9th August 2008, 43th Singapore National Day

9th August 2008 : 43th National Day for the republic of Singapore. A country of migrants fore-fathers from Indonesia, Malaysia, India, China and Arab world streaming in since the 1820's. One hundred years later, my paternal grandmother came from Guangzhou Province and business herself as a contractor in civil work, supplying workmen for the building sector then... primarily to build roads, shop houses, zinc roofed factory with cemented support pillars.

Immigrants were travelling the world in search of a livelihood. The picture on the left is a TRAVELLER PALM; it was the covering page of a 280 pages photo book produced 24 years ago saluting the 25years of Self Rule of Singapore since 1959. The photographs are of Singapore scenery taken by 41 world top photographers then. It was a mammoth project then. The Traveller Palm grows freely on this island and it traps and retains rain water easily...so it was what early travellers look for when they are thirty... thus its name.

As I went through the pages, daily scenes that we take for granted then become rare, young faces that grace the pages then are your aunties and uncles now. The uncle in the picture here with a trishaw load of paper mac hes would have left human abode then. Those
who have seen him does remembered. As a young boy and youth, this uncle with a trademark beard plies his trade along the old city routes, pushing and cycling his trishaw at the edge of the road. His colorful array of paper face masks is hard to miss, it spices up our imaginations of faces we read in Chinese story books. I had seen him along the road in Macpherson, Geylang road, Chinatown of course, Tiong Bahru, Redhill. This is his city route, but actually it is the PIE in its original version from east to west city roads. I patronised him twice in his life time, I cannot afford to buy those masks then, he offered a game of luck where you pay him 10 cents and you dipped your hand into a cloth bag containing various colored balls. You win a simple paper face mask if you pick up 3 balls of the same colour. I don't think I won but the chance to play give me a pretext to examine all those tiger, buffalo, Disney faces characters at close range, which is suffice.

Anyone reading these have memories of him, email me a note. Believe he have no successor to take over his skill of making these crafts. I remembered there was an article on him in the paper... but then again... we just read and past on, only now that when we dwell on memory and yet found information scare.

There were many interesting photographs beside these which can look back with pride as to where we have travelled from. On this National Day, am I to sell this book which can only add value as the years goes by... next year 2009 will be 50 years of self rule nationhood. The book costs me S$70.00 in 1984 which is not a small sum I forked out then. Let us see what value beside money this will worth many years down this nation road.

29th Beijing Olympic Games on 8th August 2008, 8.08pm

8th August 2008, A day that will stayed in the memory of many Chinese for a long, long time... Just as I remembered the 1973 Seap Games hosted by Singapore when I was a student.

In celebration of this auspicious day when even wedding couples and new borns registered this day as their entry into new life. I shared with you some pictures all things Chinese, as it meant that the Olympic games also chosen to start at 8.08pm on 8.8.08.

The Beijing Olympic stadium needs no introduction as it is much publicised as a Nest; (Just like Singapore Esplanade coined as Durian... I think it deserved a better name though). I shared with you the picture on the right here which give you a perspective of how the walkway under those Nest beam are like.

Instead of building a Pagoda themed stadium, the Chinese had built up this Olympic Park with contemporary pieces of
architectures... But they still rely on traditional costume and cultural items when performance and art are concerned BECAUSE it is the Chinese identity of with historical thread. You can recognised straight away it is Chinese dancers in their act on the left picture.

I checked out these 3 pieces of Chinese drawing/paintings while looking for articles for National Day. These are not printed copies of painting. It is a water color art piece, and it is done with a modernistic color scheme in mind, but the artist wants the essenceto capture Chinese women going about in their daily chores and recreation mode. So, one gets to see the on going revolution within the Chinese to catch up with time and yet displaying her
Chinese roots whenever and where ever possible. These 3 drawings are and should be displayed
together as a set. Why? It will give a definition to a statement of what Chinese woman is instead

of a single frame which you will not know what the artist is trying to communicate.

The prices of Chinese paintings had also inflated in value as people now recognise and appreciate the aspirations and styles of presentation done the Chinese way :- Chinese identity done in a touch of modernistic twist and paint medium.


These 3 pictures costs me S$225.00; Will anyone appreciate these enough to offer me a price that I transfer ownership. Try me but I am going to love these more after the impressive opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games hosted by this great civilisation!