How Culture Works (02.

213) Final Exam

3) Imagine you are a museum curator to create a new exhibition about “Singapore Culture in the last
52 years.” A) What themes would you feature under the exhibition and why? B) What materials would
you present for each theme, and why?

There is no better place to unite the in-depth anthropologist conducting fieldwork and the layman
with barely any understanding of the word ‘anthropology’ itself than a museum. The museum is a
concentration of culture at its finest, and it is the responsibility of the curator to fairly represent the
subject of the museum in its confined spaces with proportionate displays, but cover all of its subjects
with enough depth to prove that deep fieldwork has been conducted to satisfy the basic
qualifications of an ethnographer worth his salt. To focus on Singapore’s culture in the last 52 years
since our independence, I will focus on the institutions and cultural objects of our daily lives – our
food, our education, the races, and our homes. Not only these are things that people around the
world can relate to at various stages of life, I will elaborate more on why these themes will be a good
representation of Singapore from its people.

There is much to learn about food as underlined by SW Mintz and CM Du Bois. The food that
Singaporeans eat, shaped by our multi-cultural environment and driven by our local appetites, sheds
light onto our historical materialism and social construction of memory. Materials to present for this
theme must include illustrations in not only the kinds of food we enjoy – Chinese, Malay, Indian, and
Western – but also the way we partake in the eating of those foods. That Chinese food is eaten with
chopsticks, the difference in the coconut-milk rice of Malays from Chinese steamed rice, down to the
traditional culture of Indians eating with hands (and the reduced frequency of utensils
accompanying their dishes) should be highlighted. The setting of these foods being available under
the roof of a hawker centre cannot be forgotten, for the hawker centre has grown into a uniquely
Singaporean cultural icon. The place symbolising people of all walks of life gathering to eat together
without restrictions or borders that in turn would symbolise cultural divisions cannot be overstated.
The theme of food, supported by the hawker centre and its smorgasbord-esque menu, does not
necessarily mean we understand each other equally, nor are we laying a claim to one another’s
culture, but it demonstrates that food is not only a substance to be analysed in the kitchen or in a
restaurant, but in Singapore’s communal space, where it fosters a sense of togetherness.

An insight into education is to take an insight at the changing demands for the workforce of
Singapore, and what was anticipated for us to become. Educational institutes themselves such as the
old Nantah University are historically significant as well, but more relevant to Singapore culture is
the evolution of our schools with technology, social strata, and economic forces of change. Despite
what our government might claim, “Every school is a good school,” Singapore historically has had
class separation in its schools, dating from the times when it was a British colony, and persisting
after independence. Previously, it was rich English schools which received a disproportionate
allocation of government funding while the Chinese-language schools received crumbs in
comparison. Today, “Every school is a good school” flies in the face of public information that shows
great disparity between schools at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels to a lesser extent.
Materials for this theme of the museum will be unable to cover the existence of this disparity in
order to represent Singapore’s education fairly. From scale models and layouts of schools to
speciments of classroom furniture, stationary, and other minutiae, It should cover the most basic
amenities available to all schools and juxtapose it with the “contributions” of alumni to their alma
maters. When only some schools in Singapore enjoy costly facilities ranging from swimming pools to
How Culture Works (02.213) Final Exam

niche clubrooms to running tracks, the museum can leave it plainly apparent that Singapore’s
children have existed in a class divide, one that is likely to continue to persist. Despite the
modernising of the curriculum to respond to both economic demands (from STEM-heavy
manufacturing and technical skills to ‘soft’ skills in a service-based economy) and societal demands
to equalise the gap in good schools and implied “bad” schools, cultural expectations and stereotypes
have been created and it will influence Singapore for many years to come. Although we appear
similar in our book-smart ways as do the other Asian Tigers – China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan
– a dose of cultural relativism is required to distinguish us from the other countries, and
communicate to the ethnographer that our reasons for pursuing higher education are grounded in
dissimilar reasons and context.

Continuing the theme of division and unity would be the theme of the racial groups in Singapore.
Undoubtedly a controversial part of the museum, much care must be taken when creating this
section and procuring the materials for these themes. There cannot be a discussion about race in
Singapore without some reference to the Maria Hertogh riots, but a deeper question demands
attention – does the act of classifying races institute racism? According to Jared Diamond, it is not
only impossible to classify people by arbitrary rules about race, it should not even be done at all
because the classification of humans would foster our subconscious differentiation of “us versus
them”. True unity would be to proclaim that there are no differences between anybody at all – but
this would easily be undone by the layman’s argument that there are already three different ethnic
groups in Singapore with different mother tongues. Materials to support this would be cold, hard
statistics, number that demonstrate an undeniable difference. Diamond concludes his argument by
positing that racial classification is an old means of making a quick ‘friend or foe’ judgment, one that
has little relevance in our time today. The theme of this part of the museum must use suitable
material to conclude to this end: besides the aforementioned theme of food and culture-sharing, it
should be highlighted how as friends, Singaporeans help each other out. Government assistance sets
a cue for who to help, how to help, and what the others can do about it to an extent. Community
efforts to transform and shape our surroundings in turns create more inclusive culture. There can
never be truly equal representation in all fields by virtue of unequal proportions - Singapore Chinese
make up some 70% of the population, Malays 21%, Indians 6% - but the opportunities available to all
of them can be equal.

Something to round off this imaginary museum would be a theme of Home. Home is not just our
housing, but the space in which we occupy and choose to live and work among others. By
circumstance, Singapore is a small country amongst other well-developed countries, which leaves us
with no room for further substantial expansion. Apartments have to have become our way of life
sooner or later, and materials showing the physical and architectural progression of our dwellings is
compulsory. Closer to the heart, our culture is to be shown off, even far from Singapore – an
intangible display of our people gathering at the embassies and streets across the world on our
National Day would illustrate this perfectly. Despite being one of the smallest countries in the world,
we are able to unite our people near and far by common circumstance and design. To be united by
our differences, and illustrating that message, would be a fitting end to a tour of our museum.

By illustrating our culture through tangible objects and intangible experiences, I hope that I would
have put up an interesting exhibit for the laymen, and intrigued the ethnographer and inspired him
How Culture Works (02.213) Final Exam

to know more about Singapore’s culture post-independence sufficiently. Perhaps as a final touch,
the gift store that comes at the end of all museums selling trinkets and souvenirs should include a
shelf of cited literature.