“I love being in a place where it’s cool to be smart,” says the 42-yearold who moved to Singapore in 2007 with her husband, investor Jim Rogers. They came with their daughter Hilton Augusta or ‘Happy’, now eight. The couple now has a second child, Beeland Anderson or ‘Bee’, three.

In America, where she is from, “there’s that ‘geek syndrome’,” says Paige. “But not here. I don’t buy that learning is rote here — kids have to think. It’s rigorous!”

Education was a key reason for the couple to first start looking East. Investments were another. Jim, the co-founder of the Quantum Fund with fellow financier George Soros and creator of the Rogers International Commodities Index, had famously said, “If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia.”

Since moving here in mid-2007, Jim has announced a new index fund, The Rogers Global Resources Equity Index, which focuses on top companies in agriculture, mining, metals and energy sectors as well as those in the alternative energy space including solar, wind and hydro.

When the family lived in New York, to give Happy a headstart, her parents hired her a Mainland Chinese nanny and put her in a private school that taught Mandarin.

“Happy was speaking beautiful Mandarin, but it was hard to maintain, especially in the American school system. We wanted her to be truly bilingual, so we started spending our summers in Asia. We went to Shanghai, Hong Kong and then we came here,” says Paige. The couple looked for a suitable place to live in China but “pollution was an issue” so they decided on Singapore.

“Our second summer in Singapore, I found out about Nanyang [Primary School]. We got on the waiting list for the kindergarten, but were told it’s very hard to get in. The next year, around the time we had put our house in New York City up for sale, a child dropped out of Nanyang Kindergarten so Happy got in. We thought, ‘We’ll try this out for a year’.”

“Happy, within three weeks of going to Nanyang, could speak perfect Singlish…” Bee (Xiao Mi Feng or little bee in Mandarin), is in pre-nursery at Nanyang Kindergarten and “thinks more in Chinese than she does in English.”

Paige Parker, on how local her daughters have become

What was meant to be a year turned out to be “indefinitely”. Happy started kindergarten, Paige discovered she was pregnant with Bee, the New York mansion was sold for a reported US$16 million and Singapore became home.

Paige, who speaks a smattering of Mandarin herself, learned the local system in a flash, becoming a model kiasu (Hokkien for ‘scared to lose’) parent. She soon found out about the volunteer programme at Nanyang Primary School and — before Happy had even gotten in — became a parent volunteer in the English language department.

The family also found a home within one kilometer of the school— they rent a bungalow in the Cluny Park area. Today, Happy (“Kuai Le [happy in Mandarin] or Le Le, depending on what mood she’s in”) is in primary two, and was in the top five of her cohort last year. She pops in during this interview and asks her mother: “When the rain stops, we go cycling, can?”

“Happy, within three weeks of going to Nanyang, could speak perfect Singlish [colloquial Singaporean English],” notes Paige drily. She still volunteers at Happy’s school. Bee (Xiao Mi Feng or little bee in Mandarin), is in pre-nursery at Nanyang Kindergarten and “thinks more in Chinese than she does in English,” says Paige.

In between shuttling her kids to enrichment classes — swimming, Chinese dance and Spanish for Bee — Paige helps Jim, 69, with his work. She is also studying to be a certified gemologist.

An only child, Paige grew up in a small town in North Carolina. She went to Salem College, the oldest women’s college in America, and her first job was in the non-profit sector as the director of major gifts and campaigns at Queens College in New York. It was there that she met Jim.

After Jim proposed to her in November 1998 — when she was 28 — Paige went with him on his second round-the-world trip. That threeyear trip became a Guinness World Record: they covered 116 countries and 245,000km in 1,101 days, in a custom-made yellow four-wheel-drive Mercedes. They got married in England in 2000 while still on the road.

For vacations these days, the family heads to China where the children get to use their Mandarin; their last trip was to Chengdu to see the pandas.

Paige believes her contribution to Singapore is “to raise two bilingual, compassionate potential Singaporeans. I think I’m doing the most important thing [as a mother].”

Citing the “ease of liveability”, she declares, only half joking, that she is “not leaving. This is home, we see it as home now.”

