Up to a few years ago, “memories” were considered a thing of the private realm. Even though there had been a popular history movement in the UK and US for about 20 years or more, it never really took off in Soutehast Asia. For much of this part of the world, history is one with a capital letter H.

How things have changed. Now, “memories” is all the rage. Stories now have a part to play in history. But if these “memories” or their narratives of it still follow the framework of “Great men’s history”, then it is merely adding spice to what is already known and repeated.

One can only hope that these stories told humanises the society, not reinforcing the convenient structures.

STRAITS TIMES
Apr 11, 2010

Wanted: Your memories of S’pore
National Library Board hopes to collect 5 million memories to mark the nation’s 50th birthday in 2015

By Huang Lijie

What do you give Singapore for its 50th birthday?

Singaporeans may want to consider offering their memories of life on the island.

The National Library Board aims to collect five million memories to commemorate the occasion in 2015.

The project, Singapore Memory, was announced in Parliament recently. Mr Gene Tan, the project’s programme director, said libraries, heritage agencies and research institutions will team up to ‘collect, preserve and provide access’ to these memories – which may be captured in print, audio and video. He said the project, to be launched later this year, aims to ’strengthen a shared sense of identity and heritage’.

The Oral History Centre, a department under the National Archives, has been documenting the past since it was established in 1979.

Its five full-time oral historians conduct interviews with people about their life experiences. They have logged almost 17,100 hours of interviews with 3,500 people in English, Malay, Tamil and Chinese dialects.

‘We want to trace not only the major political milestones but also the cultural and social aspects such as family history, traditions and values,’ said Ms Julia Chee, the centre’s deputy director.

Recent interviewees include Mr Samuel Lee, Singapore’s first test-tube baby, and Madam Goh Siew Geok, TAS Theatre Company’s founder, who shared her views on developments in the Chinese opera scene in Singapore.

Retiree Lai Thiam Hock, 78, contacted the centre recently after a friend encouraged him to record his World War II experiences. He recalled his family’s near escapes from death during the Japanese Occupation.

‘It was painful at times to relive those bitter memories, but I want to let the younger generation know what life was like then and how fortunate they are,’ he said.

The interviews, lasting about two hours each, may take place over one or more sessions, depending on the interviewee’s availability and the breadth to be covered. The recordings are done in digital format.

Interviewees may opt to release the recordings immediately or embargo them for a period. They are also given a copy of the recording.

The recordings are available for free at the National Archives or online at www.a2o.com.sg. In the last year, 16,901 oral history discs were consulted at the Archives while 474,480 discs were accessed online.

As for the authenticity of the accounts, Ms Chee said checks are done during the interviews. The accounts may also be cross-checked against other sources.

‘Oral history’s strength lies in its ability to cover a dimension that documents and facts and figures cannot capture – the feelings, emotions and reflections expressed via recounting,’ she said.

lijie@sph.com.sg

Those who wish to share their oral history may contact Ms Julia Chee of the Oral History Centre on 6332-7944, or e-mail julia_chee@nhb.gov.sg

I’ve always admired those who work on their family history, and laboriously trace them back centuries. It’s hard work indeed.

I’ve been wanting to do mine for the longest time but never got around to it, not systematically at least. But in the last few months, I’ve been soliciting stories and details, which many of us would not think about asking in “normal conversations”. Every conversation with my parents or my relatives are turning into interrogation sessions!

A professor once told me that the longing for family history or roots is an index of loss. Then, I didn’t agree with her. I had not issues with my identity, felt no dissatisfaction or the need to know “who I really am”. I still don’t. But I am beginning to see her point, though not as she meant it probably. As I see it now, the loss is one of the links with the people whom I’m closest to and who mattered most to me. I’m missing my maternal grandparents especially even though they’ve been gone a long time. Perhaps it is Qing Ming, or perhaps it’s age. I miss them terribly.

That is probably the fuel for me to want to find out more about their lives, their stories. They’ve had intriguing stories I heard. There’s the Second World War, a mad mother (a la Bertha Mason), a loss grave, missing siblings, an opera troupe and family betrayal involved. On the other side, there’s also the Cultural Revolution in the mix, somehow.

But because they were poor and uneducated, they didn’t leave much written legacies, if at all. In a time when documentation is not the norm, this makes it even harder. But try I will, nevertheless, to piece together the stories.

Those interested in British and Singapore military history may like to attend the following event organised by the Churchill College, Cambridge and the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, NUS.

What: A one-day symposium to revisit historical problems and questions relating to the career of Winston Churchill and the relationship between Britain and Singapore, with particular reference to problems of defence and foreign policy.

When: 9 April 2010

Where: University Cultural Centre Theatre

Registration starts at 8.30 am and all are welcome. If you wish to attend, please email to fasv3@nus.edu.sg or fashelp@nus.edu.sg for registration.

The programme can be found here.

In her blog entry on Ancestry.Com, Jeanie Croasman wrote:

I hated history in high school, a fact that seems absurd to me today since now I’m surrounded by it. But back then, history was just a bunch of names and dates and events that had no impact on me whatsoever. Or so I thought.

Age does funny things to you. Gravity aside, it’s also helped me realize just how much I was personally affected by those events we studied in school. For example, I was always told that my great-grandfather left Austria-Hungary to avoid conscription. What I didn’t know until I started checking dates was that World War I was the bigger trigger.

How true. Perhaps, it’s the education system that makes history boring, not that history is itself boring. That’s besides the point. What’s interesting is the little tip in crafting one’s genealogy – to place everything in a timeline – both personal and the historical – and you might just see the context in which your family history is played out.

Doing this, you’ll see that we don’t just exist in a vacuum, but that there are interesting things that happened around us, and the impact on our private lives, great or small.

These historical events provide an interesting backdrop against which we see our family history. But I’d be careful not to write ourselves into history – making every link no matter how tenuous. This is unless, of course, you have family members directly involved – such as being a wartime commanding officer or leader of a country.

Charting your family timeline is probably a good start to that family history project you’ve been putting off for so long.