I’m Sean, a 24-year-old English Literature major from Nanyang Technological University. For “A Patchwork of Reminiscences”, I interviewed 77-year-old retired teacher, Mabel Chew.

I can vaguely remember a time when not everybody had a hand-phone. To me Singapore has always been an eminently safe country, safe to walk anywhere at all times of the day. My closest brush with war is watching Channel News Asia report on America’s Middle Eastern Campaign. Not so for Mabel.

Mabel was born in Singapore in the year 1932, and lived through the Japanese occupation as a child. She remembers vividly the night bombs fell on Singapore, the thundering sounds of buildings getting blown up. She recalls a time when girls shaved their heads and bound their chests in fear of getting raped by Japanese soldiers. She recalls the dismembered heads Japanese soldiers put on spikes to serve as warning, a time everyone in Singapore lived in constant fear.

During our four-hour conversation, I got to know Mabel very well, got to hear her whole life’s story. As Mabel narrates the life she’s led- as a teacher, a wife, mother and finally grandmother- she describes a Singapore unrecognisable from the one I know. I feel almost nostalgic for a past I never lived.

And that’s why her story is important, why all their stories are. Only in them can we discover and explore a time and place that is forever lost, that exists only in these stories.

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Editor’s note:

Patchworks, a special projects committee of the Welfare Services Club of the Nanyang Technological University, is currently working on “Patchwork Of Reminiscences,” a collection of original short stories from Singaporean seniors from all walks of life. This short stories book project is a 100% student-initiated project that intends to preserve a chapter of our elders’ inspiring, personal life stories through Singapore’s development as a nation. Yesterday.sg is proud to support “Patchwork of Reminiscences.” More information on Patchwork can be found here.