Prof Leo Tan wrote a guest post at Lam Pin Foo’s self-titled blog.

He tells the familiar story – familiar to most Toddycats* at least – of the story of the museum, from an idea of Raffles (hence the name) to its rebirth at Kent Ridge.

But he has added on to this story with his experience with the museum and his reflections on the drive to create a full-fledged National History Museum.

I’m not sure who Lam Pin Foo is, but I’m thankful that he got Prof Tan to write that post.

* Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research volunteers

UPDATE The original screenshot was deleted from Flickr. Strange, because I didn’t do it. Anyway, it’s been replaced.

Scene City: Singapore – Promo

Description from YouTube:
A BRAND NEW photographic & cultural series that checks out the less explored & undiscovered Singapore, follow TOM ANG – as he leads 2 guests photographers each week as they visit places less known!

Lineup

19th August – Resorts World & School of the Arts
 
26th August – Singapore Dance Theatre & Timbre
 
2nd September – Semakau Landfill & Pulau Ubin
 
9th September – Kim Keat Lane Bakery & Changi Fishery
 
16th September – PSA & Print Dynamics
 
23rd September – Pearl Bank Apartments & Margaret Drive
 
30th September – Southern Ridges & Sungei Buloh
 
7th October – Star Cruises

Scene City: Singapore
Channel News Asia
Wednesdays, 8.30pm to 9pm

There has been a flurry of letters and coverage in the press recently about the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research.

What I don’t think has been mentioned is: why is the museum named after the founder of Singapore?

As the Guardian puts it, the man was a “voracious wildlife enthusiast”.

I’m sure Raffles would be delighted if the Raffles Museum finds a large, permanent and accessible location.

I have used the National Library’s microfilm collection a few times. They have issues going back to to the beginning of the Straits Times.

If you are searching for an article with microfilm, you have to know roughly when the article was published. The microfilms have a number of issues on each reel. You load it onto a special projector, then start scrolling through the film to find what you are looking for.

It’s manual and tedious – though strangely enjoyable, like a treasure hunt – but if you have absolutely no idea when an certain article was published, then you’re stuck. At very least, you need to know the month and the year.

So, I want to thank the National Library Board for coming up with http://newspapers.nl.sg/. (Thanks, Ai Lin, for pointing this out!)

NLB has scanned its Straits Times microfilms, so now the text is searchable. No more wading through rolls of microfilm. And you can discover other articles related to your search which you might not have been aware of.

If you search from home, you get article titles and short abstracts. The microfilm reel number is listed too.

You can only access full text and get prints if you’re at the library using one of their multimedia terminals. Or, since you now know the microfilm number, you can zoom in to the article faster. At least you know which reel it’s on! You still have to scroll through the film to get to a particular article. No shortcuts there.

It’s an amazing resource!

Will have to try “Malay Regiment” and “Battle of Pasir Panjang”. Already saw some interesting abstracts…

Microball by Serenity Nichols Ibsen
reproduced under a CC-BY-NC 2.0 license

Ok, I exaggerate.

Google Earth added two very nifty features – historic imagery and the ocean layer.

Historic imagery is exactly what it states on the box: satellite imagery from the past.

Allow that sentence to sink in.

Google Earth has always been about Where. Now, it is also about When.

Brilliant! So, let’s have a look at Bishan in 2003, before Circle Line construction began.

Now, have a look at the same area in 2004, when construction was going on in full swing. Bishan Station was still relatively intact. That was about to change.

2008 image: I never noticed until now but an access road and staging area has been closed and returfed! The holes in the ground north of the interchange have been filled. Bishan Library has sprouted up, just south of Junction 8.

I’m quite happy that Google has made past satellite imagery available. No doubt they don’t have too many iterations for Singapore – notice how there’s 2003, 2004 then a big jump to 2008. Still, this feature is much appreciated. Let’s turn to Google Ocean.

This layer features a mind-boggling array of content. You have to enable the Oceans Layer (under Layers, bottom left of the Google Earth interface). Then watch the little ocean icons pop up. Hey, there’s Singapore content!

I believe there are three Marine Protected Areas icons – Labrador, Sungei Buloh and Southern Islands. Note that the information may not be correct. Clicking on the Facts tab allows you to correct it. Wiki-like functionality which I’ve not explored. You’ll note that the Labrador icon is waaaay off.

Finally, Google Earth wants to give Singaporeans a Global Warming Warning.

We don’t want our MRT stations to go under water, do we?

