Reflective Analysis of Interactive tour 'Chronicles of Little India'

Objective:

Little India is undeniably a place with a collection of historical and cultural richness. Walking around Little India, one would feel surrounded and blended into their rich culture. This kind of experience is different from that of many places in Singapore, in which the surroundings are fast-changing and adapting to human’s lifestyle.

Through numerous personal experiences and deriving around the area, I feel that there are a lot of amazing sounds, smells, interactions and gossips that could be found from this little dot of Singapore. Interviews are also a critical source for Little India’s remapping. Interviews with the Indian Jewellery and Chinese coffee-shop owners and Desker road’s gambling guard have given me unique insights of the beauty of Little India. The beauty of Little India lies beyond the tourism make-out of the area.





What is everyone’s first impression of Little India? Yes, it’s the 24-hour operating Mustafa Centre. Mustafa Centre sells the most affordable and variable commodities that caters mainly to the lowly-paid foreign workers that lived around the area. These foreign workers are frequently depicted as the unwelcomed and discriminated population in this city; hence they are usually out of place in most shopper malls. To them, Mustafa serves as a recreation haven that gives them the most assurance in this city. It is depicted as the shining jewel in Little India that seeks to bring together all Indians in Singapore.



The Lembu Road’s Open space is another essence in Little India that serves as a gathering corner for Indian community and foreign workers. However, this Open space that is initially built for the welfare of foreign workers is even guarded against by the authority. There is an obvious signboard around the area that stated ‘Police Camera in Operation’. What freedom is there in reality when privacy is invaded? The place name and its surveillance seem to be an irony.




From my first experience of walking around the streets, I can already feel the heavy religious background of Little India. That can be illustrated from their heavy jasmine flowers, Indian religious songs, bird fortune telling and even huge crowds gathering for temple worshipping. The temple and religious aspect seems to create an indescribable honor among the Indian community. Among many talks are the gossips about Desker road. Many people may know about Desker road, but the insider-info of the area is vague. Many people choose to avoid talking about the area, and some may even fake ignorance of the activities going on in the area. We were even told that the female and male would avoid going pass the area, to avoid mistaken cases by their known friends. The alley of Desker road seems to evoke such eerie and negative emotions that repel others away. This serves to bring out the mystery part of Little India.

Therefore in this project, I wish to create a tour that could illustrate out the life within Little India through its four energy sources, namely its honor, mystery, recreation and even liberty. A lot of ideas had come through my mind, such as exploring Little India’s life through on-site visiting of the four areas, flash movie, narrative story and etc. After many discussions, my group decided to create a mythical narrative tour based on a mixture of our personal experiences, historical facts and mythical legends. The mythical tour will be based on Little India’s highly-regarded Sri Ruthra Kaliamman Temple (honor), the avoided alleys of Desker Road (mystery), Mustafa Centre (recreation) and also the Lembu Road’s open space (liberty).

By relating parts of little India to mythical legends, my group is trying to create an interesting story plot so that the audiences can be easily led into the remapped Little India. Through this electronic book we named ‘Chronicles of Little India’, I hope my audience can examine Little India from a different perspective, which is a shift away from the factual knowledge we obtain from existing guidebooks. To us, History is subjective and there can be many versions to it. In a bid for the user to have a fresh new experience, we have defamiliarised the four chosen places in Little India, followed by analysing the stereotypes and perceptions people have of Little India, then invert them and try to fill in the gaps with our imagination and own experience.

Through the virtual tour, I hope that my audiences can gain new insights of culturally rich Little India. The book will be written from the first person perspective, so that the audiences can personally experience the circumstances and the feelings Little India have evoked in my group. Hopefully, the virtual tour will allow the audiences to view Little India from another angle.

The virtual tour “Chronicles of Little India”:
http://www.pixelblowup.com/matthias/ADM420/

Outcome:

I was basically pleased with my group’s final virtual presentation of “Chronicles of Little India”. At first thought, the idea is to present the virtual tour by projecting the electronic book in front of the whole class. However taking note that each person’s time specificity may be different, it is understood that each person’s pace and speed of reading a text is relatively different. In order not to deprive each audience of the emotions evoked from reading the narration, I decided that the presentation is best efficiently carried out when the audience gains control of the book, and hence allowing them to develop personal and direct experience through the whole concept. However, we know that there may be limitations of allowing personal laptops to each of the 7 group members. Eventually, we resolved this small limitation by assigning 2 persons to each laptop.

