Newly-launched MHC - a reflection.

I recently visited the newly reopened Malay Heritage Centre at Kampong Glam (Singapore) following an almost two-year closure for extensive renovations. These are my broad observations of the current exhibition when I visited on 10 July 2026. 

This is not an open letter, just my personal reflections as a visitor and storyteller in films.

Some background and context

• I recently completed a museum project with a government ministry, working alongside architects, exhibition designers, copywriters and filmmakers, which was my department, for almost two years.
• I cannot name or identify the project because of an NDA, but the experience gave me some insight into how museum narratives, visitor journeys and exhibits are developed.
• I visited the new Malay Heritage Centre with a non-Malay friend who enjoys museums. I deliberately brought her along because she did not already know many of the Malay cultural and historical anchor points presented in the galleries.
• After completing the rather confusing narrative trail, I could eventually understand the direction the museum was trying to take. The problem was getting there.

1. Wayfinding and the Visitor Journey

No clear starting point

• It was not always clear where each gallery began or in which direction visitors were expected to move.
• Because of the gallery layouts, I often found myself entering at what appeared to be the end of an exhibit.
• I then had to walk backwards or retrace my steps to find the intended starting point.

The narrative chronology gets lost

• This affected more than navigation. It disrupted the storytelling.
• Once the sequence was lost, it became difficult to understand how one exhibit, idea or period was meant to lead into the next.
• The design should guide visitors instinctively. They should not have to stop and work out where the story begins.

2. The Emotional Connection Is Missing

I understood the information, but did not necessarily feel it

• For me, a strong museum experience should go beyond presenting facts and objects. It should create an emotional connection between the visitor and the history.
• When I visited the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, I came away genuinely affected by the stories of the young Australian Allied soldiers who died in Singapore.
• I understood the idealism of these young men who left home, perhaps hoping to see the world, only to be failed by the brutal reality of war.
• Their sacrifice did not feel like the story of one heroic individual. It felt like an ensemble sacrifice involving many ordinary young men.
• That experience stayed with me so strongly that it eventually informed a film I wrote about another famous wartime event, the Battle of Bukit Chandu.

The displays feel more presentational than affecting

• At the Malay Heritage Centre, I did not feel that same sense of connection, pride or emotional discovery.
• Much of the history remained behind the glass, supported by vintage-looking displays and explanatory text, but it did not always feel alive or personally relatable. 
• My non-Malay friend was left quite confused. I found myself explaining far more of the historical and cultural context than I felt I should have needed to.
• A museum should reward visitors who already know the history, but it must also bring along those encountering it for the first time.

3. Exhibits and Interpretation

The objects need a clearer place within the story

• The exhibits suffered from the unclear wayfinding and uneven captioning.
• Because I lost the intended chronology, I sometimes encountered objects before understanding why they were important.
• I then had to return to the actual beginning of the gallery and reconstruct the intended narrative for myself.

Gallery 5 needs stronger contextualisation

• The artefacts in Gallery 5 may be historically significant, but I suspect many visitors will still be asking: Why should I care about these objects?
• The captions should do more than identify an artefact. They should explain:
• Why is it here?
• What does it tell us about Malay history or identity?
• Whose life does it represent?
• How does it connect to the other exhibits?
• Why should it matter to a visitor today?

4. Copywriting and Captioning

More facts do not always produce greater clarity

• Some of the copy could be sharper and more purposeful.
• The writing should clearly establish why an object, person or event has been included and how it contributes to the larger gallery narrative.
• At times, the captions explain what something is without communicating why it matters.
• The individual texts may contain useful information, but they do not always build towards a coherent whole.

5. Main Takeaway from Each Gallery

What should visitors leave remembering?

• The key message of each gallery feels somewhat convoluted.
• By the end of a section, I was not always certain what its central takeaway was supposed to be.
• Each gallery needs a simple narrative spine: one clear idea that visitors can understand, remember and carry into the next space.
• The museum contains many potentially meaningful stories. The challenge is giving those stories greater focus and hierarchy.

