I learned another important function of blogs in “When Nations Remember”. Hope to follow in the footsteps of these Heritage Bloggers.
On 12 October, I sat through a Forum on “Capturing Memories through Blogs” by Mr Lam Chun See, who is famous for his goodmorningyesterday blog and Mr Char Lee, well-known for his “2nd Shot” blog.
At 58, Mr Lam Chun See is one of the oldest bloggers in Singapore. His blog specialises on recalling Singapore’s past. It is full of heritage photos and wonderful anecdotes of “kampung days”. Even the name of his blog – Good Morning Yesterday – sounds old. It is actually based on the title of a jingle sung by Paul Anka all the way back in 1975.
Char Lee’s niche is “precision heritage photography”. Wow, first time I’m hearing this phrase. What he does is he takes a photo from the past, usually a black-and-white, locates and visits the exact geographical spot where the photo was taken and snaps a modern day shot – a second shot, geddit? Sounds simple? Not at all. He researches on the background of the old photos. Sometimes, surrounding landmarks have been so obliterated that the place is unrecognisable, and that’s where detective work comes in. Then, he has to take time (he has a day job) to visit the place under the right lighting conditions. This is manageable in tiny Singapore, but Char Lee has made trips as far as Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia, chasing after images on the faded photographs. Talk about passion.
This is what I learned from the Forum:
- If we are interested in preserving Singapore’s past, or to be a heritage detective, or just to hang around with these exciting people, become a Friend of Yesterday.sg, a group of heritage enthusiasts who regularly blog on heritage-related topics, under NHB’s social media platform.
- If your grandma or parents are housecleaning, rescue those old photos! And don’t just let them take extra shoebox space in your storeroom. You can contribute them to Singapore Memory or National Heritage Board. Some people even mail their photos to Chun See so he could post them on his blog. So now Chun See has an extensive and unique collection, while you and I have none. We need to exercise foresight here!
- Char Lee says that he spends more time on research then he does on blogging. This is food for thought as I had initially thought of blogging as journaling. Now I see that blogging also serves the important function of documenting a nation’s development. Hopefully, this will inspire me to do more research.
- Some bloggers blog because they want wider viewership. If you are looking for a subject that will expand your viewership, consider heritage blogging. Chun See’s blog excites a lot of comment. Young people visit his blog for information to help them on their school assignments. Another group of frequent visitors are British people who lived in Singapore as children when their parents were posted here. They share photos and post stories on his blog. In fact, they are a good source of photographs because the British people who worked in Singapore during the ‘50s and ‘60s were richer than our parents and more of them owned cameras.
- If your desire is to connect with the new generation, perhaps your grandchildren, or your students if you are a teacher, you have to find their channel. As Chun See says, young people’s channel is the Internet. So, forget about bonding around the coffee table (the only thing your grandchildren will be doing around the coffee table is playing X-box) and get onto the Net.
- Heritage blogging has to be a passion. As I was listening to the two presenters, the question on my mind was “This sounds like a lot of work, where do you find the time to do it?” They made time. Char Lee is employed while Chun See has his own business, so they carve out time from their busy schedules because they are passionate about their hobbies. Chun See confesses that he spends more time on his blog than on his business. And Singapore’s younger generation should thank him for it. So much of Singapore’s cultural and architectural heritage are being swept away in the name of progress; thus, more heritage detectives and chroniclers like Chun See are needed.
- Some old people have wonderful memories, but are defeated by technology about how to create a blog. So they do something different – passive blogging. I learned this from Chun See. Viewers would read his blog entries, have a memory triggered and contribute their memory as a Comment on his blog. Sometimes, there are lively controversies when memories conflict, and this makes for even more interesting reading. No wonder his name appears high on Google searches for Singapore’s past.
- Old people are always willing to talk, but not so willing to write it down. If you fancy becoming a heritage blogger, the material is more readily available then you think. Just get an old person to start talking.
- Singapore’s present is tomorrow’s history. We don’t need to blog about stuff that happened before we were born. Start blogging now so that we can preserve things that we take for granted today, but which will be novel information for our children and grandchildren. When the presenters said that, it put me in mind of my neighbourhood hawker centre. This hawker centre is old (I don’t know how old), and many people would drive from other estates and offices to eat here. It is scheduled for demolition on 1 November. Now why didn’t I think of that! After this Conference, I’m going back to snap pictures of my favourite food stalls before they are gone forever!
