:55.363+08:00Traditional Chinese New Year Celebration<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXHDgn5RvB-5Hed3d1UPC5rTWYZ-tH4M8qwuTgsbxqGJKMwkPptPysbGN8FsEYZpGEGEbPG2YcjENDNuvJ0ZUdkAhoWQUp25bUw2N9KjixHSasy2TqMNhunA6DdwWG67HxoO_IX69AdYo/s1600/10926268_319391101587295_2368617904045443606_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1268" data-original-width="1600" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXHDgn5RvB-5Hed3d1UPC5rTWYZ-tH4M8qwuTgsbxqGJKMwkPptPysbGN8FsEYZpGEGEbPG2YcjENDNuvJ0ZUdkAhoWQUp25bUw2N9KjixHSasy2TqMNhunA6DdwWG67HxoO_IX69AdYo/s400/10926268_319391101587295_2368617904045443606_o.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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What is the difference of traditional Chinese New Year celebration and modern Chinese New Year celebration?</div>
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Although Chinese New Year or Lunar New Year is celebrated by Chinese Singaporean in Singapore, it is a celebration for everyone. The greetings "Wishing everyone a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year" is not intended for the Chinese Singaporeans only.</div>
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<strong><u>Chinese New Year Greetings "Keong Hee"</u></strong> </div>
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By K.S.Chia [Source: Singapore Free Press, 29 January 1949]</div>
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"Chinese New Year! Ang Pows!" These magic words have been on the mind of my ten-year old daughter ever since Jan 1. She has been counting the days and her excitement is mounting as Jan 29. Chinese New Year Day, draws near and nearer.</div>
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I asked my wife the other night if Chinese New Year held as much romance for her when she was ten as it does for her daughter now. She reflected, with a happy smile, that in her young days, New Year was in fact a greater event than for the present-day girls.</div>
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In those good old days, girls went about all bedecked in jewelleries, from the top of their "aeroplane" coiffure down to their feet, where around their ankles rested inch-thick gold anklets.</div>
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Chinese New Year was an occasion for the display of wealth then. Brilliant hair-pins of a type called "suan hua" (diamond flowers) usually worn by little girls some dressed in embroidered coats to look like bridesmaids.</div>
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Then too girls put on the coloured muslim long "nonya" dresses, held together in front by more jewelleris - a set of three locket-like ornaments called the "krosangs." They were pendants, star-shaped and diamond - studded, and lockets swinging from gold necklaces, to make the wearer a-glitter with wealth. On the fingers were rows of rings and on the writs bright, bejewelled bracelets.<br />
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In those days if a girl did not have a "bodyful" of jewelleries, she was not considered properly dressed for the New Year.<br />
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The old-world girls wore lovely batik sarongs and, on their feet, gold and silver buillion slippers flashed to vie with the simmering gold anklets they wore.</div>
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That was in the early 1920s when gharries were still in vogue.</div>
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For my daughter, Chinese New Year holds forth a somewhat different rejoicing. For generation it is accent on new fashionable frocks, plain coloured lambskin or tigerskin with beautiful lacy flowers sewn on in front, or gaudily-coloured linen, or frocks coloured linen, or frocks with stylish smokings and trimmings.</div>
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Or the three-quarter cheongsums for the older girls, now so popular among Chinese women. My daughter goes for the new style shoes too, to match her frocks, though, of course. I frown upon such extravangance and let her have only a pair, one that can match any dress.</div>
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She has her mother's taste for jewelleries, but here again, she has to be content with what her mother allows her to wear - perhaps a locket, a pair of bangles, and a pair of clip earrings.</div>
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There will be no costly hairpins for my daughter - a new perm will be her crowing glory, as a new hair-do is for the modern miss.</div>
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Whereas in the days gone by, her mother shyly wished her relatives "keong hee, lives to an old age," and even more shyly secreted the packets in her dress, my daughter will gaily sally forth with her plastic handbag in which to stuff her red packets!</div>
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If a girl in 1920 had carried even a small straw purse when she went visiting relatives on New Year Day, the elders would have remarked she was anticipating many red packets, but with the modern miss, plastic handbags swing from press shoulders every day. It is just the fashion.</div>
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About the only significance a gift of an orange on New Year Day would mean to my daughter is that it is a seasonable fruit from China, and very refreshing too, after a series of "keong hee" to the elders.
For my daughter, however, the joy of firing crackers will be available. Though a girl, she spent quite a few cents last year, letting off crackers for the thrill of hearing them go "bang."</div>
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I asked my wife if she had, in her young days, let off a cracker or two, she replied she wasn't the tomboy her daughter ius, but I have a feeling she must have sneaked a cracker or two from her brother's pack and let them off in the backyard.</div>
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Modern girls still go for evening drives during New Year time, but not to the same extent as girls in the 1920s did. Then, there were streams of cars gharries slowing honking their way from one street to another.
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Today, with the horn ban on also, they will hear no honking, but there will be those long piercing whistles from young men.]<br />
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We didn't know the "wolf call" in those days, but it was much the same thing even if young men then only emitted "ohs" and "ahs," - just a breathe apprecation of beauty.<br />
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For the young people and the children especially, the Chinese New Year today, despite the change in celebration, still holds forth its magic - its irrestible charm of brnd new dresses and shoes, of continuous eating of sweet cakes and fruits, its delightful red packets with their brand new coins and crisp, crinkling notes.<br />
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How I wished I were young again and reaping my harvest of red packets instead of worrying how much of my month's pay would vanish within red paper this New Year Day.<br />
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'Ang Pow Etiquette: What You Should And Shouldn't Do When Giving Or Receiving<br />
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Prepare your pockets, boys and girls!</div>
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Chinese New Year is just around the corner, and you know what that means.<br />
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Time to reap in those 'ang pows'! Or for those who are married, it also means that it's time to break out the bank and stuff red pakcets.<br />
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However, unlike giving out and receiving treats on Halloween, there is a set of rules you need to abide to when it comes to giving and receiving 'ang pows'.<br />
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Here are some things you need to keep in mind:<br />
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1. Never, ever use white 'ang pow' envelopes<br />
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2. Always receive an 'ang pow' with both hands<br />
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3. Work out a budget<br />
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4. Never open an 'ang pow' in front of the giver<br />
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5. Give an 'ang pow' with an amount being even number<br />
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6. Use new banknotes (if not, clean ones)<br />
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7. Know your audience<br />
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While it's OK for an unmarried, working adult to give an 'ang pow' to their parents or their nephews/nieces, it's not compulsory for a married adult to give an 'ang pow' to their older, unmarried siblings or friend.<br />
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8. Never give an 'ang pow' without an 'ang pow' envelope<br />
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9. Don't put coins in an 'ang pow'<br />
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[Source: Rojak Daily]<br />
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Find out the 10 myth of Chinese New Year <a a="" gt="" here="" href="https://chinesenewyear.net/myths/" target="_blank"> here </a>.<br />
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<strong><u>Happy New Year! - And It Was</u></strong><br />
[Source: The Straits Times, 3 February 1946]<br />
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Singapore's first postwar Chinese New Year was welcomed in customary fashion in the early hours of 2 February 1946 morning when Chinatown, bathed in blaze of lights, let off thousands of dollars' worth of crackers to shatter the midnight silence. To many Chinese still, the maximum amount of noise is conducive to the greatest enjoyment.<br />
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All-night mahjong parties, celebrations in the amusement parks and cabarets, crowds at the cinemas, men, women and children in new suits happily milling in the streets were principal indications that the Chinese were making enjoyment their sole building enjoyment their sole business for the day. The sight of so many new and colourful dresses leads an observer to wonder if there is any cloth shortage in this country.<br />
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The biggest, and, to many, the most sacred, day of the year. Chinese New Year meant to thousands of shop assistants which hardly know the meaning of a holiday closed shops, a mild flutter, and a round of amusements. Business districts were all quiet although in the residential areas continuous cracker firing by children, competing to make the most noise, meant anything but quiet.<br />
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Chinese New Year proper lasts five days. The celebration may continue until the 15th night when special significance is given to the first full moon of the year and, if visible, crowds take to the open to admire it.<br />
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The archived photos of Chinese New Year celebration in Singapore, courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore.<br />
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<span class="details">Seven ladies stepping out in their new new frocks on the first day of Chinese New Year on 31 January, 1957 (above). Another seven ladies at the Botanic Garden on Chinese New Year Day (below).</span><br />
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Firecrackers set off during Chinese New Year celebrations at Smith Street in Chinatown. Date: 9 February, 1959.<br />
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<span class="details"><span class="details"><span class="details">Street processions, especially the Chingay procession at Chinese New Year, were familiar scene in Singapore during the early 1900s.</span></span></span><br />
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Lion dancing to usher in Chinese New Year at Smith Street in Chinatown. Date: 21/02/1959.</div>
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<span class="details"><span class="details"><span class="details">Scene at Haw Par Villa during Chinese New Year and Hari Raya Puasa. Date: 03/02/1965.</span></span></span></div>
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</span></span>Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-21184040587556330582020-01-02T15:00:00.000+08:002020-01-29T07:42:44.339+08:00Countdown 2020 at Our Tampines Hub<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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When I was a child in the 1950s in Bukit Ho Swee kampong where I was born, I have not heard about the 'New Year End Countdown'.<br />
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The New Year End (NYE) countdown celebrations is very meaningful for every Singaporeans, young and old, all races, rich or poor. <br />
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I made it a point to celebrate the NYE countdown and blog about it to share with my friends and my children. The event is different every year and my feelings, my thoughts and experiences are never the same. For as long as we grow in Singapore, a home with peace and harmony, political stability and the different races, different religion and culture as a community work, play and live together as Singaporeans.<br />
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Like the "windmills of my mind" of the many young children with happy faces at the OTH Countdown, I reminise the excitement and opened mouth awe-inspired expression to watch the fireworks for the first time at the Singapore waterfront in 1953 <a href="https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2011/07/first-trip-to-singapore-city-in-1953.html?m=1" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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<strong>Celebration of NYE Countdown 2020 at Our Tampines Hub</strong><br />
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Suhaimi Yusof (Fly Entertainment Artiste) and Belinda Lee (Cross Ratio Entertainment Artiste) entertain the audience throughout the evening to scream and shout, blew whistles, made happy noises which the kids like to join their parents.<br />
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According to the 'Our Tampines Hub anOTHer experience' Programmes: Fun & games all day & night for everyone! Special Merdeka Generation Showcase. Food Village at Festive Drive. Live Concert featuring popular local artistes. Spectacular fireworks, wave flames & laser display showcase. Free access to various facilities, party gifts & more. Admission is FREE, all are welcome. There were tips for a great time at OTH's Countdown to 2020.<br />
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Thanks to the organising committees of this special events for their splendid efforts to plan, prepare the props and interesting programmes for many months.<br />
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I have the pleasure and privilege to attend Countdown 2020 at Our Tampines Hub to have the opportunity for the first-time experience with my Tampines friends, neighbours and colleagues on 31 December, 2019. Thanks to Mr Baey Yam Keng to arrange for an official pass to be used at the event.</div>
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In the past, I attended the year-end countdown at Marina Bay to absorb the wonderful atmosphere and join thousands of people (Singaporeans and overseas visitors and tourists) to watch the spectacular fireworks <a href="https://thoughtmoments.me/2017/01/02/countdown-2017-at-esplanade-promenade-singapore/" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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For about 3 hours before the countdown at midnight, the full-house capacity audience at the Town Square were entertained by many entertaining stage performances by The Pyro Man, Tay Kewei and Alfred Sim and the Malay acapella group.</div>
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The Tampines GRC Advisors (photo from left to right) Ms Cheng Li Hui, Mr Baey Yam Keng, Mr Heng Swee Keat and Mr Desmond Choo were interviewed by Suhaimi Yusof and Belinda Lee</div>
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It was a very enjoyable, memorable and successful Year-End Countdown 2020 at Our Tampines Hub.</div>
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Happy New Year 2020!</div>
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-30448212527633659152019-12-18T14:08:00.001+08:002019-12-19T11:57:56.497+08:00Memories of schooldays past<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In a land-scarce country where urban renewal takes place at a breathless pace and buildings are torn down relentlessly to make way for new developments, lone, unoccupied buildings and houses are as rare as they come. Melissa Lin, Daryl Chin and Kon Xin Hua go in search of them.</div>
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[Source: Straits Times, 4 September 2011]</div>
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<strong>SELEGIE INTEGRATED PRIMARY SCHOOL, SHORT STREET</strong></div>
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Along Short Street, the brightly coloured building, shaded by trees, stands out among its modern neighbours. It is almost half a century old.</div>
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The 10-storey Selegie Integrated Primary School was touted as one of the tallest school buildings in South-east Asia when it was first opened in 1963 by the then deputy prime minister, Dr Toh Chin Chye. It held that accolade till Pearl's Hill Primary School, now Hotel Rel, took over with 12 floors.</div>
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Remembering his schooldays fondly at Selegie is Mr Victor Koo, 55. The civil servant attended the primary school from 1963 till 1968.</div>
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He said it was a "mere 15-minute leisurely stroll" from his home in Cheng Yan Place, near Queen Street.</div>
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"The 10-storey building certainly looked huge and imposing. I also had not seen such big lifts before," he added.</div>
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The school building had two lifts. Each lift was big enough to accomodate a complete class of 40 lower primary, or 30 upper primary schoolchildren.</div>
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It also had two canteens - one on the ground floor, another on the sixth and a dental clinic on the seventh floor.</div>
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It was said to have an enrolment of up to 4,000 eager young minds in the morning and afternoon sessions.</div>
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Today, the school still stands tall, its orange exterior decorated with stripes of blue and red. The premises are out of bounds to curious onlookers, although a peek from the outside shows that the classrooms were recently furbished.</div>
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Mr Koo's teacher, Mr Teo Keng Koon, 65, was one of the 100 pioneer teachers, when he was just a month shy of 17.</div>
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He said: "Each time I pass by the school, it gives me a deep sense of nostalgia. The trees are still standing. The pioneer teachers were the ones who planted the trees in the building."</div>
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A teacher all his life, he is currently teaching at a tutorial centre.</div>
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He cited a possible reason for the school's closure, saying that with its "dwindling population of students", of about 200 or 300 pupils, it was "not viable to keep the school going". He added that the remaining pupils then went to Stamford Primary School.</div>
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Though it is unknown when the school closed, the premises were used as the holding campus for Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (Nafa) for a few years until it moved into its new campus in Bencoolen Street in 2004.</div>
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Since then, the school building has been left on its own. Mr Koo feels it "is a waste" to see his school being left abandoned. "I would like to see the school converted to a hotel."</div>
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A Singapore Land Authority spokesman said the building has been scheduled for tender for arts, dance, and drama studio use.</div>
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Please check out a related blog about the Selegie Integrated Primary School <a href="https://thoughtmoments.me/2015/04/02/high-rise-buildings-at-selegie-road-singapore/" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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<strong>Turning into a junkyard</strong></div>
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<strong>2 Eng Hoon Street </strong></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUTANmibTV-xm1htpUgu-CCaT_f52JBZdmhlf98i0GKtwLx_eaqtycIZvI9vlh3W49EtMJj2-aJvdfeSd6Tj14hMHVrC-adNdaJKTshKTDVEdZNbRkAbgaC3QXUi_COmfgzyj7_UvMTw/s1600/IMG_20191218_114425.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1294" data-original-width="1600" height="322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSUTANmibTV-xm1htpUgu-CCaT_f52JBZdmhlf98i0GKtwLx_eaqtycIZvI9vlh3W49EtMJj2-aJvdfeSd6Tj14hMHVrC-adNdaJKTshKTDVEdZNbRkAbgaC3QXUi_COmfgzyj7_UvMTw/s400/IMG_20191218_114425.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Nestled between a budget hotel and a church on 2, Eng Hoon Street is a building that, at first glance, stands out for its incongruous appearance.</div>
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Its art deco-style exterior looks unkempt, a portion of its white pillars turning black.'</div>
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When The Sunday Times did a check, it found that the bottom half of the two-storey house was largely covered with white tarpaulin. The narrow pathway leading to its front door was filled with trash, metal trays and rusty cylinders.</div>
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Its main door was locked and it did not look like it was occupied.</div>
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While a background check turned up the name of the owner, a Mr Tay Seng Leong, the address which he is registered under was an empty plot of state land. Neighbours in the area told The Sunday Times that they do not know of such a person.</div>
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Meanwhile, surrounding tenants at Eng Hoon Street said that they sometimes see people depositing items at the seemingly abandoned building.</div>
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Without any clues on where its owner is, what lies behind its dusty, tinted windows is anybody's guesss.</div>
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<strong>A little touch of mystery</strong></div>