Even though the decision had been made that we are allowing our audiences to have their personal experience on the virtual tour, we oversee the silence and awkwardness that may arise when each individual is carrying on their virtual tour. I felt that the silence should be exchanged for by the sound and audio system. I should have added in the temple praying sound for the temple pages, the eerie and wind-howling sound to create the tense feeling the Pontianak exert upon the Desker Road and finally the magical music ‘A whole new world’ from Aladdin movie soundtrack to celebrate Aladdin’s transformation story from-rags-to-riches. However, I feel very well-applauded for the combination of narrative and visual drawings within the book. I feel that without any of the either, the visual tour experience of the audience will not be met fully. The self-felt flick pages concept of the book is also great, given that it really seem to create a flicking-the-book feeling for the audiences. Nevertheless, I have forgotten that the self-felt flick pages need a mouse to direct the cursor in a better way. Using the laptop own self-touch mouse, it will require 2 fingers to move the cursor, hence I should have arranged mouse for everyone to attach to their computers. Moreover due to restrictive resources, the screen may be too small for the audience to make out the text and the photos. The electronic book should have set to 900 x 600 pixels. The settings of the atmosphere of the electronic book are cleverly organized with a foreword to describe the purpose and agenda of the user’s movement and slowly lead them into the remapped Little India storyline. The credits section of the story is well-fitted into the book, to provide an overall ending and conclusion of the remapping. The well-organized presentation of the book with its classification (foreword, story, credits) has abandoned any needs for our group’s verbal presentation and replaces it with the self-felt experience of the user.

One concerning factor for the visual images is the copyright issues of the photos of Aladdin and Kali. However considering that this is just our school project, I believe the copyright issue shouldn’t be too restrictive in my project. To make the pictures more lively, our group members divide our work and carry out speed painting to make the pictures illustrate the forceful elements we wanted in each storyboarding pictures.

The connection of the characters in the narrative story and the real places is based on intensive research of the characters’ characteristics. For example, the connection of Kali’s ferocity and Sri Ruthra Kaliamman Temple is based upon the real story. I have added emphasis to bring in as much truth to the story so that the history will not be distorted so much that the project’s objective is undermined.

Feedback:

Compiling the feedbacks taken by the class and Lucy, I feel that my group’s virtual tour is a fair success. However, there are some areas of improvements that should have being noted.

Lucy had pointed out that the Kali’s story will be well-narrated if the story also explains the characters of the other gods and demons, such as Raktabija, Shiva and Skanda. When I try to put myself in the layman position and experience the electronic book myself, I finally understand the users’ confusion of who is Raktabija, Shiva and Skanda. Even though I did add in some basic understanding of Raktabija being a demonized character, the development of each of their roles is not clearly developed yet. I found loopholes in this area and I should have added in some elaboration of the dramatic war between Kali and Raktabija in order to heighten the climax of the story.

As the story slowly proceeds to the Desker Road story, it serves to be a confusing path for the user to undertake. The other group has commented that they have not known that the eerie place in the story is actually the inverted Desker Road until the history part was told. The graphics of the story should have being done more closely to the real alleys of Desker Road. I should have allowed the real Desker Road alleys as the background and place the forestly atmosphere inside the visual arts. However due to restriction of the heavily guarded Desker alleys, my group only manage to capture one photo of the Desker alley while touring the area. Still, the photo is not well-fitted into the story. To find the most familiarization to Desker Road, we decide to reframe Desker alley as an eerie and ‘out-of-bound’ forest that people may choose to avoid.