6. The Film Gallery

The current argument feels too superficial

• My friend and I are both filmmakers, with professional credits involving film history and filmmaking techniques. We found the main narrative presented in this gallery rather superficial.
• The female stars of that era were specifically chosen for their beauty, screen presence and charisma. Their screen roles also followed familiar heroine tropes adapted largely from Indian cinema.
• This does not diminish their talent. These women held their own as performers and often had tremendous screen presence.
• However, within many of the films themselves, the female characters were still positioned mainly in relation to the male hero. At least, that is what appears on screen.
• The “women as industry engines” argument needs evidence
• The film gallery makes a rather sweeping assertion about women as engines of the film industry, without presenting enough historical evidence to sustain that argument.
• If the gallery wants to argue that these women were not merely stars or narrative devices, but important engines of the film industry, then that argument needs stronger support.
• Are there interviews, archival documents, production records or credible first-hand accounts demonstrating their influence behind the scenes?
• Without such evidence, the present interpretation feels imposed retrospectively rather than convincingly drawn from the historical material.

A stronger angle may already be available

• Another approach would be to examine Singapore as a progressive regional centre for filmmaking and the arts during that period.
• If “progressiveness” is the gallery’s main argument, it could explore how Singapore became a place where artists from Malaya, Sumatra and the wider region gathered, collaborated and expressed themselves.
• During my own research for a Mediacorp documentary about Jalan Ampas, I found a valuable oral-history interview with S. Kadarisman in the National Archives. He was outspoken and gave a vivid account of what was happening within the Jalan Ampas film community.
• The community was not simply Singaporean in the narrow modern sense. It was part of a wider Malayan cultural world, drawing artists and workers from present-day Malaysia, Sumatra and elsewhere in the region.
• Under British rule, the arts were largely allowed to flourish as long as artists did not cross certain legal or political boundaries.
• Singapore consequently became a space where regional artists could gather, experiment and express themselves with fewer cultural parameters.
• To me, that is a richer and more historically grounded story: Singapore as a thriving regional meeting point where Malay cinema, music, performance and popular culture could grow.

Overall Takeaway

• I eventually understood what the museum was trying to achieve, but the visitor journey made that understanding harder than necessary.
• The main issue is not a lack of material. There are many valuable artefacts, personalities and histories here.
• What is missing is a clearer narrative journey, stronger emotional connection and more persuasive explanation of why these histories should matter, especially to visitors who do not already know the context.
• A heritage centre should not require a Malay visitor to act as an unofficial guide for a non-Malay companion. The galleries themselves should be doing that work.

CHARGED (2026)

Poignant restaging of CHARGED by Teater Ekamatra. A reminder that racial harmony is never a destination. It's a work in progress.

Deep down, I flinched when one of the characters mentioned the "token" Malay Commando. I remembered how I felt when I first watched this play in 2011: patronised, moved and anxious, all at once. Funny enough, I felt exactly the same this evening.

For a moment, I wanted to approach the actor afterwards and say, "Hey, that was me you were talking about." But I refrained. Tonight was his moment, not mine. It took me back to the time during pre-enlistment interview at CMPB at 18 years old too myopic to see how my life will change forever as a pioneer, the prowler details during guard duty and that final moment when I walked out of Hendon camp during ORD.

Looking back, I'm simply glad to have been one of those who helped open the door for other Malays in the unit.

Singapore has come a long way since then. Not because these conversations disappeared, but because we kept having them. Progress doesn't happen by accident. It happens when every generation is willing to confront uncomfortable truths, question old assumptions and leave the door a little wider open for those who come after.

Thanks to the magnificent cast, Chong Tze Chien (writer) and Fared Jainal (director) for reminding the conversations CHARGED raises are far from over. If anything, many of us are still living within our own bubbles. 

The Makan-dos struggle

If the BBC's Little Britain has Daffyd Thomas, Hendon Camp had moi. 