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<strong>Chee Guan Chiang House, Grange Road</strong></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApUwdnYWruFvm4QpJL4o96FBp_LkLBb4Et7HkZOjULb2W4eDW90qrKZ0ZREcLuRg2Q_AR48mbc8xw8At6CPVJRUaJb0OvrInQgkT4ZZL3uXBxthQpNDbCXyFa3tjsTDcx1PhL4-XIo9Y/s1600/IMG_20191218_114235.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1157" data-original-width="1600" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApUwdnYWruFvm4QpJL4o96FBp_LkLBb4Et7HkZOjULb2W4eDW90qrKZ0ZREcLuRg2Q_AR48mbc8xw8At6CPVJRUaJb0OvrInQgkT4ZZL3uXBxthQpNDbCXyFa3tjsTDcx1PhL4-XIo9Y/s400/IMG_20191218_114235.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Dwarfed by trees and condominiums that have sprung up over the years, the house at 25, Grange Road is barely noticeable from the main road.</div>
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For years, photography enthusiasts have been attracted to the Chee Guan Chiang House, so called because it was built by Mr Chee Guan Chiang, the eldest son of the first chairman of OCBC group.</div>
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It is now owned by investment firm Lee Tat Development.</div>
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Designed in the 1930s by well-known Singapore architect Ho Kwong Yew, it comprises a main house and a smaller house within the compound. It is not known how long they had not been occupied for. However, poor maintenance, vandalism and the passage of time have reportedly left the houses in a desolate state. An "investigation" by the Singapore Paranormal Investigators further contributed to its mysterious aura. The main house was given conservation status by the Urban Redvelopment Authority in 2008.</div>
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When The Sunday Times did a check, consstruction work for a condominium was ongoing beside the houses, which could not be seen from the property's gated entrance. A red mailbox hung from the gate, alongside two signs warning against trespassers and illegal parking on the private property.</div>
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The Sunday Times reported in 2007 that the property could be seen only by residents from neighbouring condominiums who used it as a short cut to Orchard Road.</div>
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In 2008, Lee Tat won a legal battle to close off the access road that passes through their Grange Road property.</div>
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Lee Tat declined to commend on its future plans for the place.</div>
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<strong>Old movie studio used to make P. Ramlee film</strong></div>
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<strong>8 Jalan Ampas</strong></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKJTEgzP_XoPzyN3Nvn5_vGWz-7LaxAKCGAZZoL4LrByOPeFcSon1PGYxlC2qQeyWjvsEk5TEw83EGJuNRiFX4yI1Z2HVUG7IrKUzye1ydJ-vfptHkY3-ZdWXPMBmnLVUxXk9mPcCr5s/s1600/IMG_20191218_114640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="798" data-original-width="1600" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAKJTEgzP_XoPzyN3Nvn5_vGWz-7LaxAKCGAZZoL4LrByOPeFcSon1PGYxlC2qQeyWjvsEk5TEw83EGJuNRiFX4yI1Z2HVUG7IrKUzye1ydJ-vfptHkY3-ZdWXPMBmnLVUxXk9mPcCr5s/s400/IMG_20191218_114640.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The faded yellow aluminium hoarding fence with a sign that reads "8 Jalan Ampas" attracts nary a glance from passers-by.</div>
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Tucked between a temple and a condominium just off Balestier Road, the cluster of buildings beyond the fence is hidden from view.</div>
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Other than a plaque that gives a brief history of Jalan Ampas Shaw movie studio, there are barely any clue that this place played a central role during what was dubbed the golden age of Malay films in the 1950s and 1960s.</div>
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Over a span of 20 years, more than 160 films were produced here. This was where the legendary actor-director-producer-singer <a _blank="" href="https://thoughtmoments.me/2019/08/13/the-legend-of-p-ramlee/"> P. Ramlee </a> made his first film.</div>
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When The Sunday Times visited the former studio, a few chickens roamed the courtyard next to what looked like a makeshift junkyard.</div>
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A faded neon "Silence" sign and a Shaw Brothers crest at the top of a building provide the first indication of its illustrious past.</div>
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A mini shrine of P. Ramlee memorabilia stands next to the room where its caretaker for the past decade, Madam Miz Naya, lives.</div>
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The 64-year-old P. Ramlee fan said her first husband had worked as an extra in the late actor's films. She had first taken up the job to stop people from stealing items, like posters, from the buildings. But these days, she added, it was more for nostalgia's sake.</div>
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While there were no visitors when The Sunday Times checked on two occasions, a hastily sprayed "No Paking: (sic) sign at the entrance hinted that this may not always be the case.</div>
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Speaking in Malay with a smattering of English, Madam Naya, a widow - her second husband had died - told of how a bus filled with Malaysians would come by thrice a year to visit the place. Photography enthusiasts would drop by occasionally too.</div>
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While visitors used to be able to come in freely, they now have to first seek permission from Shaw Organisation.</div>
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Established in 1937, the studio was used by the Japansese to make propaganda films during World War II.</div>
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Post-war, it was reopened by Shaw as Malay Film Production in 1947. The decline in demand for Malay films brought about the studio's demise in 1967.</div>
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Shaw Organisation declined to comment when The Sunday Times asked about its plan for the place.</div>
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-28647374229092560842019-12-14T16:05:00.002+08:002019-12-15T12:06:09.748+08:00Christmas spells merry-making<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong>Christmas spells merry-making ... and jangle of cash registers</strong><br />
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By Betty Khoo<br />
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[Source: New Nation, 26 November 1971]<br />
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Every year the Christmas cheer and celebration seems to get bigger and brighter. But the true spirit of Christmas has perceptibly grown dimmer.<br />
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In Singapore where out of a population of 2.1 million, only 170,000 (8½ per cent) are Christians, Christmas is celebrated on a scale out of all proportion to the adherents of the faith.<br />
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Christmas here has come to mean a season of merry-making, feasting and shopping sprees.<br />
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It is perhaps difficult to say whether shops, restaurants and nightclubs are cashing in on the "spontaneous" observances of Christmas or, they have by their tinsel allure, directly encouraged the celebration of Christmas by many non-Christians.<br />
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One cynic observed dryly: "Santa Claus and Jingle Bells has come to mean the jangle of the cash register."<br />
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The shops are making sure that Christmas will be ushered in with a big, profitable bang. Some as early as October, put up their Christmas buntings. They are also vying with one another to put up the biggest Santa Clause and most spectacular Christmas tree.<br />
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A leading department store disclosed that "it had increased its stocks in all sections this year. But with so many new shopping complexes, competition for the shoppers' dollars will be stiff.<br />
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It appears that not only are the young, affluent and swinging non-Christians celebrating Christmas but even the Chinese businessmen - the merchants, building contractors - have launched into a whole-hearted, costly celebration of the Yuletide season.<br />
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The superintendent of a supermarket said: "These Chinese business firms spend far more on our gift hampers and spirits during Christmas than anyone else. They purchase these as X'mas giveaways for delighted clients.<br />
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The spirit of giving is there but the motive is profit.<br />
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Chinese businessmen are also making Christmas a time for lavish entertaining. At the prices top spots expect to charge for their Christmas bill-of-fare, it is not surprising that Christmas is increasingly being celebrated on expense accounts.<br />
Christmas cheer is a little less expensive in discotheques and the second-rate nightclubs. But those who really observe the true spirit of Christmas prefer home gatherings where rousing carols create the atmosphere.<br />
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but in spite of the enticing bright lights of nightspots, church attendance has not fallen. Churches are still packed to capacity for Midnight Mass and the morning after Christmas Day service. Still, for many church-goes, the service is just a temporary sobering up after which they plunge into another round of party-going.<br />
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For many men, Christmas is just one long drinking binge after which some make a thorough nuisance of themselves on the road.<br />
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In England, it is reported, the traditional Christmas office party has often beconme an excuse for a wild drinking bout and uninhibited licentious behaviour. It is significant that office tradition there strictly precludes wives.<br />
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The commercialisation of Christmas has also made its observance a costly affair.<br />
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A Christmas Eve dinner and dance at the best nightclub used to cost $20-$25 a person in the mid-sixties. Now it will cost you between $35-$45 a person.<br />
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One hotelier said: "Certainly prices have to go up. Now you get American-cut beef on the wagon and vintage wines - previously these were not available."<br />
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A few years ago $2 could get you a decent present. Now its upwards of $5 and, the more attractive Christmas gift-wrap the more expensive the gift.<br />
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Many Christians and even a number of non-Christians have deplored the crass commercialism of Christmas. However, one staunch Catholic said: "One is tempted to dismiss the commercialism of Christmas as disgusting. But if one thinks of it as a season of good cheer when everybody has a holiday, then one can overlook all but the grosser aspects of this commercialism.<br />
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Christmas is regarded by everyone as a time of good-fellowship and goodwill. It is that time of year then people - non-Christians included, remember friends and relatives and exchange Christmas cards.<br />
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It is a pity however, that many Christmas cards, particularly those locally produced do not have any Christmas motif or sentiment. Some merely depict a Singapore scene with Greeting in four languages.<br />
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Nevertheless, despite the commercial overtones, warmth is generated by the sending and receiving of Christmas cards.<br />
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And, although Christmas has defintely become very commercialised, those who want to observe its true meaning and significance can still do so - in the privacy of their homes and churches.<br />
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It does however, require a strong willpower to resist the manifold temptations.<br />
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Please check out this related blog
<a href="https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2013/11/christmas-on-orchard-road-singapore.html?m=1" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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<strong>Archived photos of Christmas celebrations in Singapore, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore</strong>.<br />
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Evelyn Tan (left) with her sister Rosalind and brother David putting the finishing touches tot he Christmas tree in their home in Tiong Bahru. Photo date: 24/12/1951.<br />
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Elizabeth Taylor buys a stuffed tiger. She later asked Mrs Run Run Shaw (right) to give it to the underpriviled children for the Shaws' Christmas Tree fund.<br />
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Six happy girls "sailing" in their motor boats with a large crowd including the Deputy Prime Minister Dr Toh Chin Chye and the Major-General I C Harris, GCO, Singapore Base District looking on at the Christmas party for underprivileged children given by the British army in Great World Park.'</div>
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Date: 17/12/1960</div>
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Puan Noor Aishah, wife of Yang Di-Petuan Negara of Singapore, Inche Yusof Bin Ishak, bringing Christmas cheers to 72 old people living in Red Cross House at Penang Lane.</div>
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Date: 21/12/1961</div>
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Puan Noor Aishah distributes gifts to handicapped children during Christmas party at Singapore Red Cross in Penang Road. Date: 04/12/1965</div>
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<strong>Christmas Party in aid of St Andrew's Mission Hospital in Jalan Besar Stadium on 20/12/1958</strong></div>
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<strong>What it means to the non-Christians</strong></div>
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[Source: Singapore Monitor, 12 December 1982]</div>
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What does Christmas means to non-Christians? Is it just another public holiday, or does the spirit of Christmas touch them, too? Raadhika Mahadevan puts the question to some non-Christian Singaporeans.</div>
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Mrs Jenny Ong, (Buddhist), a travel agent in her early 30s who is married with two children:</div>
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"We don't celebrate Christmas at home and tend to regard it as just another holiday.</div>
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"But I do send Christmas cards to our Christian friends and to clients. And usually we attend Christmas parties at the homes of friends.</div>
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"This Christmas we are planning a two-week holiday abroad."</div>
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Mr R Velayudhan, (Hindhu), a 25-year-old airlines steward:</div>
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"Christmas has no special meaning for my family. We send cards to friends but that's all. We don't attend Christmas parites or go on special Christmas visits to friends. And this year, on Christmas Day, I'll be busy at work."</div>
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Mrs Suseela Karunasena, (Buddhist), a 51-year-old widowed housewife and mother:</div>
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"As every Christmas approaches, I get that Christmasy feeling. It's in the air. Even though I'm not a Christian I go out Christmas shopping to buy gifts for my Christian friends, and I even put up a Christmas tree because it's so beautiful. I also send out piles of cards to friends both local and overseas.</div>
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"Christmas Day is always special. I spend it with Christian friends, sharing their turkey lunch and all the other special trimmuings that come with the day. And even before Christmas I usually help one or two close friends decorate their Christmas tree.</div>
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"I see Christmas as a national celebration with the spirit of the seasson cuting across all cultures."</div>
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Miss Sandra Sin, (Buddhist), a 22-year-old social worker:</div>
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"Christmas for me usually passes like any other public holiday or off-day.</div>
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"I get myself involved in my usual activities such as meeings and functions of the Singapore Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist Association.</div>
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"I don't send Christmas cards, go on special visits or exchange gifts with friends."</div>
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Mr Ahmad Suhaimi, (Muslim), a 28-year-old husband and father who works as an embassy official:</div>
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"Chrisstmas Day to me is like any other public holiday - a time to play with my little son, a day for the family to be together at home. We enjoy the special programme on radio and TV and usually visit close Christian friends. We send these friends Christmas cards but we don't exchange gifts.</div>
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"This year we might be organising a holiday trip to Malaysia, but we haven't finalised things yet."</div>
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Mr K Sekvam (Hindu), a 31-year-old husband and father who works as a technician:</div>
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"Although we are Hindus, we also do believe in Jesus Christ. Son on Christmas Eve we offer special prayers to him.'</div>
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"Christmas Day itself, however, is like any other public holiday to us. We don't have a Christmas tree or anything like that. This day on which we hold a special celebration is Deepavali Day."</div>
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<strong>Last-minute shoppers pack stores</strong></div>
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[Source: The Straits Times, 24 December 1989]</div>
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<strong>Traffic jams, long queues and rain no deterrent</strong></div>
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Last-minute shoppers yesterday went all out to get their Christmas purchases done, come rain or shine.</div>
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An evening downpour failed to stop them from packing the stores in the Orchard Road area and elsewhere for their 11th-hour buys.</div>
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Traffic james were not only on the roads; the throngs queued up patiently in front of payment counters and changing rooms and milled almost cheek-by-jowl in the more popular department stores.</div>
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The most harassed were obviously the cashiers and counter-girls who never stopped wrapping and packing throughout the day. They kept their cool and plodded on.</div>
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Shops along the Orchard Road stretch reported brisk business with some expecting a 30 to 40 per cent rise over the weekend. Extra sales staff were on hand on each shift to cope with crowds.</div>
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At Robinson's in Centrepoint, store manager Philip Wee said that the crowds had been getting larger over the past week with the biggest rush this weekend.</div>
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The special draw at Metro in Paragon was the 30-minute sale specials during which certain items were offered on reduced prices for half-hourly periods. These times were announced at intervals during the day over the store's public address system.</div>
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But queves at the store's sales counters moved at a fairly steady pace, thanks to the new bar-coded price tages that are instantly read by a scanning device.</div>
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This saves the cashiers from having to manually type in each product's code and price.</div>
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The store manager said that they expected a 30 to 40 per cent rise in business today.</div>
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For shoppers like Miss Geralyn Ong, 24, a sales co-ordinator, Christmas shopping would not be the same with the crowds and queues, especially when she was out hunting for gifts just a day or two before Christmas.</div>
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"It is all part of the atmosphere of a Singapore Christmas," she said, adding that by getting one friend to queue at the sales counter and another at the gift wrapping counter, she still managed to get everything done on time.</div>
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Other last-minute shoopers likes Mrs S.C. Chua, 38, a secretary, were picking up gifts for others rather than for themselves.</div>
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"I did all my shopping earlier, but the children wanted to get some presents so we came here," said Mrs Chua, who was at Metro Paragon with her two children.</div>
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The extended shopping hours at all the major department stores, with Tang's Studio being the latest to close at midnight yesterday was another draw for late shoppers.</div>
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But Tangs and Tang's Studio will be closed today.</div>
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Most stores siad they expected their tills to ring a lot luder today. Experience from previous years tells them that when ther is still a little time left, Singaporeans will be out in force to buy, buy and buy.</div>
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Happy shopping! Merry Christmas!</div>
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<br />Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-81704803460808752952019-11-14T14:00:00.000+08:002019-11-16T13:18:13.423+08:00Our Forgotten Zoo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Singapore's first zoo, housed on the grounds of a family bungalow, had so many exotic animals like seals, tapirs, zebras and orang utans that even a visiting Albert Einstein was impressed.<br />
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By Yuen Sin<br />
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[Source: New Paper, 15 July 2012]<br />
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Mention a local zoo and the world-renowned Singapore Zoo, established in 1973, is probably the only one come to mind.<br />
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Yet, back in the early part of the last century, a collection of animals here was already making waves around the world.<br />
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It was situated on the grounds of a large family bungalow in Upper Serangoon Road in the 1920s. A wealthy animal; trader of Indian descent, Mr William Lawrence Soma Basapa (1893-1943), had housed an extensive private collection of 200 animals and 2,000 birds there.