However, my group may have dragged the story a bit too far that it has lost the realism of Desker Road. Through many interviews, we had gained understanding that Desker Road is the avoided place of Little India and that there are a number of secret activities (gambling and prostitution) going on there. We had tried to depict the sex workers there as poor victims using the sad story of Pontianak. In this way, we thought that we are removing the common stereotypes people have for those sex workers. However, we have not observed that we may have been stereotyping them in another form. When we try to relate them to the victim role, we are stereotyping that all the sex workers there are doing it not of their will and they are being forced into the situation. We are sympathizing with them from our perspective, without noting that sometimes they are prostituting out of their own will and they do not wish for any sympathy. In relation, Lucy commented that we should have realism to the real myth that Pontianaks are vengeful spirits instead of them being soft. More scary elements of the place should have been positioned in the Desker Road graphics and narration. We can add in the celebration of the Pontianaks who are actually an army of prostitutes. We can relate the similarity of the Pontianaks trying to attract man to their side to slaughter them for their revenge to the prostitutes trying to attract customers for their livelihood. We should also be using more cosntemporary images of Desker road, such as including and blending in the pictures of prostitutes if possible.

The Aladdin part is the most celebrated part of all the comments given by the class. There is a parallel similarity of Aladdin’s rags-to-riches story and the real Mustafa story of creating a small stall business to today’s multi-millions complex business. However, more richness of Mustafa should have been focused on, such as the simple tour of the Mustafa Centre. The narration part should have been more developed. Being a place which sells everything that can be found in India, Mustafa serves as a great connection of the Indians back to their memory times in India. Stepping into Mustafa is a rich experience of the culture of Little India. Hence, the in-depth development of story inside Mustafa centre should have been more built up.

The next scene of the beach has been a shock to the audiences as the stimulation and expectation of the Mustafa story has not yet being met. The narration seems to flow a bit too fast from the Mustafa centre to the Open space. Lucy had commented that she enjoyed the ambience created in the Open space, relaxing as heard from the name (as depict from the beach scene) but yet tensing from the surveillance cameras located around the area (as depict from the glaring eyes of high above). The good use of the beach has created the impression every individual seeks for, an open space where their desires are free to roam. That reveals the wish for the mass public to escape from the stone pavements in every malls, house and walking paths and explore what is beneath the city. However, the freedom of one is always restricted by the surveillance of the authority. The police surveillance of Lembu Road’s Open space in Little India has arisen from the discrimination and mistrust of the foreign workers in this city. It seems to depict the slight curtailment of personal liberty and freedom of expression suppressed by the authority in this city.

Overall, the story plot is commented to be interesting, yet there should be better transition between the narration of each hotspots, or even having a connection between them. The last two scenes at the Open space should involve a conclusion of all the stories and it may have been interesting to have the characters reacting to one another. One of such idea is arrange for a plot to have all the characters Kali, Aladdin and Pontianak seated together on the beach.

National Museum-- Lost in the City

Singapore is a place we live in. A neighbourhood is where we may grow up in. But how well do we know these places and how well do we stand in these places? A city is inescapable from a person’s life, but is there any possibility a person can escape from a city? Lost in the city may not necessary happen in this transportation-convenient Singapore today, but may now instead be emotionally lost in this fast-paced Singapore.

The exhibition is co-held by 5 Singapore-based artists, namely Justin Lee, Genevieve Chua, Michael Lee, and Joo Choo Lin and Chun Kai Qun who play out their responses to the city as part of this year's Singapore Art Show, at the vast spaces of the National Museum's Rotunda, Glass Passage, Glass Atrium and The Atelier.




The first visual art started off with a collaboration between Choon Lin and Kai Qun, who are both concerned with the rapid pace of urban development, especially the adverse effects on the environment and the behaviour of its inhabitants. The animation shows the plight of creatures when their land is being developed, while the diorama, which is also used as a scene in the animation, is a wasteland. The creatures seem to represent us Singaporeans living in a construction-based environment. As Singapore is a relatively small country, everywhere and everyday we can see new buildings on the rise and neighbourhood reconstruction is happening everywhere. Construction is indeed a way to modernization and improving people physical well-beings (example life upgrade can benefit the residents in the long run). However, construction is a scary image that people fear in their life. Noise pollution and physical changes are found in statistics to be increasing stress in individual’s life. Construction has impact our life so much that we are losing our culture and traditions. Chinatown is been revamped until the external buildings’ design look like intact but the cultures and emotions evoked by the buildings are all gone.




