No Man's Land
First thing’s first, this is not an experience I enjoyed … completely.
After I get to the appointed location, slowly, one by one, we enter and are instructed to snoop around, going through old articles of all sorts, though we’re not allowed to physically touch anything. Fear of breaking belongings from the organisers, I assume, though that does make it feel less personal as my hands hover over relics that were not of this time.
Perhaps this was the intended effect?
We’re walking, walking, walking, and we end up in a truck that’s colder than Snow City.
Confusion; whatever the meaning, the significance of this situation inside a roving refrigerator does not induce any meditative trance where I can find meaning and relevance. All I know is that the temperature is chilly and the sound of a roaring engine right next to my ear is very much painful.
This is something I will not wish on my enemy.
We are eventually led to another shop house and individual characters that are all loosely linked to each other greet us separately. Every unique personality begin regurgitating their own stories and confronting us with questions that we don’t want to think about on a daily basis. Some of these questions find us quiet and unspeaking. These include questions on what it is like to be Singaporean, and to consider what it is like to be a Singaporean living in Old Joo Chiat, and present day Joo Chiat.
Now, I am not a deeply philosophical person, and there are many things that can be added to improve what I have endured for an hour and forty-five minutes. But the questions do bring their points across.
Though not a full success, the questions provoke some form of interrogation within oneself. You do think of Singapore, back then, and of those people who existed in those days, standing on the pivoting point of history and feeling so utterly insecure and terrified for their futures – gone.
No Man’s Land has planted many questions in my head. Regardless of its many experimental shortcomings, it is a commendable effort and I believe, a step forward in its contemporary ways of drawing attention to the history of Singapore.