This is a mistake. For some reason, most of the Wikipedia icons for our MRT stations appear South-West-West of Singapore, just below Tanjung Piai of Southern Johor, Malaysia.

I finally got around to using my free museum pass. Back then, I said that the Peranakan Museum would be the first on my list. And so, it was.

Now, I know that all things Peranakan are very hip-and-happening now, but that’s not why I wanted to check out the museum. A number of my closest friends are of Peranakan descent, so I figured this was a good way to get to know their culture.

As for the Singapore Philatelic Museum, I’ve visited it before. However, they have a range of constantly updated exhibitions on the upper level. My friend, Shaun, curated one of the current exhibitions there. It is about Comics and Superheros!

Peranakan Museum

Three words encapsulate my reaction to the Peranakan Museum: friends, ornate and identity.

It is no surprise that some of my friends were part of the museum exhibits. No, the museum didn’t freeze dry my friends, silly. They were either captured in photographs or in interviews on video.

There was Pearlyn, a friend from Mass Comm at Ngee Ann.

I bumped into my primary school Principal, Mr Tan Hye San. He was listed as Clement Tan, and I almost didn’t recognise him as it’s been almost 20 years since I last saw him!

Then there was Stella, the Pasir Panjang Guide! She appeared with her hubby, Darren, in a video about Peranakan couplehood on the 2nd Level. She also appears in a video installation on the 3rd Level about Peranakan identity.

The museum features various aspects of Peranakan life. Nearly an entire floor is devoted to Peranakan weddings. It’s obviously a big thing in their culture. Peranakan weddings were so elaborate.

And everything was just superbly ornate.

Besides weddings, the museum featured Peranakan food, clothes, embroidery, and religious inclinations.

But what struck me most was the video interviews about Peranakan identity.

If you go to the Peranakan Museum, you absolutely must sit through these interviews. I was quite surprised as the interviewees were very candid. Some even questioned the Singapore paradigm of race and language, in that Peranakans have lost a fair bit of their culture due to the Mother Tongue policy. The Straits Chinese were classified as Chinese, thus had to learn Mandarin.

And as we all know – despite The Little Nyonya – Straits Chinese generally do not speak Mandarin.

The interviewees *ahem* problematized (this is not a dictionary word, but it was used by practically every lecturer I encountered in Melbourne University) matters of hybridity and identity, which are applicable to Eurasians too.

Speaking of which, we should have a Eurasian Museum.

And the perfect place would be the old St. Anthony’s Boys’ School at Victoria Street. After all, the school and the church next to is (St. Joseph’s) are intricately tied to the Portuguese Eurasian community here.

That’s another story though… on to the stamps.

Singapore Philatelic Museum

After typing ‘stamps’, I realised that I didn’t see many, if any, stamps in the Comics and Superheroes exhibition! Well, we were there more to see Shaun’s collection of toys. Ok, a small part of Shaun’s immense collection of toys. One day, he will own his very own toy gallery. I am sure of it.

Having cable and HD means that I hardly ever watch Channel 5. However, this new series about old buildings, Listen to our walls, is reason for me to stomach the free-to-air English station for half an hour every week.

Today’s episode covered mixed use buildings, particularly housing/shopping mixes. The show began with shophouses, covering some of the periods of shophouses in Singapore – never knew there was such a thing as Chinese Baroque. Dr Victor Savage, from NUS, who co-authored the Topynymics book about Singapore street names, gave his insights about shophouses. The segment zoomed in on Ellenborough Building, one of Singapore’s earliest shophouses.

To the young ones, that’s where Clarke Quay MRT and the monstrous Central stand today. Yes, nothing like old photos and archival film juxtaposed against yet another shopping mall to bring out the indignant anti-progress pro-conservation armchair-activist in me.

Dr Savage laments the loss of this shophouse (as well as the name – Central, he points out, has absolutely no link to Ellenborough) but also balances it by pointing out that these issues are never easy to deal with.

The next segment covered People’s Park Complex. I’ve no affinity for the place, so I was surprised that this show managed to get a modicum of response out of me. (And that response was… I think I got my first Atari set there…) By now, it was obvious that the show’s researchers seemed to have put quite a bit of effort into learning about architecture. All three segments of the show attempted to set the stage by highlighting the architectural influences of the buildings’ design. In fact, the latter two segments involved interviews by the architects of the buildings themselves.