In the process, the President of the Singapore Veterinary Association (SVA) has witnessed Singapore’s evolution into a society that has grown increasingly mindful of how it treats its animals.

Dr Shane Ryan at his clinic, Companion Animal Surgery

FOREIGN TALENT

In 1980, the 53-year-old Melbourne native received his veterinary science degree from the University of Queensland and, in 1984, relocated to Singapore on a two-year contract as a vet at The Animal Clinic.

At the time, he was one of a handful of vets here, and worked closely with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), besides occasionally treating animals at the Singapore Zoo.

In 1987, he planned to return to Australia, but things turned out differently – he met Jean, the Singaporean woman who would become his wife, and decided to stay on. “I was doing house calls at the time, operating out of the back of my car. I realised this was not the way to serve clients properly, and that I needed a clinic.”

A year or so later, he set up Companion Animal Surgery. From being the only vet initially, Dr Ryan was joined by three others soon after. Today, his practice has eight other vets and a long client list.

ANIMAL INSTINCTS

Singapore’s pet care scene, he says, has come a long way from the time when there were just a small number of private veterinary clinics and one free pet clinic. The latter, in Kampong Java, was run by the Primary Production Department—now known as the AgriFood and Veterinary Authority (AVA)— in the 1980s.

He cites “growing affluence, higher education levels and shrinking family units” as contributors to the evolution of a pet’s place in Singapore from the days when people mainly lived in kampungs.

Pets provide us with a moral compass, and to paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi, we can be judged on a personal level and as a society by how well we care for them

Dr Shane Ryan

“Before, pets lived outside. Today, they are seen as a family member and sleep in owners’ bedrooms. In Europe, dogs ride on public transport with their owners – I expect to see this [in Singapore] in a generation’s time.”

And while the vet takes no issue with pet spas doing brisk business offering indulgent treatments such as massages, he says it’s important for pet owners to remember that cats and dogs “need to do what they do by nature. If you force them to become human, you can cause behavioural issues. They can become aggressive if they don’t get what they want, and become dominant in households.”

The Singapore Permanent Resident, who has no children, shares his home with his wife, two dogs (Two, a chocolate Labrador and Puppy, a German Short-Haired Pointer) and Spud, a ginger-pointed Siamese-crossbred cat. The animal lover says that the Singapore public today has a much greater understanding of the importance of animal welfare.

“Singapore is very much almost first world in that respect. That being said, there are still people who abuse animals, and others who are perhaps obsessive about them.” He believes that the recent decision by grassroots organisations in Chong Pang, a neighbourhood in the northern part of Singapore, to stop cat culling – the putting down of strays by the AVA in the interests of public health – is a step in the right direction. “It shows that Singapore is maturing as a society,” he explains.

Dr Ryan, now semi-retired from his practice and no longer performing surgical procedures such as spaying, intends to further encourage the changing attitudes in Singapore. He’s currently involved with the SVA, the World Small Animal Veterinary Association and the Federation of Asian Veterinary Associations. In this capacity, he travels widely within South East Asia and to the United States to promote Singapore’s veterinary industry, attend association meetings, organise vet seminars and redevelop the ethics code for Singapore-based vets. He’s also busy overseeing the business end of his clinic, and teaching anatomy to Singapore Institute of Technology students looking to create more realistic creatures and animals in video games.

NEW CHALLENGES

Dr Ryan tends to a four-legged patient

His full-on work week has made him miss working with animals – in particular, horses.

“I want to start getting my hands dirty again, doing horse work at the Saddle Club and the Riding for the Disabled Association. My next aim is to do acupuncture, chiropractory and even some oesteopathy on pets and horses.” He also intends to obtain his certification in canine rehabilitation therapy, and start a rehab section in his clinic.

Since Singapore remains “a very small market for pets, relative to its population size” and “lacks a proper vet school”, he is of the opinion that, while standards are generally good, there is room for raising the quality of specialised pet care.

“For that to happen,” he says,“there must be education. The SPCA does a good job but animal welfare in general needs to be taught at school level, so the young can grow up respecting animals.”

