Category: Op-Eds

Commentary, Nationally Speaking, Op-Eds

Voice for the Dead: Unearthing the Stories of Bukit Brown

By Alyssa Marie Loo (19A13A) and Kuang Shane Qi (19A13A)
Photos courtesy of Alyssa Marie Loo (19A13A)

Home to around 100,000 graves since its opening in 1922, Bukit Brown became the epicentre of heated debate in Singapore in 2011 when the Land Transport Authority announced plans to exhume the Chinese cemetery for a highway. Now in 2019, 4000 exhumed graves and a completed Lornie Highway later, Bukit Brown’s area space and grave numbers may indeed have shrunk, but public interest in conserving its history, stories and inhabitants have only grown.

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Commentary, Internationally Speaking, Op-Eds

Questioning Mr. Mohan’s Questioning

By Varun Karthik (19S06A)

If the name Darrion Mohan sounds familiar, it should. The Oxford undergraduate student questioned Malaysia’s Godfather Dr Tun Mahathir at an Oxford Union event where Mahathir was invited to speak. The exchange that the not-too-old-Boy had with Dr Mahathir over the geo-political bickering between Singapore and Malaysia — a mainstay of Dr M’s legislative agenda — went viral back home in Singapore.

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Commentary, Nationally Speaking, Op-Eds

Bazaars: Are They Worth the Buzz?

By Chloe Wong (19S07C), Isabelle Tan (19S03S), and Vanessa Lur (19S06Q)
Photograph courtesy of eatbook.sg

It is a regular hot afternoon in Singapore and I find myself doing something not-so-regular—visiting the bazaar. The crowd is overwhelming and I find myself being shoved around by people all around me. As I wipe away the sweat trickling down my neck, I can’t help but wonder how bizarre it is that more and more teenagers are willing to endure a good few hours pushing through crowds just for a bazaar. This brings me to the question at hand – what exactly is so enticing about these bazaars?

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Commentary, Notes from the Underground, Op-Eds, School Life, Student Issues

Let’s Talk (About Depression)

By Wong Zi Yang (19A01D)
Cover illustration by Alvin Lim Jun Han (19S06B)

I don’t think it comes as a surprise to anyone that we have quite a few students suffering from depression in Singapore. In fact, it’s one of the more common mental illnesses seen in Singaporean youth. What comes as a bit of a surprise to me is how little people actually care about the situation; and by “‘care” I mean take tangible action against it. We may hear the odd rumour here and there: “he’s been missing school a lot lately”, or “someone has been hospitalised”. If an incident does happen, people keep quiet out of confidentiality and respect for those involved. But at the same time, doing so means that there is little to no impetus for uninvolved students, already busy enough as is with the academic rigour of school, to care much about it. The problem is not addressed at its root, and we just don’t talk about it – and so I set out to look deeper into students’ responses to depression in Raffles: Do people care enough about it? What then can we do about it?

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Commentary, Internationally Speaking, Op-Eds

The Midterms, Discourse and Singapore

By Varun Karthik (19S06A)

PW Oral Presentations were at full throttle on November 6th. The first few victims had already gone through the ordeal while the rest braced themselves for their impending doom. Throw in Deepavali and the nail-biting Arsenal vs Liverpool match that had just ended, and you might be excused for forgetting that the ‘leader of the free world’ returned to the polls on November 6th.

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