Dreams & Ambitions: Singapore, What's Your Name?

Architect Jean-François Milou stitched together the former Supreme Court building and the former City Hall, weaving a golden veil of glass and metal at the junction to form the main entrance to the National Gallery Singapore, which opened in 2015.

Although Singaporean writer Mary Lee believes that the country's old city "exudes an intangible and elusive flavor that makes it unique", many of the scenic spots behind the "veil" have a sense of artificial plastic with "technology + hard work", which also makes this country with a shorter history than the local souvenir brands - Mei Zhenxiang born in 1933 and Lim Chee Yuen born in 1938 - stand out in the contemporary world - in terms of its superior geographical location, The "Singapore Story", which has grown on the basis of progressive maritime undertakings, diverse cultural heritage, European legal foundations and the hard work of the Chinese community, has become a model for a successful society.

After the mutual visa waiver, more than 320,000 Chinese mainland tourists visited Singapore in February 2024, and I became a numerator of this huge denominator.

Atrium, National Gallery Singapore Photo by Meng Huizhong

Ambitious

Stepping into the atrium corridor under the "veil", the sunlight mixed with rain sometimes spills into the atrium space through the gauzy roof, creating a soft atmosphere like the morning light and shadow of the forest, especially the huge trees supporting the atrium, when the equatorial sun is in full bloom, the light passes through the gaps in the branches, casting mottled shadows on the Palladian-style façade of the old building, as if people are in an air-conditioned tropical rainforest.

With more than 400 parks and 4 nature reserves, Singapore has always revealed a warm and moist green background under the "veil". There is greenery everywhere you look, with greenery climbing over vertical, mixed contemporary buildings that nourish the building, the Super Tree adorned with more than 160,000 plants on 18 reinforced concrete structures in Gardens by the Bay is a magnificent light show every night, and the National Botanical Gardens, a World Heritage Site, is lush with the roar of the traffic lines and the sounds of 5.7 million people at the end of Orchard Road. You can breathe as much as you want, and you should still have the opportunity to meet Stefanie Sun, who came here for a night run, and even in the National Museum of Singapore, you can't escape the "control" of green: the digital art exhibition "The Story of the Forest", jointly created by the museum and teamLab, selects 69 watercolor paintings from the "Nature Atlas" commissioned by William Farquhar, Singapore's first resident officer, to show the flora and fauna of the Malay Peninsula in the 19th century. On a 170-meter-long giant curved screen on the left side of the circular corridor, in the Malay forest where the rainy season and dry season were transformed in the 19th century, various birds and animals were active, and in the interactive sensor dome, there were all kinds of flowers "falling from the sky", and the more people the sensor sensed, the more animals and plants would appear on the screen.

There are more and more plants, more and more people, and the history is beginning to be told clearly – as if it were a symbol of the island that grows out of the swamp – just like the warm and humid climate here, the raindrops falling from the equator and the indissolable water vapor rising from the ground.

Green buildings can be seen everywhere in Singapore, like vertical forests, pictured here at Orchard Road.  Photo by Meng Huizhong

"As we drive down the tree-lined road toward the city center in the early morning on this tropical island, the new high-rises glitter with a reminder of how recently the Pacific Ocean replaced the Atlantic as the new explosive center of global economic development. Indeed, the scenario described by scholar John Curtis Perry in Singapore: The Incredible Rise is indeed too "recent". As early as the Yuan Dynasty, the navigator Wang Dayuan sailed from Quanzhou to Nanyang, and recorded that this island inhabited by Chinese and Malays was "Temasek" (Javanese "sea city"), which belonged to the Sri Buddha dynasty in Indonesia since the 8th century, and was conquered by the Mozhiabi Kingdom (now Java Island) in the 13th century, and gradually developed from a merchant ship stop to an international trading port. In the Malay Chronicles, "The Creation of the Lion City of St. Nilo Utsuma", Prince and his wife of St. Nilo Utama and his subordinates were visiting when they overlooked the snow-white sand beach of Temasek, and when they went there, they saw a beast with a black head and a bare body, with white hair on its chest, slightly larger than a male goat, galloping past on the estuary plain, agile and strong, and his subordinates told him that it was a lion mentioned in ancient books, and the prince thought it was an auspicious place, so he named it "Singapura" (Singapura) - Sanskrit, singa is a lion, pura is a city, " "Xinhabhuluo" means "Lion City".