Being the only Mat in the village, cookhouse food was catered - not from the nearby Changi Village Hawker Centre, but catered from another unit down Hendon hill across the road. This was when cookhouse food was still prepared by full time National Servicemen NSF, so it was very much a hit-or-miss affair. The Commando Formation didn’t have a Muslim kitchen then. 

Occasionally when there was early lunch or dinner at the company, I had to wait 10-15mins while the cooks fetch the Muslim meals. In NSF Commando universe, 10-15 minutes was forever.

The rest of the guys would be done eating and already falling in, while I was still sitting alone in my special Muslim corner, staring at my tray. And yes, there were a handful of times the NSF cooks simply forgot (!) to pick up my indented food.

Some nights before a jump or an overnight outfield, the company would have very early dinner. But the cooks across the road either hadn't have indented dinner in their records or hadn’t even started cooking. My commanders would get the CQ to buy mee goreng from the mamak at Changi Village.

A Mamak mee goreng. (The Halal Food Blog)

Five hours later, I’d be running on air, the oily noodles still swirling in my gut while nausea crept up my throat. And we still had another seven hours before breakfast. (That explains my lifelong aversion to mamak mee goreng.) Sometimes I just had bread. 

On long-stay outfields, lunch sometimes arrived piping hot - chicken curry or tomato sambal chicken. Imagine being wrecked from the morning’s activities, sitting under a sad little bush while the midday sun roasted you, and a pot of curry appears. See what it does to your appetite. 

Sometimes the meal was supposed to come with nasi briyani, but the cooks assumed I’d be fine to have the curry chicken or meat with white rice like the rest. So they just brought over the curry or tomato sambal dishes and took the rice from the commando cookhouse.

I remember at one point, one of my non-Muslim mate declared something (I can't recall what) and so had Muslim meals for a very short while before being posted to another unit. I also remember my Indian friends would see the lovely curries and bryanis and try their luck to test the powers that be to try and sneak into my meal.

Corporal Sanif and Corporal Zulkefli at the Muslim table; old Hendon Camp cookhouse, 1991

Things got better during in-camp reservist. By then the unit had proper commercial caterers with separate meals for Muslims and non-Muslims. Every time I sat down to eat, I’d look back with this strange mix of envy and bittersweet pride.

But despite all these meal time yo-yo adventures - the missed meals, the wrong meals, the long awkward waits in my special “Muslim corner" - a soldier still needs fuel. They always say a hungry man is an angry man, and trust me, I had my fair share of both.

Yet something else kept me going.

In between the frustrations were the quiet moments that mattered. Those times when my batch mates slipped over to give a quick pat on the back after a couple of trainers behaved like they never had Malay friends in their life. Or that split second when the section realised, “Eh, his Muslim meal not here…" and you could see the guilt crawl across their faces. That gentle empathy. That sense of responsibility. Their own learning curve on how to look out for a brother whose welfare fell through the cracks.

And honestly, that part warmed me more than the actual food.

Because years later, in every gathering - every meet-up, every post-trail run session, they would instinctively say, “eh, make sure got food for him" or “the hawker place got Muslim food or not?". 

“Don't worry, got Muslim food catered. Please come!"

And every Hari Raya, without fail, the entire company remembered who to wish.

For all the makan chaos, the heart was always there.

FHAG 56

It's the 56th anniversary* of the Singapore Armed Forces Commando Formation this week!

A flyer that was used as a prop in the Mindef-commissioned film The Usual.
The picture in the original recruitment flyer was replaced with mine to add personal touch to the story.

Prior to enlistment, I was called up to Dempsey Road (the old Central Manpower Base, CMPB) for physical checks. After the usual tests, they sat me down for an interview.

One question still lives rent-free in my head.

Context: In the late 80s, the woke pakciks and makciks were loudly raising the issue of Malay representation in SAF elite units. For those who don’t know… that conversation was HUGE back then. 

Singapore has since made great strides with Malays in SAF**. Yet ex-Singaporeans overseas regularly make it their mission to harp on the Malay disparity like a broken cassette tape in desperate need of validation. Anyway…

So at the interview, the final question was:

“Which unit do you think you are qualified for? Which unit you want to go?”

