Tuesday 8 August 2017

Running on full

Here is a post that I meant to have publish when I was in Singapore. But it never seemed like the right time. I thought I'd post it now anyway because it is well ... relevant. Thanks to my friend Lia Choi who reminds me that I still have an audience! I hope you enjoy it.

Credit: Tatinis; Wong Hoy Cheong, ‘Re:Looking’, 2002-2003 (with a simplified installation in collaboration with NGS, 2016), 2003-2004. Video in collection of Singapore Art Museum. Installation commissioned by National Gallery Singapore in 2016.
I step out this morning for a run. It is 7.30am and the temperature is already in its 80s (29 degrees Celsius) even though the sun is barely up. I dread to think what later on in the morning will be like, let alone the afternoon. I live on an estate that used to belong to British expats as far back as the 1950s.The street names are distinctly British, you would be forgiven to think that we lived in Britain. I run past Bloxhome Drive, Brockhampton Drive, Kensington Park Road, Muswell Hill, Clifton Drive, Stokesay Drive, Penhurst Drive, Cardiff Grove, Mountbatten Road, Portchester Drive and St Helier's Avenue. The houses are bungalow style, built in the 1950s. In London, I would turn my nose up at houses built in the 1930s. too new, we would say. Too modern. Here, we find them too old. Modern is good. It is comforting yet disturbing at the same time.

Serangoon Gardens is lovely; almost like a little British village. It was built for British officers in Singapore in the 1950s. I can walk to the village, restaurants and bars, cafes and spas dot the area, every possible bank we need is available. A British style village in north Singapore. The food is amazing, the atmosphere congenial.

Later on, I visit the newly opened National Gallery of Singapore, formerly the Supreme Court. British architecture at its finest, it conveys the majesty and power that is the British. Spanning the length of the Padang (Malay word for field, a tad bit bigger in this case), a field about the size of 3 football fields for parades and national celebrations in the middle of town, it is an imposing figure. I remember it as the Supreme Court. I attended my first court case here as a young lawyer, and appeared before a judge in his chambers with my pupil master as well as a high court case. I remember the high vault ceilings and the twists and turns of the darkened corridors. I remember the pomp and ceremony that went with it. Now, they are strategically lit, best face forward; no darkened hallways, no ghosts lurking in the closets. An installation with an ancient sign that says  "Judges Chambers" grace the quadrangle together with the judge's throne and an old TV. I stifle a laugh at the indignity of it all. Now, anyone can sit in that seat.

A new supreme court was built, next to the old, designed and built by none other than a British firm. An ultra modern, flying saucer top behemoth, it cuts an imposing presence in the middle of town. The old and the new, both British, next to one another. I cannot resist the urge to go in for a walk around but I don't. I leave it for the next time.

A British friend working in Singapore asks why we don't change the names? It is ridiculous to still salute to a higher authority, especially when that higher authority no longer governs. But I don't see the need to; it is part of our history, our heritage. So much around belonged/belongs to the British. We can't deny it. And I don't think we should. It is part of us now. We can't deny that. And it has shaped us, whether we like it or not. In a way, the Empire is our history too. That we were once part of this dubious legacy, shameful though it may be. It has given us a lot as well, a rich legal system, robust and mature, architecture that I marvel at, tea time that my aunt still adheres up to today, not to mention Bank Holidays (still don't get that). Maybe we would have survived without them, but I
think it has given us a jump start. Otherwise we would remain a small fishing village. Who knows?

We have survived against all odds (and I mean all odds). We come up to National Day, the eve of that auspicious day when we declared independence and had to hope for the best because, frankly, the future looked bleak. And yet, here we are today. Says a lot I think.

Love lots from (still) sunny Singapore xoxo

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