After January 28, 1819, the British erased the "fake and true" of legend and history into a myth full of pioneering miracles without blood and tears. At the beginning of the 19th century, when the British colonizers who moved south from the Malay Peninsula planned to open up a free trade port, the "Lion City" belonging to the Malay Johor dynasty naturally came into their field of vision. A bronze statue of Thomas Stamford Raffles, known as the "Father of Singapore's Founding", is erected at the North Pier on the banks of the Singapore River, with the inscription on the back of the sculpture: "Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles landed in Singapore for the first time on the 28th day of the first lunar month in 1819 and changed the fate of Singapore with his ingenuity and vision, from an obscure fishing village to a seaport and a modern city." ”

By the time Raffles landed with six seagoing vessels, the "Lion City" was long gone, with only 150 Malay fishermen and more than 30 Chinese people in sight, surrounded by moors, swamps and hills, dotted with sparse villages. Although Raffles returned to London in 1824, the year it became a British colony, and died two years later, it was he who gave him the name "Singapura", which quickly became "Sincapoor" in Britain and eventually "Singapore".

Sailing, sailing

Suffering, no fun

The strangers I met were singing

New myths, and I'm making my own

In 1979, the English-language Singaporean poet Edwin Thumboo's Ulysses by the Merlion symbolized Raffles' ambitious colonialist as a symbol of Raffles' "expansion" – a period of unprecedented prosperity until 1867, when the British crown replaced the East India Company in direct rule, establishing a free trade system and establishing urban precincts.

Interior view of the Manhindu Temple in Vilamakaliya, Little India Photo by Meng Huizhong

Indian assistants and soldiers who accompanied the ship became the first Indian colonizers in Singapore. After more than 200 years of development, the garland shops, audio-visual product shops, sari shops and restaurants all over the place, the heavy spices and curries, and the lacha that can draw a perfect parabola in the air have made Singapore's Little India area famous, and the Hindu Temple, Chinese Temple, Mosque, and Christian Church coexist in harmony: the Vilamakarya Manhindu Temple, built in 1855, is dedicated to the goddess Kari, the wife of Shiva, and the South Indian-style painted carved gatehouse filled with statues of gods, sacred cows, and warriors is made of earth yellow, bright pink, Indigo colours strike the senses, while the Art Deco Christian church, Kampung Capb Methodist, is a quiet corner of the market.

The site of the famous Hindu Temple, which is also "owned" by Little India, is Chinatown, the Mariamman Hindu Temple, which was built in 1923 and rebuilt 20 years later, next to Tenbo Street, and the colorful main entrance tower is a classic of the Dravidian style in South India. Coming out of the Mariamman Hindu Temple, you can see the "Pearl Fang" building with large red letters on the yellow façade on the street of Dempo. The lantern-laden streets of Chinatown Habitat record the past of Chinatown, famous for its opium smoke houses and coolie trade, where Chinese laborers imported from Fujian and Riau Islands settled in the area of present-day Kampong Glam in the early colonial period and moved to the "Dapo" between Telok Ayer and Pearl Hill, which is now known as Chinatown, and from Nanjing Street, Yu Dongxuan Street to Chinatown, the streets and alleys are criss-crossed by old-fashioned Chinese medicine shops, pawnshops, paper shops and barber shops.

Chinatown's landmark, Pearl Square, Photo by Meng Huizhong

Even though Singapore's old town and historical sites have a collage of world parks, the golden dome of the Sultan Mosque in today's Kampong Glam area is still like a phantom in the Thousand and One Nights, and it is incredibly beautiful – you can't help but go back to the National Gallery in the heart of the Colonial District to explore and present the permanent exhibition "Siapa Nama Kamu" in the heart of the Colonial District. The theme of the exhibition in Malay, "What's your name?" is also a metaphor for Singapore's examination of its own history. Walking up to the rooftop garden of Ng Teng Fong, which is full of "forest feeling", you can see the large grassland, the Parliament Building, St. Andrew's Cathedral and the waterfront area further afield, which are included in the World Heritage Tentative List of "The Great Grassland in Front of the Government Building and the Surrounding Buildings", and the waterfront area beyond, as Perry said, "Singapore's public buildings seem to come through space, they are not so much like typical Malayan town buildings, but more like Hong Kong or New Delhi" - it is the humid rainforest, Smoky temples and Orchard Road, once filled with spice plantations and orchards, and now packed with malls and people, make up Singapore's landscape.

