There are a lot of dolls at the Singapore Philatelic Museum (SPM) now. In fact, I have never seen so many dolls at any one time. Not to mention that these dolls are beautifully handcrafted Edo-Kimekomi dolls dressed in exquisite costumes. Imagine yourself spending two years working on the same task. Difficult right! But that was exactly the amount of time needed to make one doll. These dolls are so precious that Japanese families will display it during the Japanese Doll Festival or Girls’ Day held on the 3rd day of the 3rd month, and Children’s Day in 5th day of the 5th month.

The wedding scene from "The Mouse's Wedding"

My favourite Kimekomi dolls display shows a scene is from a Japanese children’s classic tale “The Mouse’s Wedding”. The scene depicts the happy ending to the tale – the wedding celebration.

And this is how the tale goes…

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It was 1975.

Skaters whizzed furiously pass her on the ice as she precariously tried to skate on her own. Dressed in a dark velvet jacket, she was determined to maintain a graceful poise despite her awkward moves. A nice young man who watched the girl from afar, glided towards her. With a warm smile, he offered to teach her the basic steps to ice-skating.

He was 23, she was 17.

They got married nine years later.

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“So, are you a digital native?”, my biology lecturer asked the class. Save for a few students who knew what he was talking about, the rest of us, brow-wrinkled, pondered on how that was even remotely linked to what we were about to study during our first week of school.

Thankfully, he clarified himself and wanted to know how comfortable we were completing online quizzes as part of our module. Indeed, Seoul, where my lecturer is from, is among the best in Asia when it comes to wiring up homes to the Internet. The last time I was there, most homes and many city subway stations were Internet-connected.   As more wireless hot spots have sprung up across our little island, it is easy to see how the Internet has made a permanent change in the way the people work, study and live.

Computers of old - bulky and very chunky. (Courtesy of Google Images)

Stemming from a government initiative more than a decade ago, Singapore has benefitted tremendously from the Internet revolution. While I have been a digital migrant from a very young age, I still remember the times when the closest thing we had to the Internet was the Teleview, which was a program one could access from terminals at various shopping centres. At that time, I remembered using some text-based services – very much like the Teletext today – to send mails, at a cost, of course. And all this when I was still in kindergarten!

Not too long after that experience, I realised that my personal computer had a dial-up modem installed and I quickly started reading up on what I could do with it. Lo and behold, I found out that I could access Teleview from my computer and managed to get some telephone numbers off Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) – a computer software that allows users to download programmes, read news and exchange messages. At that time, I probably didn’t understand how things worked or what was happening; much less, what the entire picture was all about.

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A thing is not beautiful because it is beautiful, it is beautiful because one likes it.

And that may very well be true. We’ve arrived at a time where art comes in form of a dead shark disintegrating in formaldehyde…

Damien Hirst
The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living

…lights that go on and off every five seconds in an empty room

Martin Creed
Work No. 227, the lights going on and off

…and an unmade bed littered with cigarette stubs and used condoms on its side.

Tracey Emin
My Bed

While you might wrinkle your nose in distaste, these artists have been nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize at one point in their lives and have made critically acclaimed works in the last two decades.

You might wonder, do artists these days just have a tendency to out-shock and out-mortify one another, that contemporary works no longer exude a quiet beauty about them? Art school grads are equipped with knowledge to better understand conceptual works like these, but are prone to knowing too much to fully appreciate them. What about the man on the street?

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We would like to thank all who have taken part in our blogging competition to commemorate Singapore’s 50th anniversary of self governance!

The Yesterday.sg team was encouraged by the quality of the blog posts received and heartened to read such insightful writings on Singapore!

Congratulations to the following individuals who have snagged a total of $4,500 worth of Harvey Norman shopping vouchers! Details on how to collect your prize have been sent to your email accounts, so do check!

1st Prize: Fong Wei Jie

2nd Prize: Xia QiRan

3rd Prize: Clarence Cheong Jia Hao

Consolation prizes (in no particular order):

• Lee Shen Kai
• Wee Jian Yong
• Quek Yu Yi
• Priyaa
• Amanda Tay
• Sean Ong Zhi Han
• Lam Chun See
• Anais Adjani Iyshaque Matthew
• Caleb Tan
• Lim Jia Yi

To read all the blog entries, visit www.yesterday.sg/50years/posts.

Thank you once again for taking part in our competition and we look forward to your support in our future activities!

The launch has been pushed back to October as of now…the programmers are now fixing the bugs…and we are getting really excited about the game….

A lil info: Our game has 10 levels. Every level features a different period of time in Singapore history, and involves interaction with various in-game characters. A player must complete the objective of every level by completing a series of mini-games. All the mini-games will have elements of history or heritage

Backstory: The main character, Samantha (Sam), is sent back in time by Professor Leong to undo the damage done by a couple of vengeful terrorists, who have taken upon themselves to change the history and heritage of Singapore. Professor Leong, a historian, is an avid collector of old items and a proud owner of a time-machine once believed to be owned by renowned author Louis-Sebastian Mercier, who many believed to be a time traveller in the 18th century.

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Where can you fire live rounds as a civilian? When can you roam in a military camp without escort and take photos? How does SAF defend Singapore with the latest military equipment?

Find out from Icemoon’s blog here and here.

These notes were among many pinned on a small board outside the Changi Chapel.

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Rapid keyboard strokes, voice-controlled documentation and the tip-taps of mobile SMSes have overtaken the beauty of handwriting in today’s world. In the age where even shorthand was considered too slow, where handwritten letters were taken over by emails, birthday cards replaced by e-Cards…the death of handwriting sneaks up to us in the form of forgotten penmanship, exhibitions and an occasional handwritten letter by an ex-lover.

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After a grueling 26-hour flight, I arrived at Newark Airport in New Jersey on an overseas stint to read music. It was going to be a three-month winter program in New York, but I ended up taking a flight to New Jersey because the flight was less expensive.

Nonetheless, it was the first time that I arrived at a country in the midst of a bitter winter. While waiting for the shuttle bus from the airport to the hotel, I was amused at how cold the people outside the airport seemed while I was still feeling nice and warm. This amusement turned to a painful realisation when I started to feel the chill as I lugged my heavy baggage to the shuttle bus some 100 meters away from the exit of the airport.

Halfway through the huffing and puffing of dragging my bags to the bus, a pair of hands appeared out of nowhere. No, it was not the seventh month (in Singapore, the seventh month is also known as the Hungry Ghost Festival where it was believed that ghosts put away for the last 11 months roam the streets freely and eat food that are offered to them by the believers), but a kind soul who probably sense the hopelessness  in me.

As the shuttle service headed towards Manhattan, I found out he was there to visit his sister who was working at the United Nations (UN). Apparently, it was her last term at the UN as a Singapore representative. As we reflected on Singapore’s role in the UN, I became thankful for the company I had on that cold, wintery evening.

Many of us know that the UN is an international organisation that consists of members from every recognised country. Founded in 1945 after the World War II, it started out with 51 country members. The UN’s objective was to promote social progress, living standards and human rights, while being committed to maintaining international peace and security and developing good relations between amongst the different nations. Essentially, recognition as a member to the UN signals more than just a casual admission into an organisation. It also shows the recognition by other countries of the member as a sovereign nation.

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