I knew about Travel Film Archive last year when I found an old 1930s video of Cambodia and Angkor Wat – but I didn’t realise that there was a video of old Singapore up as well (at least, not until it was announced in Channel NewsAsia) a few days ago. This film was taken in 1938, before the Japanese Occupation.

Besides the ‘usual’ scenes of the Singapore River in its heydey (it seems that every old photo or footage of Singapore always features the bumboats of the Singapore River), there are also some buildings that are standing today, like the Raffles Hotel, Victoria Memorial Hall and the Municipal Hall – now known as City Hall.

The video also shows some of our oldest places of worship – the Sri Mariamman Temple in North Bridge Road, the Sultan Mosque in Kampong Glam and a Chinese temple whose architecture I can’t identify – anybody with a idea of what temple is featured in 04:44?

I also thought it was quite funny how Singapore was described as a shopping paradise of the east – it seems like some things really never do change!