While Singapore may lack a variety of specialist vets such as cardiologists or dermatologists, Dr Ryan is heartened that more of such experts have begun to operate here, such as in the Singapore Association for Laboratory Animal Science. The non-profit organisation is dedicated to improving the professional development and education of technicians, technologists, scientists and veterinarians involved in animal research. There are also plans to develop the Asian Board of Veterinary Specialties, which is looking to grow specialty veterinary practices in Asia’s universities.

He believes that aspiring vets need to fully comprehend what lies ahead. He says: “People have a James Herriot view that being a vet is dealing with all things fluffy and cute, but it’s a very demanding profession. You have to be smart and get through the exams, but you also need to be able to deal with the emotional side of things. Stressed pet owners are not pleasant to deal with, and you’ll have your share of euthanising animals or dealing with those in horrible states because of accident or neglect.”

He can’t imagine a world without pets. “To me, a pet is a unique individual, a part of the family,” he says. “Pets provide us with a moral compass and to paraphrase Mahatma Gandhi, we can be judged on a personal level and also as a society on how well we care for them.”

Sylvia Toh Paik Choo gets her daily dose of humor from coffeeshops and almost everywhere else


For someone who is hailed as “the Guru of Singlish”, the tall, bespectacled St Margaret’s alumna Sylvia Toh Paik Choo, 64, speaks terribly good English. In fact, she discusses Singlish phrases the way a sociologist talks about the tribe he’s studying, with the analytical detachment of an academic.

Now, 29 years since her first humour book Eh, Goondu! (Singlish for ‘Hey, Stupid!’) flew off the shelves, Sylvia is back. Kind of. Eh, Goondu! and its 1984 sequel Lagi Goondu (‘More Stupid’) have been compiled and reprinted as a volume.

“No, I did not rework it—this is not an update. That would be work,” admits Sylvia, who is currently a columnist for The New Paper. She did, however, write a new foreword for the collection. “The rest of it really is ‘as is’,” she says, pointing out that many of the phrases in Eh, Goondu! are not used today but specific to that time. “That book really is a time machine, a social history of Singapore. For baby boomers reading it now, it’ll be nostalgia.”

Her greatest gift to Singapore is that Eh, Goondu!! earned local humour a place on the bestseller list.

Singapore’s humorists, Sylvia subscribes, are everywhere today, in particular the Internet. “I’m amazed at the stuff on the Net. People can express themselves so well—they really hit the nail on the head most times. It’s a pity it has to be done under a cloak of anonymity. We have a sharp lot—what they say is very apt. But they don’t do it with their real names.

“It’s the result of years of being afraid, and the Internet is a great place to let off steam.”

DAILY INSPIRATION
The humorist gets inspiration for her writing from simply going about her day. “I don’t drive so I walk a lot and take the train, and I can chitchat with anybody, from trishaw man to minister,” she explains. She observes the wit in daily exchanges, of Hokkien coffeeshop phrases like ‘tiao hr’ (‘fishing’, which refers to teabags) or ‘tak kieu ’ (‘kick ball’, which refers to Milo, by way of the picture on the tin of a boy kicking a ball).

Language in Singapore, she notes, is being affected by Twitter and SMS— two things she has no plans to master. “I neither understand Twitter nor Facebook,” Sylvia adds. “ I still write with pen and paper — the act of scribbling is like notation.”

Still, you can’t take Singapore out of the girl—she owns an iPad, which she uses exclusively for sending emails.

With the face of Singapore changing rapidly, given that 25 per cent of the population are from abroad, Sylvia observes, “It will take two years to see their humour merging with ours.

“They are very quick, especially the mainland Chinese. One day it’s shi bu shi (‘yes or no?’) and two weeks later, they would have added a lah!”

In the 70s, Singapore was much more open — we all thought of ourselves as Singaporeans

Sylvia Toh Paik Choo

If there is one funnyman she particularly likes today, it is crossdressing standup comedian Kumar. “If he is properly managed, Kumar could be a hit in Las Vegas!” she declares. “I find it sad that he has to make jokes at himself to get laughs. He should be able to make jokes about Singaporeans than just about Indians.

