Yesterday’s Rubbish

Posted by coleman yee under Reflections
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What do we do with rubbish? We discard it. We hide it, bury it, burn it. We want to get rid of it, and get it out of our sight and mind.

But fast forward a millennium or two, the rubbish we try so hard to discard may become a treasure for some in that generation. Just ask the archaeologists.

Archaeologists would know that one of the most valuable archaeological sites in the world is at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt. Its value comes from its well-preserved millennium-old rubbish dumps, which contained vast amounts of paper, consisting of “accounts, tax returns, census material, invoices, receipts, correspondence on administrative, military, religious, economic, and political matters, certificates and licenses of all kinds” (from Wikipedia).

The findings from those rubbish heaps were seminal, to say the least, contributing greatly to our knowledge in culture, history, Greek and early Christian literature.

I can’t help but consider how some of us view mundane self-exhibitionistic blogger-diarists who blog about mundane happenings in their life. Boring stuff like I went to Taka today with my pals, ate the yummy donuts, then we went to Cineleisure to catch Transformers. Who cares?

Maybe nobody cares what that self-absorbed teenager did after school. Maybe it’s digital rubbish to us today. But a century from now, it might become an important digital archaeological site to help future generations to understand this generation.

Or that Yeo Hiap Seng bottle that the naughty schoolboy conveniently discarded into the bushes in 1959 - that might turn out to be a notable find for an archaeologist today in Singapore. Which I learnt to be true today, while watching Tan Pin Pin’s new documentary, Invisible City.

Or Ivan Polunin’s colour footage of the streets and markets of Singapore in the 50s, also shown in Invisible City. Those scenes would have been boring if you were to watch it 50 years ago, but there I was a just now, staring intently and soaking in those fascinating mundane scenes: a lady at the market choosing an egg, a man pushing a cart of food, the colourful pillars of the shophouses…

Invisible City chronicles the ways people attempt to leave a mark before they and their histories disappear. From an avid amateur film director trying to preserve his decaying trove of Singapore footage to an intrepid Japanese journalist hunting down Singaporean war veterans, Tan Pin Pin draws out doubts, regrets and the poignantly ordinary moments of these protagonists who attempt immortality. Through their footage and photos rarely seen until now, we begin to perceive faint silhouettes of a City that could have been.

Invisible City, for me, is an eye-opening and thought-provoking documentary. I’d gladly pay the $8 to watch it. But you can watch it free as well. The movie opens at The
Arts House on 22 July-12 Aug (call 63326919 for tickets). More details on the screening schedule at the Invisible City website. .

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