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It came to be known popularly as the Ponggol Zoo.<br />
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After it began to pull in the crowds on the weekends, an entry fee was charged, and it had to move to a 10-ha plot near the Punggol seafront in 1928 to accomodate the large number of both animals and visitors.<br />
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It was later renamed the Singapore Zoological Gardens and Bird Park (not related to the current zoo). It was offficially granted a licence by the now-defunct Rural Board in 1937.<br />
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Mr Lawrence Basapa, 66, grandson of the late Mr W.L.S. Basapa, recalls tales about the famed zoo as told by his family.<br />
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"They told me that many people came on the weekends - locals from all walks of life, and British expatriates because they like nature," says Mr Basapa, a corporate director on the board of two private companies.<br />
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"My father had fond memories of weekends at that house by the sea, swimming and watching the crowds."<br />
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Mr W.L.S. Basapa was a flamboyant character who knew how to live life to the fullest, says his grandson.<br />
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"He owned a Bengal tiger called Apay (ah pek) and it used to follow him around like a dog.<br />
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"He loved animals, lived in a carefree way and was able to make a living out of what he loved," says Mr Basapa.<br />
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Famed scientist Albert Einstein visited in 1922.<br />
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According to press reports of the time, Einstein was in Singapore to raise funds for the Hebrew University. He noted in his travel diaries that he came across "a wonderful zoological garden".<br />
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Today, little remains of this amazing, if little-known, part of Singapore's history.<br />
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In 1942, just before the Japanese invasion, the zoo was ordered by the British to close and the authorities were given just 24 hours to clear the area of birds and animals.<br />
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The dangerous varieties of animals were killed, while harmless ones were released into the forest.<br />
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The skins of some of these animals were donated to the then-Raffles Library and Museum (now the National Museum of Singapore).<br />
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Around 80 of these were moved to the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research at the National University of Singapore in the 1970s. And they are still there, says the museum's collections manager Kelvin Lim.<br />
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"The specimens have been preserved for scientific use and research," he says.<br />
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The land, inherited by trustees after Mr W.L.S. Basapa's death in 1943, was sold to a private investor in 1948.<br />
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The site has now become part of the Punggol Promenade (photos below).<br />
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Says Punggol resident of 10 years Chew Xin Yu, 20: "It's hard to imagine that such a zoo actually existed in this fast-paced environment, and though I've lived here for so long, I never really heard about it."<br />
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For Mr Basapa, who lives in East Coast, retaining the memory of places that once existed is an important step in nation-building.<br />
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"It's part of our heritage, for us to remember our roots and what the Asian immigrants contributed to Singapore," he says.<br />
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"People of humble backgrounds from China, India and the Middle East came, and in the process we built a nation."<br />
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<strong><u>First zoo in Singapore rated 'wonderful" by Albert Einstein</u></strong><br />
By Melody Zaccheus<br />
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[Source: Straits Times, 6 April 2013]<br />
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Albert Einstein</div>
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Nation's status as a hub for animal collectors is featured in exhibition<br />
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Singapore's first zoo, which had its beginnings at a family bungalow in Serangoon Road, has at least one unique bragging right.<br />
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Albert Einstein, the father of modern physics, was among the first visitors to the private zoo, which was run by animal lover William Lawrence Soma Basapa from 1920 to 1922.<br />
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His zoo and the history of Singapore's status as a hub for animal collectors in the late 18th and early 19th century, are part of a travelling exhibition by the National Heritage Board.<br />
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The month-long exhibition, held in conjunction with the Singapore Zoo's 40th anniversary, was launched on 5 April, 2013. It will include the Woodlands and Jurong regional libraries and Central Public Library.<br />
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The board's director of heritage institutions, Mr Alvin Tan, said it hopes to raise public awareness about Singapore's "little known early zoos".<br />
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According to press reports from the period, Einstein was in Singapore to raise funds for The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He had written in his travel diary that he had come across " a wonderful zoological garden".<br />
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With its role as a trading centre, Singapore was the port of call for collectors and officials from zoological societies in Britain and the US who traelled here to source rare local specimens.<br />
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Zoological enthusiasts included Singapore-based Chinese businessman Hoo Ah Kay, who kept rare animal and bird species at his mansion at Whampoa Gardens in the mid-1800s, and Haji Marip, who ran an exotic animal trade shop from 1880 to 1915.<br />
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But it was Singaporean-Indian landowner Basapa, who captured the hearts of local residents.<br />
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Basapa, who was often accopanied by a full-grown Bengal tiger named Apay, moved his collection of animals and birds from his Serangoon home to an 11ha seafront estate in Punggol.<br />
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Networking with international zoos, he was the first in Singapore to import seals. He also brought in Arabian cames, black wans and Shetland ponies from South Africa, America and Australia respectively.<br />
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With a collection of 200 animals and 2,000 birds, Punggol Zoo became a major attraction both nationally and internationally in pre-war Singapore.<br />
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The zoo which cost $35 a day to run, charged visitors 40 cents.<br />
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<br />
But Badapa's foray into zoo-keeping was short-lived. At the start of World War II, the British moved their forces to the north of Singapore in anticipation of invading Japanese forces.<br />
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Basapa was given 24 hours to relocate his animals and birds.<br />
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The time-frame was too tight so the British took the land, released the birds, and shot the rest, said his grandson Lawrence Basapa, 66, a company director.<br />
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"It makes us very sad till today that the animals were slaughtered and sacrificed.<br />
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"My grandfather died a broken-hearted man."<br />
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He said, however, that he is glad the efforts of Singapore's pioneers are being remembered.<br />
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"It's a good way to refresh our memory of what our zoos used to be like - simple but with a lot of heart."<br />
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-87630312310134480052019-11-03T14:37:00.001+08:002019-11-06T11:31:27.737+08:00People's Market - If Walls Could Talk<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong>SundayLife!</strong> traces the 118 year history of Lau Pa Sat, which went from a wet market close to the sea to a foodcourt surrounded by skyscrapers. Courtesy of NewspaperSG for the archived newspaper to share on this blog.<br />
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By Clarissa Oon<br />
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[Source: Straits Times, 22 July 2012]<br />
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With its cream-coloured clock tower, octagonal curve's and intricately crafted columns and arches, this grande dame of hawker centres is 118 years old, but has not experienced such sweeping changes as in the last four decades.<br />
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A feat of Victorian-era engineering, Lau Pa Sat - Old Market in Hokkien - was completed in 1894 at its present site at Raffles Quay, along Shenton Way.<br />
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Entirely prefabricated, the building is made up of more than 3,000 pieces of standardised cast iron which had been manufactured in Europe and shipped to Singapore in the early 1890s.<br />
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Were he still alive, architect and municipal engineer James MacRitchie, who also designed and gave his name to MacRitchie Reservoir, would have no trouble recognising the conserved exterior and internal skeleton of Lau Pa Sat, then also called Telok Ayer Market.<br />
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What would floor him would be its transformation from a rustic wet market close to the sea, to a food court dwarfed by the surrounding skyscrapers of a glittering financial district.<br />
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The metamorphosis began in 1973, when the Environment Ministry decided to turn it into a hawker centre. The poultry sellers with their cages of live squawking fowl - slaughtered on the spot for customers - and fishmongers with tanks of iridescent fish and baskets of twitching shrimp gave way to cooked food stalls.<br />
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Around the market, attap huts and shophouses packed with residents, sundry shops and makeshift food stalls were replaced gradually by office buildings.<br />
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The sea was once barely 400m away from the market and, during high tide, would cause floods around the market.<br />
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But the land reclamation of the Telok Ayer Basin from the 1970s expanded the Central Business District and pushed Lau Pa Sat a would away from the seafront.<br />
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In the mid-1980s, a Mass Rapid Transit tunnel was laid under the building. To protect the gazetted national monumnets, its hawkers were moved out and the entire cast-iron framework dismantled. A few years later, the building was reassembled painstakingly, piece by piece.<br />
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After an early 1990s stab by private developer Scotts Holdings at turning Lau Pa Sat into a food hall and flea market - in the manner of London's Convent Garden - it is now a 24-hour food court run by food-court operator Kopitiam Group.<br />
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One of those with fond memories of the market before urban renewal left its mark is Mr Adron Loi, 58, executive chairman of kaya-toast chain <a href="https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2011/05/ya-kun-kaya-toast-then-and-now.html" target="_blank"> Ya Kun International </a> (photo above).<br />
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In the early 1940s, Mr Loi's father began selling crispy toast - slathered with homemade egg-and-coconut jam - at a stall in Telok Ayer Basin, across the road from Lau Pa Sat.<br />
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After the market became a hawker centre, the elder Loi moved the family business there in the late 1970s. They stayed until 1985, when all the hawkers were relocated elsewhere due to the building's dismantling and reconstruction for MRT works.<br />
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Home for the Loi family of 10 in the 1950s and 1960s was in Cross Street, which faces one of Lau Pa Sat's eight entrances. They share a cramped shophouse unit with five other families, where Hong Leong Building is now.<br />
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Mr Loi remembers, as a boy, playing badminton with friends in the compound around the market. Back then, Lau Pa Sat had a gate and a fence around it, which kept out some of the flood water.<br />
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Mr Loi and other boys also used to catch small ornamental fish in the drains at the back of the market, that had been discarded by fish sellers.<br />
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It was quite a rough-and-tumble neighbourhood in those days.<br />
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There were a lot of gangsters in the Chinatown area and, occasionally, fights broke out in and outside the market. From our house, we could see people chasing one another with a knife," he recalls.<br />
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By the 1950s, cooked food and drink stalls had popped up in and around the wet market, serving both workers and towkays who kept the many trading businesses and warehouses in Chinatown and Tanjong Pagar ticking round the clock.<br />
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Old-timers recall Lau Pa Sat as a hive of 24-hour activity.<br />
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In the daytime, housewives and domestic helpers would descend ont he market, leaving in trishaws armed with bags of groceries. Businessmen would nurse their cups of black coffee and talk shop.<br />
At night, coolies and labourers would congregate after finishing the day's work.<br />
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Food critic Violet Oon, 63, saw the market in the 1960s as an unlikely "millionaire's playground", and remembers eating "really good Hokkien zi char" at Lau Pa Sat with one of her school friends from CHIJ and her friend's towkay father.<br />
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She recalls: "His chauffeur would pick us up from school for lunch and we would have treats such as ngoh hiang and dark sauce Hokkien mee with fresh oysters, fresh crab meat and pee hee, or dried plaice."<br />
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But Lau Pa Sat was also a working man's joint, says Kopitiam chairman Lim Bee Huat, 60. He started out at age nine as a drinks stall assistant at the then Esplanade Food Centre.<br />
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After knocking off at close to midnight, he would walk over to Lau Pa Sat and unwind over a five-cent cup of teh halia (ginger tea).<br />
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He recalls that the market in the 1960s "was the meeting place for labourers looking for work. Coolies would gather in groups, waiting for stevedoring jobs to be distributed. They would then take the sampans to reach big ships docked just outside Telok Ayer Basin, and carry the goods back to land".<br />
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Today, the food court he turned Lau Pa Sat into is more likely to serve Shenton Way office workers than millionaires or labourers, but its architecture remains more or less the same.<br />
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The building was gazetted as a national monument in 1973, which means its roof, facade and cast-iron structure cannot be altered. Any changes have to be approved by the Preservation of Monuments Board.<br />
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Back in the 19th century, the building was designed by MacRitchie with high ceilings, airwells and an absence of interior partitions to maximise air circulation.<br />
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Nonetheless, observers say Lau Pa Sat is more open and better ventilated today than before the 1990. Apart from the addition of electric ceiling fans, timber louvres that used to cover the exterior walls have been removed.<br />
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The sides of Lau Pa Sat are now largely exposed, aside from tilted glass panels or cloth awnings to keep out rain.<br />
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The building's first major renovation in 1973 came as the Government felt a wet market was an incongruilty in the emerging business district.<br />
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It was outfitted as a proper hawker centre with 144 stalls. Tables, stools, electrical fittings and a new mosaic floor were installed, as were sewers so waste water would not flow into open drains.<br />
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The taking apart and reconstruction of Lau Pa Sat from 1985 to 1989 was unprecedented for any building here.<br />
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Architect Lam Kin Chong, 58, who headed he Public Works Department team tasked by the then Singapore Tourist Promotion Board with the project, recalls: "The building is one of a kind and I had to do a lot of research to figure out how to conserve it."<br />
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Now deputy managing director of ST Architects and Engineers, he says that before the cast-iron structure was dismantled, each of its mroe than 3,000 parts had to be labelled, the number logged into a computer and then carefully stored. Broken parts had to be replicated.<br />
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In 1990, Scotts Holdings took over the reconstructed building with an ambitious $10-million plan to turn it into a festival market - a concept coming out of places such as Boston where old waterfron structures had been transformed into vibrant food and flea markets offering retail as well as live entertainment.<br />
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A 3,853 sq m pavilion with a mezzanine level was created inside Lau Pa Sat, housing a pub, four restaurants, 14 local and international food outlets, 41 retail stalls and 24 trolley carts.<br />
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However, the venture did not take off.<br />
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Scotts executive director Rafiq Jumabhoy conceded in a 1993 interview with Business Times that the concept felt "artificial" when transplanted here. The comapany was torn apart by a family feud two years later.<br />
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The inside of Lau Pa Sat underwent further surgery after Kopitiam took over in 1995. An expansive food court was created by removing the mezzanine floor and increasing the number of seats to more than 2,000 and food stalls to 88. It reopened a year later after renovations costing more than $5 million.<br />
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The stalls as well as the ornate trusses and arches are now looking faded, but Kopitiam has plans to rejuvenate the building next year.<br />
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Architecture aside, a handful of hawkers have also weathered the test of time and plied their trade at Old Market for nearly two decades.<br />
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One of them, kway chap seller Goh Soon Chwee, has run his stall since 1988 at the now-defunct Telok Ayer Transit Food Centre across the road, and then a Lau Pa Sat from 1997.<br />
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What has kept hom moored to the historic neighbourhood? "A lot of the customers know me and keep coming back, I don't have many years left in me to be braising pig intestines and pork belly over a hot stove, but I'd like to spend it here," says the 62-year-old in Mandarin, with a big grin.<br />
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<strong>THROUGH THE YEARS</strong><br />
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<strong>1894</strong>: The present Lau Pa Sat, then also know as Telok Ayer Market, was completed on reclaimed land at Raffles Quay. It was designed by British architect and municipal engineer James MacRitchi.<br />
It replaced an earlier demolished wet market at the same name, also octagonal and built around 1824 at the western end of nearby Market Street. That was commissioned by Sir Stamford Raffles a few years after establising Singapore as a trading outpost.<br />
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<strong>1942-1945</strong>: The market survived the Japanese Occupation.<br />
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<strong>1973</strong>: Renovated at a cost of more than $650,000 to become a food centre. Gazetted as a national monument.<br />
<strong>1985-1989</strong>: The building was dismantled to protect its Victorian-era architecture while an MRT tunnel that ran beneath it was laid. Hawkers were moved to the now-defunct Telok Ayer Transit Food Centre across the street. The more than 3,000 pieces that made up Lau Pa Sat's cast-iron structure were tagged, logged into a computer and stored. They were later reassembled for $6.8 million.<br />
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<strong>1990-1995</strong>: Developer Scotts Holdings won the tender for a 30-year lease of the building. Following renovations costing around $10 million, it became a Festival Market (above) - a food hall-cum-flea-market with live entertainment - in 1992. But the venture incurred losses and Scotts then sold the building to Kopitiam Investments, now known as the Kopitiam Group, for $8 million.<br />
<strong>1996</strong>: Lau Pa Sat reopened as a 24-hour food court after more than $5 million in renovations.<br />
<br />
"<strong>The building is one of a kind and I had to do a lot of research to figure out how to conserve it</strong>."<br />
<br />
- MR LAM KIN CHONG, the architect who headed the Public Works Department team tasked to take apart and reconstruct the Lau Pa Sat in the 1980s.<br />
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<strong><u>Way Done in the Past - Lau Pa Sat</u></strong><br />
<br />
Please check the related blog on the ways done in the past at Lau Pa Sat <a href="https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2013/02/ways-done-in-past-lau-pa-sat.html" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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<br />Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-65273145360195721652019-10-19T16:06:00.004+08:002019-10-21T00:50:26.118+08:00The real and reel of Edmund Chen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"To HOUGANG with LOVE ... from THE CHENS'</div>
<br />
I am surprised to bounce on this article by Lynn Lee in The Straits Times on 3 June 2005 to share on this blog.<br />
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No, that's not the name of a new sitcom starring Edmund Chen. This is for real. Television actor Edmund Chen, younger brother Eric and sister Loretta, are all active grassroots volunteers in Hougang. They tell insight how it became a family affair.<br />
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"Edmund's presence adds spice to grassroots activities. In fact, more people want to take pictures with him than with me!"<br />
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- Mr Eric Low, grassroots adviser and People's Action Party candidate to Hougang<br />
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Growing up, Edmund Chen and his siblings Eric and Loretta used to see their father rise early on weekends to accompany then-Queenstown MP Jek Yeun Thong on his rounds.<br />
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Other nights, their father Mr Tan Chiew Hock, 69 in 2005, would return home late from the beauty contests and fund-raising dinners he helped organise for residents.<br />
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Mr Tan is conversant in English, Mandarin, Malay, Hokkien and Teochew, and was an active grassroots volunteer for many years.<br />
<br />
In 2005, thirty years later, it's the Chen children who are active in grassroots organisations in Hougang, helping the grassroots adviser and People's Action Party candidate Eric Low.<br />
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Edmund Chen, 43, better known as Chen Zhicai (陈之财) to fans of Mediacorp Chinese drama serials, is a member of the Hougang Citizens' Consultative Committee (CCC).<br />
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Younger brother, Eric, 40, runs an events management company, and is the PAP branch secretary for Hougang.<br />
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The "baby" of the family, Loretta, 29, is a Young PAP member and research fellow with the National University of Singapore who also dabbles in theatre and is creative director of her own events management firm.<br />
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Loretta Chen, sister of Edmund Chen</div>
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How did they get involved in grassroots work?<br />
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It all started, they say, when Eric met Eric.<br />