“Our humour has grown up… but such comedy is insular; it cannot travel. If someone like Gurmit Singh attempted something not Singlish, he would be laughed offstage for the wrong reasons.”

Beyond the parochial nature of what makes Singaporeans laugh, she has noticed a shift in the consciousness between races. “Now, there exists in Singapore humour a ‘comfort factor’— the presence of ‘comfortable with this joke’, ‘not comfortable with that joke’— because we are made aware of our multiracial culturality. In the 70s, Singapore was much more open—we all thought of ourselves as Singaporeans.

“We have become politically correct to death on the outside, but on the Net, behind the cloak of anonymity the jokes can be vitriolic, nasty.

“The humour as such can be borne out of fear and cynicism, that’s what it is. When it comes to humour, the sky’s the limit. Look at (Jewish-American satirist and comedian) Lenny Bruce—no holds barred. But today’s PC-ness has guillotined all this.”

BEING FUNNY IS GENETIC
Her ability to find things funny is, apparently,genetic. “My grandmother was Burmese, she had a deadpan sense of humour. My father is like that too. So my sense of humour is third-generation.” Her mother, on the other hand, has felt Sylvia’s displays of mirth could be more genteel. “I would be watching something funny, and my mother would come up the staircase and say to me, ‘As if you’re the only one who got the joke—I could hear you from downstairs!

“When I watch TV, I can see it coming, and I’ll laugh before the punchline. I’m not a gratifying person to tell jokes to.”

Conversely, Sylvia admits she is not the joker strangers expect her to be. “Sometimes people say, ‘My goodness, that’s Paik Choo? She looks so stern, like a hygiene teacher! ‘Bin chow chow’ (face like thunder)!’ People are always waiting for me to say something funny. I’m actually the shyest person on earth—I can’t get up on stage and speak.”

Despite her demurring, when warmed up, she can be lethal. “Once someone asked me, ‘Is Paik Choo a pen name?’ And I said, ‘No, Parker and Sheaffer are pen names. Paik Choo is my Chinese name.’”

The Complete Eh, Goondu! (Marshall Cavendish International) is available at major bookstores at $18.65 before GST.

Environmentalist Howard Shaw feeding homemade compost to the youngest of four frangipani trees in his garden

Don’t ever let Howard Shaw catch you drinking with a straw. No one in his office on the NUS Law School’s Bukit Timah campus is allowed to use one.

“It’s a totally unnecessary piece of plastic,” says the executive director of the Singapore Environment Council (SEC), “and this republic incinerates five million [straws] every month.”

An independently funded, non-government organisation, the council’s mission is to “educate, inspire and assist individuals, business organisations and environmental groups to care for and protect the environment”.

And 30-something Howard, who has been with SEC since it started 15 years ago, walks the green talk.

“At home, my family has a drum that composts vegetable and fruit waste, and all our taps are fitted with thimbles. In the shower, we collect water as it runs while heating up,” he says.

“The run-off is used to water plants, and to flush the toilets, and we don’t fill the kettle [all the way] when making a cup of tea. We only turn on air-conditioning at night when we sleep.”

The compost, used as fertiliser for the garden, has made a difference to the flowering trees, grass and bushes which are thriving despite the thin soil.

“Singapore’s soil is not very fertile, but our garden city can really gain from the waste from [leftover] food that used to go to pig farms when we had them. The food can be composted, methane extracted for energy use, and the remainder will make really good organic fertiliser.”

Anyone with a garden should compost their own vegetable waste, he says. “All you need is a tight lid [for a plastic bin] to keep out the pong. [Then] all you have to do is turn the waste with a spade every so often.”

The green dad has occasionally been told off by his two daughters – aged 9 and 11 — for not shutting the door to a room when the air conditioner is on.

“They actively look for the recycling bin whenever we’re out,” he says of them. “It’s much easier to teach children to be green; you just tell them.”

The grandson of RunMe Shaw, who co-founded the Shaw movie empire in Hong Kong and Singapore with his brother Sir Run Run, Howard graduated in 1995 from Oxford Brookes University in England. He studied environmental biology and business administration because he “anticipated there would be a strong demand for waste management”.