Exterior view of the Sultan Mosque Photo by Meng Huizhong

Built in 1929 and stitched into the art gallery, the Government House witnessed the swearing-in of the 36-year-old Lee Kuan Yew as Prime Minister of Singapore on June 5, 1959, Singapore, the Federation of Malaysia, Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei in 1963 to form the Federation of Malaysia and break away from British rule, and after being "kicked out" of the Federation of Malaysia in August 1965, the "City of the Sea" with the highest dependence on trade in the world However, in more than half a century, it has risen incredibly and become the master of the Straits of Malacca, transforming into a beautiful "garden city" - whether it is day or night, when the plane to Singapore is about to land, you can see the busy merchant ships or fishing fires in the Singapore Strait, and against the backdrop of this landscape, Singapore's dream and ambition to build a "core city of Asian rejuvenation and a cultural center in a globalized world" has been confirmed.

View from the National Gallery Singapore Photo by Meng Huizhong

Anxiety disorders

The State Hall also witnessed the surrender of Japanese forces in Southeast Asia on 12 September 1945 by British Admiral Louis Mountbatten. Three years earlier, the Japanese had arrived in Singapore with a speed that had overwhelmed the local military and civilians. Today, there are always crowds of spectators at the National Museum's large-screen animations of the Japanese invasion process and the Japanese Type 95 light tanks that once roamed the battlefields of Southeast Asia – which is certainly not very indicative of the anxiety Singaporeans once felt as insecure, but those who visit Sentosa, the "island of tranquility" full of mountains, lakes and rivers, are reluctant to mention the original name of this world-famous resort, Pulau Blakang Mati ("Behind the island") – the Malay word for "behind the island".

The classic name "Jehogo Island" seems to be very apt to describe Singapore, which was economically backward, racially unstable, resource-scarce, and isolated in the early years of the founding of the People's Republic of China. "At first glance, a jungle swamp on the edge of the equator doesn't seem to have the perfect conditions to build a world-class city. Before Singapore, there was no global metropolis in the tropics, and it hasn't been since. Perry said. Lee Kuan Yew's tears on Independence Day seem to have become the "fuse" for Singaporeans' constant thirst for safety and frenzied competition with world-class cities such as Hong Kong. "Our success is the result of anxiety, which in turn cannot be fully appeased by success. Former Singaporean Foreign Minister Yeo Rong Boon said.

One of the ways for Singapore to "escape" from the desperate situation is to use the "4M" principles – Multiracialism, Multilingualism, Multiculturalism and Multireligion – to achieve a "transition" from regional identity to cultural identity to national identity. The Peace Monument in Beach Road Memorial Park was inaugurated on February 15, 1961, with four white cone-shaped stones about 70 meters high to commemorate the civilians who died during the Japanese occupation of Singapore during World War II From the different historical and cultural traditions of various ethnic groups and the alienated ethnic kinship, a "greatest common divisor" can be summed up - in this "non-ethnic country" like South Africa, the national identity of "Singaporeans" is constructed, and below this, it is "Chinese, Malay or Indian ethnicity".

Exterior view of the National Museum of Singapore Photo by Meng Huizhong

Even if Singapore's hawker culture is inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2020, it is important to create a shared "taste of Singapore". Hainanese chicken rice, bak kut teh, laksa, lojak ...... In the lively food courts, especially the many hawker centers without air conditioning, the collective memory of "dancing on the tip of the tongue" is evoked, but the collective identity preserved through the collective memory has a hint of "safe haven": the collective memory identity is mostly a defensive response, resisting excessive globalization and too fast-paced changes - not to mention the "sweet to sad" of the well-known breakfast brand Yakun, which always makes people feel that "the true meaning of tourism lies in Shennong tasting a hundred herbs" Killiney, who is also a representative of old-school breakfast, has a "taste of Singapore" humor while highly recommending egg and ham sandwiches with milk tea or kopi (coffee) sets to customers.

