Tag: history

  • For Cartophiles – Map Mania at the NLB

    I love maps, and I was pleasantly surprised when I made my way up to rehearsals at the Drama Centre Theatre yesterday, because there was this display in the lobby of the National Library (Central) featuring the first topographical map of Singapore. That is part of an exhibition on maps called “Geo|Graphic: Celebrating Maps and their Stories“.…

  • My Father And The Gangster Fella Lee Kuan Yew

    I remember the story my father told me about the time he was a clerk in a bus company in Singapore. It was some time in the 1950s, and some of us will recall that these were troubled times. I didn’t get much detail from the many times my father told and retold the story…

  • Singapore’s Oskar Schindler

    They either never taught us this in history lessons, or I just wasn’t paying attention. Thanks to a contributor on sammyboy.com, I found out that one of the heroes of the Japanese Occupation in Singapore was Japanese. Shinozaki Mamoru was a press attache with the Imperial Foreign Service and was assigned to Singapore before the…

  • Why Tanglin has a Halt

    Yesterday, someone tweeted something quite innocuous – about food and about how she was about to eat food – but the locality she tweeted about – “Tanglin Halt” – piqued my interest. I’ve always wondered who Tanglin was named for, and why there is (or was) a “Halt” in Tanglin. It isn’t exactly a burning…

  • The librarian tried his darndest

    The Ask The Librarian service emailed me with his team’s findings, and found the most likely site of Tan Seng Poh’s mansion: You might find this useful. Excerpt from: Title: One hundred years’ history of the Chinese in Singapore / Song Ong Siang ; introduction by Edwin Lee. Author: Song, Ong Siang, Sir, 1871-1941. Publisher:…