It is clear as day that we need a paradigm shift to get a better life, and there’s money to be made from it too.

Howard Shaw

Given his upbringing, it was perhaps a natural decision. “As a child, when I was living in Kowloon, Hong Kong [in the Shaw mansion in Clearwater Bay], my parents took me out to the hills of Kowloon and the New Territories.

“My parents are naturally quite green, although my father likes powerful cars. I have managed to introduce three Priuses [hybrid cars] into my family. One even replaced my father’s Ferrari.”

For his home, Howard seeks out pest control companies that use ecologically sound methods such as lime or vinegar to deal with termites, instead of those that pump arsenic into the ground.

“We do not use thermal fogging to deal with mosquitoes because that kills off other insects as well,” he adds.

Singapore’s “greenness” has evolved, he states. “Forty-five years ago, we faced serious issues with water. Now we have two more ‘taps’ besides Johor and rainwater — New Water and desalination.

“In energy, we used to rely only on fuel oil, with its sulphur output. Now we use natural gas from Malaysia and Indonesia, and are planning on getting LNG [liquid natural gas] as well.”

Of nuclear energy, an alternative source that Singapore is exploring, he says: “There are enough checks and balances that make it safe. [Besides] nuclear technology will help us straddle the gap to a point in time when renewable energy is up and running.

“Then there is bio-fuel. If I were an architect, I’d seriously employ solar and wind energy in my designs.”

Of Singapore’s carbon footprint ranked 24 worldwide (Qatar has the largest at number one), he says: “We provide a lot of services to the world. We’re also a travel and maritime hub and have one of the largest and most efficient oil refineries in the world [Pulau Bukom].

“So you cannot compare our per capita carbon emissions [at 12 tonnes] with that of Malaysia’s 7.3 tonnes.”

For him, transport and the “overconsumption, especially of disposables” are two aspects of life here that needs changing, and he draws attention to the fact that travelling to work in the morning, “almost everyone is in their cars alone”. His personal rule for most disposables? “Use everything twice.”

“It is clear as day that we need a paradigm shift to get a better life, and there’s money to be made from it too. The richest woman in China — Zhang Yin, who is said to have amassed US$3.4 billion — is in the waste management industry.”

“Any part of Singapore literally an archaeological site connecting us to a rich history.”

It is not every day you meet a man who has decided to make digging for buried treasures his life’s work. Archaeologist Lim Chen Sian is not your average Singaporean male. Sure, he sports a fashionable haircut, drives a shiny Audi, wears crisp linen shirts, and flashes an IWC watch.

But his ‘office’ can range from a two by four-metre space to an area approximately the size of a football field. His main work tool is not a computer, but a trowel, shovel or mattock – depending on whether he’s excavating on soft sand or hard, stony soil. And he can’t claim that he works in air- conditioned comfort.

But he has so much passion for his work that all the above seem terribly trivial. Why rough it out digging in the ground under a burning sun, when he can have a cushy desk job at a bank?

Explains Lim: “I have always had a passion for the past. As a kid, I liked military stuff – how armies formed, why they were fighting battles and so on. It was not just about an application of soldiers or troops on the move, but the causes and political reasons behind it – which usually predate the battle itself by decades.

“There are only certain aspects of things that history can tell you through recorded documents. But if something’s not recorded, how else can I find out about the past? Archaeology is the discipline that enables this.”

Consuming Passion

The 30-something has been doing excavation work for about eight years now, since his 2002 return from the United States where he received his double degree in Business Administration, Banking and Finance, and Archaeology from Boston University. Prior to that, he was briefly based in New York, focusing on work relating to ancient Egyptian history and the Mayan civilisation. It was a desire to reconnect with his Singapore-based American professor John Miksic that led Lim home. He was part of a team of volunteers, overseen by Miksic, which carried out excavation work at Old Parliament House. The project, which led to the discovery of items from the 14th century, hit home in more ways than one for Lim.

“It connected me back to when I was eight years old, on a trip there with my primary school classmates to see and hear MPs debating about a swimming complex in Hougang. Then it hit me hard – why am I excavating halfway across the world in Central America and Africa when there’s so much stuff to do here, and no one to do it? All the more, it was time to come home.”

