Working on my second book

Much of my free time in recent months has been spent on my second book - the fieldwork and research phase is largely done, and I’ve moved on to the more challenging writing phase, in which I try to craft and chisel something coherent out of the mountain of material I’ve gathered. 

Hence, this blog will be a lot quieter - but I’ll still try to post once in a while, and share a little about the book I’m working on. 

Yes, this book will be about Singapore history. 

Here’s an abstract from 1851 which I will be putting into my manuscript: 

While some Malays were collecting rattans and cutting wood in a piece of jungle near Mr. Dunman’s plantation at Serangoon, they were alarmed by hearing a tiger making his approach through the underwood. They immediately commenced a retreat, but had not cleared the jungle when the tiger came up with them and singling out the fattest man in the party sprang upon him. It had dragged the body some distance ere the man’s companions recovered from the fright into which they had been thrown, and pursued him with their parangs, on which the tiger dropped the body and retreated. The poor man was found in the agonies of death with his throat and face severely lacerated. The body was brought away, but the tiger, it would appear, was determined to have his meal, for the same night he carried off a Chinaman at a short distance from the scene of his morning’s exploit. The Chinaman’s friends on making a search found the body, with one of the legs wanting… The same animal killed another man in the next week.

(This wood engraving is of another tiger encounter in 1835, experienced by Superintendent of Public Works and Convicts George Drumgoole Coleman and his group of convict labourers, but it was so well-drawn I had to put it here.)

Memory bridges and barriers

I owe an immense debt of gratitude to the faceless transcribers who listen to National Archives oral interviews done in Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese, and transcribe them in Chinese characters.

I don’t understand the three aforementioned languages, and besides, listening to hours of tape recordings made in the 1980s - usually with poor audio quality - can be an exhausting chore.

Instead, with transcriptions, I can read the Chinese characters at a quicker pace, and scan entire blocks of text for keywords. My command of Chinese is not very strong, but regular practice has made it better.

Thanks to the transcribers’ labours, a whole world of memories and experiences from the 1920s to 1980s - lived history - has opened up for my study. Many interviewees were already elderly folk when they were recorded in the 1980s. They were born in the 1920s, 1910s, 1900s, one in 1894. They should have passed on by now.

I wonder how much I would have missed out if I had not understood Chinese script. I also wonder how much I’m missing out by not comprehending Malay and Tamil.

Despite relying on Chinese transcriptions to access interviewees’ recollections, I still occasionally listen to their voice recordings, if only just to feel them addressing me from another time, another realm.

Jurong Road in purgatory

Eighteen months ago, I visited Jurong Road just before it closed for good on 27 September 2020; subsequently, I wrote about it here.

Recently, I decided to revisit the area. Lo and behold, Jurong Road was still there. The plan was to redevelop it, but work had not begun.

I had the honour of checking out a road which had been abandoned for 18 months, and I could observe how the wilderness was slowly taking it all back.

My visit came at the right time - dusk. The angle of the setting sun was just right.

It was apt, because the sun was setting on a piece of transport history.