::Amelia's Reflection::

I personally do not feel that the trail was cheesy at all. In fact, I feel more like a history student now than before. My favorite part of the trail was The Arts House and Fort Canning Park. I think along the trail we didn’t get to learn much about the history behind each site on the spot, but for some reason seeing the old buildings, architecture, and artifacts, brought me a step closer to the history of Singapore. I realize now history is a part of our everyday, all around us, only if we care to pay notice; not just a time long gone.

After the trail, I was tasked with the research of Victoria Theatre and Victoria Concert Hall, Cenotaph, and The Old Supreme Court. It was interesting. Like, before the Old Supreme Court was erected, in its place stood a hotel known as the Grand Hotel de l’Europe, in 1900. And, the PAP was founded on 21 November 1954 in the Victoria Memorial Hall which is now known as the Victoria Concert Hall. Places and people. Places come alive with the stories and happenings people bring to them. It would be a pity if such places of historical value slowly lose their place in modern Singapore.

I think it’s a good thing the government makes an effort to gazette these places as National Monument. There are also plans for the Old Supreme Court and City Hall to be transformed into the National Art Gallery of Singapore by 2012. I think this is a promising move, for both history and the arts scene in Singapore.

To quote a Sunday Times article titled “Reclaiming the past for the future” by Janadas Devan, “If Singapore is to have a renaissance, its artists and writers, its scholars and thinkers, its art patrons and spectators, will have to [make new what had been handed on to them by tradition;] their own gifts from the past.”