Bruh… are you serious? Asking an 18-year-old, freshly awakened in his cultural-socialist phase, which elite unit he wants to be in?

“Oh, I think I am suited for the Commando, F16 pilot or naval commander..!”

Cocky, no irony, no resentment.

I walked out of CMPB feeling strangely emancipated.

It was empowering (as an 18-year old) to be able to speak up to those who still held doubts about Malay loyalty. In my head, that response carried the weight of all the pakciks and abang-abang who, by many accounts, were denied jobs because of what was widely believed to be racial profiling in the early years of National Service. Back then, NS was the green card for employment, and many Malays were said to have been left out of the system.

The woke elderly pakciks who lived through the late 60s and 70s would often share that this gap pushed a whole generation of Malay youths into the drug-rehab and detention pipeline that many recall from that era, if their recollections hold true. (Go Google.)

I remember taking in the fresh air walking down the hill along Dempsey Road toward Holland Road. It felt like some cinematic moment.

It felt surreal when I teared open the National Service enlistment letter to find out I was posted to the 1st Commando Battalion! My two older brothers were posted as unit CQ during their respective National Service. I did not have any adult to speak to about real Commando army experience, other than the films Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) and Commando (Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Fast forward to BMT. I was called to my OC’s office after a few weeks for a “review.” After a bunch of boring questions, he suddenly asked:

“Do you still recognize me?”

“Huh?”

“I was the one who interviewed you at CMPB...”

OC Peh A L, Sir... well played! 

Moral of the story: sometimes you really do get what you wished for.

------------------

*I made a video during the historic 50th anniversary of the formation. Watch it here.

**At the 2025 Singapore's National Day Parade, the Parade Commander was Lieutenant Colonel (LTC) Firdaus Ghazali and LTC Muhammad Iskandar was the lead pilot for three dynamic flight displays involving F-15SG jets. Lieutenant (LTA) Iffa Daniesha was recently commissioned as a naval officer.

Swimming with dolphins

Some people migrate for a fresh start. Others migrate and carry along their baggage.

It’s like that one toxic relative who loudly announces to the whole clan that they have “cut ties” with your family - complete with the dramatic move to the opposite end of the island just to prove the point. Then they post a photo swimming with dolphins to display emancipation.

But come Hari Raya, they still quietly ask around about your family, then twist whatever updates they hear to fit their own narrative, just so they can justify why they’ve been avoiding you all these years. The more your family progresses, the more they try to dig up dirt… except they only have outdated secondhand info from aeons ago.

After a while, everything they say just sounds like a broken record.

Suddenly they reinvent themselves as the “truth-teller” about a clan they have not lived with in ages. They act like physical distance gives them moral distance.

If cutting ties was supposed to set you free, why are you still doom-scrolling Singapore news like it's your part time job? The dolphins find you repulsive now? Maybe use that energy to actually build your life. Age with some dignity. Be a useful citizen in your new community. 🙃

Or you can visit the Uluru, I heard the rock can be meditative. Or go meet Pauline Hanson in your new haven. 

Unless you choose to stay bitter and vindictive into retirement. That is your business. You are, after all, a grown adult. But honestly, looking at how some rage-bait narratives on Singapore from up North still cling to old grudges, it’s clear that some people carry their baggage everywhere they go.

It’s not about Malays backing Malays blindly. It’s about Singapore Malays calling out ex-Singaporeans who are potentially messing with the rice bowls of Singaporeans back home.

Read articles here (CNA) and here (Berita Harian)

Primary School Leaving Examination

Congratulations to all students on their Primary School Leaving Examination results. And to the parents: every kid blooms at their own pace. Some early, some later. What matters is that you’re there, present, walking with them.

Just thought I’d share my PSLE journey. 

For my blue-collar parents in Taman Jurong, PSLE was their kids’ first big chance to level up the family. My older siblings did well and made it to good national schools. I could sense my dad wanting his youngest son to go even further.

