Suk-wai Cheong - The Sound of Memories

1. CHAPTER ONE
   COMMUNITIES We are One, We are Singaporeans
2. CHAPTER TWO
   SCHOOLDAYS Saved by the Bell
3. CHAPTER THREE
   PASTIMES Happy Days
4. CHAPTER FOUR
   THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION Three Years, Eight Months
5. CHAPTER FIVE
   FOOD Have You Eaten?
6. CHAPTER SIX
   NATIONAL TRAGEDIES Bolts from the Blue
7. CHAPTER SEVEN
   MEDICAL SERVICES Doctor, Doctor!
8. CHAPTER EIGHT
   THE ECONOMIC MIRACLE The Wonder Years
9. CHAPTER NINE
   WOMEN I am Woman, Hear Me Roar
10. CHAPTER TEN
    PERFORMING ARTS Colour and Light
11. CHAPTER ELEVEN
    SPORTS Game, Set and Match

Editorial:

Editor: Veronica Chee

Editor-in-Chief: Francis Dorai

Desk Editors: Triena Ong, Daniele Lee

Project Manager: Benjamin Ho

Published by:

National Archives of Singapore, an institution of the National Library Board

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Singapore 179868

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and

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All rights reserved. National Archives of Singapore, 2019.

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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data

Names: Cheong, Suk-Wai.

Title: The sound of memories : recordings from the Oral History Centre, Singapore / by Cheong Suk-Wai.

Description: Singapore : National Archives of Singapore : World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., [2019]

Identifiers: OCN 1101606520 | ISBN 978-981-12-0601-6 (paperback) | 978-981-12-0600-9 (hardcover)

978-981-120-802-7 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Singapore--History--Anecdotes. | Singapore--Social conditions--History--Anecdotes.

Classification: DDC 959.57--dc23

Printed in Singapore

CHAPTER ONE
COMMUNITIES
We are One, We are Singaporeans

CHAPTER TWO
SCHOOLDAYS
Saved by the Bell

CHAPTER THREE
PASTIMES
Happy Days

CHAPTER FOUR
THE JAPANESE OCCUPATION
Three Years, Seven Months

CHAPTER FIVE
FOOD
Have You Eaten?

CHAPTER SIX
NATIONAL TRAGEDIES
Bolts from the Blue

CHAPTER SEVEN
MEDICAL SERVICES
Doctor, Doctor!

CHAPTER EIGHT
THE ECONOMIC MIRACLE
The Wonder Years

CHAPTER NINE
WOMEN
I am Woman, Hear Me Roar

CHAPTER TEN
PERFORMING ARTS
Colour and Light

CHAPTER ELEVEN
SPORTS
Game, Set and Match

A t forty, one is entitled to claim with some confidence a measure of certitude about our world and our place in it. As Confucius declared in Book II of his Analects, At fifteen I wanted to learn; at thirty I had a foundation; at forty a certitude.

As the Oral History Centre (OHC) marks its 40th anniversary this year, it can claim with certainty its achievements in recording Singapores history. The collection of over 5,000 interviews (totalling some 23,500 recorded hours), on events such as the Japanese Occupation to issues on the political development of Singapore as well as matters touching on the more ordinary rhythms and cycles of everyday life, has established the OHCs centrality in the reconstruction of Singapores past.

This certainty of what we know and understand about our past is grounded on the foundations of what we have achieved in the preceding decades. For the OHC, this confidence at forty is grounded in its practice of oral history. It is a practice of history as an empirical study of our past, based on the systematic interviewing of witnesses to our past, which is then collated to enable a reconstruction of what actually happened, and can claim to be objective and true.

The various exhibitions that the OHC has produced over the years on the Japanese Occupation were largely based on the careful collation of oral history interviews with survivors from this period. This practice of oral history interviewing to recall truths of the past was based on the assumption that our interviewees were dispassionately and accurately recalling their memories of those three years and seven months of the Japanese Occupation that what they were conveying to us was objective information.

But in re-listening and reflecting on these interviews today, we realise, perhaps, that our interviewees may not have been objectively recalling clearly defined memories, but rather, stream of conscious memories, often traumatic, in response to our interview questions. This is not a consciousness of the past that is distant and detached from the present, but an emotional and traumatic past which continues to flow into the present.

Interviewing people about our everyday social and work lives may also be less about getting our interviewees to retrieve concrete facts about how, for example, the cycles of religious festivals were celebrated in the past, but more about invoking their stream of conscious memories about how their parents celebrated these festivals as well as their own recollections of these occasions during childhood and how they are observed today.

From this perspective, oral history interviews may be less about retrieving objective and verifiable information about a distant past to reliving a historical consciousness that connects us to a present and a living past. It will involve a different mode of listening to and communicating with our interviewees, a different paradigm and practice of what oral history is perhaps about.

If we are able to rise to this challenge then we should be well prepared to move the OHC into the fourth decade of its life, and be ready to welcome the fifth.

Kwa Chong Guan

Former Director
Oral History Department, 19851994

While we respect and celebrate the narratives recounted by our interviewees, we recognise that all oral history accounts, by their very nature, are personal, experiential and interpretative. They are founded on the memories, perceptions and viewpoints of individuals. While all reasonable attempts have been taken to avoid inaccuracies, the excerpts of the interviews found in this book should not be understood as statements of fact endorsed by the National Archives of Singapore, an institution of the National Library Board.