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Mr Eric Chen;s firm, VM&SD, was in charge of organising the event to launch the Christmas celebrations along Orchard Road.<br />
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The night before the lights went on, the company was told that the decorations needed some jazzing up.<br />
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Instead of just barking out orders, Mr Low rolled up his sleeves and pitched in to help the crew.<br />
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Recalls Mr Chen: "He stayed till 3 or 4am helping us. I was so impressed with him, and that was what began and sealed our friendship."<br />
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Three years later, Mr Chen joined the Young PAP branch at Clementi. Mr Low was active in the CCC there.<br />
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When Mr Low was despatched to Hougang as the second adviser to its grassroots bodies in 1999, Mr Chen followed.<br />
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By then, the friendship had grown to become a family affairs. Mr Chen's older brother, Edmund, became friends with Mr Low, and their family members all got to know one another.<br />
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When Mr Low, whom Edmund affectionately refers to as <em>lau hia</em> or older brother in Teochew, asked him to join the CCC last year, he did not hesitate.<br />
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Says Edmund: "I think that I've been quite lucky and blessed. So I believe in giving back to society. And Eric is a dear friend so why not help him."<br />
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The Chen brothers then roped in younger sister Loretta, who was looking for community work to get involved in, after returning from studies in the United States.<br />
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After her first Meet-the-People's session in January, she knew she had found a worthy cause to be active in.<br />
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Referring to the constituents who came to see Mr Low for help, she says: "Seeing those hardship cases made me feel privileged to have what I have. Some of them don't know that there are policies in place to help them, so that's where I can help explain it to them.<br />
<br />
It has given me an insight into another slice of life that I wouldn't otherwise know about."<br />
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For these siblings, volunteer work goes hand-in-hand with cementing family bonds.<br />
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Mr Eric Chen explains: "In the past, we never met as often, because both Edmund and myself were busy and Loretta was studying overseas. Now, we have a common platform to do what we enjoy."<br />
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The Chens say they like being in Hougang, a laid back Teochew-speaking area. Although none lives there now, they have fond memories of eating at hawker stalls there in their childhood days, after visiting their grandmother on weekends at her Serangoon Garden home.<br />
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Nostalgia aside, there is no doubt they are all active in Hougang also because of a certain loyalty to Mr Low.<br />
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Mr Chen describes him as a "righteous, firm and fair man with a quirky sense of humour".<br />
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Mr Eric Chen adds that Mr Low has "done a lot for Hougang", citing as examples a programme to provide free medical checkups for the elderly, and a weekly programme to serve free breakfast of kaya toast and boiled eggs for senior citizens.<br />
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On his part, Mr Low knows he is fortunate in having the Chens help out in Hougang.<br />
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For example, Edmund lends star appeal to community events like Teochew Opera night.<br />
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The rosy-cheeked father of two aged five and 14, sits in regularly when Mr Low meets residents. He has also participated in community events to plant trees and hand out bursaries to bright Hougang students.<br />
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"Seeing me on television makes people feet like they already know me. So it's easier to connect with them because they warm up to me quite easily.<br />
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"It's like going back to the kampung," he says.<br />
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As for Mr Low, he is quick to stress that having Edmund on the CCC is not a ploy to gain political advantage.<br />
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"I do not make use of Edmund's presence to swell the ground. Neither do I feel small around him, and the rest of my 250 or so grassroots leaders for their help. All of them help enhance the work I do."<br />
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He adds that his close-knit community of helpers have been key, for example, in raising Hougang Community Club's profile and qualify of activities offered.<br />
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Two years ago, it was ranked close to the bottom in a nation-wide survey of community clubs. Now, it has climbed to eighth spot out of 75 CCs.<br />
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The Chens now want to use their different strengths, such as Edmund's prowess in art and acting, Eric's expertise in technical work and logistics, and Loretta's flair for directing and producing to organise different activities, like fund-raising and community-bonding events, for Hougang residents.<br />
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Edmund Chen the artist</div>
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They've already had one successful collaboration. Last November, they staged a musical with a cast of 30 at the launch of the International Crime Prevention Conference.<br />
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Mr Low is looking forward to more contributions from the Chens. He acknowledges: "Edmund's presence adds space to grassroots activities. In fact, more people want to take pictures with him than with me!"<br />
<br />
<strong>Real and Reel Roles of Edmund Chen</strong><br />
<strong><br /></strong>
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<strong><br /></strong>
I am not an actor or a celebrity on TV, and I was not acting with Edmund and Xiang Yun in these photos on the blog. We are friends on Facebook for many years, but met as real persons for the first time <a href="https://thoughtmoments.me/2015/07/14/ah-cai-la-kopi-singapore-memory-project/" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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We are like-minded friends and heritage fans as volunteers at the Singapore Memory Project.<br />
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-79409866138767003452019-10-12T16:09:00.002+08:002019-10-12T16:20:55.822+08:00A family takes in the museum<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Raffles Museum (now National Museum of Singapore in 1950s. Photograph is taken by Dr Carl Gibson-Hill, Curator of Zoology, Raffles Museum, from 1947 to 1956 and Director from 1956 to 1963. [Courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore.</div>
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[Source: The Straits Times, 21 June 1985]</div>
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One Saturday afternoon, a three-generation family group - John and Margaret Yin, their son Jonathan, Margaret's parents Mr and Mrs Yeo, and her nephew Gerald and niece Geraldine Chan - visited the much-publicised revamped National Museum.</div>
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<strong>K. MALATHY</strong>, who went with them, records their impressions.</div>
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<strong>The Yeos</strong></div>
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They have been to the museum before, but that was some time ago. Both said the museum had changed for the better.</div>
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"The displays are effectively arranged, the lighting good," said Mr Yeo, 67, who is retired. He especially liked the Straits Chinese Gallery because "it brings me back to my childhood days".</div>
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Mr Yeo grew up among Babas, and his knowledge of their culture was evident as he explained to his grand-children the nature and use of various exhibits.</div>
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He also enjoyed looking at the exhibits in the 19th Century Singapore Gallery, because, he said, some of the things were familiar to him and brought back memories. He spied some beautiful silver curtain hooks - "my mother had them, you know".</div>
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Mrs Yeo, 63, did not say much, but she looked at the exhibits quietly and carefully, putting on her glasses whenever she came across a particularly interesting exhibit.</div>
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She found the museum interesting, she said, but all the walking around was a little tiring.</div>
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<strong>The Yins</strong></div>
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It was Hongkong-born John Yin's first visit to the museum. "I must say I'm a bit disappointed. I came expecting something else ... I don't know what," said John, 36, a manager with a container leasing company.</div>
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He thought the museum atmosphere was all wrong. A museum should be hushed, almost reverent, he said, "But here everyone is just walking in and out ... it's too casual."</div>
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In that sort of atmosphere, he felt that it was difficult to respond properly to the exhibits. "Maybe the attendants should see that people don't run around or talk loudly."</div>
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His wife Margaret agreed with him, but she felt the crowds wouldn't last," and after that, it will be all right".</div>
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Margaret, 37, a housewife, has been to the museum before and she thought that it had improved - the range of exhibits was wider, for instance.</div>
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The Straits Chinese Gallery was her favourite - "the displays are visually very effective."</div>
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Also, the dim lighting and the coolness of the gallery made it mysteriously inviting.</div>
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It was the first part of the museum that the family visited, and Margaret feld that it created a very favourable first impression.</div>
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This was 10-year-old Jonathan Yin's first visit to the museum and he couldn't really say what he felt about it. He usually wore a bemused look while his grandfather and parents told him about the various exhibits.</div>
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In the 19th Century Singapore Gallery, he noticed a medicine grinder. When asked how it worked, he said: "I think you put a coin in somewhere and it moves."</div>
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When his grandfather explained how it actually worked, his eyes grew round.</div>
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Jonathan liked the Southeast Asian Gallery, especially, he said cryptically, "the guitar with the hole in it". The rest of the museum was okay, but he didn't like the Chinese Puppet Theatre - "the faces are spooky".</div>
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His cousins, Geraldine and Gerald Chan, reacted differently.</div>
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They said they enjoyed everything about the museum, but some things move than the others. And, unless the adults, they didn't seem to mind the crowd.</div>
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Eleven-year-old Geraldine's favourite was the parlour in the Straits Chinese Gallery, "because it looks so real, and it's such a lady's room".</div>
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Gerald, 12, was, in a way, the most interested person in the group. He reacted to the museum spontaneously, not bothering to analyse as the adults did, what moved him.</div>
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He was happiest with the historical dioramas. He explained (and very well too) to his family about each of the little dioramas.</div>
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The Coolie Room fascinated him, and he noted and pointed out every details - the spitoons, the coolie hats, the man smoking opium ...</div>
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He explained his interest a little shyly. "I'm doing History in school, you see ... and this is what it's all about."</div>
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The family took slightly more than an hour to complete their tour, and Margaret felt they didn't really do justice to the wide range of exhibits. "We'll come back another day to go over everything properly."</div>
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Also, they wanted to see the Audio-Visual Show, which they had missed.</div>
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All of them liked the galleries on the first storey (History of Singapore, Straits Chinese and Southeast Asian) better then the ones on the second storey (National University of Singapore, 19th Century Singapore, Trade Ceramics, and Jade).</div>
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John Yin explained it this way: "The sculptures and ceramics upstairs are really beautiful but their appeal is more remote. It's basically aesthetic.</div>
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"The displays downstairs, on the other hadn, relate to us directly. There are more exhibits and they are more colourful and visually exciting. This is especially true of the Straits Chinese Gallery."</div>
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<strong>Breathing life into museums</strong></div>
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By Adeline Chia</div>
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[Source: The Straits Times, 11 October 2007)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPJ-hQ7dPIUxmjCaF4y9tLqByfKyiQvaJYnKeV5fpwafqS_UtxpUFcZCpaHhzHryItU0W5PbYFeeC4MPqXrIfImdhyOWA7o3eRcKjy6zII0DZ6cNc_IXDnaqP6iD9wlchPQGhTNVjrOek/s1600/20191011_161315.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1044" data-original-width="1600" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPJ-hQ7dPIUxmjCaF4y9tLqByfKyiQvaJYnKeV5fpwafqS_UtxpUFcZCpaHhzHryItU0W5PbYFeeC4MPqXrIfImdhyOWA7o3eRcKjy6zII0DZ6cNc_IXDnaqP6iD9wlchPQGhTNVjrOek/s400/20191011_161315.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Museums are getting exciting under the National Heritage Board's new CEO Michael Koh.</div>
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Something is happening in Singapore's museums.</div>
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Heartlanders are making the rounds of them in sponsored tours. Museums feature prominently in a children's book. And if you look carefully at the TV suspense drama Metamorphosis on Channel 8, you'll see footage of the Asian Civilisation Museum (ACM) in the background.</div>
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The video of "National Museum of Singapore 125 years of history" on YouTube <a href="https://youtu.be/8zeS-DbBqJ8" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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And in December, taxi drivers will be invited to attend museum open houses so they can be better guides to their passengers.<br />
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The man behind all these initiatives is Mr Michael Koh, the chief executive officer of the National Heritage Board (NHB).</div>
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Since he hopped on board a little over a year ago, the 46-year-old architect by training has introduced some snazzy changes to the NHB, the statutory board that runs nine museums and heritage centres in Singapore.</div>
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Under his charge are: the ACM, the Singapore Art Museum (SAM), the National Museum, the Singapore Philatelic Museum, Reflections at Bukit Chandu, the Heritage Conservation Centre, the National Archives of Singapore, Memories at the Old Ford Factory and the Peranakan Museum.</div>
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In September last year, he left the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), where he had worked for more than 10 years on and off, to join the NHB.</div>
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He is the third and youngest CEO to join the board since it was set up in 1993. His predecessors were Mrs Lim Siok Peng and, before her, Mr Lim Siam Kim.</div>
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The charismatic Mr Koh, an architecture graduate from the National University of Singapore, was a star city planner.</div>
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His first job was with the URA as a planner in 1990, and he rose through the ranks to become director.</div>
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In 1992, the authorities gave him a scholarship to pursue a master's in design studies at Harvard University.</div>
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In 2002, he left URA for a brief stint in Temasek Holdings and its subsidiary, Mapletree Holdings. He returned to URA in 2003, where he was director of urban planning and design.</div>
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And last year, he made the leap from city planning to the heritage sector.</div>
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At the Olio Dome Cafe at SAM on Monday, he tells Life! that it was not an easy decision.</div>
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After NHB chairman Professor Tommy Koh sounded him out, he went through "months of angst and soul-searching" before he took the plunge.</div>
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He says: "Most people probably thought that I was very daring to make the move. I wanted something different, and I saw a lot of opportunity at NHB. It's already a brand, but it needs to be refreshed, rejuvenated and reinvented."</div>
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Besides, the father of two - he has been married to housewife Lim Chiwen for 15 years and tthey have a daughter, sevn and son, six - says that he always had an interest in art and in collecting.</div>
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<strong>Sweeping changes</strong></div>
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Thirteen months on the job, and the changes are significant.</div>
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For one thing, the NHB's new annual report, covered in blue velvet and sporting the chic title Muse In Vogue is decidedly more plush than last year's standard government publication.</div>
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Just last month, fresh showbix faces joind NHB as board members, including actor Qi Yuwu and MediaCorp Raintree piectures managing director Daniel Yun.</div>
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On whether this could dumb down the heritage and culture sector in Singapore for mass appeal, Mr Koh sayd: "We want to engage the creative indugstries and grab a bigger audience. It's not just becaude of star quality."</div>
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He adds "When people saw Yuwu on the list, they were shocked at first. But he is a serious collector of Chinese contemporary art and knows some Chinese artists personally.</div>
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And he stresses that rigourous scholarship and curatorship should jform the backbone of exhibitions.</div>
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He says: "We can't be seen as lowering the quality of exhibitions, which must be rooted in scholarship and research. It is only in the manner of presentation that we need to change, and which we have to tailor to different audiences.</div>
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<strong>Conclusion: It works</strong></div>
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His unconventional methods might raise some eyebrows, but they work. Qi's popular tour of SAM's exhibition of the Chinese painter Zeng Fanzhi brought in about 100 fans, some of whom were museum first-timers.</div>
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Mr Koh is also working hard to attract visitors from "emerging communities" such as heartlanders and children. For this, he has worked with the People's Association to bring families from community centres on free bus trips to museum.</div>
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And to educate and entire more taxi drivers, whom he calls "ambassador of our museums", he is organising an open house for them in December, where they will be led on guided tours and get vouchers for free entry.</div>
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The man is also known to add a personal touch to his work.</div>
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Because of him, the Sasha children's books series now has a Sasha Visits The Museum (below) book that was launched in August.</div>
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While reading to his daughter one night, he thought: "There's Sasha Visits The Botanic Gardens, Sasha Visits The Zoo, but Sasha never went to the museums."</div>
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So he mooted the idea of the book, and author Shamini Flint wrote it in a tie-up between the NHB and her publishing company Sunbear Publishing.</div>
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He also emceed the inaugural Patron of Heritage Awards this year to personally thank the benefactors who had donated and loaned some $118.5 million worth of artefacts between April 2004 and December last year.</div>
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Socialising with patrons and donors has meant a lot more late nights for the busy man. He says: "In the past, you could just take your work home. Now there is socialising and events at night. And you still take your work home afterwards."</div>
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And then on weekends, home goes to work.</div>
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Dr Kenson Kwok, 58, ACM director and a family's friend, says that Mr Koh combines good administrative skills with a genuine love of the arts.</div>
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He says: "He takes his kids to the museum on Sundays and give feedback on how they found the facilities. You would thinki he wouldn't want to go to his workplace on weekends."</div>
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The NHB's director of corporate communications Walter Lim, 37, who has worked with all three CEOs, says that his current boss is "an atypical CEO" with his informal style.</div>
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"We can just pop into his room to discuss matters, we're on an SMS basis," Mr Lim adds.</div>
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Prof Koh, who approached Mr Koh for the job, says he is "an outstanding individual with a love of culture, has many creative ideas and a sense of style, which is important in this job".</div>
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He adds: "It was a bold move for him to leave the URA, where he was performing so well and had a bright future. But I am delighted with his performance, and he has really rejuvenated the NHB.</div>
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One year into the job, and the man is not slowing down. Integrated museum programming, a significant project he started this year, is already rolling out in museums.</div>
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Under this plan, exhibitions and activities at various museums will be grouped under a common theme to better market them.</div>
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Under this year's themem, Celebrate Asean!, are activities such as The Big Picture Show at SAM, featuring large artworks from ASEAN countries, and Common Threads at a ACM, on different textiles in these countries.</div>
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Up next year is the Vietnam festival, a cultural extravaganza at the National Museum and a Vietnamese art show at SAM.</div>
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Visitors can expect Laos and Philippines festival in 2009.</div>
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Visitorship to the six NHB museums crossed the 1.3 million mark in the last financial year, a near 20 per cent increase over 2005, and Mr Koh has plans to grow it further.</div>
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He says: "The heritage sector is a growth industry. It's about creating value for the nation and the people, and making people proud to say 'this is my heritage'. After all, we have so many shared memories."</div>
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On his achievements, the man remains modest: "One man cannot change the world in one year. The wheels were already in place. I only took things to the next level."</div>
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<strong>More funky after 15 years</strong></div>
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<strong>By Adeline Chia</strong></div>
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[Source: The Straits Times, 31 July 2008]</div>
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More blockbuster exhibitions, more private museums is the promise of tomorrow as the National Heritage Board celebrates its 15th birthday.</div>