Lim is a familiar face in the local heritage scene, involved in archaeological and heritage related work in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Egypt.

Now a research associate with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies’ Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre, he is part of a team carrying out archaeological investigations – among other projects — on coastal and riverine settlements in Sumatra during the Buddhist period (which lasted from ancient times till the 16th century) .Work goes on seven days a week; he attends site meetings, does research work in libraries and archives, and carries out lab work washing, sorting, cataloging and photographing artifacts. All this happens outside of excavation work on the  field doing preventive or salvage archaeology to preserve the past before construction and demolition crews come in.

Some of his excavations in Singapore have been at the sites of the upcoming National Art Gallery (City Hall and the old Supreme Court Building), the Sentosa Integrated Resort Singapore, and at Fort Serapong on Sentosa.

Treasures he has found from these digs include coins dating back to 1965 and pieces of crockery from the time of Admiral Cheng Ho (circa the late 1300s) to pottery fragments estimated to be up to 1,000 years old.

Soul Searching

Some may question Lim’s decision to return to a young, tiny city that is continually on the cusp of reinvention and redevelopment – so much so that it is constantly being accused of trading her soul for modernisation. Lim disagrees.

He feels that every society has a soul that serves as a connection to identity and belonging, and that Singapore is no exception. “One reason why I am staying on here is I truly believe that. At any one point in time, we are on the edge of modernity. In the 60s, my parents were on the edge of modernity driving a Beetle. Eight hundred years ago, when Singapura was founded, all these artifacts we have found were on the edge of ‘modernity’ then.

“Fast forward years later, and I am searching for our past soul,” he says.

The archaelogist in him wants us to “try and understand a bit of where we come from” and to see our environment “with new eyes”. To him, any part of Singapore is literally an archaeological site connecting us to a rich history.

“If I were to dig this spot I’m standing on right here in the Fort Canning Centre car park, I dare say I’ll find something,” he says. “Any piece of land or step or area you stand on could house an amazing artifact.”

But a country’s soul need not necessarily be defined by or associated with an item. Even ‘ah bengs’ contribute to Singapore’s soul, he says, by way of an example.

These would be stereotyped young Chinese men perceived to lack cultural refinement, and predisposed to extensively modified cars.

“With their bleached hair, spending hundreds and thousands of dollars souping up their Hondas with spoilers – that’s a form of soul. You don’t see this unique phenomenon in Germany or Australia. That says something about a country — whether it’s cars, or people spending time trying to dish up the perfect plate of rojak or fried noodles.

“You can’t replicate it elsewhere. The trick is to know what you like, and what you want to see, and take the time to wonder where we come from.”

Grinning, he adds, “My reality is digging out the past, trying to find out who I am, where I came from, where I’m going, why I belong here. These are inherent questions an archaeologist would ponder.

“And that’s why I dig – I am seeking these answers.”

Chinatown may be known as a popular tourist enclave, but radio host, deejay and author Chris Ho – also known as X’Ho – remembers its streets quite differently.

Chris with his grandmother

“I suppose life started me young on sleaze,” he joked to Singapore. “I used to follow my grandmother to her mahjong games and the opium dens in Chinatown when I was just a child. She took me along because there was no one else at home to care for me.

“It was great as I was left to my own devices once inside these joints. [They were] full of secret doors and musky coolies.” The opium dens of Pagoda Street were shut down in the 1950s and are now replaced by food malls, art galleries and electronic stores. Whenever he passes by, Chris can’t help but look back on the vice dens of old with nostalgia. Ironically, they remind him of a “a more innocent and less modernised [and] policed past”.

The fact that some of his fondest childhood memories have the makings of a gritty Orientalised noir tale speaks volumes of the outspoken personality, who is known for his irreverence and candour, and is well regarded in the Singapore music scene. Formerly with the now-defunct band Zircon Lounge (Singapore’s first New Wave punk group), Chris, who claims he is “forever 27”, has released several solo albums. He has also written three books including, ‘Skew Me You Rebel Meh?, a collection of essays and social critiques.

