Old Buildings Quiz (1)

Ever since I started blogging about the good old days, I have taken an interest in old buildings in Singapore. Whenever, I see an old building, I want to take a photo of it for fear that it would be torn down when I am not looking; such as my beloved National Junior College. Or worse still; the government may decide to preserve it – i.e. they will retrofit it beyond recognition, the way new pop groups ‘remake’ some of our favourite oldies. OK, I exaggerate, but you get my point.

I am not referring to the well-known buildings like the CHIJMES, or the Fullerton Building which have been gazetted as national monuments. I am referring to the unimportant buildings such as the former Driving Test Centre at Queenstown, Braddell Rise School and Matter East School. So whenever the opportunity arises, I would take some photos of these buildings.

I would like to share some my collection with you. But to make it more interesting, I will make it into a quiz. Here’s the first one. I have chosen this building because it is related to an interest article in the Straits Times today about the Jewish community in Singapore and their new building in town.

Please tell me the name of this building nd where it is located. I suspect many of you have seen this building but never noticed it's name.

Special Visitors

Last Sunday, we had some special visitors. Mr Rob Cantley, CEO of Borneo Exotics, his wife Diana and a few local pitcher plant enthusiasts came to see my son’s collection of pitcher plants. I think Rob was in Singapore for some meeting with Nparks about next year’s Singapore Garden Festival, and he took the opportunity to visit the homes of some of the local enthusiasts and give some consultation.

My son is crazy about pitcher plants - thanks partly to my friend Dr Tan Wee Kiat’s children books on the subject. Wee Kiat even took the trouble to bring him to some of the little-known places in Singapore where pitcher plants can be found in the wild. My son and his buddies at Green Cultures Singapore the regularly chat about pitcher plants online. Sometimes, they jointly purchase plants from overseas suppliers such as Borneo Exotics. Occasionally, we have strangers dropping by to exchange or buy plants. I am quite surprised that there so many young Singaporeans who are passionate about this carnivorous plant. I understand that many of them live in high-rise apartments. I heard that some even rent space in local nurseries to keep their prized collections.

I am quite happy that my son is so passionate about his pitcher plants. For one thing, between this hobby and his kayaking training, he has very little time left for playing computer games like most teenagers do. I often hear friends complaining about how their kids are hooked on computer games. I think my kids have never even touched an Xbox or Playstation before. I also think it helps to develop his social skills, something his parents seem to lack.

One small price we had to pay is that, with his hundreds of pots of pitcher plants and my wife’s stag horn ferns and other plants, our house looks like a jungle. In fact, when my car is parked in porch, there is hardly room for one person to walk into our house. We even have a huge wooden frame tailor-built in front of our house for hanging pots and climbers.

Anyway, back to the visit. I am afraid I don’t know enough about the topic to share with you; although thanks to Wee Kiat’s book, Jack and the Carnivorous Pitcher Plant, I am no longer intimidated by names like Nepenthes, Rafflesiana and Ampullaria. I even know the difference between and upper and lower pitcher!

All I can do is show you some photos. By the way, I think Rob and Diana will be giving a talk about growing pitcher plants in an urban environment at GardenTech2007 next month. You may be able to see some photos of our home at that presentation.

Another quiz for you guys. What is the name of this carnivorous plant? It’s my favourite. I think it’s much prettier than the pitcher plant.

It’s the 25th Hour, not 11th

This morning I saw a review on Channel News Asia by Melanie Oliveiro of the new movie, The Eleventh Hour. It reminded me of a wonderful movie with a similar name which I saw many years ago. That movie was The 25th Hour.

Once in a while you come across a movie that pricks your heart and causes you to think about it long after you walk out of the theatre, and which you can remember for years. The 25th Hour is one such movie. I think, my friend Kenneth who seems to like this genre of movie would have enjoyed it. But I doubt he has seen it because it is such an old movie. I saw it when it was first released in 1967 when I was still in secondary school. I liked it so much that some years later, in 1979, I borrowed a copy of the book from the National Library and read it. The movie starred the late Anthony Quinn and the author of the book was C. Virgil Gheorghiu,

The story is about the tragic events that happened to a simple Romanian peasant, Johann Moritz during World War II. Moritz’s misfortune began because he was blessed with a beautiful wife. A local captain who coveted his wife reported him to the authorities as a Jew. He was sent to a work camp but was subsequently "rescued" by a Nazi officer who thought that he was a perfect Aryan specimen. He was forced to serve as a model for the German propaganda. After the war, he was imprisoned and severely beaten by his Russian captors. As a final irony, he was charged with war crimes by the Allied forces for his role in assisting the Nazis, while all along he has been nothing but a victim.

If my memory serves me, I think the story ends when Moritz returns to his villge to find he has become the father of a boy who was the result of his wife being raped by a German soldier. Hope somebody will read the book and confirm if I remembered correctly.

++ Chew of this interesting line from the book: “God made so many things of no practical value, and yet they are the most beautiful of all”.

++ Melanie Oliveiro said this of the movie The 11th Hour; “You have a moral obligation to watch it”. Now that I qualify to watch movies at a discount (half price?) during week days, I think I will fulfill my moral obligation next week.