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Museum goes, mark your calendars; three blockbuster exhibitions are coming to Singapore.</div>
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There is the showcase of treasures from the reign of the Kangxi Emperor in March, 2008, exquisite jewellery from the Mughal Empire in July and an exhibition on Egyptian mummies at the end of the year.</div>
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And for those curious about what collectors have in their private collections, new private museums will be opened by individuals, including businessman Oei Hong Leong and cosmetic surgeon Woffles Wu.</div>
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These plans to enrich the cultural and heritage landscape come as the National Heritage Board (NHB) celebrates its 15th birthday marking the day in Aug 1, 1993 when the National Archives, National Museum and Oral History Department merged to form a new statutory board.</div>
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It was tasked with setting up specialised museums for art, Asian culture and Singapore history.</div>
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There is plenty to celebrate as the board has had its strongest year yet.</div>
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The first national Peranakan Museum opened in April. Visitorship to the board's nine museums last year hit an all-time high of 1.86 million, up from 1.34 million the previous year.</div>
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Its lively outreach events, including Explore Singapore! and the Singapore Heritage Festival attracted 4.36 million people, a steep jump from 2006's 1.93 million.</div>
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The reason? Heartlanders stepping into museums in increasing numbers and exciting programmes that appealed to a broad spectrum of interests.</div>
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NHB chief executive Michael Koh, 46, says the board will continued to court visitors aggressively with outreach events.</div>
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He says: "We went to Sengkang and Woodlands with traditional arts performances. We expect an even higher showing next year." </div>
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But nothing attracts visitors like blockbuster exhibitions, and the museums have lined up three.</div>
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Next year, from March to May, the Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) is having an exhibition on Kangxi Emperor, who ruled China from 1661 to 1722. On show will be artefacts from the Palace Museum in Beijing, including paintings of the royal family, scroll paintings of the emperor's birthday celebrations and his expeditions and ancient scientific tools.</div>
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In July, the museum will put on an exhibition called Treasury Of The World: Jewelled Arts Of India. In The Age Of The Mughals. Visitors will see jewelled necklaces, rings, intricately carved hilts of swords and turban ornaments, among other dazzlers.</div>
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Rounding off next year will be the Egyptian mummy exhibitions at the National Museum. Details are still being worked out but the last time Egyptian mummies went on show here in 1999, they attracted 102,000 visitors to the ACM.</div>
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NHB is also trying to grow the number of museums here, not by opening more but by helping collectors to start their own.</div>
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Mr Koh says: "We hope we can be the tipping point for collectors to think about setting up their museums seriously.</div>
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To do this, the board soft-launched the Heritage Industry Incentive Programme recently, a $500,000 fund to help people who want to promote heritage and culture by writing books on Singapore culture, organising educational tours or setting up private museums to show off their collections.</div>
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The board will help the private museums by subsidising the cost of catalogue printing, and helping with event and exhibition planning.</div>
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The fund has already been used to help Singapore writer Adeline Foo publish two children's books on Peranakan culture. The Kitchen God and The Beaded Slippers, and to develop a pub crawl along the historic Boat Quay stretch which educates participants on the area's history.</div>
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The Board has come some way since the merger of those three sleepy departments.</div>
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Over the years, it set up the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) in 1996, the ACM in 1997 and gave the grand old National Museum a complete makeover in 2003, re-opening it in 2006.</div>
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Besides these museums, it also oversees the Singapore Philatelic Museum. Reflections at Bukit Chandu, the Heritage Conservation Centre, the National Archives of Singapore. Memories at the Old Ford Factory and the newly opened Peranakan Museum.</div>
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Its staff strength has grown from about 50 people to 382. </div>
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National Museum Director Lee Chor Lin (above), 45, joined the museum in 1985 as an assistant curator in the South-east Asian Department.</div>
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She worked for some years in the reference library at the museum, which had a three-storey-high wall of books.</div>
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"I'm nostalgic about the old days," she says. "<strong>The National Museum was a sleepy little place, with not many visitors. But we had to do everything ourselves</strong>: curating, insstalling the exhibition, even dabbling with design. It was a geat way to learn."</div>
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She adds that the budget for acquiring artefacts and artworks in the 1980s was about $30,000 to $40,000 - "not enough to buy a used car".</div>
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The sum has balloned over the years. In 2007, the total acquisition budget for all the museums was $3 million, separate from $75.5 million given by the Government for operation costs.</div>
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On NHB's growth, Dr Kenson Kwok, 58, director of the Asian Civilisations Museum, says: "We went from a museum that was not well-funded to four different major museums which have regional and international reputation as institutions with high, professional standards. The progress is great."</div>
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The appointment in 2006 of Mr Koh, a former urban planner, as chief executive of the board brought a palpable sense of glamour and buzz.</div>
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Celebrities such as singer-songwriter Dick Lee and singer Kit Chan were named to boards within the NHB and various museums. Hunky actor Qi Yuwu leads tours through Chinese contemporary art shows, Salt-of-the-earth actor-comedian Mark Lee is a museum ambassador.</div>
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Museums are becoming funkier too. The recently concluded Night Festival, a free outdoor arts and music festival, drew 50,000 visitors to the National Museum over two weekends.</div>
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During the festival, renowned Italian performance group Studio Festi wowed audiences with huminous, aerial antics and Sydney-based lighting effects company, The Electric Canvas, transformed the facade of the museums with magical projections.</div>
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The work goes on.</div>
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In two weeks' time, the edgy, industrial-looking 8Q sam, an extension of the Singapore Art Museum, will open its doors to the public and showcase contemporary art.</div>
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And visitors are lapping it all up.</div>
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Freelance dancer Lim Yizhen, 25, who attended the Night Festival on both its weekends, says it was a well-organised event that mixed both the traditional and contemporary.</div>
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She adds: "When I get off work, museums are often closed. During the festival, the National Museum had free admissions until 2am. I finally got to see all the galleries inside."</div>
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Housewife Cindy Ong, 30, brought her 2 1/2 -year-old son to the National Museum for an interactive exhibtion called Mozart: A Child Proddigy during the June school holidays.</div>
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She says: "It was the first time I had stepped into the museum since I was a child, and I was really impressed.</div>
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"I think they did a geat job for the kids' programmes and there should be more. I'm keen on getting my children to do something different, rather than just being mall rats all the time."</div>
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As I passed by National Museum of Singapore one day <a href="https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2014/03/as-i-passed-by-national-museum-of.html" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-36854306901127566282019-09-28T15:38:00.003+08:002019-09-28T16:14:10.025+08:00Shaik Kadir's Birthplace, a National Monument<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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BY:<br />
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SHAIK KADIR<br />
FOR THE STRAITS TIMES<br />
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The writer is a retired teacher and author of several books<br />
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[Source: The Straits Times, 17 January 2011]<br />
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Not many people in their 60s these days have the good fortune of being able to see the building they were born in, so rapid has been the pace of development in Singapore.<br />
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I am one of the lucky ones. My birthplace has not only been left intact by the inexorable march of development. It is going to be rejuvenated.<br />
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I was born 65 years ago, in the Nagore Dargah, an Indian Muslim religious monument, located at the corner of Telok Ayer Street and Boon Tat Street. My father was the caretaker there from 1940 until he died in 1953 when I was seven years old. My younger sister and I were born in that building, in the caretaker's room.<br />
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Nagore Dargah is a replica of a shrine by the same name in South India, which houses the tomb of 13th-century Islamic preacher Syed Shahul Hamid. The Singapore monument was built in his honour around 1828 by Chulia Tamil Muslims who migrated to Singapore. It was gazetted a national monument in 1974.<br />
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The monument, with its unique blend of Indian-Arab features and three prominent minarets, has attracted the attention of those who walk past its distinctive facade - but they were unable to see its interior for it was locked most times for many years.<br />
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As Muslims become more educated, both secularly and Islamically, beliefs in superstitions and visits to shrines declined. Islam prohibits the worship of humans, dead or alive, however pious they may have been, and asking for divine favours from the dead.<br />
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In my adult life, at least once in two years, I would take a trip to Telok Ayer Street to view the building and reminisce about my childhood days there. The building became so dilipidated from disuse I feared its days would be numbered.<br />
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I was therefore delighted to hear of the community's efforts with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS), which takes care of the property, to give the building a new function. After restoration, the Nagore Dargah Indian Muslim Heritage Centre, will open in May, 2011.<br />
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Nagore Dargah, once a centre of Indian Muslim activity, is more than a national monument to me. For me, it holds a lot of personal and family memories.<br />
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The rooms in the building and the streets around it were my play area. Telok Ayer Street would become a hive of activity in the evening. Chinese medicine men came, clashing cymbals to explain their wares. Elderly people listened intently to story-tellers spinning yarns of faraway provinces of China.<br />
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The food boy would make his rounds from Telok Ayer Street to Boon Tat Street soliciting home deliveries with his <a href="https://thoughtmoments.me/2019/07/22/street-cries-that-are-no-more/" target="_blank"> bamboo knockers </a>, wounding tik-tok, tik-tok, tik-tok till somebody called him for orders.<br />
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Boon Tat Street too would come alive. Here, roadside push-carts sold food. While people ate, Chinese instrumental songs, often accompanied by the soulful sound of the erhu, blared from the Chinese association building in nearby Amoy Street.<br />
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Kreta Ayer was a Chinese area that also had a stron Indian presence. There were many Indian "hole-in-the-wall" shops in this area, selling anything from ciagarettes to sweets and toiletries.<br />
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One was just across the road from my home, on the side wall of the coffee shop. Once, the owner came to my father to talk about sponsoring food for the up-coming <em>Kandhuri Urs</em> or <em>maulud</em>, the 14-day annual religious celebration.<br />
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The celebration would begin after sunset with a flag-raising ceremony. Flags would be raised on several masts erected from the open-air floor of the building against its lace-like upper walls.<br />
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During these two weeks, visitors, mostly South-Indian Muslims, would come to offer thanksgiving prayers and <em>doa</em> (blessing) to Syd Shahul Hamid.<br />
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On the 10th night, more people would come to keep vigil till dawn. Musicians, sitting cross-legged on the matted floor, kept them awake with Tamil Islamic songs.<br />
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After the 14th evening of the celebration, the flags would be lowered and Nagore Dargah would be left bereft of visitors for the rest of the year, except for occasional visitor on Thursday nights.<br />
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Like many others in the Indian Muslim community, I am delighted that such a beautiful building will come to life again and hope its visitors will spend time learning about the history and contributions of the Singapore Indian Muslim community.<br />
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Please check out Shaik Kadir's blog <a href="https://readnreap.wordpress.com/2016/09/26/part-2-nagore-dargah-my-birthplace-a-national-monument/" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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<br />Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-48837460206644970932019-09-21T17:00:00.001+08:002019-09-21T17:04:25.277+08:00Happily Ever After For Queenstown Library<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It will continue to serve the community and new generation of readers<br />
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By Joanna Seow <br />
[Source: The Straits Times, 25 July 2014]<br />
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Standing two storeys tall, the grey building on Margaret Drive looks old-fashioned with its bow-tie motif and lattice facade.<br />
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But this venerable keeper of fairytales and stories of faraway lands has been ahead of times.<br />
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Queenstown Public Library - the oldest public library still standing in Singapore - became the first branch to be fully air-conditioned in 1978 and the first to computerise its loan system in 1987.<br />
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It also opened the first children's corner and was the first to offer free movie screenings.<br />
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Now, the 44-year-old library - which became the country's oldest after the original National Library building at Stamford Road was torn down - will be the first of 26 under the National Library Board (NLB) to be preserved.<br />
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The 40th Anniversary of Queenstown Branch Library blog <a href="http://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2010/04/queenstown-public-library-40th.html" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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Last month, it was gazetted for conservation under the Urban Redvelopment Authority's Master Plan 2014, as part of the medium-term term physical development of Singapore.<br />
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"I'm happy it will still be here. It ties us to our memories, and that's the purpose of conserving a building," said retired Republic of Singapore Air Force officer Tommy Tan, 51, who lived in nearby Margaret Close as a boy.<br />
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Queenstown itself is no stranger to firsts. It was the nation's first satellite town - nearly 20,000 housing units were built there from 1952 to 1968.<br />
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A modern town centre developed in the 1960s and 1970s, across from the library building. The nation's first neighbourhood shopping centre and sports complex sprang up there.<br />
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And in 1970, Queenstown's new branch library was opened by then-Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, kicking off a movement to connect heartlanders to reading.<br />
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Built at a cost of $595,000, it lent out more than 293,000 books and registered 12,600 users in its first year. The figures more than doubled over the first five years.<br />
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In the library's heyday, queues for borrowing and returning books snaked out the front door, and Saturday visitors had to squeeze in, said Mrs Kiang-Koh Lai Lin, a former NLB director of reading initiatives and a Queenstown librarian from 1980 to 1982.<br />
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Library manager Michelle Kwok (left) with Mrs Kiang-Koh Lai Lin, a Queenstown librarian from 1980 to 1982.</div>
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Children loved the storytelling sessions and cosy corner created by Mrs Kiang-Koh, 63, who pestered a carpet firm for several months until it donated a carpet.</div>
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"We would get children who didn't enjoy reading to attend programmes like magic shows and then introduce books related to their hobbies," she said.</div>
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The building was at the centre of a hive of activity, with a bowling centre, cinemas and hawker food just a short walk away.</div>
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"We would say "meet at the library' and decide what to do after that," said Mr Tan, who now visits it once a month with his wife and daughter, aged four.</div>
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But time has hushed the neighbourhood. The Cinema and Bowling Centre closed in 1999, though the building still stands. Next to the library, the former Queenstown Polyclinic and Dental Clinic is now a dormitory for workers.</div>
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Gone are the queues, thanks to automated loan machines.</div>
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Sunlight steaming in through giant glass windows illumininates books left open by children visiting with their parents or students seeking a quiet refuge.</div>
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Esther Lee, 11, cut a serene figure as she pored over work set by her mother, Mrs Hazel Lee, 36, who home-schools Esther and her three younger siblings.</div>
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"We get books related to the topic Mum is teaching," said Esther, who usually reads seven books a week. "I like the library as it's much quieter than other places."</div>
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Civil servant L.P. Lim, 35, who lives nearby, visited the library as a girl and still loves it. She said: "As the front doors slide open, I often feel a tingle of happiness - it's like being welcomed to a place where stories of Enid Blyton's treetop fairyland still exist."</div>
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Visitors appreciate the peaceful atmostphere, as shopping mall libraries tend to be more crowded.</div>
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"Other libraries are more central. This feels more exclusive," said retiree Koh Hock Chong, 63, who reads Chinese magazines there several times a week.</div>
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Not content to be a wallflower, the library has turned to programmes such as movie screenings to draw in more readers, said manager Michelle Kwok. It also holds gardening talks that tie in with its community garden, which is its special feature.</div>
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And the area could soon get livelier with the redevelopment of the nearby Tanglin Halt area. Some residents will move to five new housing projects, two of which are in front of the library.</div>
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Many visitors to the library go for their children's sake. Housewife Jyothi Abburu, 32, who was there recently with her two daughters and mother-in-law, said: "My younger girl especially likes the storytelling sessions."</div>
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Like the building itself, the storytelling tradition has stood the test of time. Mrs Kiang-Koh often runs into visitors who enjoyed storytime at the library as children.</div>
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"I'm very happy I'm around to see the next generation," she said. "Now, they bring their mothers and their own kids to the library."</div>
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Mrs Kiang-Koh Lai Lin, the <a href="https://www.psd.gov.sg/heartofpublicservice/our-people/3-excellence/the-reading-ambassador/" target="_blank"> Reading Ambassador </a>.</div>
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-60412488170777304732019-09-05T16:27:00.004+08:002019-09-07T04:19:39.889+08:00The Moon Festival<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="details">Stall at Smith Street in Chinatown selling moon cakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival or Moon Cake Festival. The Chinese festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month, the night at which the moon is believed to be the roundest and brightest. The Mid-Autumn Festival dates back to the reign of Emperor Tai Tsung of the Sung Dynasty (AD 976-995), but it was only in the Ts'ing period when China was under Manchurian rule (1644-1911) that moon cakes were consumed in celebration. Shaped like the moon, the sweet pastry is traditionally filled with a few types of paste -- lotus, black-bean, yellow-bean, and "golden trotter" (mixture of nuts and sweetened paste of orange peel and ham) -- and often includes a preserved duck's egg yolk. During the festive season, moon cakes are given as gifts and put at the altar as offerings to deities, ancestors and the moon. Date: 12/09/1983.</span><br />
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The Moon Festival, a tradition that is still going strong in Singapore.<br />
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Traditions die hard, and the Eighth Moon Festival - also known as the Mid-Autumn or Moon-cake Festival - is no different.<br />
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Chinese in Singapore still continue to celebrate the event, one of the most colourful in the Chinese calendar, although the majority do not really understand its significance, especially among the younger generation.<br />
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It climaxed two weeks of activities which saw thousands of dollars worth of moon-cakes bought, exchanged and consumed.<br />
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Chinatown, just across the People's Park Complex, is usually the centre of activity before the festival. Here shops and roadside stalls are well-stocked with traditional items like pomeloes, tea leaves and dust, and, of course, moon-cakes in different variety.<br />
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However, with the threat of urban renewal, this area is slowly losing its popularity as THE place for festival shopping.<br />
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Ask any of the Chinatown stall-holders and he will readily tell you that business has not been as good as in the previous years.<br />
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One of the reasons is that the younger generation are not so keen in celebrating the festival.<br />
