Tangentially related to my post on relentless demolition and construction in Singapore: Leong Ching wonders if we should leave more old structures standing.
We can’t feel part of the same country if it is like a dune of shifting sand, change from one day to the next, with no sense of permanence, no sense of history. We ought to be more judicious in what we are doing in the name of progress.
I like to tell my kids about the places I ate in when I grew up (Odeon beef noodles), the places I studied in (the kindergarten off Oxley Road where I lived), my favourite place for ice-cream (Cold Storage Creamery, opposite the present Centrepoint).
Most times, the stories hang in thin air – I can’t take them to look at any of the places because they were nearly always gone.
One day, I might wake up and see there isn’t really anything for me to remember.
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