Singapore Heritage Mailing List is 7 years old!

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The Singapore Heritage Mailing List was established on 10th October 2000 by Chua Ai Lin. Originally stocked with the heritage proponents from academic circles, retired luminaries and members of the Singapore Heritage Society, the list now has more than 500 members, including bloggers from Yesterday.sg, students, members of the public and riff-raff like yours truly!

I got to know Ai Lin while struggling with public education efforts over Chek Jawa in October 2001. Ai Lin wrote for permission to re-post critical issues of Habitatnews (e.g. this one). Curious, I followed her link and was amazed to find a healthy and respectable list then of about 50+ subscribers. The information circulating there and the atmosphere was a wonderful find, and they understood and were supportive of the role natural history played in Singapore’s heritage.

A list manager sets the tone for the community but also has to invest considerable effort addressing subscriber problems. This was before the days of large personal webmail capacity or a widespread awareness of personal email management - some loved the news but found the number of messages somewhat of a struggle - no wonder, for it all went straight into their inboxes at work! Volunteer list managers had not only to be to be friendly, but real patient!

Well, I loved what I saw and subscribed, partly in support. Over the years, however, the list and her community of subscribers have provided me with a valuable insight into Singapore’s heritage, an eye opener to numerous topics and the wonderful bonus of some precious and treasured friends!

Now with the Department of History at the National University of Singapore, Ai Lin still actively manages and maintain the list, posting news and comments and responding to posts and queries. The atmosphere of the list has allowed conservative subscribers to co-exist alongside internet-savvy list members and it occupies a special niche on the heritage landscape. Besides the bread and butter posts, every now and then a discussion ensues that has me fascinated from the sidelines. All of this has pointed me to specific books, places and people - it never ends!

Ai Lin’s steady effort and single-minded focus is an excellent example of starting something that is needed and then taking on the much tougher job of maintaining such an initiative steadily over the years. The combination of venue, atmosphere of trust and the loyal and knowledgeable subscribers resulted in a significant resource able to co-exist with and support the various new vehicles that later emerged to enrich information exchange in the heritage scene.

Before blogging tools became easy for us to use, the list allowed subscribers to share stories. These were rare, but after visiting the Battle Box and Reflections at Bukit Chandu, nature and heritage aficionado Victor Yue was bursting with thoughts. So he bit the bullet and posted on 6th September 2002; here is an excerpt:

“After the experience of the actions in the Battlebox, father and two kids went to this beautifully restored bungalow at 31-K Pepys Road.

It was like as if we walked back into time, as there was this Malay chap (Adnan? wished I could get the book about this famous and rather sad battle) in his sarong talking to this Chinese guy who brought his daughter from Ipoh to escape from the advancing Japanese. We were just fortunate to walk into the drama (There was a crowd this afternoon with the students of Bishan ITE visiting and some families) and we were part of the drama as the ferocious Japanese solder armed with a rifle and bayonet ordered us upstairs into a corner of the room. Here, we saw the replay of the lives of the heroes of Bukit Chandu .. the parting of Adnan(?) and his wife, the attack … and the killing. The 3-Dimensional show on 1st storey and the Biaural Sound Presentation on 2nd Storey brought lumps to our throats. I could hear some of the ITE girls sniffing. The experience was very powerful indeed. … I think this is another place that all Singaporeans should go and experience what it was like on hill 226.

… I want to express my appreciations to the people who have put in efforts to ensure that history is not lost in Singapore. It is indeed sad that many landmarks have been lost, but those that have been saved, we must ensure that they continue to be preserved to provide us the lessons and the awareness. I think BG(NS)George Yeo aptly made these remarks which are “engraved” in Bukit Chandu “If we do not remember our heros, we will produce no heros. If we do not record their sacrifices, their sacrifices would have been in vain … The greatest strength we have as a people is our common memories of the past and our common hope for the future… for without those memories, the next generation will not have the fighting spirit to carry on.”

How apt.

Thanks Ai Lin!

And thanks, Su Yin, for the conspiratorial email and reminder!

Jave Wu designed a lovely poster!

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