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"Unlike the older people, the younger ones will only buy a few pieces of moon-cake for the family and one or two lanterns for their children," said one of the shop-keepers who has been years in the business.<br />
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"This is bad because if this trend continues, a time will come when no one will celebrate the festival."<br />
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There are however, clubs here whch still celebrate the occasion quite elaborately. The China Society, for instance, holds and annual Mooncake Party for its members and guests, and among its activities are cultural shows and talks on the festival.<br />
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For the older folk, festival day means time for exchange of gifts among friends and relatives with mooncakes and caged "piglets" topping the lsit.<br />
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It is also time to pray to the Moon Goddess - despite the American intrusion on the planet.<br />
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Although no one can say for certain how long this tradition will last in Singapore, most people agree that the festival helps to bring on added touch of colour to the lives of the people here.<br />
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[Source: New Nation, 23 September 1972. By Jenny Lee].<br />
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Madam Lan Lee Ying and her two-year-old granddaughter Annabell Song, in Chinatown to buy lanterns. Tonight is the celebration of the Mid-Autumn festival which is also known as the lantern or mooncake festival. Picture by Lau Fook Kong.<br />
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<strong><u>The lady in the moon</u></strong><br />
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By Diane Lim [Source: The Straits Times, 27 September 1987].<br />
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When the moon rises high in the sky on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, round and bright as a big lantern, little ones might well wonder about the dim shapes they see on its surface.<br />
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If they won't be satisfied with the standard modern explanation that these are shadows made by the mountains and craters on the moon, perhaps the traditional myths may go sown better with mooncakes and Chinese tea.<br />
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The central figure in the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations is Chang E, the Lady in the Moon. Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) mythologies say that she was the beautiful wife of Hou Yi, a skilful archer who saved the earth from drought during the Xia dynasty (circa 2,000 BC) by shooting nine suns from the sky, leaving one we see today.<br />
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There are several different accounts of how Chang E got in the moon. In the most commonly-told version, Hou Yi was rewarded for his feat by being made ruler of the people he had saved.<br />
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Unfortuantely, he proved to be tyrannical. He sent emissaries to Xi Wang Mu, Queen of the Western Paradise, to procure an elixir of immortality.<br />
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Chang E foresaw unending misery for her husband's subjects should he become immortal. So, filled with pity and concern for them, she drank the elixir and fled to the moon to escape Hou Yi's wrath.<br />
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Her heroic sacrifice is remembered by those who pray to her as the Goddess of the Moon and symbol of beauty, wisdom and virtue.<br />
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In another version of the story, the 10 suns in the sky were the sons of Jade Emperor, supreme ruler of the heavens. He had instructed them to take turns shining in the sky so as to warm the earth, but they had disobediently appeared together, causing drought and destruction.<br />
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Hou Yi was a heavenly emissary sent to reason with them. Failing to persuade them with words, he shot down all but one. Angered by this, the Jade Emperor barred Hou Yi and his fairy wife Chang E, who had come to earth with him, from returning to heaven.<br />
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Chang E was unhappy with her life among mortals and nagged Hou Yi to find a way for them to regain immortality. After many difficulties, Hou Yi obtained a medicine from Xi Yang Mu, who gave him enough of it for two.<br />
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He returned to Chang E rejoicing and told her about it, but hid it in the roof of the house when he went out again. Chang E discovered the medicine in his absence. She had just taken it down when she heared Hou Yi returning.<br />
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In confusion, she swallowed it all. She started to feel lighter and lighter and began to float upwards as her husband watched helplessly. Finally, she reached the moon, unable to go further, since she was still not permitted to enter heaven.<br />
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On a clear night, look at the moon, especially when it is full. The shadows on the moon may also recall the silhouette of a rabbit.<br />
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One story about it goes thus: A fox, a monkey and a rabbit lived together harmoniously, sharing their food and work. One day, a holy man came begging for food and shelter. The three animals welcomed him into their cave. The fox brought him a carp, and the monkey gave him freshly picked fruit.<br />
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Full of sadness that it had nothing better to offer, the rabbit jumped into the fire and roasted itself to provide meat for the old man.<br />
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As it turned out, the honly man was the Lord Buddha in disguise and, to reward the rabbit's generosity, he placed its half-burnt carcass on the moon to shine as an example for all eternity....<br />
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And what about the mooncakes, their golden brown recalling the gleam of the harvest moon?<br />
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It is said that Zhu Yuan Zhang overthrew the Yuan dynasty (1279 AD - 1368 AD) and freed the Chinese from Mongol domination with their help. On the advice of his lieutenant, Liu Bo Wen, mooncakes were circulated among the people as the festival approached.<br />
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Celebrating the festival provided an excuse for Chinese families to gather, as the Mongol soldiers otherwise strictly controlled their movements.<br />
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Since ownership of sharp weapons was restricted and 10 families had to share one knife, the need to cut the mooncakes ensured that the people would have arms at the ready when they received the call to rise against the Mongols - by means of notes hidden in the mooncakes.<br />
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The rebellion was successful, and resulted in the founding of the Ming dynasty (1369-1644).<br />
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Sadly, the authenticity of this well-know story is disputed. The Mid-Autumn Festival was indeed celebrated from the Song dynasty (AD960-1279) onwards, but mooncakes were not mentioned as being part of the festival until the Qing dynasty (1644-1911), according to C.S. Wong, the late Penang-based expert on Chinese matters.<br />
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However, Tan Sri Lee is of the view that the mooncakes do have a long history and may well have existed at the time of the anti-Mongol revolt.<br />
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Information published by the Hong Kong Tourist Association supports what Tan Sri Lee said, claiming that mooncakes existed as far back as the Tang dynasty, though their origin is unknown.<br />
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<strong><u>Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations in Chinatown</u></strong><br />
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<span class="details"><span class="details"><span class="details"><span class="details"><span class="details"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="details">Sales of mooncakes at Chinatown in the 1950s.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpowA1btmQc8EFP4Cz9bWRX4R3YRDs_0JgtO4hwF-5sTi0cj6C0QhLeVaVfjqSg1VhZnu0EDyirjDHH-DaaO5juIQe8DuA6hQpAf9cisYlr5fuJuiWFOjfY37shmBhqABA1fwoDyCw2GM/s1600/img0014.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="637" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpowA1btmQc8EFP4Cz9bWRX4R3YRDs_0JgtO4hwF-5sTi0cj6C0QhLeVaVfjqSg1VhZnu0EDyirjDHH-DaaO5juIQe8DuA6hQpAf9cisYlr5fuJuiWFOjfY37shmBhqABA1fwoDyCw2GM/s400/img0014.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="details"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="details">Sales of lanterns at Chinatown in the 1950s.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0KLvK9YybJrgvucWSFkVLWQVGD0E6rGxTJZoPt6iRIRlbph-50e8B1NOq1MMHaSAHZlD3uKPKa8wSydWapk_P6MB6BKvf_L7xF2fE7ff_F5fjLmFSNdV3m5WukzhYpqjSPv_oXr7mwCo/s1600/img0013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="637" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0KLvK9YybJrgvucWSFkVLWQVGD0E6rGxTJZoPt6iRIRlbph-50e8B1NOq1MMHaSAHZlD3uKPKa8wSydWapk_P6MB6BKvf_L7xF2fE7ff_F5fjLmFSNdV3m5WukzhYpqjSPv_oXr7mwCo/s400/img0013.jpg" width="400" /><span class="details"><span class="details"><span class="details"><br /></span></span></span></a></div>
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<span class="details"><strong><u>Celebration of Chinatown Mid-Autumn Festivals in 2003</u></strong></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8RtiIHxd9atn6nEVsZQUiA4aeXEeespW29SBPlM1WzdauMQEulTN85j3qqVIlauJYJoTOEGeYMvEYDNAWSDI_xbQaSSQ2gruzz2SE6wk1wot9sxPZjJQGdX4Iw7oIAXeTCgNIFE-ntEM/s1600/img0013b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9BVGdM5C2Jw-fLn9NNSXXfsCWkJuxVISSIIHSkwF7YyMIdo6z7oh0sq1hKFDqjmWNdKv3ewfU5q2Sfb_Pyq6-kpr2GfLtQ6BTo5_cLiEsTonGzR6c9Gv_HElbbnen-IKFrHweGFhabco/s1600/img0006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="760" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9BVGdM5C2Jw-fLn9NNSXXfsCWkJuxVISSIIHSkwF7YyMIdo6z7oh0sq1hKFDqjmWNdKv3ewfU5q2Sfb_Pyq6-kpr2GfLtQ6BTo5_cLiEsTonGzR6c9Gv_HElbbnen-IKFrHweGFhabco/s400/img0006.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="details"><span class="details">President SR Nathan, Guest of Honour for official opening and light-up ceremony of the Chinatown Mid-Autumn Festival at New Bridge Road on 31 August, 2003.</span></span><br />
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<span class="details"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Xd5zQC23ynQxFy8zrnXUbLOFV_mqOKpYq5z5qjYgdTYED7svAgN-ut7fc_ia_KgNruvnU5hCiOs0BWiCELbfjj9iPbAY0kEhcrPY9uTSb9gEvkUsEtkRLOJ1BwjPO39lJTQNih5DKM4/s1600/img0079.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="505" data-original-width="763" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-Xd5zQC23ynQxFy8zrnXUbLOFV_mqOKpYq5z5qjYgdTYED7svAgN-ut7fc_ia_KgNruvnU5hCiOs0BWiCELbfjj9iPbAY0kEhcrPY9uTSb9gEvkUsEtkRLOJ1BwjPO39lJTQNih5DKM4/s400/img0079.jpg" width="400" /></a></span><br />
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<span class="details"><span class="details"><strong><u><br /></u></strong></span></span>
<span class="details"><span class="details"><strong><u>My personal Chinatown Mid-Autumn Blogs</u></strong></span></span></div>
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<span class="details"><span class="details">In 2013, I had the pleasure and privilege to share my blog and personal memories of Chinatown Mid-Autumn Festival in 2013 <a href="https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2013/09/chinatown-mid-autumn-festival-2013.html" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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Please watch the YouTube video <a href="https://youtu.be/zdGmP6rH6hU" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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The still photos captured from the Mediacorp Channel 8 screened on Frontline on 20 September, 2013 below:<br />
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-46274950863748816752019-08-26T17:25:00.001+08:002019-08-27T01:01:33.403+08:00Raising the REX<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the Rex Cinema is once again resurrected.</div>
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By Jason Johnson</div>
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[Source: New Paper, 14 September 2009]</div>
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Talking to business people can be frustrating. Here I was interviewing Mr Narayanasamy Muthu, the man who has brought the Rex Cinemas (formerly known as the Rex Theatre) back to life after 26 years - yay! - and somehow I seemed more excitwed about the prospect than he did.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRjFlkL07-PsncAyrs10CIT2z-bbCvs_chkPN09i1QUSHf8FuIXfI2mIspVqQ-wp-Z7yPhyphenhyphennTsJmERa6rUSaaaz4-speGyG99tAw1yJzqbJ-fJWH9lvBWj9wVQ8MD9u_CufUyYHVR3GMQ/s1600/20190826_155658.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1128" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRjFlkL07-PsncAyrs10CIT2z-bbCvs_chkPN09i1QUSHf8FuIXfI2mIspVqQ-wp-Z7yPhyphenhyphennTsJmERa6rUSaaaz4-speGyG99tAw1yJzqbJ-fJWH9lvBWj9wVQ8MD9u_CufUyYHVR3GMQ/s400/20190826_155658.jpg" width="281" /></a></div>
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Mr Narayanasamy Muthu</div>
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"Is this the theatre you went to when you were a boy?" I asked, hoping to get some misty-eyed tale about how he'd seen his first movie there, thus embarking upon a life-long love affair with cinema.</div>
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Instead, Mr Muthu filled me in on how he's in the film distribution business, and how getting into film exhibition will supplement and enhance his current operation.</div>
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Also, he runs a successful jewellery business. Specialises in gems.</div>
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As far as sepia-toned childhood memories go, I didn't get much.</div>
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"When I was young," he said, "I was very interested in the film line, and plus I was wroking in a jewellery shop. Both had a hold on my mind, and I thought in the future I would do both businesses."</div>
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But perhaps expecting poetry from a man who has spent a lifetime wheeling and dealing, buying and selling film prints and precious stones, is just silly.</div>
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Bottom line, Mr Muthu is making an immense contribution to the community in and around Little India.</div>
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His reborn Rex - which has been completely refurbished, top to bottom, over the past five months - will fill a niche that sorely needs to be filled in Singapore.</div>
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"I intend to play movies of many different languages in the cinema," he said.</div>
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"Not just English movies, but Malay movies, Hindi movies, maybe even big Chinese movies. Of course, being in Little India, the main thing we have to show is Tamil films.</div>
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"In Singapore, there are so many different languages spoken, I've even had Nepali people asking me to show their films!"</div>
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The question is, how on earth can the Rex compete in a market already saturated with state-of-the-art megaplexes?</div>
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"Everyone knows about the Rex," said Mr Muthu, who at 62 is just one year younger than the Rex itself.</div>
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"After it was opened by the Shaw Brothers in 1946, all the races would come here to watch movies. All those people have experience the Rex. Everybody knows about the Rex Cinemas.</div>
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"For example, the Rex is on Mackenzie Road, but if you ask people where Mackenzie Road is, they don't know. If you ask them where Rex is, they know."</div>
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As Mr Muthu gave me a tour of his new theatre, his obvious pride in the plae came through.</div>
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He might be unwilling to verbally express his excitement, but pointing out the various features of the new Rex, he was obviously delighted with the place.</div>
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The poor Rex has had its shares of ups and downs since it ceased operations as a movie theatre way back in 1983, due in large part to the rise of home video.</div>
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It's been used as a Methodist church, an ice-skating rink and a disco. For the past two years, it was abandoned, after its last tenant, the Indian nightclub Amaran, closed shop.</div>
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Now, finally, the Rex has been restored to the former glory, thanks to the $3 million-plus investment of Mr Muthu and his Malaysian business partner, Murugan Soppurayan.</div>
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It has three cinema halls. The main hall boasts of a super-wide screen,a nd has a seating capacity of 700. Two smaller - but still quite big - halls are upstairs.</div>
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Ticket prices will be about the same as those of Rex's competitors.</div>
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On the outside, the theatre maintains the essence of its art deco origins, the nice simple lines of the original architecture enhanced with bright orange trim.</div>
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Inside and outside, there are movie posters everywhere. My fave is one for a Hindi moview called "Daddy Cool".</div>
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<strong>Daddy cool</strong></div>
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It made me want to call Mr Muthu Daddy Cool, but I didn't.</div>
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Mr Muthu's son, Mr N Senthilkumaran, helped in the design of the theatre. He said: "Our screen design is from India. In India, the screen design is very big - they like big things (laughs). Our screen is 70mm (built for large format film projection). It curves to offer a better viewing experience.</div>
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"Even if you're sitting up front, you can see everything."</div>
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By the end of my time with Mr Muthu, I still hadn't managed to get him sentimental about the Rex (obviously, I'm no Barbara Walters), but I did take note when he spoke of how people in his community had reacted to his latest venture.</div>
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"Sometimes when I'm in a shop, people come and congratulate me. They tell me that when they were young, their parents would like them to the Rex. They're so happy, I hear that all the time."</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSfoxOgtElAb0x7nqsaNy7ZfiSOhmLMAFXQirB7Hd72b9TmMa7RNsAkCLt7RizBdFeKGii0IMES_w6kT5Rd-2tIiVUL9Jk19dRvqdiZkHoxyMIRnunmcWIQ-EC9SSQRS-vi38fOAkCpfU/s1600/20190826_155515.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1331" data-original-width="1600" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSfoxOgtElAb0x7nqsaNy7ZfiSOhmLMAFXQirB7Hd72b9TmMa7RNsAkCLt7RizBdFeKGii0IMES_w6kT5Rd-2tIiVUL9Jk19dRvqdiZkHoxyMIRnunmcWIQ-EC9SSQRS-vi38fOAkCpfU/s400/20190826_155515.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<strong>Rex Cinema brings back fond memories for this 70-something</strong></div>
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FROM READER GWEE THIAN HOCK</div>
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[Source: New Paper, 23 September 2009]</div>
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Your report, "Raising the Rex" (The New Paper, 14 Sep), has made my day.</div>
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Far too many building and places in Singapore which I can relate to are gone.</div>
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Even the Cuppage Road house where I was born, preserved at one time, is now a food court without a trace of my childhood home left.</div>
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I am now in my mid-70s and Rex Cinema brings back fond memories.</div>
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As a regular patron, I was there at the afternoon opening show of Rock Around The Clock, with policemen on duty in the theatre just in case over enthusiatic rock 'n' roll fans got out of hand.</div>
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It was at the Rex Book Stall, by the side of the building that I made my purchase of sex education book, which taught me so much.</div>
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And, during my undergraduate days, I made almost daily trips on a Green Bus to the hawker stalls there for my lunch of Indian rojak and mee siam.</div>
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On the first floor of the corner coffee shop building on Mackenzie Road (where the popular curry puff was sold) there was a Hainanese run halal restaurant selling Chinese food. It was probably the first of such restaurants.</div>
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I wish Mr Narayanasamy Muthu every success in his endeavour to revive the Rex Cinema.</div>
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<strong>First "Sensurround" film "Earthquake" at Rex Cinema</strong></div>
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Crowd at Rex Cinema queuing for the film "Earthquake". It was the first film shown in Singapore that featured the new "Sensurround" sound effects that also sent vibrations through the cinema seats to simulate a real earthquake.</div>
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The archived photos to share on the blog with courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ofeU977Qbsemi5p5hHXOcPzL5N6GkI2DV3dnBPbN4oyEbE5tjQzfTcv1n9FeCtvl5yNvHtPlqofB9cXWaqgRZ5THyP_poiz5WM6d2MG4-x_y0Ju9UGTRsrGvTBAFo2-lLDBBG9SL56A/s1600/img0009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ofeU977Qbsemi5p5hHXOcPzL5N6GkI2DV3dnBPbN4oyEbE5tjQzfTcv1n9FeCtvl5yNvHtPlqofB9cXWaqgRZ5THyP_poiz5WM6d2MG4-x_y0Ju9UGTRsrGvTBAFo2-lLDBBG9SL56A/s400/img0009.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuqIak0p1MHleJbA7wjVK_9CY2NKXHWfrZcznUuMmhzdS3AAG-ZItrvKCBkAbRNenuTMgTz4-klt_W_26dNQNxiFYA6qeWmIYHwvjOeKK2Ci3kX8VvN6Q0FFduq_ouqxAkrfYN3OFpEPw/s1600/img0010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuqIak0p1MHleJbA7wjVK_9CY2NKXHWfrZcznUuMmhzdS3AAG-ZItrvKCBkAbRNenuTMgTz4-klt_W_26dNQNxiFYA6qeWmIYHwvjOeKK2Ci3kX8VvN6Q0FFduq_ouqxAkrfYN3OFpEPw/s400/img0010.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNL4SrvixGIqdPZalbkuNcbPB6JQXtqs1Kh6YfmTKCBYmxZlKHI3814eEqPvyKtxSoXzVK_eGULjEJFOI-0zKN_saryXZoeEARUMtUp7dL2S9C52T47OSRNAMO4rUy8orIOhUd8nLJvDQ/s1600/img0013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNL4SrvixGIqdPZalbkuNcbPB6JQXtqs1Kh6YfmTKCBYmxZlKHI3814eEqPvyKtxSoXzVK_eGULjEJFOI-0zKN_saryXZoeEARUMtUp7dL2S9C52T47OSRNAMO4rUy8orIOhUd8nLJvDQ/s400/img0013.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<strong>Roti Prata seller</strong></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSIkhaHQ-3e-vllqIlTZxbLq5Xy8AtYVd7EjuWZnc0cTJfQCv5AOTOJ2k2q-cPayFosrxj10PewTDUBX4NTr-7jWkyTGC6brwP5ZT2GH8OIoN29zuvuIb2rIFZ1Tr0ykoN8ayLt6F7wak/s1600/img0072.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="768" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSIkhaHQ-3e-vllqIlTZxbLq5Xy8AtYVd7EjuWZnc0cTJfQCv5AOTOJ2k2q-cPayFosrxj10PewTDUBX4NTr-7jWkyTGC6brwP5ZT2GH8OIoN29zuvuIb2rIFZ1Tr0ykoN8ayLt6F7wak/s400/img0072.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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A roti prata seller at his stall behind the Rex Cinema. Photo dated 24/20/1972.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtlpdtgneXY0IBhl3QpZl354NUDrDKt99EheBN66i8hIhEVtXs2jN5KRfpf818Ik0Dq_gdw0-YH4yQXkF4G7ztd0XDD0om2v8WEQDurvK2-2JugXT4F7p7WHjJ4SYTqrZTvvewlH6agQs/s1600/img049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="731" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtlpdtgneXY0IBhl3QpZl354NUDrDKt99EheBN66i8hIhEVtXs2jN5KRfpf818Ik0Dq_gdw0-YH4yQXkF4G7ztd0XDD0om2v8WEQDurvK2-2JugXT4F7p7WHjJ4SYTqrZTvvewlH6agQs/s400/img049.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Junction of Kitchener and Serangoon Roads with cinema advertisements for the Capitol, Rex and Prince Cinemas owned by the Shaw Brother organisations in the background on the right is one of the entrances to New World Amusement Park where an advertisement on trade fain 1982 is placed.</div>
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Photo dated 01/11/1982 courtesy of Ronni Pinsler Collection, National Archives of Singapore.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi2khKRD4Wtx9Npb-3m5LlVo30rc2pXt0zDwaB6rzOvsC-dYyXma13beFVKB-gHaSFZrTRkq4JvKqt7zoGxWocau-OhShoZFm5-ZLEQ0V7wYHoRTFMabWXsV5FyHIXWtVYsW1wP894r4Q/s1600/img0037.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="475" data-original-width="699" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi2khKRD4Wtx9Npb-3m5LlVo30rc2pXt0zDwaB6rzOvsC-dYyXma13beFVKB-gHaSFZrTRkq4JvKqt7zoGxWocau-OhShoZFm5-ZLEQ0V7wYHoRTFMabWXsV5FyHIXWtVYsW1wP894r4Q/s400/img0037.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Photo dated 18/7/1948 courtesy of Wong Kwan collection, National Archives of Singapore.</div>
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Please share the heritage blog "Rex Cinema Then and Now" <a href="http://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2011/09/rex-cinema.html?m=1" target="_blank">here </a>.