When my results came in, it felt like his hope was finally within reach. My grades could get me into any “premiere” school in town. I suspect a small part of him wondered about the cost. Could he cope if I went to one of those atas schools? In the end it was a toss-up between Anglo-Chinese School, Raffles Institution and St Joseph Institution (The Chinese High School was somehow not in the equation). I can’t remember how ACS happened but knowing how forms used to work, maybe alphabetical order decided my fate.

So ACS it was.

My dad was a soft-spoken, unassuming man, didn’t talk much because too tired after a long day at work. He’d just watch us when all the siblings studied at the dining table. But once in a while there’d be that sudden burst of ambition - a calculated, gung-ho “just go for it.” That fire was what pulled all of us out of the blue-collar cycle many pioneer-generation Baweans were stuck in. It was very “get your foot in the door first… worry later.”

I still remember he took 5 days of half-day leave just to send me on that 1-plus hour bus ride from Taman Jurong to Barker Road at Bukit swanky Timah. (There was only one ACS then.) And the weekend before school started, he was studying the school badge like it was a precious artifact. Holding it to the common corridor during daylight, then the fluorescent lamp, then the morning sun. He realised the blue ink had a turquoise shade because the grooves were filled with colour, not just printed.

That image stays with me. A father quietly marvelling at a school badge, maybe trying to imagine a future bigger than the one he grew up in.

I think he shared the same anxiety many parents feel now. He was relieved I cleared that milestone. Maybe he also knew PSLE is a heavy load for a 12-year-old. Maybe he wished kids could just play more. But he also understood that if he ignored the PSLE system entirely, he’d be closing the door that could pull his kids out of the harsher blue-collar cycle, Taman Jurong.

Every generation tries to build one step higher. That was his way.

I hear the different POV on PSLE and its implications on Singaporean 12 year olds.
I want to celebrate my family's journey and place this PSLE certificate in that context.

Aba

Today I was shaken by the news of the passing of George Abraham. I hadn’t checked the Commando 1st Company chat group for a few days, so it was a shock to see your face suddenly appear on a funeral notice at 3am. It didn’t feel real.

I’m sorry I can’t make alternate arrangements to see you one last time, brother. Filming is locked in, and I wish it wasn’t.

The first thing that came to mind was the couple of times we did guard duty together. Somehow we always kena that most unpopular prowler detail. But it was during those long, quiet walks that I really got to know you. We clicked. We talked about art, artists, films. All this long before I knew I’d end up in film school. Only after ORD did I find out you were a painter yourself. No wonder our conversations felt different.

And the music. Sail­ing by Christopher Cross. Leader of the Band by Dan Fogelberg. We had so many theories about what those songs meant. In a company full of loud, competitive young men trying to prove themselves, you were one of the few I truly connected with. Your reflective demeanour, your deadpan dark humour - strangely comforting companions on those graveyard shifts.

It’s easy to bond when both of you knew you’re not the “perfect soldier.” You joked about how bad you were at Taekwondo, especially your flexibility. I laughed and admitted my reaction time was hopeless. Maybe that was it - two young artists trying their best in a place that demanded something else entirely. Two outsiders figuring out where we fit.

Maybe it was the salty Changi breeze blowing through Hendon that made us honest. Maybe it was just you.

We were definitely not supposed to sneak walkmans into prowler duty, but we did. And every time Leader of the Band played, these lines always stopped us in our tracks:

A quiet man of music denied a simpler fate

He tried to be a soldier once, but his music wouldn’t wait…

We knew that feeling. Trying to be something the world expected of us, while the art inside refused to stay quiet.

After ORD, our paths drifted. And like many of us, reconnecting became harder as the years went by. Especially when the world I ended up in was 180 degrees away from everyone else’s. But those conversations, that humour, that artist's soul of yours - they stayed.

And now, thinking about you, I realise something:

I wasn’t the only one walking those dark hours with an artist’s heart.

One for the PJI in the sky. 

Rest easy, Aba.

May you find your peace.

Your song lives on in people like me - the ones who were lucky enough to walk those quiet nights with you.