The second visual art illustrates Justin Lee by featuring a small army of terracotta warriors, gentle ladies from olden Tang dynasty China, and auspicious cranes in a procession ceremony. The figurines are interestingly integrated with elements of contrasting commercialisation such as technology gadgets - headphones, laptops, and coca cola cans. Warriers listening to MP3 while marching, gentle ladies playing with laptop and even auspicious cranes play around with coke cans. Doesn’t it serve like an irony? Chinese soldiers during the dynasty periods are always depict as serious and order-controlling slaves of the emperors. However, Justin chooses to portray that with modernization, even the serious-looking soldiers will slacken with the fun that modernization brings for today’s individuals. Even the gentle ladies will also pick laptop and internet as their past-time, contrast to our perception of virtuous ladies being well-versed in qin (music instruments), qi (chess), shu (poetry), hua (paintings). Finally, with modernization, even the Chinese offerings to the auspicious cranes during the procession ceremony may revert to coca cola instead of the traditional offering items such as fruits and chicken.
It seems like modernization is influencing all over the world that even traditions and perceptions are evolving. Traditions like reading books are giving way to e-books. Interestingly, Justin chooses to show a contrast between the olden traditions and people and those of technology gadgets. It seems to indicate modernization go all the way out to even haunting the old traditions to give way. Even religion is on the decline. Is our traditions and culture giving way? Yes I believe so.






The third visual art presents a model-and-text installation of “National Columbarium of Singapore” created by Michael Lee Hong Hwe. The installation features 100 of lost Singapore architecture which includes models of demolished buildings as well as fictitious and unbuilt structures. The miniature buildings that we saw in HDB or other housing development exhibitions are always illustrate in real colours and inbuilt in realistic environment. However, the installations are all painted in white. It seems to trigger one’s memory and illustrates the 100 lost architectures living in another space. Most of the lost architectures are demolished before my birth so I don’t have many emotion-linked memories of them. However, this visual art indeed triggers my feeling towards the impact of urban development, memory, and naming. Previously before government intervention, Singapore-based company was allowed to use the word “Singapore” in the company naming. However, from the early 90s onwards, Singapore-based companies are not allowed to do so anymore. Isn’t Singapore urban development history interesting?



The fourth visual art presents a video of “Full Moon & Foxes” by Genevieve Chua. The video seems to illustrate a narrative of late adolescence and the period towards the end of innocence. When I enter the dark room, I was instantly struck by fear and alertness. I sit in the middle of the room. The screen before me starts to play. The 2 screens in front of me seem like the eyes of mine and my real side is viewing every action from behind my eye balls. Sometimes, I feel myself viewing a person, sometimes many people at one people. The people I saw triggers fear within me. They seem to be related to me in some sense, certainly they are not me. But indeed they seem to remind me of myself. The foxes moving in front of me all seem to be troubled and seem like their hearts are facing death. Everyone seems tired to move on, move on to the next stage of adolescence, which is maturity. Innocence is always the best bet in the society. For example, underage is the best bet for escaping jail sentence when commit a crime. Fear is normally the word used in today’s times to describe growing up, especially for girls. However, regardless girl or boy, growing up represents a sense of responsibility and burden.

National Museum-- Image of our Landscape

The image of our landscape, are images documented in the form of photographs, prints and even paintings by people who came to Singapore in the 19th century. They are the people holding different occupations, such as official surveyors, artists, administrators and even leisure travelers who stopped at Singapore in their journey around the world.

On the path of our exploration of Singapore through 19th Century, I felt like I was picturing the 19th century olden Singapore from far ashore to walking deeper and inside of the history and structure of Singapore. From the paintings and drawings of the travellers’ 1st impressions of Singapore, I can see that their drawing pattern is very similar. All of the travellers see Singapore as a good harbour with a number of English steamships and Tua Kow, moreover with a good view of the Forbidden Hill (aka Fort Canning Hill). There are a number of Paintings that presented a perspective taken from ships anchored at sea, a distance from the coast.

