The Singapore River a century ago

Until the 1970s-1980s, the river was the commercial heart of Singapore, where coolies loaded and unloaded goods between the warehouses lining the banks (known as 'godowns') and lighters, small boats acting as a link to the larger ships anchored in the harbour beyond the river mouth.

This image is taken from a tiny snapshot no more than a couple of inches across, and dates from around 1910, from the look of it. The buildings on the left were government offices, and now house the Asian Civilisations Museum. Many of the those facing us in the centre of the picture have been replaced by high-rise blocks (mainly banks), although a line of godown buildings to the right of this shot (outside the frame) has been preserved. A promenade runs along the bank, lined with restaurants and bars. All the boats disappeared in the late 1980s, as part of a clean-up exercise.

The Singapore River in the early 1900s

The blog awakens: a book published in November

Well, the previous post was in May 2015 and now it's the beginning of January 2016 - just the sort of gap that I promised myself to avoid. So what has happened in the interim?

On the work front, November saw the publication of my latest book, Transformation of a River: The Singapore River and Marina Bay. It was commissioned by Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority, and the design and production were handled by the company I worked for until 2008, publisher Editions Didier Millet.

The book cover, with an aerial photo of the barrage by Richard Koh. Seen from this angle, the channel to the Singapore River is the left-hand branch of the water body; the right fork leads to the Kallang River basin. Virtually all the land you see here is reclaimed.

When first conceptualised, the book was to focus on the history of the Singapore River; as it developed the emphasis shifted, giving equal prominence to Marina Bay, an artificial, freshwater reservoir  created by reclamation and the installation of a barrage, keeping the reservoir water separate from the seawater beyond it. The reservoir is fed not only by the Singapore River but also the Kallang River further east.

Two pages from the book. This is the story of Singapore's first civil airport, built on reclaimed land at the mouth of the Kallang River. The site of the airfield (in green on the map) is now a modern sports stadium.

The whole bay project is a massively ambitious planning exercise. It has taken some 40 years to complete. From the book's point of view, this broadening of perspective meant that we covered not only the commercial and social history of the rivers, but also the water supply and sewerage system, pollution control, and the development of all the waterfronts as a place for people to visit and enjoy.

It's quite a big book, full of information and interesting photos (old and new), and graphics.

The book's on sale at the URA office. I am not sure at this point when or how they intend to distribute it to the public at large. Lets hope. It's ideal reading for anybody coming to live in Singapore, or doing business here, wanting to know how and why the city and its waterfronts look as they do today.

The buildings around Marina Bay, under construction in 2008 (top) and today. The upper shot was taken with a Pentax DSLR with Sigma 17-70 lens; the lower one with a Panasonic GX7, with 12-32  lens. Both consist of multiple images stitched together with Autopano Pro.

The second half of 2015 wasn't all work and no travel. In fact I made two visits to London, one to Bali, and three to Thailand. Can't complain. More on all of this shortly.

A unique moment in Singapore

I find myself outside Singapore at one of the most significant moments in its post-Independence history. The current PM made a very dignified announcement with the news of LKY's death. By all accounts the crowds queuing to pay their respects at the lying-in-state are enormous; the personal impact on individuals considerable. That said, I'm told that the taxi-driver views of LKY and his contributions are polarised, as ever.

I can't help feeling that it's good for Singapore that this should be taking place now, some months ahead of the National Day marking 50 years of independence, so that the celebrations, in due course, can be forward-looking.

The international coverage of LKY's death and his coverage seems pretty balanced to me - a general acknowledgement of what he created, and a recognition of the trade-offs involved.

End of the Lee Kuan Yew era

As an outsider here, albeit a resident of nearly 20 years' standing, it's not for me to advocate political change following the death of Lee Kuan Yew, the formidable master architect of independent Singapore.

Whatever I may think personally, change is sure to come, sooner or later, for better or worse. It always seemed to me that Mr Lee generated a powerful magnetic force, a system of gravitational pulls, which held the assumptions and beliefs of the young nation in a more or less orderly system. That force may now be weakened, or disappear altogether. Leaders will no longer be able to invoke his name as a basis for legitimacy, or gain from their historic association with him. Material inequality, and, for example, the fact that the 'average' figures for the economic status of the population reflect in part the wealth of the super-rich minority, will come under greater scrutiny.

