Not for Sale: Singapore's Remaining Street Food Vendors
Sinma DaShow
Singapore: Good Food Syndicate, 2013
ISBN: 9789810765699
Not For Sale: Singapore's Remaining Heritage Street Food Vendors is a landmark project to preserve our longest-serving food heritage – hawker street food culture.
Sinma DaShow and his documentary team began documenting Singapore's remaining street food vendor hawker centre by hawker centre in 2010. 900 days, over a hundred hawker centres and thousands of hours of interviews, recording and transcription later, Not For Sale is the most complete and ambitious documentation of Singapore's street food vendors ever archived.
The first chapter opens with a dark tone, looking at the hawkers who would be retiring without an heir apparent and the threats of extinction that faces the trade. And as always in the midst of such changing times and challenges, there are also reasons for hope in the guardian angels who willingly chose to watch over their family trade and craft.
The pictorial documentation of black and white photos closes with the most inspiring ending by unveiling the unsung superheroes of the trade, those who are among the most elderly yet still actively involved in their craft. Most have faced war and lack, often in hunger but with a heart full of love, when surrounded by hopelessness they find a reason to give hope to others, and in the face of fear how they stood fearless to life's challenges.
This book is a tribute to all our dear uncles and aunties who have tirelessly served multiple generations of food-loving Singaporeans.
Thursday
Lee Kuan Yew
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789814342568
Born in 1923, Singapore’s former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew has spent a lifetime being intimately involved in international affairs. He has met every major Chinese leader from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping and hobnobbed with American presidents from Lyndon Johnson to Barack Obama.
In this book, Lee draws on that wealth of experience and depth of insight to offer his views on today’s world and what it might look like in 20 years. This is no dry geopolitical treatise. Nor is it a thematic account of the twists and turns in global affairs. Instead, in this broad-sweep narrative that takes in America, China, Asia and Europe, he parses their society, probes the psyche of the people and draws his conclusions about their chances for survival and just where they might land in the hierarchy of tomorrow’s balance of power. What makes a society tick? What do its people really believe? Can it adapt?
In spare, unflinching prose that eschews political correctness, he describes a China that remains obsessed with control from the centre on its way to an unstoppable rise; an America that will have to share its pre-eminence despite its never-say-die dynamism; and a Europe that struggles with the challenges of keeping its union intact. His candid and often startling views – on why Japan is closed to foreigners, why the Arab Spring won’t bring one man, one vote to the Middle East, and why preventing global warming is not going to be as fruitful as preparing for it – make this a fresh and gripping read.
Lee completes the book by looking into the future of Singapore – his enduring concern – and by offering the reader a glimpse into his personal life and his view of death. The book is interspersed with a Q&A section in each chapter, gleaned from conversations he had with journalists from The Straits Times.
Chong Fah Cheong
Singapore: Chong Fahcheong, 2013
ISBN: 9789810768034
Fahcheong: The Art Book is the first major publication of the life and work of Chong Fahcheong, one of Singapore's premier sculptors. It is an illuminating text which includes captivating quotes from the artist, an insightful essay by Singapore's foremost art historian T.K. Sabapathy and an intimate conversation between artist and art historian. These are accompanied by over 130 colour photographs of never-before-seen sculptures and famously iconic public artworks.
Tuesday
Cheong Koon Hean, Tommy Koh, & Lionel Yee
Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2013
ISBN: 97898114342513
This book tells the story of Singapore’s first experience of defending its legal rights before an international tribunal, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS).
In April 2002 Malaysia lodged a protest against Singapore’s reclamation works around Pulau Tekong and Pulau Ubin on the grounds that they were causing trans-boundary environmental harm to Malaysia’s territorial waters. Just a year later, after one unsuccessful meeting between the parties, Malaysia initiated proceedings against Singapore, to stop its reclamation works around these islands. Malaysia’s claim for provisional measures to stop the Pulau Tekong reclamation works until the disposal of the dispute raised the larger issue of conflicting legal rights - Singapore’s right to reclaim part of its territorial sea for national needs, and Malaysia’s concern to protect its maritime environment from harm.