Chris, 8, at his godmother's house on Nassim Road dressed up for a formal party

Another place that holds fond childhood memories for Chris is his godmother’s hilltop house on Nassim Road – just off Orchard Road near the Botanic Gardens. The house was a guesthouse known as The Anchorage or The Haven, and the young Chris would spend his school holidays there.

Talking about the place instantly transports him back to his teenaged years. “It was there that I hung out with the kids of the Caucasian guests, [and that was my] start to speaking English,” recalled Chris, who spoke mainly Cantonese with his grandma.

The sprawling compound at the guesthouse was a favourite playground, Chris said. “I still remember the big frangipani tree [that I] used to climb. It was nice being able to play in the huge garden there, even by myself.” The guesthouse closed in the 1970s and today the site is home to terraced homes.

“I miss the place and, thinking back, I can still see the pavements, the stairs, the hallways, corridors…and the dining area where there’d be a grand Christmas party every year. It was also there that I first got drunk when I was about 14, much to my grandma’s wrath!”

“I was left to my own devices once inside these joints. [They were] full of secret doors and musky coolies.”

These days, Chris prefers to hang out in places like Geylang, Little India and Woh Hup Complex on Beach Road – places where he can meet locals and foreigners from all walks of life. Such places – away from the squeaky-clean neatness of mainstream Singapore and brimming with local colour and culture – suit the down-to-earth Chris just fine.

He told Singapore that he misses the days when there was a sense of openness when it came to interactions between foreigners and locals, compared to the undercurrents of “defensiveness” today, pointing to some public sentiments towards the influx of foreigners to Singapore.

Chris welcomes more visitors to Singapore shores, believing in the value of shared cultures, beliefs, interests and perspectives. “Life would be unbearable without them. I’d probably high-tail out of here the minute they disappear. Which is, fortunately, like, never!”

Gedung Kuning today, home to restaurant

Located at the nexus of a cultural enclave within the Kampong Glam area, Gedung Kuning stands regal, its yellow walls setting it apart from its neighbours. Today it may house a well-known eating place called Tepak Sireh (the name for the traditional metal containers used in storing betel leaves), but there’s a lot more to Gedung Kuning than meets the eye. For Hidayah Amin – whose great-grandfather Haji Yusoff first owned the house – Gedung Kuning is part of her identity.

“There is a Malay saying ‘Tanah tumpah darah’, which literally translates as ‘the place where blood was shed at birth’,” she said to Singapore by way of explaining her bond with the house of her birth. “My mother ‘shed blood’ in Gedung Kuning in giving birth to me. In that, I forged a close bond with the Yellow Mansion, my ‘birth soil’.”

In 1999, when Hidayah was 27, the house was reclaimed by the government as part of a cultural project in the area. The act triggered dormant memories in Hidayah and a keen sense that she was losing something precious. Hidayah’s grandmother used to tell stories from her childhood and of Hidayah’s great-grandparents. Then, Hidayah couldn’t fully understand why it was important to know about her heritage. When Gedung Kuning was acquired, it struck her that a part of her family’s history was gone, “taken away” and she felt “lost”. Moved by this, she started to record the rich history of the house, launching her website (www.gedungkuning.com) in 2004. This year, she will be publishing a collection of 27 historical narratives with the Singapore Heritage Society, entitled Gedung Kuning, Memories of a Malay Childhood (see below for an excerpt).

“Nenek (grandmother) told me a neighbour dropped by Gedung Kuning one day. He mustered the courage to ask Haji Yusoff to open the locked room. He wanted to see this hantu (ghost) from Java. As Haji Yusoff opened the room, he urged the neighbour to be quick. He must lock the door quickly lest the dust from outside settled on the neatly stacked velvet cloth that was exported from Germany. Yes, this was the ‘ghost’ that made Haji Yusoff rich – the rolls of beautiful velvet Haji Yusoff used to sew his songkoks!”

 Excerpt from Gedung Kuning, Memories of a Malay Childhood.