Generations have grown up who did not witness the creation of the Republic at first hand, and whose commitment to it has been reinforced by education, campaigns and callibrated media coverage. The possibility is that, from now on, political thinking will become increasingly diverse, and the government task of maintaining unity of purpose will become harder. Public consent will play a greater part in future, and simply announcing a plan will be no guarantee of its successful implementation.

Measures which might have been readily accepted if sanctioned by Mr Lee Kuan Yew will now be subject to greater examination and debate. The debates that are already taking place on the Internet will become louder, and audible to the public at large.

These change may be accelerated by the large numbers of recent migrants, who greatly value the economic benefits of living and working in Singapore, but have not been imbued with the Republic's nation-building ethos virtually from birth.

In short, Singapore politics will probably change. I don't know if the consequences will be good or bad.  I very much hope they will be good. But I'm sure the task of governing it will require more skill and imagination than ever before.

From Singapore to Cuba

The tickets are bought and paid for. In late March, barring the unforeseen, I’ll be off to Cuba. Usually I don’t swot up enough on the places I go to. This time, I’m trying harder. I’ve read a general history of Cuba. I’m reading the background sections of a guidebook (the Insight guide seems pretty good). Some interesting economic insights came from research I had to do some years ago when involved editorially with a book on a US bank, which had a history in pre-Castro Cuba connected with the sugar industry.

Over the last day or two I’ve got hooked on old travelogues, promotional films for tourists made in the 1950s and earlier. And I’ve been comparing the ones on Cuba with those about another island, the place where I happen to live – Singapore.

The fantasies they conjure up are not the same, and yet …


Both places are islands, Singapore very close to the equator, Cuba a bit further north. Cuba, a lot bigger, is ‘a tropical island with a short but eventful history, where the past is ever-present.’ The beaches offer 'luxury and laziness'. Singapore is a ‘teeming, varied island’. ‘Where else in the whole wide world’, the commentator asks, ‘can be found such variety, such contrast?’

The films tend to make only brief and tactful reference to colonial history. Cuba has been touched by ‘Spanish, English and US influence’ (understatement?). Columbus, pirates and the Spanish American War get an occasional look in. Singapore has Stamford Raffles as its founder, a scholar of Malay civilisation with very advanced ideas on the cultural interchange between east and west. (Well, up to a point … ) Colonialism in Singapore is represented by its reassuring ‘Britishness’. Surprisingly for the 1950s, a time of political ferment, in neither case is there much, or any, reference to the forces of anti colonialism.

The Capitol and Hotel Inglaterra, Havana. The Capitol was built in 1929.

Such films always seem to start with ‘arrival’: ships are shown steaming into Cuba against the backdrop of the Morro fortress. In Singapore, less impressively, one film shows a BOAC Super Constellation arriving at the old Paya Lebar airport, where the immigration official says heartily, ‘Have a good time! Can’t fail in Singapore.’ In earlier times, many tourists would have arrived at Clifford Pier, with the Bund-like buildings of Collyer Quay as the backdrop.

The former Supreme Court, Singapore, completed in 1939.

All the films stress the attractions of the hotels. In Singapore, they are ‘luxurious, romantic and comfortable’. No danger of cockroaches or lizards, it seems. Here, the iconic hotel is Raffles. In Cuba, it is the Hotel Nacional, much bigger, more Americanised.

For the visitor, both places are heady cocktails of old and new.

Cuba is ‘one of the most modern and colourful cities in the world’, with clean streets ‘lined with fine shops’, impressive monuments and civic buildings. At the same time it has a double face. ‘The modern world is superimposed on an ancient Spanish city’, characterized by siesta, horses and carts among the gas-guzzling Detroit iron, exotic fruits and vegetables, all presented to the accompaniment of exciting, rhythmic, Latin music. As we are told, ‘the past is ever-present.’ The films show a reassuring blend of sunshine, modernity, and just enough exotically foreign-looking people and Spanish colonial architecture to make you feel your trip was worthwhile. 