Places I Remember (5) – Farrer Road

The photo below is of another roundabout in Singapore which had a fountain in it? Do you know where that was (assuming you have not read my earlier post)?

Yes, it was Holland Circus and it was located at the Junction of Holland Road, Farrer Road and Queensway. Today, this area looks very different. Holland Circus has been replaced by an underpass and flyover. And many new changes are taking place at Farrer Road. A great deal of construction work is going on to build the Circle Line and a new MRT station. And Farrer Court will probably be demolished soon.

Would you like to know what this area was like in the 1960’s and 70’s? I happen to be quite familiar with this area because I stayed in Farrer Road for 14 years up to 1986.

After our home at Lorong Chuan was acquired by the government under the Land Acquisition Act, we moved to an HDB apartment here in 1974. At that time, we heard that the HDB (Housing and Development Board) was introducing a new type of flat called a Five-room point block flat. (Non-Singaporean readers would be surprised to know that by a uniquely Singaporean method of numbering, there are actually only 3 bedrooms in our five-room flats) The first ones were being built at Bendemeer Road. The price was about $28,000. We applied but were unsuccessful. The second batch was being built at Farrer Road and we succeeded this time, but the price has gone up by a whopping 25% to $35,500. In case you think that was ‘peanuts’, I would like to put things in perspective. The compensation that we got from the government for our home in Lorong Kinchir - including the land, house, fruit trees .. everything - was only slightly more than $7,000. I seem to recall that there was some kind of balloting process. I am not sure if we got some priority because we were being evicted from our kampong.

Took this photo when I went for lunch with my siblings at Farrer Road last week. There’s a famous Westlake Restaurant which used to be very popular. We went to the nearby Chu Kee Cuisine instead.

I liked living in Farrer Road. But we were rather sad to have to leave our beloved dog Barney behind in the care of our cousins. They didn't move out until a few years later. Each time we went back to our kampong, he would be literally jump with joy to see us. But our cat Mimi was more fortunate as we were able to bring her along.

We lived in Block 5. Our unit was away from the main road. Very quiet and nice. Unlike the other HDB estates, there were a total of only eight blocks here, including the market and food centre. This area was quite exclusive, being in the prestigious District 10 area. All the other houses here were private homes. Not long after, they built the Farrer Court under the HUDC model.

Over the last twenty years, a lot of changes had taken place. Let’s see what I can recall.

Lorong Jodoh - I don’t think I even want to test you readers if you knew where was Lorong Jodoh. I bet none of you know the answer. Lorong Jodoh was a small Malay kampong just beside our flat at Block 5. I recall hearing some animal sounds (probably an orang utan) coming from the kampong in the mornings. It joined Farrer Road to Holland Road. I have jogged through this kampong a few times. I cannot recall when it was redeveloped.

Petrol stations - Next to Holland Circus, there used to be two petrol stations. One was Shell and the other BP. Next to the BP station was the BP recreation club. My brother-in-law worked for BP at that time and occasionally he brought us there to enjoy the facilities like table tennis, badminton and billiards.

American School – Along King’s Road, there used to be an American School. We often saw groups of American students waiting for taxis along Farrer Road opposite our flat. We told ourselves, these American kids must be quite loaded since they didn’t need to travel by buses. One interesting thing about the American School that I remember was the evenings when they had football matches – that’s American football, not soccer. The field was brightly lit up with floodlights and a lot of cheering and so on could be heard; like what you see in the movies.

Other changes at the stretch of Farrer Road near to the Adam Flyover, I have already blogged about earlier; like the post office and so on. So I would like to end by telling you a bit about Farrer Road in the fifties and sixties. I don’t know much actually, but I have visited my cousins who stayed in Farrer Road in those days. They lived in a kampong at what is probably the Queen’s Road area. I remember plucking the buah long long from a tree in front of their house. I also remember crossing the road to where the present Waterfall Gardens is to watch a Hokkien wayang show. Other than that I don’t recall much about those days.

Finally, before I go, I have another quiz question for you. You have probably heard that the apartments at Farrer Court were recently sold at the unbelievable price of $2.5 million. Do you know how much it cost when it was first sold?


Photo credit: Thanks to Tom O’Brien of Memories of Singapore for permissionn to use the photo of Holland Circus

Roundabout Quiz 2

Question 1.

What was the name of the roundabout located at the junction of Tanglin Road, Napier Road and Grange Road? It had a beautiful fountain in the centre and pineapple shrubs planted around it. See photos below from the collection of the National Archives of Singapore.

Question 2.

What was the name of hotel next to it? Below are some hints courtesy of Peter Chan.

1. This hotel was built by Khoo Teck Puat and named after a country.

2. Then it was sold to a HK consortium and acquired a new name.

3. It had a basement disco and the interiors were plastered with red bricks. The first name of the disco was called THE PUB but later became known as THE LONDON SCENE.

4. The first band to perform every night was Heather and the Thunderbirds. My band, THE REFLECTIONS played there in 1972. We played as the second band.