The final (actually, not quite final) segment dealt with the love-it-or-hate-it-there’s-no-in-between Golden Mile Complex. The architect seems quite attached to this building, and hopes it doesn’t go the way of the dinosaur. In truth, it is a unique building – it’s a bloody eyesore. Which is why we should keep it. All our high-rises are neat little pigeon holes. Let this one anomaly stand.

The real final segment, if you can call it that, was a short plug for the Marina Bay Sands IR.

Pardon me but, wtf? Okay, I understand this show is supposed to cover contemporary buildings too. Still, that building doesn’t bring to mind mixed use. And it was all of two minutes too. Didn’t see the point – the show would have been complete without this part.

Still, overall a very well researched, narrated (by Timothy Nga) and produced show. Looking forward to the next episode!

Catch Listen to our walls on Tuesdays at 7.30 p.m. on Channel 5.

Ordinary Guy wrote a post about SJI, where he studied in the late 70s.

The first thing that a student had to brace himself was the incessant noise from the traffic during lessons. SJI was bordered by busy Bras Basah Road, Waterloo Street and Queen Street shown in the map below. It was a challenge to both teachers and Josephians to rise above the roar of engines and honks from impatient motorists especially during peak hours, to steer our concentration during lessons.

By the time I studied in SJI, the school had already moved to Malcolm Road. During a camp in Secondary 3 (1992), Brother Michael Broughton brought us around the derelict old building (just before it was closed off for restoration and conversion to the Singapore Art Museum).

He told us stories about his school days and the history of the school. We went up to the attic and even up to the dome! Sadly, I have no photos of that very exclusive tour.

The story which stuck in my head was about the bomb that fell in the main courtyard during World War II. The school was used as a hospital during the war. While it was derelict, grass had grown in circle from the courtyard, corresponding to the bomb crater. Amazingly, no one was killed from the explosion. A piece of shrapnel got lodged in a grandfather clock, which was on the 2nd storey. I believe this clock is now in the administration building at the current SJI premises.

I have to admit, my memory of the story may not be 100% accurate.

Even though I never studied in old SJI, I have great affinity for that building. I used to pass by it every day on the way to school – Saint Anthony’s Boys’ School a short hop away on Victoria Street – telling myself that one day, I will study there.

I attended a talk by Eli Solomon on Sunday at the National Library. He talked about his book, Snakes & Devils – A History of the Singapore Grand Prix.

History of the Singapore Grand Prix? But it hasn’t even happened yet, right?

Well, the F1 race hasn’t taken place yet, but there was racing in Singapore in the 60s and 70s.

Eli gave a very vivid account of the characters involved in the Singapore Grand Prix over the years. It was a very different age, very far removed from the modern day pinnacle of motorsport (and its accompanying circus) which is about to descend here.

SGP was Formula Libre, libre being ‘open’ or ‘free’. So, you brought whatever you had and you raced.

Open-top single-seater cars vs regular road cars were the norm. You’d think that the person with the most expensive car would win, but this was not the case.

The race distance for SGP was 60 laps for most of the years – it was reduced in the latter years – and that was a punishing distance, requiring total concentration over the 4+ kilometre circuit. Race drivers needed endurance and stamina, just as they do now.

Safety was nearly non-existent for both drivers and spectators. The race averaged a death a year, part of the reason the race ended.

Eli also screened some never-seen-before footage from participants from an Australian team. Fascinating stuff as they recorded their trip, not just the race. Wish I could show it here. It really should have been bundled with the book.

Speaking of books, I believe Today reporter Ian De Cotta is about to launch another book on the Singapore Grand Prix.

Photo (top): Rodney Seow’s race suit. He was the last Singaporean winner of the Singapore Grand Prix.

Photo (below): Author of Snakes & Devils, Eli Solomon.

How could I forget? Why Snakes & Devils?

If you can make it out on the photo, there is a series of corners known as The Snakes, leading up to Devil’s Bend hairpin, where the current entrance to Lower Peirce Reservoir is located.

I got my gleaming new one-year pass to all of NHB’s museums in the mail on Saturday. So, I can now visit the permanent exhibitions at the following museums any time, as many times as I want!

• Asian Civilisations Museum
• Memories at Old Ford Factory
• National Museum of Singapore
• Peranakan Museum
• Reflections at Bukit Chandu
• Singapore Art Museum
• Singapore Philatelic Museum

First stop, the one museum on that list that I’ve not visited: Peranakan Museum!

I still find it amazing that we only had one major museum not too long ago.