Through these exhibit pictures, we viewers can get to have an understanding of what are the modes of transports in the earler days. Twakow, a Chinese ship is a mode of transport that brought hundreds and thousands of Chinese coolies and immigrants from China to Singapore. The immigrants are all packed like sardines on the ship. There were even death counts results from such ill hygiene condition. This situation can’t be seen in today’s times anymore. However, it reminds me of the cases of packed foreign workers on the vans, the mean of transport to send them off and to work. Even though Singapore are said to be a first class country, our treatments to our foreign labour doesn’t seem to differ too much from the past. Similarly, our ill-treatments of maids are infamously around here.

From photographs and paintings, we can even get to interpret the “Raffles Town Plan” and how Singapore is shaped before and after the town allocation Before Raffles town allocation, Singapore is like a small village which lived a number of sultans and malay fish-villagers. Most of them stay in slums or kampongs. With Raffles development of Singapore being a good port base, boat quay became one of the key areas along the Singapore River in 1823 that held a lot of economic trading activities there. Now our Singapore River has been transformed. Our government has reversed everything to changing Boat quay and Clarke quay into pubs and restaurant hangouts, including clean-up of the river. Gone are the days.


Paintings taken from forbidden hill also illustrate the landscape of the past Singapore. From Forbidden Hill, we can even see the town structure in the Chinatown area and Little India area. I realize that from the English paintings, it is always depicted that the westerners are always the enjoyer (either having a picnic or view gazing) while the Chinese and Indian are always the servant character (helping the western carry luggage etc).

I love the art piece of the whole Singapore view by Percy Carpenter the most. It was acknowledged as the best art piece that illustrates the whole landscape of Singapore drawn from the Forbidden Hill. Through the paintings, I can even find the location of the current LAU PAT SAT on the painting (by the guidance of the tour volunteer) and even the location of Chinatown. Contrasting to the current Singapore outline and map, I can recognize that Singapore is no longer the same as before. There is a lot of reclaimed land, including those in Raffles place. In the past, the location of LAU PAT SAT is lying along the border of the sea. Hence now when I go to Raffles place or anywhere near or beside LAU PAT SAT, I will also ponder where am I standing? On a reclaimed land or the real Singapore land ground. The tour instructor even made a joke that it may be because Raffles place is on a reclaimed land, hence people working there are able to feel the slight impact from Indonesia earthquake.

And did I ever know that Singapore was once a plantation ground for cultivate vegetables pepper and gambit which are important articles of export. The Raffles town allocation has gone to the extent of cutting down the dense jungle to build the plantation. What they sacrifice were the best beauty nature of Singapore, in which Singapore with its valleys, plains, grand trees and undulating hills was indeed very beautiful in 1846. However, now all Singapore’s nature was cut down for the sake for modernization and housing development. Now that’s all left are just tourists and environmentists’ critiques of Singapore’s fake nature and diminishing culture. Singapore has no mountains and hills, maybe what we Singapore do acclaimed as our only hill is the Bukit Timah Hill and Fort Canning Park. Although Singapore is well-known as a greenery city with flowers and trees everywhere, it is saddening to know that most of them are relocated there. The Singapore orchid is even planted in charcoal to sustain its life and colour in the humid Singapore. However, what sacrifices again is the fragrance (nature) again.

Many paintings’ emphasis of Esplanade also illustrates Esplanade area during the 19th century as a popular meeting place for residents to interact and engage in recreational activities. The architecture and bungalows during the 19th century also creates sensational historical memories. The government house (aka angsana), national library and the national museum (where I was standing at when viewing the exhibition) were all the landmarks that made its stand on Singapore since the 19th century. What differs may be the external structure and designs add to it in today times.