The authors, who were part of the multidisciplinary and multi-agency team tasked with presenting Singapore’s case at ITLOS, recount the facts of the reclamation dispute and the ITLOS proceedings culminating in a pragmatic outcome, one that paves the way for future cases of this nature to be resolved in a similar way. This book would be of interest to students and readers of international relations, international law and the peaceful settlement of disputes.
Monica Gwee
Singapore: Epigram Books
ISBN: 9789810768881
Iskandar Ismail has dedicated his life to pushing the boundaries and realising the possibilities of Singapore music, even as he has stayed resolutely behind the scenes. For the first time, get a rare insight into the man widely recognised as one of our foremost maestros. Composed of in-depth interviews and never-before-seen photographs, Iskandar Ismail: The Music Man delves into the triumphant, challenging but always tuneful journey of this Cultural Medallion recipient.
Experience the thrill of Iskandar’s prodigious years at Berklee College of Music and on the vibrant club circuit. Celebrate his commercial hits with recording stars Dick Lee, Andy Lau and Sandy Lam. Tune into his arrangements for the musicals Chang & Eng, Beauty World and Snow.Wolf.Lake, and his original compositions for Spotlight Singapore and the National Day Parades. Learn how he overcame his cancer diagnosis to continue scoring international events like the Asian Games.
As he finally steps out of the shadows, Iskandar Ismail: The Music Man looks back on the multiple facets of Iskandar Ismail’s life and sings to his success.
Friday
Wendy Hutton
Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Cuisine, 2013
ISBN: 9789814484084
The Little Singapore Cookbook offers tried and tested recipes from renowned food writer, Wendy Hutton, for some of the nation’s bestloved foods. Among this selection are the eponymous Singapore Chicken Rice, succulent Chilli Crab and irresistible noodle dishes such as Char Kway Teow, Fried Hokkien Mee and the famous spicy noodle soup, Laksa Lemak. Clearly explained recipes ensure that any home cook can produce authentic and delicious Singapore food to share with friends and family.
Thursday
Loh Kah Seng
Singapore: NUS Press, 2013
ISBN: 9789971696450
The crowded, bustling, 'squatter' kampongs so familiar across Southeast Asia have long since disappeared from Singapore, leaving few visible traces of their historical influence on the life in the city-state. In one such settlement, located in an area known as Bukit Ho Swee, a great fire in 1961 destroyed the kampong and left 16,000 people homeless, creating a national emergency that led to the first big public housing project of the new Housing and Development Board (HDB). HDB flats now house more than four-fifths of the Singapore population, making the aftermath of the Bukit Ho Swee fire a seminal event in modern Singapore.
Loh Kah Seng grew up in one-room rental flats in the HDB estate built after the fire. Drawing on oral history interviews, official records and media reports, he describes daily life in squatter communities and how people coped with the hazard posed by fires. His examination of the catastrophic events of 25 May 1961 and the steps taken by the new government of the People's Action Party in response to the disaster show the immediate consequences of the fire and how relocation to public housing changed the people's lives. Through a narrative that is both vivid and subtle, the book explores the nature of memory and probes beneath the hard surfaces of modern Singapore to understand the everyday life of the people who live in the city.
Wednesday
Craig McTurk
USA: ORO Editions, 2013
ISBN: 9781935935599
Parting Glances examines a country undergoing profound development by turning a camera lens on six communities in Singapore that are at the precipice of change. As a nation grapples with preserving its precious heritage while growing its economy and housing its burgeoning population, these diverse neighborhoods are revealed through archival images, reflections of residents and merchants, and striking contemporary photographs. From the small rustic island of Pulau Ubin, to a former British air force base, to mainland Singapore's last remaining kampoing (village), a country's fading heritage is revitalized and curated for both the casual reader and the dedicated historian of Asian cultures.
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