The Past

The kids and I went to the National Museum. I couldn’t remember when was the last time I was there. It was good to visit. The History of Singapore was amazing. We spent three hours there, just looking and listening to the narration.

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She is still looking great. I hope they won’t sell her off or flatten her to make way for roads or houses.

Then I saw this…
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Unless you are from the school, Singapore Chinese Girls’ School (SCGS), you wouldn’t know about this desk and chair. I told Kai and Ann, this was what I used when I was in secondary school. Kai said that it could have been the exact one I used. Well, perhaps…

This chair and table opened up the flood gate to all my childhood memories. My secondary school days were the best days of my life. Yes, the 80s. The 80s was a fabulous time. Life was simple, things were nice, people were honest and warm. There was a sense of sadness that my children will no longer have those days to enjoy.

Looking at the exhibits, I marvelled at what our founding fatherS did. It was an amazing transformation. I began to wonder what was our present leaders thinking of when they sold Raffles Hotel. Should not she be the pride of our country. A heritage that should have been preserved. Actually, along with her, many iconic buildings were all demolished in the name of urbanisation. Well I see the need to build for human habitat but some things just have to preserve. Removing shorter HDB flats to build taller ones, that would be acceptable. But to destroy iconic buildings of a country…it reflects on the kind of leadership we have. We built the Singapore Flyer (the modern icon) and see what happened? Why build something which others already have?

These three buildings were all very close to the hearts of Singaporeans, they are all gone now. Replacing them are just empty land…waiting for a rich buyer?

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These structures beat any of those elongated buildings any time.

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