There are two Bugis Streets in Singapore. One is a semi-air conditioned shopping mecca with three levels of bazaar stalls selling apparel, beauty services, and food. The third is hidden beneath the concrete blocks of Bugis Junction, which were removed from our street directory in the late 1980s and almost forgotten today. This is about … Read more
It’s worth noting that, when Singapore became independent in 1965, very few ethnic Chinese spoke Mandarin as their primary home language. During self-rule from Britain in 1959, Singapore chose to become a multilingual nation. English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil were chosen as the four official languages. The Speak Mandarin Campaign was established in 1979 to … Read more
Many Singaporeans moved from squatter settlements and villages to the Housing Development Board’s first high-rise flats in the 1960s. The devastating Bukit Ho Swee fire of 1961, which killed 16,000 people and destroyed an entire neighbourhood in Singapore’s Chinatown, persuaded many that the HDB flat was a more desirable home. The first satellite housing estates … Read more
Sumpah Pontianak II had the chance to see Sumpah Pontianak (Curse of the Vampire), a 1958 Cathay-Keris film, as the last of the Pontianak trilogy featuring Maria Menado at the National Museum of Singapore. The museum has resurrected a collection of classic Malay films, which are being shown at the Cinematheque. I had four motivations … Read more