Grit, Grace, and the Quiet Strength of the Heartland

Took shelter at the neighbourhood library for a bit while the sun burnt outside. The old heartland I'm at is diverse and colourful, including what some might call the grittier side of the estate. Newer, younger residents have moved in, but there's still a fair share from the louder, livelier side of the neighbourhood - the residents whose struggles are sometimes mistaken for indifference.

While I was cooling off, two guys who looked like they needed a little bit of scrubbing walked in, talking loudly on speakerphone via FaceTime.

An elderly lady in the video laughed when told the brothers were in the library.

"Bagus lah!"

"Ah duduk ah korang lama2 dalam situ."

The fan at home is down. It may take some time before "pakcik" gets a new fan.

One of the cats was still missing! To look for it again when they got home.

"Kesian Kiki! Entah makan ke tak"

And don't forget to buy dinner!

"Cik tak larat nak masak hari ni.."

(... more incomprehensible jibes...)

People turned to look at the small disruption that broke the neat orderliness of the space. The older, tattooed one smiled at me, I waved back.

Community isn't always quiet or tidy. It's just different people finding ways to survive the same grind.

Prominent Singaporean Malays

I hold back any pride, humbled to be listed among the 60 notable Malays in the last 60 years alongside trailblazing peers and extraordinary Singaporeans in various fields whose contributions I look up to. I also had the honour to spend some time up close with many while documenting their lives on my documentaries.

Upon reflection I notice many of the individuals were pioneers with roots across the various lands in the Malay Archipelago. They made Singapore home and thrived. Like them, my grandparents crossed seas from Bawean and planted roots here - proof that home is not where you begin, but where you choose to build and belong 🇸🇬

As a filmmaker I’m deeply aware of the cultural weight that comes with being a minority voice in this country. So this listing isn’t something to celebrate, but something to carry. It reminds me of the responsibility to tell our stories with honesty, to open doors for others, and to honour those whose shoulders we stand on. If my work leaves even a small trace of light for those who come after, then it has done its part.

The Prominent Malays of Singapore (PMoS) online portal was officially launched at the National Gallery Singapore.

Jointly developed with the National University of Singapore's Department of Malay Studies and with the support of partners, the Malay Language Council and Berita Harian, this bilingual portal chronicles the remarkable contributions of over 100 influential Malay figures across the arts, community, business, Government, sports and more who have shaped our nation over six decades.

The launch will be followed with a roving exhibition across seven libraries from October 2025 to March 2027, bringing these inspiring stories closer to all Singaporeans!

Discover the Prominent Malays of Singapore online portal here: https://go.gov.sg/nlb-pmos

Our Collective Spirit

When I was commissioned to make a film for cine65 Season 5 (2019), under the theme “SINGAPURA”, I thought of a Singapore that embraces everyone — a home shaped by many hands, where every contribution matters.

My short film, Sama Sama, was born from that vision: that the story of Singapore is a shared one, built not by a few, but by the collective effort of rakyat Singapura "the Singaporean".

That’s why I was especially heartened to see Sama Sama resonate with President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Prime Minister Lawrence Wong — both of whom have expressed, with clarity and wisdom, what it means to move forward together as a society.

“Progress means recognising the value in every job – in the trades, crafts, and services, no less than in offices and boardrooms – and ensuring that everyone who contributes to society earns respect and can build a good life.”

President Tharman Shanmugaratnam
(Opening of Parliament Address, 5 September 2025)

“To keep Singapore going, we must be a ‘We-First’ society. Because if everyone only thinks about ‘me’, and puts ‘me’ ahead of ‘we’, then we are finished… But if each of us does our part for the ‘we’ – care, contribute, and look out for one another – then the ‘me’ will thrive and flourish too.”

Prime Minister Lawrence Wong
(National Day Rally, 17 August 2025)

Their words are a timely reminder that we all have a role to play in keeping this home strong. 

I’m grateful that Sama Sama could play a small part in echoing that message.

Watch Sama Sama here.