Sunday, May 30, 2010

Welcome to the Far East

Below are some images that Mike Robbins sent me.


"Thought you might be interested in this booklet that we were given on our arrival as an introduction to Singapore - a little piece of history. Perhaps the most interesting page is the exchange rate for Singapore dollars in 1966 although some of the photos especially transport are of interest too. . How well your country has done since independence and how weak is stirling now! Please feel free to publish."





13 comments:

peter said...

Sandycroft in Penang still stands till today but road widening has taken much of its land.

peter said...

Few comments on last photo:

1. I wonder whether the schools today teach currecncy conversation and how to add fractions. Dam siong in my time.

2. 1 quid = Straits Dollar$7-8 at that time. Today 2.2 Singapore to 1 quid.

Zen said...

Back in my school days, we kampong boys were like 'frogs in a well' knowing nothing much of the outside world. Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from books or newspapers (no tv yet). As for money, we may know the value of the pound from our teachers, but then we had nothing much (in the pockets) to 'convert'.

Victor said...

Chun See, it would be good if the pages of the book shown could be enlarged by clicking on them. Now they couldn't. Maybe they could if you uploaded larger sized images?

It would be more interesting if your readers could read the text in the pages.

Lam Chun See said...

Victor. Actually I don't understand how Blogger works. Sometimes, I click on the images and a new window opens with an enlarged view. Sometimes it doesn't. Very strange.

Anyway, I think I will upload ALL the pages to Flickr and readers can go there and view. There are more pages that I did not post on my blog. Didn't think that readers would be interested in the details. Hope Mike Robbins does not object to that.

Lam Chun See said...

All of Mike's 8 scanned images can be viewed here.

Lam Chun See said...

Yes I remember doing all those calculations. Maybe our CV Durell maths books were all from UK. Somemore the pocket calculator not invented yet during our primary school days.

But kids nowadays have smart phones. So not sweat for them.

yg said...

peter, what is currency conversation? money talk?

Zen said...

When calculators were first introduced in the port, they were deemed to be very expensive and valuable, so much so each storekeeper was only issued one, and it was kept under lock and key. Nowadays we can even find calculators sold in 'five-foot-way', an ever changing world.

Lam Chun See said...

YG. I presume Peter was referring to those problems in our Maths books where they give up problems that require you to do some conversion mathematically. Must have been quite traumatic for poor Peter to make him recall this.

Thimbuktu said...

Thanks to Chun See and Mike for sharing these wonderful nostalgic memories stuff to share at GMY. Cheers!

felixawilliam said...

Wow! It is very nice and huge collection though this is very old information you have saved it very nicely so that other people can know about it.
Spain holidays

Anonymous said...

Wow! felixawilliam - Spain holidays; fizlikwilan - Egypt holidays. What's next? Holidays in Timbuktu? :p