This neighbourhood is meaningful to me. I spent a lot of time here as a child, running about after church, going to eat all of the food, visiting people, going to get charcoal (from the back of a lorry here) and fresh coconuts (grated at the back of a little market here).
I think my child’s consciousness of the outside world was first formed here. I first became aware of the world in Tanglin Halt. There were Indonesian women who would take the ferry from Batam to sell food items from the market here, and I remember talking to them and wanting to know more about their food cultures, their language, and how I could take the ferry too (and I would often make the journey in the other direction, when I grew up).
Now that it’s all been set aside for redevelopment, I feel a little sad. Some bits of it remain. But I know that when I return next, it’s all going to be different, or gone. Such is life in Singapore.
![](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/8917/2023/000180450008.jpg)
I lost too much money to these machines, as a child.
![2. A scan of a color photo of a public housing estate with uniform windows in singapore](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/8917/2023/000180470008-2.jpg)
Public housing apartments in Singapore’s Tanglin Halt estate.
![a scan of a color photo of a pastel salmon pink, yellow and blue feature on the side of a building in a public housing project in Singapore](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/8917/2023/000180470006-2.jpg)
Going, going, gone.
![A scan of a color photo of an abandoned public housing neighborhood in Singapore with pastel colors and a dome](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/8917/2023/000180470009-2.jpg)
All going to be gone.
![A scan of a color photo of a roti prata seller in Singapore](https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/8917/2023/000180470011-2.jpg)
The old school prata man remains.
All photos taken on Yashica Mat 124G, Portra 400, dev and scan by Whampoa Colour Centre.