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.
I lost too much money to these machines, as a child.
Public housing apartments in Singapore’s Tanglin Halt estate.
Going, going, gone.
All going to be gone.
The old school prata man remains.
All photos taken on Yashica Mat 124G, Portra 400, dev and scan by Whampoa Colour Centre.