“Desire Paths” Tour of Little India --- spell#7 performance

Little India is Singapore’s Indian heartland, yet another cultural heritage site in Singapore. It used to be a division where Indian immigrants would reside in olden days, but under Singapore government’s policy for racial harmony, the immigrant population (just like Chinese and other immigrants) was spatially segregated into different parts of the islands. However, that doesn’t seem to stop Little India been a buzzing hangout for our fellow Indians friends and foeigner workers from Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Where is Little India? To get to this prominent part of Singapore tourist attraction, one can just grab a taxi or even conveniently by MRT north-east line which will lead u directly to Little India. The main 3 types of tourist attractions to explore Singapore’s multi-racial cultures are to visit Chinatown, Little India and also Kampong Glam. But truly speaking of the cultures and tradition preservation, only Little India seems to be the only settlement in Singapore that still avoids the government mass transformation (or should I take it as destruction instead? haha) But what really makes Little India unique is its beautiful street (no big heavy traffic, but instead more of human traffic walking along the roadside) and beautiful shops that sell erotic stuffs that seem extinct in other parts of Singapore.

Spell#7 performance allows us Singaporeans a chance to get to know this part of Singapore in a greater depth. Singapore is a fast pace country. Our walking pace is so fast that we may miss out significant details even without knowing it.

Through the tour, I realized that Little India area was developed around a former settlement for Indian convicts. Its location along the Serangoon River originally made it attractive for raising cattle, and trade in livestock was once prominent in the area. Eventually, other economic activity developed, and by the turn of the 20th century, the area began to look like an Indian ethnic neighbourhood.


Without Spell#7 tour, I may not even know:
 Where is the Tekka Market Centre?
 Fresh jasmine flowers string together for Indian religious purposes. The type of stringing flowers culture I think can only find in Little India market nowadays.
 Fortune told by psychic parrot. This kind of fortune telling can also only be found in Little India only already. The charge is 3 dollars per fortune told.
 Henna Tattoing ( I saw this stall along the way of spell#7 tour path)
 There is Chinese working in Little India too. (The 2 brothers who own the coffee shop at Upper Weld Road) I had always thought only Indian work in Little India. How ignorant am i.
 Beautiful shophouses that alike those structures in Chinatown, expect that Chinatown ones are very commercial now.
 Little India is full of stuffs, after I move out of another alley; there are even car servicing shops here. This just seems like a self-sufficient small town of its own.
 Famous Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple
 There are 4 payphones behind the temple. That is a frequent place for those foreign workers to use their IDD call cards to call back to their respective countries.

From my first experience of walking around the streets, I can already feel the heavy religious background of Little India. That can be illustrated from their heavy jasmine flowers, Indian religious songs, fortune telling and even huge crowds gathering for temple worshipping. The temple and religious aspect seems to create an indescribable honor among the Indian community.


No doubt that Little India is a vibrant and colourful ethnic quarter that always seems to be bustling with people from all races who wish to savour Indian food and buy Indian stuffs. I can always find the best Indian food in Little India! There are clusters of old yet beautiful shophouses in Little India. Moreover, Little India never sleeps. I can shop in this very big Mustafa shopping centre that opens 24-hrs a day, 7-days a week! This shopping centre offers almost everything; from fresh vegetables, meats, other groceries to furniture, electronic products, apparels, stationery, car accessories, and even jewellery. This is a typical “mama” shop, that’s what the locals called it. Though the shop is small, i can find magazines, newspapers, drinks, snacks, cigarettes, medications, stationery, toys and many more (Who knows? Maybe 7-eleven is an imitated venture of these “mama” shops). Now there aren’t many mama shops left in Singapore, and most of them are found in those older neighborhoods (I stay in Bukit Batok which still have a number of these shops around. So lucky). However, as bigger chains of convenient shops like NTUC, 7-eleven operate in increasing area; I believe there might be days these “mama” shops may be cease to exist. So saddening.
P.S: (But why these grocery shops are called “mama” shop? From findings, I realize Mama = Uncle. So it’s actually called Uncle shop).

Another phenomenon we will see in Little India is that there are a number of Indian shops selling ethnic jewellery. Anyone passing by will be dazzled by all these ethnic gold jewellery elegantly displayed in the showcases. Little India is so full of such amazing culture and findings.

NUS Museum-- Ivan Poluni

The significant meaning of "I Poluni" means not only "Ivan Poluni", but also refers to "I taking on the tour with Poluni". The exhibition had gathered information and memories that Poluni had collected during all his years in Malaya and also Singapore from the 50's to the 90's. Now assuming the role of Ivan Poluni himself, i am now going to travel back to the times when he first stepped foot into Malaya and Singapore.

