Kreta Ayer.- Singapore Chinatown's Hidden Scars

Kreta Ayer

Non-fiction

Singapore Chinatown’shidden scars

As seen from the eyes of a young Chinese immigrant

Andrew Yip

ISBN: 978-981-08-5245-0Published by ServiceWorld Centre, Singapore

Photography by Yip Cheong-Fun

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About the Author

The Author is a psychologist, administrator, housing developer, army Majorand businessman. He was educated in Edinburgh, Malaysia, Singapore and inPennsylvania, USA. Holder of a Masters Degree in Education and AdvancedPsychology, Bachelor of Arts Honours Degree, and FRGS, he held various topacademic and professional appointments. He has worked as a psychologist ina Scottish clinic and Director of a Chinese University and held topmanagement positions in the private sector in various countries. Anaccomplished poet, Chinese calligrapher, and author of many publications, hewas well known in the art and literary circles overseas, particularly in Chinawhere he spent his retirement years.Andrew W.K. Yip began to write at an early age. In the 1950s, he joined thePoetry Circle in Singapore and immersed in Anglo-American modernistpoetry, and writing poetry in both English and Chinese. His poetic corpus isnourished by the belief that poetry constitutes “a quiet motivating force inthe modern age”. In 1964, he travelled to the USA and UK on a UNESCOFellowship where he became immersed in psychological studies,psychotherapy and guidance techniques. He returned to Singapore to launchvarious programmes related to guidance and counseling, psychologicaltesting and social rehabilitation. As editor of a number of publications, healso launched various newspapers in the ASEAN region. Yip stopped writingwhen he joined the private sector as a housing developer, but resumedwriting poetry and books in English and Chinese in the 1980s under variouspen-names, including “Andre W. Keye”, and “Zhou Tian, ” after he startedwork in China’s Translation Bureau in Guangdong. Son of a world famousphotographer, Yip Cheong-Fun, who was elected by the Photographic Societyof New York as the 'Outstanding Photographer of the Century' in 1980 andRecipient of the Cultural Medallion in 1984, he has written many poems todepict the artistic images created by his late father, both in Chinese andEnglish. A Best-Seller entitled “Chinatown – Different Exposures” and ananthology of his poems, entitled 'A poetic vision - the photography of YipCheong-Fun', were published in 2007 and 2009 respectively by theServiceWorld Centre and distributed overseas.

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About Kreta Ayer

Were you ever curious when you strolled along the narrow winding streets and lanes of Kreta Ayer? Did you ever wonder how old immigrants from China lived in the slumsand coolie houses in the early years of Singapore? The opportunity to relive the past andto feel the sights and sounds of the old Chinatown is in

Kreta Ayer

. Here at last is adramatic story of the early immigrants who lived in Chinatown in Singapore, as told by aliving witness. It is actually history, as seen from the sharp eyes of a little girl, Li Zhang,who came from China in the 1930s and lived through the grey and grim years of theJapanese Occupation. She returned to her homeland at the age of 14, and now at the ageof 80, tells a candid story of her life in Singapore. Her account of the things thathappened in Singapore and China is non-fiction and based on actual events that touchedher life and the lives of countless people in the Asian region.Li Zhang lived in Chinatown. When Chinatown was hit by bombs, she screamed, shecried. She experienced hardships, heartaches and disappointments like many earlyimmigrants. She felt the stinging thorns of pain and anxiety and knew fear and death.Hers is not a tale of fiction. Hers is a true description of history as it unfolds based onfactual information. In a sense, the account is unique in that the information is presentedlike a novel, but the observations made are fresh like steaming hot cakes from a burningoven.

Kreta Ayer

is about time. It’s about changes in Singapore and in China. It’s aboutchanges in ourselves. You and I, like, Li Zhang, are the variables.

Kreta Ayer

is thedrama of life. It’s about people living in the present and those in the past as well astime remote.

Kreta Ayer

is more than just drama; it is a symbol of the crucible of change.

Timepast, time present and time future - all of us, like Li Zhang, are caught in this eternaltriangle of time. No one - whether kings or knaves - can escape from the tangled webs of the triangulation of past, present and future.

The story of life, like,

Kreta Ayer

is nevercomplete, nor is it ever a closed chapter. It always depends on something yet tocome in the future as well as itself, sometimes created by something alreadydepleted or dead in the past. The present is often tenuous and uncelebrated, as weare preoccupied in our mind and hearts with the rigours of the passage of time.What is important is to move on, recognize the larger consciousness or the light wefind here and there that shines too dimly between the cracks, and then realize thattime allows us to rebuild on the flat surface of our present life. We must not allowwhatever shadows in our present or the past, which is often cluttered with sadmemories, broken dreams or lost loves, to leave us in the deep, dark and deadly pitof hopelessness and despair. That precisely is a moral lesson to be learnt from

Kreta Ayer

.