A Tale of 2 Sun Yat Sen Memorial Halls

It was Good Friday and a group of us decided to visit the Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall.  A few of my friends had never visited this place before and I wanted to  visit this refurbished building.  

The colonial style building and the statue of Dr Sun Yat Sen greeted us when we entered the compound. Sun Yat Sen played an instrumental role in the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty, and was the first president and founding father of the Republic of China. 

From Left: Teo Eng Hock, Sun Yat Sen, Tan Chor Nam

From the National Library’s resouces, the villa was built sometime in the 1880s by Chinese merchant Boey Chuan Poh, rumoured for his mistress Bin Chan.  The villa chaged hands and eventually Teochew businessman Teo Eng Hock acquired the house and renamed it Wan Qing Yuan (晚晴园.  Teo Eng Hock later offered Sun Yat Sen the use of the villa. 

In 1906, during Sun's two-week stay in Singapore, he formed a local branch of the T'ung Meng Hui (“Chinese Revolutionary League”) with co-founders Tan Chor Nam as chairman, and Hsu Tzu Lin, Teo Eng Hock and his nephew Lim Nee Soon as office bearers. 

Chinese New Year Light Up at Chinatown 2014

Horses galloping along Eu Tong Sen Street - this was the design of this year's Lunar New Year light-up at Chinatown, to ushering Year of the Horse.

I personally like the day time effect of these horses.



On the other end of Chinatown, another set of horses along South Bridge Road.

Chinatown was bustling with people shopping with Chinese New Year goodies.

Talking about China New Year, we cannot not talk about Yu Shang, the prosperous raw fish dish.

We had this meal at Red Star Restaurant, located at the fringe of Chinatown.



Let's hope for a prosperous and healthy 2014!

Johore Temple Festival 2013: The procession

A huge crowd was gathering outside City Square.  Around 9:30 pm, the lion dance performance started at the VIP area.

Without the VVIP attending the ceremony this year, the procession proper started much earlier than last year.

Johore Temple Festival 2013: Deities leaving the Old Temple

It was the 20th Day of the First Lunar Month, and the Johore Temple Festival entered its final and important phase.  I was last year for the event and therefore I made the trip again this time. Traffice from Singapore to Johore was heavy but I managed to arrive just in time.

A lion dance troupe awaiting for the deities to arrive......

Chinese New Year - River Hong Bao 2013

The Lunar New Year is coming to an end.    And for the last bog on this topic, I would write about the River Hong Bao held at the Floating Platform next to the Esplanade. The picture on the left showed the entrance to the event.

One of the key exhibits at the event would be the 12 zodiacs.  Being Year of the Snake, the biggest statue was dedicated to it.

River Hong Bao is an annual event celebrating the Lunar New Year.  Besides the static display, there would be performances and also food stalls.   Photo showed the performing stage but I did not catch the performance.

And of course, the biggest attraction would be the God of Fortune.

This year, Lee Foundation sponsored a mural on fishes.  In Chinese, nian nian you yu, literarlly means "every year has fish", which sounds like "every year has abundance".  In Mandarin, "fish" has the same pronounciation as "surplus" or "abundance".

While we have abundance of fishes, the pandas seemed to be under nourished.













River Hong Bao has been held many years and it seemed to need a break through.  I felt that the food stalls need to be present in a more creative way, as part of the visitors' experience.  In addition to the main presentation stage, there could be secondary stages or roving performers to create more interaction and excitement.  Here's to next year's event.

Raffles' Letters: Intrigues behind the Founding of Singapore

The exhibition Raffles' Letters: Intrigues behind the Founding of Singapore reveals important insights into the Founding of Singapore in 1819 through 20 letters written by Sir Stamford Raffles.  Thirteen of the letters are made available by The Bute Collection at Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, Scotland. These letters originated from the private papers of Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, who supported Raffles’s efforts to establish a new British settlement in the East Indies, which eventually led to the founding of Singapore in 1819.  (source: NLB)

This exhibition's theme was interesting.  I did however find that the presentation was too wordy.  Maybe some diagrams or more visual presentations could help in the appreciation of this exhibition.   The organiser could also place some chairs or sofas for visitors to rest as there were many exhibits. 

The organiser came up with a guide book which was informative and I found it more user-friendly than the exhibition itself.  Nonetheless, this is an important exhbition.  Exhibition ends 28 Feb 2013.

Chinese New Year Decoration at Chinatown

Year of the Snake is coming, and it seems that we are having a square snake for the coming lunar year.

It look rather flat to me in terms of design.  Personally, I prefer last year's Dragon design: Year of the Dragon Design

70th Anniversary of the battle for Singapore, 1941 - 42: Exhibitions at National Library

Two exhibitions held at the National Library of Singapore featured events related to the fall of Singapore in the 1940s.  These exhibitions have since ended its run.

The first was 4 days in February : Adam Park the Last Battle.  It was about the Cambridgeshires, a novice British infantry battalion, who fought against the Japanese 41st Regiments for 4 days until the British surrendered.

This exhibition was a result of Singapore Heriage Society undertaking an archaeological survey of the Adam Park battlefied in 2010 and 2011. It is good that a civil group took on this research.  Having said that, as artefacts and information were not much, the exhibition space could be too big for this topic.

Patterns of Trade, Asian Civilisations Museum

Patterns of Trade: Indian Textiles for Export, 1400 - 1900 is a temporary exhibition held at the ACM.   As the name suggests, it showed the art of Indian textile through the period.

Kranji War Memorial

It had been more than 20 years since I visited Kranji War Memorial.  As this year was the 70th Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore, it was timely to visit this place again.  From Kranji MRT Station, you could take bus 160, 178, 960 or 961.  Alternatively you could walk for about 15 minutes till you see the sign below.  

It was about 3 minutes' walk from the main road to the Memorial Park.  The history of the park and on WWII were at the entrance to the memorial.

The design of the Memorial was simple, but solemn and dignified:



This memorial not only remembered the British soldiers who were killed during the wall, but soldiers of other races and nationalities.


The front of the memorial laid the tombstones of the soldiers, a solemn reminder of the cruelties of war. 

Most were young men. 



















The memorial was also the burial ground for 2 Presidents of Singapore: Benjamin Sheares and Yusof Ishak.