Task 4

(Viewing and Listening Tasks)

Visit one museum in Singapore or anywhere in the world and do a review of what you have seen and learnt

On the 20^th of November which was a Saturday, I went to visit a total of 3 museums in Singapore, along with my good friend Esther Leong Minn Yi and accompanied by her mother. The three museums we visited included the Singapore Arts Museum, the Singapore Philatelic Museum and the Peranakan Museum.

The first Museum we visited was the Singapore Philatelic Museum. We arrived early in the morning where there were only a handful of people viewing the galleries. I expected the museum to be really boring as I was not a stamp collector. However, this visit surprised me and even inspired me to collect a few stamps of my own. I learnt more on the proper procedures of how mail was delivered from the post office to the door steps of Singaporeans. I also viewed the evolution of the post boxes in Singapore. In the 80’s and 90’s, the post boxes in Singapore were the same as the ones they had in England- the tall reddish ones, weighing approximately 10kg each. This was because we were under the British rule then. However after gaining her independence, Singapore changed the post boxes to squarish yellow one with stripes on the front body. Eventually as the years went by, the post boxes finally evolved to those we commonly see in Singapore- the squarish white ones. I also learnt more on how to care for stamps. I found out from the galleries that you first had to soak the stamp you collected in after so as to remove the stickiness. Next, one had to dry them properly but not under direct sunlight as this might cause the stamps to wrinkle. After all this is done, one has to buy a stamp album to display the stamps collected. This not only ensures that the stamps would not be crushed, but also causes the stamps to yellow with age at a much slower rate. Overall, I greatly enjoyed my visit to the Singapore Philatelic Museum. I not only learned more about how mail was delivered from past to present, but also on how to properly care for stamps collected.

Next up was the Peranakan Museum, where Esther, her mother and I spent the longest time at. Being a Peranakan myself, it allowed me to get to know more about my roots, while imparting some of my pre-existing knowledge to Esther. The last time I visited the Museum was a few years back in 2009 and I was really glad that I could re-visit the museum again as they had some new galleries. The Peranakan Museum was divided into many different galleries  ranging from their food, to their attire and even special occasions. The museum was also holding a special gallery on ‘Emily of Emerald Hill’ a theatrical play originally a book. By coincidence, we even had the chance to catch the English Language Drama and Debate club from not only our school but also other schools perform their own rendition of the play. Even though the performers were teenagers our age, some of them acted very well as they got into character and portrayed the character very vividly, giving us a deeper understanding of the characters in the play. I enjoyed our visit to the Peranakan Museum the most as it was very interesting and the museum also made the gallery viewing very interactive as we were given a puzzle where we had to go around the museum in search of stamps to chop on it. This made the visit more interactive and engaging.

The final museum we visited was the Singapore Arts Museum. Sadly we did not stay there for long. From my museum visit I learnt that art not only exists on paper from. Sculptures or even a simple black and white movie or picture can also be considered a form of art too. However most of the art works featured in the museum was to abstract for him and I could not figure out the message the artist was trying to say, but I did enjoy the short clips featured in the different galleries.