Last Sunday, at the peak of the F1 hype, Singapore never looked so beautiful. It was in the afternoon, just a few hours before the world’s first-ever Formula One night race. A few friends and I were outside Suntec City, drawn by the unmistakable screech of tyres burning the asphalt as other non-F1 race cars ran the track, presumably for some pre-race event. Night hadn’t yet fallen, but already I couldn’t help but marvel at the beauty of the street circuit. The distinctive Shenton Way skyline provided a stunning backdrop to the circuit, framed by beautiful colonial architecture and the always-fascinating glass spikes of the Esplanade. We didn’t have entry passes, but we didn’t need them to know that it was going to be a spectacular evening later that day.
Singapore dazzled that night, and wowed the world with her beauty. We shouldn’t have needed the full-page colour spreads in The Straits Times the next day to re-affirm what we already knew: that Singapore is a beautiful city. We see it each time we travel on the ECP, marvelling at the Singapore Flyer and the modern, pretty skyline as our vehicles speed across the Benjamin Sheares Bridge. We see it each time we go for the huge, mega countdown bashes at Marina Bay, electrified by the brilliant colours of the fireworks and the intoxicating lights of the skyscrapers. We see it each time we stroll along the Singapore River, admiring the timeless, quiet beauty of the stately colonial buildings dotting Empress Place.
The architecture of our city is a proud monument to the economic success of our nation, and the distinctive blend of our East-meets-West culture. But it is memories that build an identity, and it is the familiar that we cherish, and which makes us call this country our home. These memories, these stories and experiences, are not created within the stately rooms of City Hall, or the gleaming office towers of Raffles Place. They are born in humbler surroundings, environments which may not be as aesthetically-pleasing or steeped in heritage, but nevertheless, they contain the collective memories of the people who live there.
These spaces are our memories. They may or may not exist anymore, but we feel at peace with the world when we return, either physically, or through our imagination, to those very places. We see ourselves through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, and feel a certain inexplicable bond to those locales where we led our lives. They become a part of us.
My mother has a strong emotive bond to the Indonesian island where her parents lived and where she spent part of her childhood. Every year, we make about two trips there, to visit my grandparents and relatives. Over time, the island has become not only a part of her childhood, but also a piece of mine. The familiarity I feel deepens each time I visit. It becomes less foreign, and more recognisable. The deep wrinkles and weather-beaten faces of the old people who sit in their shops, watching life go by before them almost the same way as it has for the past few decades. The pop cacophony of motorcycle honks as they speed through the streets, unstopped by traffic lights (there aren’t any). The deafening rock tunes of the sparrows as they fly in and out of the tall, grey box-houses, built atop residences and shops for the sole purpose of harvesting bird’s nest. It isn’t the most developed town, and you can’t really say it’s pretty, but it has a way of working its charms on you. After my grandparents passed away, we began to cut back on our visits to the island. For some reason, the ferry also stopped its daily direct trips from Singapore, now requiring a very troublesome transfer at an intermediate island. Eventually I stopped going altogether. I found myself looking back fondly at the days I spent there. They may be very little compared to the years my mum spent at her childhood home, but they were sufficient to make the island a part of my own childhood.
As I look back at my childhood, I can’t help but remember the days I spent at Dover Road, where my family’s first home was. The short HDB blocks, painted in hues of blue, orange and red. The market at the centre of it all, the focal of all activity, with its red roof, and the friendly, hokken-speaking stallholders whipping up some of the most tasty hawker food in the West. I can even remember vividly the font the HDB block numbers were inscribed in, and the interior of the lift which stops at every fourth floor. It was where I led my carefree, worry-less life up till Primary 2, when we moved to Jurong East. But for four years after that, I still went back each day, to Fairfield Methodist Primary School, my primary school which sat right across the road from my old neighbourhood.
A couple of years ago, I opened the papers to find this scene right before my eyes. Beneath a photo illustrating the HDB blocks and that red-roofed market, was an article stating that the area was slated for redevelopment to make way for the expansion of the National University of Singapore. Memories came gushing back. I thought of the aunty with the frizzled white hair who sold oily, tasty mixed rice at the coffee shop opposite the market, and the Cantonese couple who sold wanton mee with ketchup for $1.20 in the market. I remembered the Sin Lee Cake Shop that used to occupy the ground floor of the flat we lived in, and its 60cent butter cakes that I loved so much. I looked back at the time I learnt to ride a bike, when I was only five years old, and the numerous falls that I suffered at the basketball court before I finally succeeded. I recalled the humble furnishings of our three-room flat, the single step between the hall and the kitchen where I fell in my baby car when I was only two years old. Very soon, the entire area will be all gone, a pile of rubber, perhaps replaced by the new NUS university town or some newfangled developent with a fanciful name like Fusionpolis or One-North, in keeping with the whole life sciences hub direction of the Buona Vista vicinity.
Another place which may forever be gone is Clementi as I remember it. It was the nearest MRT station to Dover Road before the Dover station was built, and my family used to visit it regularly, to go to the Big Bookshop on level 3, or simply to transfer to the MRT. Even after I moved to Jurong East, I went to Clementi often. Thanks to the planners who drew up the transport routes, it became a place where I changed buses to get home everyday when I was studying in Hwa Chong. I would usually find some time after school to go to the market, a large, no-frills hawker centre with many stalls, for a plate of carrot cake. This carrot cake is the stuff of legend. It sells out latest by 2pm everyday, which means I only get to eat it occasionally, especially during exam period, where there’s no real reason for me to stay late in school after lessons. The old man who fries the carrot cake has been doing it for at least the past forty years; my dad recalls his own childhood in Tiong Bahru where he used to eat at the same man’s roadside stall. His back is now bent, and his eyes squint due to poor vision, but he still serves up what I can say is the best carrot cake in the world. There are so many customers that his middle-aged son wears track shoes, and dashes from table to table so as to get the orders served in time. After a hot, steaming plate of carrot cake, I usually like strolling around the neighbourhood, taking my time before going back to Jurong East. Before the construction workers moved in, Clementi had a town centre that was excellent for strolling. There used to be a multi-tiered fountain just beside the bus interchange which channelled its water down to the plaza between the shops. Although I never bought anything, I somehow vividly recall the shop which sells cloth, its large reels of colourful fabric billowing in the wind. I also remember the Bata shop in the corner, with its gleaming-white school shoes on display. There also used to be a Cerisi shop beside the Bengawan Solo, where my mum bought me many of my clothes when we still lived in Dover Road.
Unfortunately, the government recently announced plans to ‘revitalise’ the neighbourhood. There will be a new forty-storey condominium built right beside the blue MRT station, as well as a new typical beside-the-MRT-station shopping mall already found in many locations around the island. Already, the area has changed. The buses now stop at a temporary interchange a five-minute walk away, and the neighbourhood centre seems to be permanently boarded up and shrouded in concrete dust as construction carries on at full throttle. I don’t know what will happen to the market, and the quiet, charming neighbourhood, but something tells me it will no longer be the same five years down the road.
Our lives move on, but our memories don’t. This article is a tribute to the places that have become a part of me over time, the spaces where my memories were shaped and created. It is not Raffles Place, it is not City Hall, but to me, these places are worth more than all the glamour and bright lights of the city. These are the spaces that will forever be within me, no matter what they will become. The loud motorcycle honks on the Indonesian island, the colourful HDB blocks at Dover Road, and the old man frying carrot cake in Clementi. They will always be there, even when they are no longer there anymore.
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