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<li>Rex Theatre main entrance at Mackenzie Road, Singapore in 1982.</li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIZ9gGgnf7M2raFQXcEoCCtJFU0UhTK3F6k13w6voHej3jkSstw4MJ0DJ8U1Sk628V_GJeKpcJAlvl8GJL7ixwWBAfdVCRFZHejO2XTnPAjnflb3dwaQfdkuAe6iqW1su6XZ2X7gFLgRs/s1600/20190827_003255.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1047" data-original-width="982" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIZ9gGgnf7M2raFQXcEoCCtJFU0UhTK3F6k13w6voHej3jkSstw4MJ0DJ8U1Sk628V_GJeKpcJAlvl8GJL7ixwWBAfdVCRFZHejO2XTnPAjnflb3dwaQfdkuAe6iqW1su6XZ2X7gFLgRs/s400/20190827_003255.jpg" width="375" /></a></div>
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<br />Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-69585990264580459202019-08-17T16:00:00.001+08:002019-08-19T01:14:47.370+08:00If the past is no longer present<br />
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Night life at Bugis Street (1980)</div>
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Where exactly was the infamous toilet in Bugis Street in the 1980s (photo above)?<br />
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Thanks to Icemoon's 2ndshot blog
<a href="http://2ndshot.blogspot.com/2010/07/where-exactly-was-infamous-toilet-in.html?m=1" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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I share my sentiments about heritage memories with Ong Soh Chin who wrote her article "If the past is no longer present" on People and Places at The Straits Times on 9 August, 2006.<br />
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[ As I write this National Day essay about the places which make Singapore special to me, bombs are raining down on Beirut and Haifa and a tsunami has just devastated parts of Java.<br />
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As I attempt to root my Singaporeanness in physical entities - such as human beings or addresses - I cannot help but wonder if the Lebanese, Israelis and Javaneses who have lost their homes and loved ones feel any less Lebanese, Israeli or Javanese.<br />
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Probably not. In their circumstances, the traumatic loss of these physical anchors probably makes what is now missing even more vivid and alive - the way a person can still "feel" his freshly amputated arm.<br />
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To a very much lesser extent, of course, it is this same lack of permanence that characterises what it means to be Singaporean. While we have, thankfully, been spared the ravages of nature and warfare for the most part, we have fallen easily under the boot heels of time and progress.<br />
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Most of the landmarks of my childhood are now gone or transformed beyond recognition. For example, the former Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus is now CHIJmes, its name itself a mutant hybrid of a truncated past and a tinkly music-box present.<br />
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Bugis Junction is a souped-up mall where once roadside "zi char" stalls with overpriced drinks used to stand. I remember on one night in 1984, when parents were less uptight about textbook morality, being taken there for dinner and being enthralled by three dolled-up creatures of the night.<br />
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<strong>Night scenes at Bugis Street in the 1980s</strong></div>
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The archived photos of Bugis Street in the past to share on this blog with courtesy of the National Archives of Singapore.</div>
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The following year, the bulldozers pulled in and the transvestites pulled out, taking with them forever the colour and craziness that had once made the street so uniquely Singapore.</div>
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The Lido, Orchard and Cathay cinemas of my misspent youth are now spanking new cineplexes teeming with a new generation of youngsters in the process of forming their own memories.</div>
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They will never know, however, what it means to sit on a lumpy cinema seat pockmarked with holes or to be interrupted midway through a movie by a stray cat in the dark brushing past their legs.'</div>
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Every generation in every country laments the passing of time and yearns for the good old days.</div>
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We all recognise sullenly that progress is necessary and inevitable. And with progress, the old must give way to the new, the inefficient to the ISO-worthy.</div>
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Certainly there are parts of the past I am glad not to relive. Despite my fond memories of the old buses, I am happy we don't have to pack ourselves in like sardines any more and that our sturdy buses today have proper doors, unlike the old rust-bucket models which had a big uncovered holes carved out of one side.</div>
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However, with our great progress has come not only ease and comfort, but also a certain mental and spiritual flabbiness and a gaping hole where a sense of national identity should be. Other countries have the luxury of a long rich history and culture to fall back on when they lose their way. We just have the Merlion.</div>
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At worst, our lack of cultural awareness and maturity manifests itself in a solipsistic arrogance. Everyone has heard anecdotes about Singaporean businessmen throwing their weight around in China, for example.</div>
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Back home, coffeeshop chatter about the foreigners who have decided to make Singapore their home is inevitably negative. Forgetting that we, too, come from lowly immigrant stock, we constantly speak ill of Chinese study mamas, Vietnamese prostitutes, Filipino and Indonesian maids and Bangladeshi workers.</div>
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There is certainly a lot in our tiny nation to be proud of and we should never be ashamed of our many achievements. But it should not be pride practised in a vacuum.</div>
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As former Minsister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew himself once noted, one must remember the past in order to move ahead meaningfully into the future. In Singapore with its dramatic and rapid changes, this is especially important.</div>
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If we recognise that Singapore has changed dramatically in the last half century - from kampungs to condos, richshaws to MRT, one-way streets to expressways, karang guni to vintage couture - why is it so hard to recognise that there are many people who cannot keep up?</div>
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The other day, I visited two friends who had just moved into a rented terrace house in Kuo Chuan Avenue. Come see it, they exhorted. You won't believe your eyes, they added.</div>
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And they were right. Tucked away in Katong is a tiny residential street where time appears to have stood still. </div>
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Many of the houses on the street are in their original condition, or, to some Singaporeans, "run-down". Their wood windows have ventilation slats, their floor is cement, their window grilles are metal twirls, the kind you see in old Hong Kong movies.</div>
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The house is filled with shelves, tables, beds, chairs and lamps they have created painstakingly from driftwood and junk thrown out by upgrading Singaporeans.</div>
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You could call them recyclers, artists or, simply, hoarders. But I find what they do touchingly patriotic. Here are people who don't think of the past as something to be discarded but who, instead, see its beauty and use it meaningfully to forge a better future.</div>
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My friends, incidentally are not Singaporean. One is English and the other Is American. But they have shown me what I, as a Singaporean, have lost.</div>
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A nation with no understanding of the past is like a house of cards, easily toppled by strong winds. As we hurtle purposefully forward, are we in danger of losing our collective history, simply because we cannot remember it, appreciate it or worse, because we don't even know it?</div>
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The future will always be there but the past, once gone from our memories, will be lost forever, like a shelled town.]</div>
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Please check out the heritage blog of Bugis Street <a href="https://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2011/02/3d-blog-bugis-street-places.html" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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Juxtaposed photos of the backlane of Bugis Street then and now. Note the spiral staircases of the same buildings, same location at Bugis Street.<br />
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-43112722600532220942019-08-06T14:40:00.001+08:002019-08-07T16:11:42.329+08:00Bound for posterity: Portraits of neighbourhoods<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Books on beloved S'pore districts, including painting series, published<br />
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[Source: The Straits Times, 12 August 2013]<br />
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By<strong> Debbie Lee</strong> <br />
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A growing wave of nostalgia is sweeping across Singapore as more residents put together books about their beloved neighbourhoods.<br />
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At least three such title have been published this year, ranging from recollections of the blue glass-louvred windows in 1960s Queenstown to watercolour sketches of Bedok, Toa Payoh and Tiong Bahru.<br />
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For engineering consultant Tan Kok Yang, 59, it was his first time writing a book.<br />
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Dr Tan spent 10 years compiling his memories and photographs for From The Blue Windows: Recollection Of Life In Queenstown, Singapore, In the 1960s And 1970s.<br />
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The book, which was published in April by NUS Press, cost him $4,000 to produce. He successfully applied for a National Arts Council grant, which covered half the cost, and paid the rest himself.<br />
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"There's no going back to this era and it's good for younger people to know about life back then," said Dr Tan, who spent 18 years in Queenstown during his childhood. He lives in Toh Tuck Road near Bukit Batok estate.<br />
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Another series involved a tie-up between a commercial publisher and an informal group, Urban Sketchers Singapore.<br />
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Publisher Epigram Books conceived the We Love ... series, which has so far covered Bedok, Toa Payoh and Tiong Bahru. A fourth, on Queenstown, is about to be released.<br />
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"We wanted to reinforce the idea of a real neighbourhood through drawings, text and various methods," said its chief executive officer Edmund Wee.<br />
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Each title has watercolour paintings of the respective neighbourhoods done by the urban sketchers, who visit the area to paint their surroundings. In return, they receive complimentary copies of the books.<br />
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"It's a win-win situation as their sketches make it into a book and they get more publicity for their work," said Mr. Wee.<br />
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Urban Sketchers Singapore founder, Madam Tia Boon Sim, agreed. "I felt honoured to be able to share with people our sketches of these neighbourhoods," said the 58-year-old.<br />
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"It is our little contribution to the country".<br />
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While the majority of the books are written by Singaporans, American writer Stephen Black penned I Ate Tiong Bahru, which was published in May.<br />
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"I wrote this book as the Tiong Bahru I know is disappearing, as a result of increasing gentrification and the fact that many of the long-term residents are passing on," said Mr Black, 35. He frequently visited the area's famous market at 4.30am to write about the historic estate's early morning buzz.<br />
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The writers and publishers are unfazed by the prospect that their works may not be commercially viable.<br />
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Mr Wee, who said his series has not yet sold enough to break even, said: "We intend to continue, as we have the conviction that neighbourhoods are important for all Singaporeans."<br />
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Added Dr Tan: "If you do something you like, it is not too difficult. It gives me a sense of personal satisfaction to be living the past again."<br />
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<strong><u>From The Blue Windows</u></strong>
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The title of the book "From The Blue Windows" written by Tan Kok Yang attracted me the recollection of life in Queenstown, Singapore in the 1960s and 1970s.</div>
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I did not know about this book until I read Debbie Lee's article in The Straits Times published six years ago.</div>
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In the course of my research for material of the 'memory-aids' from various sources ... old newspapers, magazines, all sorts of publications and books I have come across by accident.</div>
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There are many topics covered in this book, but I would mention in the blog only those which I am familiar and would like to share the collective heritage memories about kampong life in Singapore in the 1960s and 1970s.</div>
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"Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than the magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration."</div>
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- Charles Dickens (1812-70)</div>
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饮水思原
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"To forget one's ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without roots."</div>
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- Chinese Proverb</div>
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<strong><u>PREFACE by Tan Kok Yang</u></strong></div>
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From The Blue Windows is a first-hand account of events based on my recollections while growing up in the public housing estate in Queenstown, Singapore. This area was then known colloquially as "The Blue Windows" because of the unique, blue Georgian-wired glass louvred windows in the low-rise housing estate. Being one of the earliest public housing estates in Singapore, Queenstown has since undergone immense changes and celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2012.</div>
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I wrote this book over a period of ten years out of a love for the Blue Windows. This is how common people once lived in one of the first housing estates in Singapore. In the book, I have tried to recount nostalgically the times and lives in Queenstown during those early days. Indeed, I hope that this book will bring back fond memories of times past, and successfully evoke the lives of the people who once lived there. The episodes in <em>Blue Windows</em> cover the period from when I was an inquisitive seven-year-old boy to my teenage years, when a redevelopment programme in the estate forced my family to move to Tiong Bahru. For me, the memories of my early childhood are inseparable from the joy of festive seasons, and other interesting ocurrences at the Blue Windows. As such, I have intentionally filled the book with what I hope are fascinating recollections of the customs, lifestyle, and games that we played as children during those days.</div>
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I have also included poignant real-life stories of people who resided at the Blue Windows - some were relatives, others were neighbours and the rest were technically strangers - and hope that they may give readers a better understanding of the socio-economic situation of Singaporeans at that time. Although this work is neither political nor academic, I have also touched on historical events in Singapore's past - such as the racial riots and the student unrest in the 1960s - from the perspective of how they impacted the daily lives of residents at the Blue Windows.</div>
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Indeed, the mention of the Blue Windows invokes memories of the simple, yet fulfilling lifestyle of Queenstown residents during the 1960s and 1970s. Through the narrative, it is my wish that readers take away an understanding of the humble, "kampong-like" lifestyle then. Unfortunately, such a way of life no longer exists in modern-day Singapore. I hope that this modest work will appeal to anyone with interest in Singapore's past and the various districts that have a rich history. Hopefully, the tales in this book can also offer readers, particularly those from the younger generation, a glimpse of what life was like in Queenstown in the not-too-distant past. Perhaps, it will enable readers to have a better understanding of our roots here in Singapore, and help them appreciate the richness of the multi-cultural and multi-racial way of life in Singapore.</div>
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The tales and happenings in this book are now but precious memories. Yet this book will allow the experiences I had living at the Blue Windows to be recorded for posterity. I believe that those who have at one time or another experienced living there, will from time to time fondly recall those good old days at the Blue Windows. This is my tribute to my family, old neighbours and friends, any fortunate ones who share a connection with Queenstown, especially those who lived there, and to Queenstown itself.</div>
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In Queenstown, many of the three-storey low-cost flats were installed with typical blue-glass louvred windows. The people who lived there called their estate the "Blue Windows"; "<em>Lam Poh Lay</em>" in Hokkien ( 蓝玻璃,blue glass) and "<em>Nam Tieng Meng</em>" in Teochew (蓝天门 , blue sky doors"). It was not uncommon that someone who wished to go to Queenstown to visit friends and relatives would tell the taxi driver to go to the Blue Windows. Those flats with blue glass were unique - one could not find flats with such signature windows anywhere else in Singapore.</div>
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Three-storey flats near Tan Kok Yang's block along Margaret Drive in the late 1970s, built by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT).</div>
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Low-rise two-storey terrace houses built by SIT at the Dawson Estate. These have been torn down but similar units still stand along Stirling Road.</div>
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Forfar House in 1996. It was subsequently demolished; Forfar Heights now stands in its place.</div>
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Princess House in the 1960s, where the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) was located.</div>
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Tan Kok Yang in the mid-1960s. The cardboard box on the shelf behind him contained their first home telephone.</div>
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<strong>Our first home telephone</strong></div>
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Modern - or rather what we then co0nsidered "modern" - gadgets began to surface in the late 60s and early 70s. My family got our first home telephone in 1969 when I was in Secondary Three. Everyone at home was excited and wanted to learn how to use it. It was not the first time we had seen a telephone since most of us knew about the rotary telephone at the provi8sion shop; Father must have used one in his office as well. Yet, when the Telephone Man cme to our house to install the all-black, round-dial gauge telephone, we were very proud of it. But like country bumpkins we were too frightened to use it since we found it strange to talk to a box and not a human. One of my younger sisters once ran to hide in the room when the telephone rang, generating much laughter from the rest of the family. Of course, all of us became used to the telephone in due course and it slowly become indispensable at home. In the mid 1970s, our old round-dial gauge telephone was replaced with a light-grey, push botton telephone.</div>
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Tan Kok Yang with his younger brother and three sisters. The photo was taken at Margaret Drive during Chinese New Year in 1968.</div>
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Tan Kok Yang spent his formative years in Queenstown in the 1960s to 1970s. He attended Kim Seng Technical School and Queenstown Secondary Technical School in the 1970s. In 1980, he graduated with a Degree in Building from the University of Singapore and went on to obtain a Masters Degree in Building Science (Acoustics Major) in 1988 from the National University of Singapore. He also holds a Doctorate (1997) in Housing and Environmental Studies from the University of New England, N.S.W. Australia. A former lecturer in Environmental Science at the Singapore Polytecnic, he now runs hias own acoustic consultancy firm. His interests in environmental issues, in particular, that which affect human habitation, prompted him to write about life of the people who once lived in Queenstown.</div>
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Mother and Small Aunt on Chinese New Year day in the 1960s.</div>
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Mother and three younger sisters making "love letters" for Chinese New Year in the early 1970s/</div>
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Map of Queenstown in the 1960s and 1970s.</div>
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The following topics are inspired from Tan Kok Yang's book "From The Blue Windows". Singapore in the 1960s and 1970s at different parts of our island nation, the memories of our kampong life is almost similar.</div>
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<strong><u>"Chap Ji Ki"</u></strong></div>
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... The hawker whom my mother used to buy bean sprouts from was also an illegal bookie who took bets for a very popular game at that time in the 60s, known as "chap ji ki" (Hokkien: 十二支, twelve sticks). </div>
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The game is quite simple: if you wished to place a bet, you simply wrote two digits on a tiny piece of paper. All bets must come in one day before, and the results would be announced at noon the following. The sums involved were not large and the changes of winning were definitely higher than 4D, which requires four digits. At the same time, the winnings were not huge either. Like many other housewives at the time, my mother often picked the numbers of her choice and scribbled them on a small piece of paper. She gave it to me, together with some coins, to pass to Uncle Botak Head.</div>
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Like now, housewives would pick their numbers based on some special event that occurred or on interpretations of their dreams. For example, if there was a wedding, the age of the bride and bridegroom could be considered good numbers to bet on. As for dreams, my mother would consider betting, for example, on the number four and two if she dreamed of two persons sitting at a table. Since a table has four legs and there were two persons - the logic goes - the number to buy was "42". There were of course various other interpretations for which I am no expert.</div>
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<strong><u>Ice Ball</u></strong></div>
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One other food items we children loved very much was colourful ice balls. Ice was first compressed into a ball with bare hands and different syrups then added to create a vibrantly coloured ball. There was red bean at the centre of the ball, and milk was sometimes added to its surface. Because bare hands were used to shape the ice (there were no rubber gloves at that time), the health authorities put a stop to the sale of the ice balls. Ice kachang, served in a bowl instead, became more popular. While this is surely a more civilised way to enjoy the dessert, the fun of eating from a ball of ice is lost. What a pity indeed!</div>
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<strong><u>"Char Kway Teow"</u></strong></div>
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... The other type of <em>kway teow</em> "black and white" <em>kway teow</em>. This was the stall nearer our flat, and was located just at the corner of our opposite block. This hawker operated his stall from a timber cart. This type of hawker was a common sight in all parts of Singapore in the 1960s. The stall stayed open from about 7 o'clock in the evening till late at night. Each plate of <em>fried kway</em> teow came with fresh cockles and <em>lap cheong (</em>Cantonese: 腊肠, Chinese sausage) and cost only 20 cents without egg and 30 cents with egg. There were no styrofoam boxes or waxed paper for takeaways then. Instead, the food was wrapped with <em>opeh</em> leaves, and was tied with thine cane, not raffia, string.</div>
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<strong><u>Malay Satay Man</u></strong></div>
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Itinerant hawkers were also a common sight at the Blue Windows. I remember vividly an elderly Malay Satay Man, who wore a traditional <em>sarong</em> and a <em>songkok, </em>who came to our estate, mostly during the weekends to sell his delicious satay. During those early years, <a href="http://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2010/12/first-taste-of-satay_01.html" target="_blank"> satay </a> was mostly sold by the Malays just as roti prata was sold by the Indians. The Malay Satay Mdan would usually call at about dinner time, carrying a wooden pole with two small timber cabinets hanging at each end of the pole. He used to station himself at the badminton court and start a makeshift barbecue fire. We could choose from chicken, lamb and beef satay. His satay was grilled over red-hot charcoal in a homemade stove and was accompanied by a delicious but spicy peanut gravy that contained mashed pineapple. Another interesting aspect about satay stalls at that time is that most hawkers would charge their customers by counting the number of satay sticks there were after the meal. Naturally, there were cases of dishonest customers who secretly hid or threw away the sticks before the Satay Man counted them. Eventually, this practice was discontinued when the Satay Man wisened up!</div>
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... we thoroughly enjoyed the meal, which included <em>ketupats</em> (Malay: rice cakes) in satay gravy and <a href="https://thoughtmoments.me/2016/10/18/lim-pok-chwee/" target="_blank"> Red Spot orange drinks in glass bottles </a>.
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<strong><u>Bread seller home delivery service with a basket</u></strong></div>
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I also recall how we children would wait eagerly almost every afternoon for a middle-aged Indian man to pass by our flat. He had a very special way of carrying the basket of bread that he sold: he placed them on his white turbaned head. It was indeed fascinating that he could move his head from side to side as he talked to his customers, even with that basket-load of bread on his head. Whenever we wanted to buy bread, we would call out to him and use rope to lower a basket from our first floor flat. The friendly bread seller would place the bread inside the basket, after which we would retrieve the basket and take out the bread. We would put coins in its place and lower the basket down again to the bread seller. This commonn practice is interesting in retrospect and reflected the simplicity of life at that time; the bread seller trusted that we would pay him in good faith. Like all our neighbours, we did so every time. However, it is clearly no longer feasible to continue this practice today, not with the more suspicious nature of people living in our urbanised society today. Besides, lowering a basket in this matter from a twently-storey HDB flat is simply unthinkable now!</div>
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<strong><u>"Tit Tot" Hokkien prawn mee</u></strong></div>
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The other hawker who formed a lasting impression was the young boy who took orders of Hokkien prawn mee. He went around the estate alerting postential customers with the <a href="https://thoughtmoments.me/2019/07/22/street-cries-that-are-no-more/" target="_blank"> tit tot </a> sound he created by hitting two short bamboo sticks together. He would then rush back to the stall after an order was placed and come back later with the bowls of noodles on a tray. It was the equivalent of a home delivery service. Once, my brother ordered the mee, then a mere 20 cents a bowl, for all of us in celebration after winning five dollars in a riddle contest organized by Rediffusion Singapore. And so the boy brought all of us bowls of noodles on a Saturday afternoon. He would come back a while later to collect the empty bowls. Such was the practice then, when trust and honesty were the order of the day.</div>
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<strong><u>The Bukit Ho Swee fire</u></strong></div>
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During the Hari Raya Haji holiday on the 25 May 1961, the whole estate was shocked to learn about a big fire that occurred at the Bukit Ho Swee area along Tiong Bahru and Havelock Road. The entire area was totally destroyed in a short span of time. Fortunately, those who stayed at the Blue Windows were not affected since the fire occurred at a distance from the Margaret Drive area. In total, four people were killed and approximately 16,000 were rendered homeless.</div>
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All our neighbours were concerned about the fire, which naturally became the talk of the town for a few weeks. As a young boy then, I was not sure about what was going on. I only remember my father saying that we all needed to be more aware of the dangers of fire. This vigilance as an extension of his personality; even before sitting down on a bench next to a tree, Father would survey his surroundings just in case anything fell on him or his loved ones.</div>
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The fire eventually impacted the Blue Windows indirectly. Very soon, some of the previous Bukit Ho Swee residents began moving into our estate. Another consequence of the fire was that the Housing and Development Board (HDB) kicked off a mass housing programme for the displaced residents. The new satutory board later inaugurated a home ownership scheme in which citizens could use their Central Provident Fund (CPF) to purchase their flats.</div>
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<strong><u>AFTERWORD</u></strong><br />
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The older lower-rise flats at Duchess Estate contrast starkly with the more recent high-rise developments.</div>
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It has been almost four decades since my family and I moved out of the Blue Windows. They say time flies and I have come to agree with this. I've stayed in various areas in Singapore since but none of these places can inspire the same sense of nostalgia that I feel for the Blue Windows. For most people of my generation, the "good old days" are dead and gone, and will only remain as sweet memories.</div>
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In a recent visit back to Queenstown, I drove along the now almost unrecognizable Margaret Drive. I felt conflicted by the new but congested developments that were taking place there. The once familiar landscape no longer existed. It was indeed painful to realize that many of the old Queenstown landmarks were gone, including the low-rise SIT flats with the blue louvre glass windows. Yet the new, imposing HDB flats, with their huge glass panes and beautifully designed facades amazed me. A sense of remorse overcame me: a part of our national heritage and our rich past had been eliminated in the endless pursuit for a more modern lifestyle.</div>
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The scarcity of land in Singapore makes it understandable: urban planners need to get rid of the old to make way for the new. Is it possible to be more selective and cautious when deciding what should be torn down and what should be preserved? Not all these strucjtures may be high-profile but they may possess value in terms of their unique architecture or historical significance. A case in point would be Forfar House, regarded as one of the earliest high-rise public flats in Singapore. Yet every time I visit Queenstown, I realize a chunk of it has disapppeared.</div>
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Still, I sometimes wonder if there will be any landscapes familiar to my generation that future generations will be able to come into actual contact with. The Queenstown of my childhood is gone and a new dwelling enclave has emerged in its place. It is now up to the next generation to tresure their living space. As for me and those who once stayed at Queenstown, the Blue Windows lives on, if not in our hearts, then at least between the covers of this book.</div>
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-46885888673671461312019-08-01T13:42:00.003+08:002019-08-02T05:54:35.752+08:00A Village Remembered - Radin Mas 1800s - 1973<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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On 1 September 2013, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong launched the book "A Village Remembered: Kampong Radin Mas 1800s - 1973" which specially for former residents of Kampong Radin Mas.