You don’t learn much about the everyday lives of actual Cubans, except that in some areas the workers on the sugar plantations ‘stlll use the old harvest methods, as they have for the past few centuries’. No mention of poverty or exploitation. 

The possibilities of Cuba are exciting, without being quite spelled out: ‘At night, the city takes on a new complexion.’ (Visitors are kept oblivious to the fact that the casinos, drug, abortion and prostitution rackets were run mostly by American criminal interests.) And, from time to time, ‘Cubans young and old’ enjoy a ‘fun-filled carnival’.

As for Singapore: ‘Perhaps it’s at night that this polyglot city comes most alive. When the lights come up, there every kind of entertainment to tempt you out, and every kind of eating – and dancing!’ The rather decorous ballroom/nightclub-style dancing shown in one film looks very tame compared to what was probably on offer in Cuba, although in those days, even Singapore had its possibilities if you knew where to go. Indeed, as we are told, it is ‘a city that never sleeps’.

Raffles Hotel, Singapore, around 1960

Like Cuba, Singapore also has a double face, or even multiple faces. ‘All the crush and tumble of the East are [sic] found side by side with luxurious living.’ Much is made of the cultural and ethnic diversity. ‘Where else in the whole wide world can be found such variety, such contrast? … A fair city of towers and spires, of minarets and domes, of ancient symbols and sacred creatures. Here is the world in miniature, a city proud to find room for so much, taking its character from the peoples it shelters.’ Then, as now, the streets were reassuringly clean.

For Singapore, announces one commentator, is ‘the crossroads of the world’. In other films it’s the crossroads of the East. Or the Gibraltar of the East. Whatever. At any rate, here ‘two oceans meet and the flags of every nation flutter’.

Around 1960, the waterfront at Collyer Quay, Singapore, which traditionally greeted visitors arriving by sea; now only the Asia Insurance Building (on the left) remains, surrounded and dwarfed by modern office high-rises

For American tourists in the fifties, Cuba offered a dash of tropical glamour less than a hundred miles from the American coast. You had to travel a lot further to get to Singapore. But it’s interesting to see how both were presented to visitors as exotic, romantic, and yet reassuringly familiar and safe. Strictly no politics.

After 50 years of the Castro regime, it’ll be interesting to see what charms Cuba has to offer. The cars are the main thing.

Painful devotion: Thaipusam

Last Tuesday, 3 February, if you were in Serangoon Road, you would have seen the Thaipusam procession.  This can seem shocking when you encounter it for the first time. It’s an annual Hindu tradition. After lengthy spiritual preparation, devotees take part in a ceremonial procession. Many carry kavadis, elaborate cage-like structures made of wood or steel, many of them spiked or held in place by hooks pushed through the skin. 

This mortification of the flesh honours the deity Subramaniam, or Murugan. The kavadi is said to represents a mountain with Lord Subramaniam at the summit. The procession takes place usually in January or February (in the Tamil month of Thai). Women also take part, often carrying an offering, in the form of a pot of milk.

 The tradition comes from South India, where many of the people who make up Singapore’s Indian community have their roots. But there’s an irony. In India itself, during the 1940s and 1950s, many temples banned the traditional kavadis. Apparently, it’s only in Singapore and Malaysia that you can still see them – the celebration of Thaipusam at the Batu Caves in Malaysia is even more elaborate than what happens here in Singapore.

Over a century ago Thaipusam was declared a public holiday in Singapore, but lost that status to Deepavali in the 1960s. The issue of which festival should be officially recognized was hotly debated for many years by the Indian community, with Thaipusam backed mostly by Indians from the South.

The devotees prepare themselves at the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple in Serangoon Road. They then slowly make their way along a 4-kilometre route to the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple at Tank Road, in the process crossing some major thoroughfares with predictable effects on traffic congestion in the city centre.

Many of the people in the procession have elaborately ornamented metal skewers pushed horizontally through both cheeks and/or vertically through their tongues. You might find this extreme self-mortification difficult to understand, bizarre even. But wait a moment. Is it any more so than the self-flagellation practised for centuries by some Roman Catholics?

