Art and Leisure

Dated: 18 Feb 2013

Right now I'm at the National Museum of Singapore. I paid $11 to see all of the exhibits because I have the time to spend the whole day here and learning about a different culture is important. However the payment of admission is about the cost of two small meals or one Western style meal. (Can you tell that I'm hungry?)

So the first exhibit I looked into was about this famous Singaporean theater director named Kuo Pao Kun. He's a large contributor to Singapore's modern theater movement. He directed some of his own pieces based off of Singapore's changing culture (i.e. language diversity, growth of the city) and he translated foreign works so that Singaporeans could build on other contemporary theater. The most fascinating thing to me about Kuo's works was the reoccurring topic of language. In the US, most theater can survive on just English but in Singapore a large obstacle (or process - its how you look at it) is translating. I didn't know when I came to Singapore that so many Singaporeans know at least three languages, English and Chinese and then their family's language. English is the working language, Chinese is the cultural/traditional language, and then the family language, Tamil or Hokkien or Hindi or something else, that is used at home. However, as people get older, I've noticed that everyone starts to use one language as the dominant language. Nine time out of ten its English (yippy!). But you still have to be aware that just because they speak English doesn't mean that they are Westernized.

The second exhibit was more simple but yet very poetic about the separation of modern Singaporean families. You can't deny that the world is getting smaller and smaller as we are able to travel long distances at ease (if you have the funds) and, with social medias, news can travel around the world in seconds. Even snail mail can get to your front door faster than it did two decades ago. This exhibit, by John Clang, is made up of Skype family portraits and some of his own personal struggles with being a family member across seas. As a small little island, the country and its people are known at all corners of the globe. Its rare if I have to explain where Singapore is located these days. More and more Singaporeans, like my mom, have moved far away  from their home and family, but yet they are still able stay in the loop of home life. The portraits are situated very similar to old family portraits (the black and white kind), and project family members who are overseas through Skype video on a wall. The end result is that you see everyone, in real-time, sitting or standing to take the family portrait. To me, these pictures seem like more than just a thousand words - its more like millions.

I saw more exhibits about Singaporean women's clothing in the 1960 and watched part of black and white movies of the young Lion city. When I got to my fifth exhibit my stomach finally yelled at me to go eat something. I ate a simple, yet delicious meal at a near by university and then headed to the local library in Toa Payoh. I spent a good two hours reading about psychology, my new-found love affair, and then I went home. It was a pretty relaxed day that I spent all on my own and I'm accomplishing my goal of being a self-starter.