Before i start traveling, i get prepared my passport stamped and now step slowly towards the other space. It is an interesting fact that the room is vertical in depth and the photos and audio are placed in line after another. It seems to really give me the feeling of a whole of memories in line waiting for me to reveal.




Poluni seem to be doing a survey study on the tribal people. He felt that tribal societies are at the polar extreme from modernized communities. Poluni tried to illustrate the constrast of the wide variation in bio-social response between modernized world and the Tribal people. Therefore from a 3 photos series of Murul Tribes, we can see that Poluni did an interesting and irony contrast of the Murul tribe and the westernized fellows.



For the first 2 photos, it is evident that Murul tribal people guys wear only a cloth to cover their private parts, without nothing else (no shoes, no socks, no clothes) as accessories or protection. However for the 3rd photos, it is evident that the western guy is nude with only socks and shoes. Why is that so, this is a funny irony analysis of tribal social perception. Tribal people is conservative in their thinking and feel that only the most important part that they need to carry out their life journey serves the most meaning. Whereas, the other body parts such as feet, and body are just a surface body, we don need to hide them. In contrast, the westernized people feel that our feet is the one that helps us to walk on our journey, whereas the guy’s penis (or even women breasts') is just a sexual object. The difference is westernized treat sex (represented by penis) as casual and a love making chance whereas i feel tribal people treat sex(represented by penis) as their procreation terms.


I was wondering to myself whether their marriage also stands the procreation meaning. Or else in the photo of ‘Christian wedding of a Tambunan couple in Sabah’, why the couple doesn’t look real happy, blissful and in love as those marriages we encountered in modernized weddings. Or is it just their culture and Tribal characteristics never to reveal their real happiness to people.



I reach the crossroads where one lead on to Poluni’s medical research and another to his footage tour. I carried on the vertical footage tour first. Now poluni seem to encounter a chinese farmer family in Singapore Paya Lebar. There were 7 kids and one granny and the 2 parents. It seems like a typical happy family of 3 generations. There were at least 4 boys. Suddenly it pushs me to think of the "favor boy over girls" issue in the olden days and having many kids is common so that they can help out with the farming work.

Followed on are a lot of photos about who he met and what he encountered in Malaya. Finally I reach a chair that is placed in front of the plasma tv. It seems like all the previous photos that we passed by is just his random thoughts and memories about his times in Malaya and Singapore. The chair seems to indicate that it was times he lay back and played back his previous memories (but this time to the audience). I would love to listen to Poluni talked with visual effects about the olden times, however too bad that the speakers don’t seem to be working. Luckily for me, I would still make out the pictures in the tv and interpret myself the situations in the video. Children playing a spinning nut, Fishing game and even the ‘Jong’ sail sea game seem to be telling us ‘a picture tells a million words’ of the simple life in the past Malaya and what he had encountered. Caucasians and Malays are already living in Harmony during that time. The video lasted on for around 13 mins and I stand up to prepare myself to Poluni’s medical life.



In the section of Poluni’s medical life, the exhibition had really made me feel in the sudden world of Dr Poluni. Why is that so? With maps, patients’ photo (the infected eye & the family consultation) and the huge long showcase of documents, cameras and books, I feel like I was in an office. If I can touch the artifacts, I believe everything could seem more realistic. The huge map of photos on the wall seems to give me a great explosion of memories of everything Poluni encountered. The photos seem so far from me, yet so familiar of such we can saw in our grandparents’ precious photo album.

I entered into the small room and saw the video of old Poluni, relating to his olden days. However, no sound again. Too bad. The great picture of Tuas reclamation was impactful to me, since it is near where ntu is and is a common industrial area of the west region. I never seem to ponder how the previous Tuas look like, suddenly looking at the big vast land; I could only utter a “wah”


Stepping out of Poluni memories is like gaining a knowledge box of a city I never know. The voices from the recorder and images seem to linger in my head as I walk out of the museum.