Thirty years ago, the city began to proclaim the concept of "Renaissance Singapore" with "Urban Megaprojects" and "Spectacular Spaces", and the Waterfront, the National Museum and the Asian Civilisations Museum gradually took shape. Gardens by the Bay is a classic urban planning masterpiece that creates a "dream oasis", with artist Mark Quinn's sleeping baby sculpture "Plant" floating above the garden, and the star-studded Changi Indoor Waterfall in the Changi Airport complex as a condensation of human ingenuity with a transit function has become the country's new face for the country: even the 3D glasses-free installation "Dancing Water" in the T2 Departure Hall, which is composed of 892 flat and curved LED displays The dazzling blur can't diminish the stunning waterfall in the tropical jungle that cascades down from the rooftops of the building.

Artificial waterfall at Changi Airport Photo by Meng Huizhong

Singapore's ubiquitous air conditioning has relieved the tropical heat of the early years when travel writer Isabella Bird wanted to "take off the flesh" and "cool down with only the bones", while at the same time confined most people's lives indoors, making the outdoors like a spectacle of wonders, as Rem Koolhaas puts it, "like a window display looking through a glass panel". Although historian Arnold Toynbee was pessimistic about Singapore's future in 1969, Lee Kuan Yew, a "Toynbee devotee", "clung to his theory" that harsher and colder conditions would lead to a more vibrant, productive civilization – which is why Perry believes that this tropical island has such a fast pace of life.

In Lee Kuan Yew's belief, those who enjoy "the warmth of the sun, bananas and coconuts" do not need to work hard and naturally do not contribute. I don't know how those who roam the Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Mall like giant ships in the sky would feel if they heard it. Moshe Safdie, the designer who designed the structure with a 26-degree inclination and a 340-metre-long cantilevered sky garden at the top, sees it as "a place where Singapore meets the world and the world meets Singapore" – swimmers float on the edge of a steep cliff in the world's highest infinity pool above this "meeting point".

The bustling scenery of Chinatown Photo by Meng Huizhong

In the midst of a flood of language and culture, who can represent Singapore today – Sentosa, the Super Tree at Marina Bay, the Changi Airport Falls, the seemingly all-encompassing meadows, or the small, passionate, powerful and energetic sculpture "Chili" by Singaporean conceptual artist Kumari Nahappan on the lawn behind the National Museum?

Singapore's veteran "spokesperson" cannot be without a name. Across the river from the Sands, the Merlion has been slowly rising from a tourism trademark to a national totem since it was designed in 1964, registered as a trademark by the Singapore Tourism Board in 1966, and completed its sculpture in 1971. The 8-metre-tall, 40-tonne white, fish-tailed collage with smiling eyes that floats between the waves not only illustrates the historical imagination of the locals of the "Sea City" and the "Lion City", but also symbolizes the ancestors of Singaporeans who came south to make a living, and in Yu Wenfa's poem "The Merlion Imagination", it is "competing with the heroes in the Asia-Pacific region with its amphibious spirituality".

At this world-class attraction (and a bit boring), Merlion Park, where the wind is strong enough to blow false eyelashes off, few people will quietly admire the Merlion. In order to attract tourists, the Merlion was designed to spit water, but it was "broken" in this way - people from all over the world posed in commemorative photos to catch water and wash their hair, and no one cared about the poet Alfian Sa'at's exclamation: "The Merlion is trapped there...... It's as if you're not sure where you should belong. Singaporean poet Liang Yue even "spits bitter water" like a Merlion in the poem "Merlion":

Say you're a lion

But you have no legs, and you can't without legs

Crisscrossing thousands of mountains and mountains

Say you're a fish

But you have no gills, and you can't without gills

Swim under the seas and oceans

When night falls, visitors from all over the world surround the Merlion to see its spit out of water.  Photo by Meng Huizhong

This is nothing less than a cross-examination of "Ulysses by the Merlion".

Don't forget!

It belongs to the island city itself

——Harane

Own-

历史

Fang Ran's "Lions and Fishes" imagines a unique society in Singapore built by the spirit of the rule of law in the West and the values of the East, but this vision is not yet completed - surrounded by many "Singapore equations" such as "durian + Changi tree", "Tian Fu Palace + Praise Square", "high temperature + air conditioning", "land + sea" and "careerist + anxiety", Ng Eng, the "father of Singapore sculpture". Teng) explores the country's everyday landscapes that no one cares about, and presents a more refined "synthesis equation" at the National University of Singapore Art Museum: 1+1=1.

Zhang Yameng

Editor-in-charge: Yang Jiamin