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The birthplace of many Malay-Muslim institutions, Mr Lee said Radin Mas also produced leaders who made important contributions in politics, as well as in arts and culture.</div>
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"How did Radin Mas produce so many talented people? Some people said it's because of the 'air pancur', the spring water, which flowed from Mount Faber to the kampung. Others said maybe it was the ice ball kaching or the kuti kuti and the kana," he said.</div>
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"But everybody agrees that the 'gotong royong' spirit had a lot to do with it, where people help one another, where everybody knew everyone be else and each spurred the others to go on and do their best.</div>
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Former Minister Haji Othman Wok was born in Radin Mas and he helped at the 'gotong royong' projects (photo above).</div>
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With his wife Lin in 2012 (photo below).</div>
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He added: "Even today, when we are in Housing and Development Board flats - much bigger towns, not a few hundred thousand people, but hundred thousand people perhaps - it's still necessary for us to maintain that strong community spirit for us to do well."</div>
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Kampong Radin Mas is believed to be among the oldest villages in Singapore. </div>
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The book documents life in the Radin Mas village before it was demolished in 1973 to make way for a satellite town.</div>
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<strong><u>The Lim Brothers</u></strong></div>
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Lim Soon Heng (above) and his brother Soon Leng grew up in their grandfather's house in Kampong Radin Mas from the time they were little. Their grandfather Lim Keng Cheow had come to Singapore from Amoy, China in the early 20th century looking for work and found his niche supplying coolies for the Singapore Harbour Board (now Port of Singapore Authority or PSA). The elder Lim's house was one of the few Chinese homes in the kampong, where he lived with his wife Tan Swee Lian. The couple adopted six children, including the mother and the father of the two Lim brothers. Soon Heng, the older of the two brothers by six years, was born in 1944. There are five other siblings: Ah Swee, Kim Swee, Gek, Soon Hock and Soon Huat.</div>
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Soon Heng's earliest and most enduring memory of life is the kampong is that of his father Lim Seng Chiang working very hard. A <em>serang</em> (junior supervisor) at the Singapore Harbour Board, he worked three shifts a day on most days including Sundays. Said Soon Heng, "At daybreak my father would already be riding on his trusty bicycle to Gate 5 for the first shift at 6.30am. At 11.30am he would head home with a food container of food rice provided free by his employer, this helped to supplement the family's meals. After his meal and a short break, he would be off again to work at 1pm for the second shift. His day did not end with the setting sun, as he often worked the third shift loading and unloading cargo."</div>
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The many trips out of the kampong and back could not have been easy. Their house was farther up the hill slope of Mount Faber, deep within the kampong. Said Soon Leng: "There were only about six Chinese house making up a sort of mini Chinese kampong within Kampong Radin Mas. We were about one kilometre from the main road where the school was, and the walk out took twenty minutes. For a young boy like me, the journey seemed to last forever. What made the walk even more difficult was that towards our side of the kampong, the mud road was very uneven and surrounded by tall lallang and bamboo; snakes were quite common."</div>
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The upside of these natural surroundings was that their part of the kampong was filled with fruit trees, more noticeably durian, papaya, pomelo, jackfruit, <em>rambutan</em> and <em>cempedak</em> as well as the pink variety of guava and mata kucing, which is now a rarity. "In our younger days, we did not have much food to eat but we were never short of fruits. We had about ten durian trees in our compound, all yielding some of the best variety of the fruit I have tasted," added Soon Leng.</div>
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Another brother Lim Soon Hock (left) with his cousin William Lim in front of 77-T Kampong Radin Mas, a sub-division of their grandfather's house at 97-3.</div>
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Soon Heng at his favourite spot in the kampong
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Lim Soon Heng in front of the black-and-white house at the foot of Mount Faber, a short distance from where Kampong Radin Mas used to be. By a strange twist of fate, his house became his living quarters when he was a management trainee at Keppel Shipyard in 1969. He said: "For a kampong boy, this was dizzying luxury." Above, Soon Heng at his favourite spot in the kampong.<br />
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Being towards the tail end of the kampong also meant that the standpipe was a good 200 metres from their house. They would connect a rubber hose to the pipe to collect enough water for a day's supply in their cement tank. From this large cement tank, they used a hose to drain the water into a smaller tank in their bathrooms for washing clothes and for bathing. They lived without the convenience of piped water for years until the kindly teacher stepped in to help.</div>
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"Mr Khoo Boo Eng taught me English and Music at Radin Mas School," said Soon Heng. "Whe he hard how the family went to such great pains to collect water, he wrote a letter to the Public Works Department (now Public Utilities Board or PUB) and requested for a standpipe to be erected nearer our home. I will always be grateful for Mr Khoo's concern."</div>
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The brothers' fond memories of kampong life are marred by two incidents. While the family was living in the kampong during World War II, the Japanese rounded up Chinese men, including their grandfather and uncle. Their grandfather was shot dead but the uncle was released. More than twenty years later, their father was accosted by Malay youths in teh kampong during the 1964 race riots. He was pushed from his bicycle and took a bad tumbler, breaking his jaw and losing all his teeth in the process. He was hospitalised for a few days.</div>
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The Lim family. Front row from left: Soon Heng, matriarch Ng Guek Eng, patriarch Lim Seng Chiang and Soon Leng. Back row from left: Soon Huat, Kim Swee, Ah Swee, Gek and Soon Hock.</div>
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Soon Heng with his mother Madam Ng at his graduation in 1968.
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"The whole family was traumatised," said Soon Leng. "Fearing for our safety, we moved to a relative's house in Silat Road. Looking back, we are sure that those Malay youths who pushed our father were not from our kampong but some troublemakers who had been seen loitering there, I am confident our kampong friends would never do such a thing. They were all very nice and helpful, almost like family."
Soon Heng and Soon Leng moved out of the kampong when they were in secondary school and today lead different lives.<br />
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Soon Heng lives in Singapore but travels around the region as a shipyard consultant. He is married to Gaye and has two children, Joyce and Max. Soon Heng has retired to New Zealand, after having worked in cities like New Delhi, San Francisco and Sydney. He is married to Siew Hoon and has three children, Herman, Heidi and Simon.</div>
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Having found success in their careers, the brothers are grateful for the sacrifices their parents made, including putting them through university. Said Soon Heng: "Those were simple days and parents had just one simple, unyielding ambition - to see to it that their progeny had better days ahead of them than they did. In that our parents did admirably well, despite having so many mouths to feed.
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"Before my brothers and sisters came along and on the rare days when my father was not working, I would be given the occasional treat of a film show and <em>makan</em>. As the number of my siblings grew - at the average rate of one every two years - the little 'luxuries' became a strain on my father's pocket. The growth of his family simply outpaced his wages. Inspite of the hardship, my parents raised seven children who have turned out well. It is quite sad that a few years before my mother's dealth at ninety-five years of age, dementia had gradually robbed the memories of her achivements."
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Visit of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to Radin Mas in 1964</div>
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Archived related photos of Radin Mas with courtesy of the book publisher, National Archives of Singapore and generous contributers of other sources:<br />
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Mr Ong Kim Seng, hailed as Singapore's foremost watercolourist, attended Radin Mas School from 1954 to 1958. The school, which was a stickler for rules and believed in corporal punishment, was a big influence on him, he said, and he credited it for nurturing his talent for painting. He remembered in particular a Eurasian man he knew only as Mr Edmund, his class teacher in Primary One and Primary Two. He said: "Mr Edmund was a very nice, encouraging teacher. He was one of those teachers who did not need a cane to instil discipline in us. We loved and respected him. He was the first one who recognised my talent for painting. I won a picture colouring book as school prize for having the best piece for Art & Handwork in Primary One. Now and then he would give me special art papers to draw on; they were hard to come by in those days. This was a big encouragement for me.<br />
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Besides attending Radin Mas School, Kim Seng has ties with Kampong Radin Mas through his maternal grandparents, Mdm Bay Eng and Mr Goh Siang, who were among the few Chinese residents living in this predominantly Malay enclave. The kampong had been their home since the early 1910s until they were resettled to Silat Road in 1973. All their children, including Kim Seng's mother, Mdm Goh Choon Hoon, were born in Kampong Radin Mas. Later, she and her husband Ong Teng Kee moved to Silat Road and this is where the young Kim Seng grew up. He continued: "My grandparents were simple kampong folk. My grandfather was a sailor and would be away from home for long stretches at a time. Yet I'd never known them to lock their doors. Everyone knew everyone, and everyone helped everyone. My grandparents spoke Malay and got along very well with their Malay neighbours. At Hari Raya, their Muslim friends would invite them over for lunch and give them all sorts of <em>kuih</em> to take home and at Chinese New Year, my grandparents would offer them oranges and soft drinks. I remember a favourite with the young kids was F&N Sarsaparilla, which we called Sarsi.</div>
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"I would say kampong life was full of activity, and there was never a dull moment. Kampong residents were always ready to help one another. For instance, whenever the kampong got flooded and left a hugh mess, we would all clean it up. If we didn't. who would? We never thought about gain or loss, as we were all equally poor! We looked out for each otheer, we knew who was sick and needed help. This system of sharing drew us together and made ours a cohesive community.</div>
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"But change has to come. Kampong people may have fond memories of what life was like back then, but they would not want to go back to those days. Now we live in nice, comfortable homes; there's modern sanitation, piped water and reliable power supply. Everything works. We like to observe the kampong but we would not want to live in one anymore. That's probably why so many of us like to visit kampongs in other regions. But to live under those conditions again ... that's something most of us would find hard to accept."</div>
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<strong><u>Memories of Bukit Purmei before the kampong was resettled by HDB</u></strong></div>
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In the 1970s, I was working as a part-time enumerator for the Census of Population in the evening after work at the Outpatient Services at Maxwell Road. </div>
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It was the household survey undertaken in Singapore, collecting information on key characteristics of the population and households. I was assigned to conduct the census once at Bukit Purmei where I have never been there before. Other areas I had assigned to Bedok, Lucky Height, Tampines, Katong and a few places I have forgotten. As the records were confidential to submit to the Census of Population, I did not keep any private records and information.</div>
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I found that the Bukit Purmei kampong was similar to where I grew up in Bukit Ho Swee kampong. The conditions and environment of the kampongs where the residents were mostly poor.</div>
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The road was pitted with pools of muddy water. There was no signboard or house numbers and both sides were attap houses, some of which had lavatories near the road. Residents said mosquitoes were disturbing their sleep. Bukit Purmei was originally a track for bullock carts which used to bring goods. It was interesting to note that the church and a temple were located side by side.
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With courtesy of NewspaperSG excerpted article of Berita Harian, 4 December 1980 to learn about the resettlement of Bukit Purmei to be developed and built as a new HDB estate in Malay.</div>
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Bukit Purmei jadi estet perumahan baru, 2,300 unit flat siap dlm 1981/82</div>
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Pemohon-pemohon flat Lembaga Perumahan dan Pembangunan (HDB) di estet perumahan Telok Blangah akan berpeluang mendapatikan flat di kawasan yang berhampiran.</div>
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Sebuah estet baru di Bukit Purmei (gambar atas), sedang dalam pembinaan. Terletak di pinggir bandar, estet baru ini dibina di sebelah Bandar Baru Telok Blangah dan hanya lima hingga tujuh kilometer dari pusat bandar.
Ia akan mempunyai 2,300 unit flat bila siap seluruh pembinaannya. Buat masa ini, 878 flat tiga bilik, 1,284 flat empat bilik dan 135 flat lima bilik sedang dalam pembinaan. Flat-flat ini dijangka siap pada akhir 1981 atau awal 1982.
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Estet seluas 20 hektar ini akan mempunyai kawasan seluas 14 hektar untuk bangunan dan 6 hektar untuk kemudahan-kemudahan yang biasa terdapat di estet-estet perumahan HDB.</div>
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Estet ini termasuk dalam Zon Jurong yang mempunyai empat bandar baru dan empet estet perumahan iaitu Bandar Baru Telok Blangah Clementi, Jurong Timur, dan Jurong Barat.</div>
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<strong>Purpose to share old books on the blog</strong></div>
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The book, "A Village Remembered, Kampong Radin Mas 1800s - 1973", was published in 2013 and the readers may buy it at the bookshop if still available. However, if the book is already sold out or out of stock and not reprinted, please loan it from the National Library [Call No: 959.57 VIL].</div>
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This is not a book review and not the whole book is reproduced on the blog. </div>
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The purpose is to share related topics which nostalgic memories which are note-worthy and meaningful to the readers. The photo entitled 'Where the kampong people gathered' with courtesy of the the book supported by the National Heritage Board as gifts to the National Library for the readers' knowledge and to learn more about Singapore.</div>
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<strong><u>Present-day Bt Purmei Rd</u></strong></div>
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Where the Radin Mas community gathered and still active</div>
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Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108630126700411599.post-29823228334494934902019-07-27T13:15:00.002+08:002019-07-27T14:55:51.271+08:00Singapore's last street barbers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Once a common sight in back alleys, they will soon enter pages of history.</div>
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By Janice Tand and Goh Shi Ting</div>
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[Source: The Straits Times, 19 October 2012]</div>
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They were once a common sight in Singapore's back alleys.</div>
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With these makeshift awnings and distinctive reclining chairs, street barbers did brisk business offering fuss-free trims.</div>
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These days, however, they are a dying breed, soon to be relegated to the dusty pages of history.</div>
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Four street barbers believed to be the last in Singapore will soon hang up their scissors, clippers and razor blades - and call it a day.</div>
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Mr Lee Yoon Tong, 74, has been cutting hair for 50 years and earned enough to pay for an overseas university education for his two daughters, who are now in their 40s and working as a teacher and a banker. "One studied in Melbourne, the other one in A-da-le," he said.</div>
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While he struggled to pronounce the name of the Australian city Adelaide, Mr Lee is articulate when it comes to his trade, which has seen its fair share of ups and downs.</div>
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He moved to the streets around 13 years ago when he could not afford the escalating cost of renting a shophouse. Soon, like the three other ramaining street barbers, he will pack away the time-worn tools of his trade once and for all.</div>
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All four have been in the business for most of their lives and had seen the end coming.</div>
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Even if they found others interested in succeeding them, they would not be able to hand over to the next generation as the trade is technically illegal. They are not allowed to operate due to hygiene reasons.
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"I'm allowed to stay here only because I know the boss of the shop in front which used to be a medical hall and I buy herbs from him," said Mr Goh, 73, another of the street barbers, who did not want to give his full name for fear of being identified.
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"If the authorities find me an eyesore, they will chase me away."<br />
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Most of the barbers ply their trade in the back alleys of Tanjong Pagar and Chinatown.</div>
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The sunset industry is still enjoying brisk business, mainly due to the loyal following of elderly men or migrant workers seeking cheap, hassle-free trims.</div>
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The barbers charge between $4 and $8 for a haircut and shave. Most of them get an average of 10 customers a day, with more coming on weekends and festive seasons like Chinese New Year.</div>
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As there is no way of making appointments, customers can wait up to an hour for their turn. Each cut takes about 20 minutes.</div>
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Mr Koh Kow Yee, 82, has a unique queue system.</div>
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When customers come in, he shouts out their numbers in the line and they head out for coffee nearby before returning a while later to reclaim their places.</div>
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For the last 60 years, Mr Koh has slugged it out as a street barber in the back lanes of Sembawang, Chinatown and Little India.</div>
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After decades of being at the mercy of the sun and the rain, he traded his makeshift awning and wooden roof for a proper storefront at the back of a shophouse in Kelantan Lane two years ago.</div>
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"My friend offered the space to me for free," he said.</div>
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"Now, it's more cooling with the fan and I got access to water."</div>
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While he still has most of his tools from yesteryear, he now uses an electric razor instead of a manual clipper because there is electricity in the shop.</div>
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But others still stick to the manual clipper, including Mr Tan Boon Kee.</div>
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"The electric ones are too heavy and may get stolen if I leave them around over-night," said the 67-year-old street barber.</div>
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The four street barbers picked up their skills by working as apprentices in the early days, although they said others were self-taught.</div>
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As well as operating from fixed locations, some were also called to homes in the past.</div>
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Following the mass development of public flats by the Housing Board in the 1960s, they were often seen and heard along the corridors of HDB blocks, crying out "cut hair" in various dialects.</div>
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Mr Loh Yong Han, 19, has fond memories of the days in the 1990s when a street barber would drop by his four-room flat in Bukit Panjang every month to cut his hair, as well as that of his father and grandfather.
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The barber would come ready with his tools, hairdressing cloth and shaving cream while the family provided the stools.</div>
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When the Straits Times visited a street barber in Chinatown on 8 Ocobter, 2012, Mr Loh was also there.</div>
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He stood transfixed at the scene of the barber tending to his customer.</div>
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"I happened to pass by, and when I saw the street barber, all my childhood memories came back, I didn't know they still exist," he said.</div>
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"It's a pity that soon the handful will stop work, they are so much a part of our history."
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDIajZKBj4qH26Xees8cGBe7VcNmiPFuPFtAxT7EukRc8XV2ll7Ews36c_NGyL__PDiFzJhG7E90nnL3JfxQlVTXYdgOICzeHtC5F94SGy0EK4QCqe7roOOARP7kF93eKyAzUxTHCKO3s/s1600/20190707_020207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1347" data-original-width="1600" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDIajZKBj4qH26Xees8cGBe7VcNmiPFuPFtAxT7EukRc8XV2ll7Ews36c_NGyL__PDiFzJhG7E90nnL3JfxQlVTXYdgOICzeHtC5F94SGy0EK4QCqe7roOOARP7kF93eKyAzUxTHCKO3s/s400/20190707_020207.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Archived photos of barbers in backlanes with courtesy of National Archives of Singapore</div>
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<strong><u>Childhood memories of visiting the barbers</u></strong></div>
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I was not born bald. Since a child, my haircut was done by my mother. Then she would bring me to a Chinese barber shop in the kampong whenever my hair grown longer. I did not have choice for the hair style I wanted. Usually short hair like a China man. Even during schooldays, I did not follow the fashion like the Beatle's hairstyle which was popular at that time.</div>
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Once, my classmate recommended me to have haircut at an Indian barber which have "extra service" to massage my head.</div>
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I had the first experience at the Indian barber and it was unforgettable. After cutting my hair, he slapped on my back to massage. He then used both hands to twist my head to the left and right and I could hear the cracking sound of my neck to break it. I really had a fright because my head could drop if he used too much strength to twist my head.</div>
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For many years now, I kept my head bald for my reasons <a href="http://blogtoexpress.blogspot.com/2009/04/" target="_blank"> here </a>.
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I was curious to find out why monks do not keep hair on their heads.<br />
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The answer: "Monks with hair would make them compare and how what better fashionable hairstyle to have. Such thoughts would not help them to practice emptiness in thoughts".<br />
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No worries. Keep your crowning glory to enjoy your hairstyle and preferred fashion to make you beautiful and admired. Else barbers will not have business to make a living.<br />
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<br />Thimbuktuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04495581875211093357noreply@blogger.com0