I was one of maybe hundreds of people pointing my camera at the devotees. Are they a legitimate subject for photography by anthropologists (at the top end of the market) or gawping amateur snappers and tourists (my end of the market)? Were the crowds lining the routes indulging in slightly voyeuristic behaviour, intruding on what some might see as a private devotional experience? As a public procession, I suppose it’s fair game.

Classic rumblings

Singapore is one of the most expensive places in the world to run a car. I wouldn't dream of owning one. It's probably cheaper to get taxis hourly, day and night, seven days a week. This is not an obvious setting for the start of a long-distance endurance rally for classic vehicles. But given the cost of participation in all such events, maybe Raffles Hotel, Singapore, was an appropriate choice after all. Some 70 starters were listed for departure on the morning of Sunday 1 February. The event was the 'Road to Mandalay' rally, which would take them from Singapore up through Malaysia and Thailand to Mandalay, in the middle of Burma. OK, Myanmar (I see that even the BBC has given in on that one).

This was the first rally event of any kind I've witnessed at first hand. The cars ranged in date from a vast 1907 Itala and a 1924 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost to a 1974 Leyland P76.

The Leyland P76 rumbles out of Raffles Hotel into Beach Road

It was interesting to see the P76. This was a valiant but commercially unsuccessful effort by Leyland in Australia to develop a car suited to the local market, with a boot allegedly big enough to accommodate a fully grown sheep, and a variant of the Buick-derived V8 engine used in Britain by Rover. There were several Bentleys from the 1920s, four Chevrolets from the 1930s, and some sporting elegance in the form of an Alvis or two, an AC, and four Jaguars – a 1938 SS100, a 1956  XK140 (driven by the Sultan of Selangor), a 1958 XK150, and a 1959 Mk 1.

Bruising Bentleys, 1929 and 1925 respectively

When it comes to cars, we all have personal favourites. Parked out in front of the hotel the day before the start was a 1934 Packard convertible. That awoke memories of the 1937 Packard 120 station wagon my father bought for £200 as family transport in the very early 1950s – a lot of money in those days, when cars were in short supply and our 1949 L-type Vauxhall Velox wasn't big enough to carry a family of six in comfort on long journeys.  The 1954 Sunbeam Alpine reminded me of the 1956 Sunbeam Mark III (the last last incarnation of the Sunbeam-Talbot 90) that I drove during my last year at university. There was a fine 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible, very much the kind of American car one lusted after as a 10-year-old, with the sort of styling that the original Vauxhall Victor sought to emulate, unsuccessfully. A 1960 Chevrolet Impala was pretty impressive, although a product of the time when Detroit started to lose its grip on reality, not to regain it for many years.

Behind the stone guard is the classic radiator grille of a 1934 Packard

Sunbeam Alpine, derived from the Sunbeam-Talbot 90, arguably the best-looking car in the rally

There were some other cars from the 1960s and 1970s, but it's hard to get enthusiastic about a Mercedes-Benz 220SE, or a Ford Mustang, or a Datsun 240Z. But that's a personal thing. Your mileage, as they say, may vary.

I'm not sure why I still find classic cars exciting. I loved owning my first few cars, from a 1932 Austin Seven (£10) onwards, but didn't particularly enjoy wielding a spanner. I certainly couldn't afford today's cost of ownership, and wouldn't have anywhere to garage a classic car if someone offered me one as a gift. Even driving one, in today's overcrowded traffic conditions, would be less enjoyable than it was exactly 50 years ago in July, when I started driving lessons. But they are appealing to look at, and many of them – at least those with six cylinders or more – make a wonderful sound.

Classic Detroit iron, the 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. Most American cars still had separate chassis in the 1950s, which made building convertibles easier

Talking to a few people at the start, I was trying to find out how much mechanical expertise the competitors had. The rally organisers were providing quite a bit of technical support, but even a vast bank balance wouldn't do you much good if your radiator sprang a massive leak deep in rural Thailand.  I must check on progress in subsequent days. Meanwhile I can fantasise.