In the book, Hidayah retells family tales and memories of her great-grandfather, Haji Yusoff, whom history records as a pioneering Malay merchant. He sold tali pinggang (belts) and songkok (traditional Malay caps), hence his nickname Haji Yusoff ‘Tali Pinggang’ – ‘Haji Yusoff the Belt Merchant’. The merchant invested his profits in real estate, buying houses and lands in various parts of Singapore and Malaysia, including rubber, coconut and oil palm plantations in both countries. But his prized possession was Gedung Kuning, purchased in 1912, which became home to his descendants.

“Gedung Kuning was our paradise,” said Hidayah. Most members of her maternal side of the family were born and raised in the Yellow Mansion. There, they were taught religious and moral values, welcomed the poor who came to ask for alms and honoured the legacy of their ancestors for four generations.

It was a simple but contented life for Hidayah and her extended family. “When I reminisce about Gedung Kuning, it is the faces of various people I once knew that comes to mind,” she said, “The smiles and laughter of the family, the simple games played with my cousins under the rambutan tree, the occasional trips to the open field nearby to watch the wayang Cina (Chinese opera) during the Chinese Hungry Ghost Festival, joyous family gatherings, running up and down the steep wooden stairs, and playing a simple game of hide and seek around the house.”

Diners at Tepak Sireh today may admire the Anglo-Regency architecture of Gedung Kuning, but for Hidayah and her family, Gedung Kuning – the memory, if not the place – remains a potent symbol. Her book is a way to revisit and capture those childhood memories and history, which for the young woman, represents the essence of identity and home.

Young as he was (and perhaps precisely because of that), Derek, now 47, recalls his experiences in vaudeville detail: hundreds of sampans (flat-bottomed wooden boats) with fruits and fish, snake charmers, street magicians and “endless shops”. “There would also be lots of hot food prepared in front of you,” he told Singapore. “The smell, and it wasn’t really unpleasant, is a smell I’ve never smelled since! Singapore then had a smell of its own and was a very busy place.

“It was so hot that the front doors and the windows would be permanently open. We’d also have a ceiling fan going most of the time just to cool us down. The weather was constantly humid … [and] the heavy downpours of the monsoon season had us running outside when we first arrived, just to cool down. Even then, the rain was still warm. During the monsoon season, the drains would flood and the water would flow to the front door. Quite often, there were violent thunderstorms which seemed to shake the whole house.”

It might have been the vividness of his experiences, or his job as a history textbook writer, or both, that spurred Derek to start penning his recollections in a book, Sampans, Banyans and Rambutans – A Childhood in Singapore and Malaya, which was published in 2006.

He recalled how the locals were as fascinated with him as he was of them. For instance, his fair hair drew commentary wherever he passed. Despite the language barrier, he grew close to his Amah (housekeeper) and her family during his four years in Singapore: “I sort of remember the day when we left and said goodbye to Azizah and her family. Azizah had two of her own children; a boy called Fadzil and a daughter called Fadzilla. I don’t remember the kids speaking any English. They were similar in age to me though and would always come to my birthday parties.”

His book drew similar recollections; his mailbox got flooded with stories from more people who had memories of Singapore to share. These he compiled and published in Memories of Singapore and Malaya in 2007.

The book garnered even more interest and today, Derek is working on More Memories of Singapore and Malaya. “I was very pleased that so many people were interested in the book,” he said. “A lot of them who write to me were children then, but I also get a lot of emails from servicemen who were stationed there. I think they all see it as being an idyllic time of their lives.”

Derek visited Singapore and Malaysia once more in 1990. While modern Singapore is “a lot more built up and cleaner”, he misses the rich rusticity of the Singapore of his youth. “My favourite places in the 60s were Tiger Balm Gardens and the Botanic Gardens. The Botanic Gardens at the time were full of monkeys and we used to love feeding them,” he recalled.

“I loved the old Singapore but I love the new Singapore too. In some ways, they almost seem like different places. My childhood in the 1960s just seemed like a wonderful time which would be lovely to relive,” continued Derek. “There was something special about being brought up in Singapore.

If anyone is interested in contributing their photos, memories or tales, you can contact Derek at derek.tait@virgin.net.