Number Ten Singapore Flyer
19 January 2013

There was a small exhibit at the National Museum on Singapore from 1945 to 1965, which corresponds from the end of Japanese occupation to independence. A major step towards independence was self rule in 1959. My sense from the exhibit is that there wasn't a strong sense of nationalism at that point. Before WWII, Singapore was administered as part of the Straits Settlements (with Penang, Dinding, Malacca and miscellaneous islands). Right after the war, it became a separate Crown Colony, and was granted self governance in 1959. A concern of the government at that time was the week sense of national identity. Most residents identified mainly with an ethnic group, and possibly another country. (Many Chinese went back to China near the end of their lives.) To "forge a Malayan identity", Singapore adopted a national flag, a crest and a national anthem: Majulah Singapura -- Onward Singapore. Nation Loyalty Week was celebrated at the beginning of December, 1959, with concerts and performances. Yusof Ishak (who is on all the currency here) was installed as Singapore's first head of state -- Yang di-Pertuan Negara. During that week, you could dial 2 or 3 on your phone and listen to a recording of the national anthem so you could learn to sing it.

In 1963, Singapore became independent of Great Britain and joined Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to form Malaysia. (Sabah and Sarawak are on the island of Borneo, along with the Sultanate of Brunei and part of Indonesia.) The merger didn't fare very well, and Singapore split off as a separate country in 1965.

For Deepavali, the Hindu festival of lights, Little India was all lit up, with special booths set up where you could buy sparkly things, paper mandalas and, of course, lamps and candles. Kaye and I spent an evening walking around the stalls, and also looking at all the green grocer and flower shops there. We had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant, where I had Indian Rojak, which is not a dish you'd actually find in India. Rather, it's variation on a Malay dish by the local Indian population here and in Malaysia. The one I had contained various dough balls and fritters, with tofu, potatoes, cucumber and coconut cake, covered in a peanut-chili sauce. If it were not a vegetarian restaurant, it might also have hard-boiled egg and shrimp fritters.

I've been exploring some of the old military installations here when Kaye was off on field trips.

First was Labrador Park, which is now a nature preserve, but was formerly the site of British Fort Pasir Panjang. There are still the remains of batteries and underground bunkers spread over the hill there, plus a concrete machine-gun post down on the beach. The fort dates to 1878, and was erected to protect the western entrance to Keppel Harbor. I learned a bit about guns through the exhibits here. The first guns installed were muzzle loading, which meant they couldn't fire that fast. They were soon replaced by breech-loading guns, which could get off 2-3 rounds per minute. However, those guns weren't considered effective against the fast motor torpedo boats that started showing up towards the end of the 19th century. Ultimately, 6" quick-firing guns (with built-in recoil, a better breech closure and cartridge ammunition with shell and charge in one) were installed, which I believe remained up to WWII. They could fire up to 30 rounds/minute. Labrador Park used to contain the southernmost point in the Asian continent, before Singapore started its land-reclamation projects. (However, why you would consider Singaore, which is an island, part of the continent but not Sentosa Island to the southeast of it, I don't know.)

Fort Siloso was the companion to Fort Pasir Panjang, overlooking the harbor entrance from the east side, and dates from roughly the same time. It is located on Sentosa Island, the site of a casino-resort and other tourist attractions (Universal Studios, aquarium, beaches). The island was once called Belakang Mati (Death from Behind) and had a couple other names. This fort is probably the best preserved of the British outposts, and houses a small museum. Also, the various buildings (guard post, kitchen, barracks, laundry, observation post) have vignettes and recorded narration that goes with them. There are a lot of guns at the site, though most of seem to have come from other places around the island. It was interesting to go through the underground parts of the gun batteries, and see the separate lifts for the shells and the charges. The narration indicated that sometimes during training the officer in charge would douse the lights, and the soldiers (and local volunteers) manning the lifts had to proceed by memory and touch. The museum had some interesting material on Force 136, the branch of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) that supported operations in enemy-occupied territory in South-East Asia, and local resistance fighter Lim Bo Seng who escaped from Singapore to India through Sumatra, and trained many of the agents who infiltrated back into Malaysia. There was also some material on Operation Jaywick, which involved sailing a Japanese fishing boat (used in the evacuation of Singapore) from Botany Bay, Australia, back up to near Singapore, from which crew members paddled 50 km to set explosive charges on Japanese shipping in the harbor. The crew returned safely, but the Japanese, not realizing an operation could be mounted from so far away, suspected local sabotage, which led to mass arrests, interrogations and worse. One disturbing thing I saw in the museum was two different groups who came in, within the space of minutes, and immediately headed toward a cut-out figure of a Japanese soldier, to have their pictures taken punching and choking him.

The Malay Heritage Centre recently reopened after renovations. It is in the former istana (palace) of the Sultan of Johor -- previous buildings on the site date back to 1819, and the area (Kampong Glam) was home to Malayan aristocracy before that. (Kampong means village or settlement -- whence the English word "compound", Glam or Gelam is a kind of tree.) There were a couple of useful maps in the first gallery. One showed the various places through modern-day Malaysia and Indonesia where Malay groups in Singapore came from, including the Orang Laut (sea nomads), Bugis from Sulawesi (Celebes), Javanese, Baweanese (Bawean Island), Banjar (Borneo), and of course the Malay peninsula. The other map was projected and showed how the neighborhood evolved over the last couple centuries. Upstairs contained a lot of photos and artifacts of Malay personages, groups and institutions. Downstairs was more on cultural aspects, such as Malay-language films and music. The changing exhibit was on Malay publishing in Singapore, starting with scribes and then moving on to printing. Originally Java had been the center for Malay publishing, but many moved to Singapore because of Dutch regulation. I now know how to make black ink: lampblack + coconut oil + black glutenous rice (to control odor) and optionally black pepper (to speed drying).

Other words of Malay origin: sarong, gingham, cockatoo, camphor, bamboo, amok, junk (boat), orangutan and cooties (from kutu - lice).

Food experiences (the first two courtesy of my dean)

- Samy's Curry, on Dempsey Hill in former army barracks. You get a piece of banana leaf in front of you in lieu of a plate. One server comes around with a couple kinds of rice and gives you a scoop or two of your choice. A second has cluster of four small buckets, each with a different curry or sauce, and ladles some of each onto your leaf. We also ordered some additional dishes: fish-roe balls, squid, shrimp, mutton, chicken and fish-head curry. The fish head was surprisingly meaty, probably because it had a goodly portion of "fish shoulders".

- Universal Coffee Shop. A coffee shop here usually consists of a drink stand with a cluster of 4-5 food stalls around a central table area. One near us has good seafood, particularly crabs. While Chili Crab is the most famous style of crab preparation in Singapore, we find we like dry spice crab (really more of a paste) and pepper crab better. There is no dainty way to eat it. We've taken to bringing a box of tissues and our own crab picks when we go there.

- Bak Kuh Teh: literally, "Meat Bone Tea", but actually a pork-rib soup with a highly flavored stock -- lots of black pepper and garlic. I've had two kinds: light (Teochew style) and dark (Hokkien style). It usually comes with boiled peanuts, roasted garlic, tofu pieces and pickled vegetables on the side. If you're in the know, you also order some chopped up Chinese donut to dip in it. Oolong tea is the traditional beverage to go with.

Small World Department: Kaye found out that the people in the apartment on the other side of the elevator on our floor own a condo in Portland that is on the same block as my office. We hope to see them when they are there next August and we've returned.