Compilations

Commentary, Compilations, Culture, Features, Go Where?, Prexcursion

Joo Chiat Road: Sign of the Times
Reading Time: 6 minutes

By Huang Han Cheng (26S05B) and Kunchur Bharat (26A01B)

Taking a walk in Joo Chiat, one might form a rather simplistic image of the area. Rows of mixed-use shophouses inhabited by chic cafes, a mishmash of restaurant options and inoffensive street art make for a pleasant weekend itinerary. Behind this quaint facade, however, is a neighbourhood which plays a larger role in Singapore’s history than many expect. 

Joo Chiat might be best described as an architectural palimpsest. Like a parchment scroll that has been consistently scraped and washed for reuse, the neighbourhood has assumed many identities throughout history.

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Compilations, Culture, Prexcursion

Peranakan Glamour: Singapore’s Kebayas
Reading Time: 4 minutes

By Nicole Lee (26S05A), Christian Adriel Tan (26S07B), Tomi Peh (26S06P) and Teng Yifan (26S06H)

A garment iconic enough to be nominated by multiple nations to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list, to have been one of Southeast Asia’s oldest existing attire–it’s none other than the kebaya. 

Historically, the kebaya was a loose-fitting, tunic-like garment which was worn for everyday occasions. Being knee-length and mostly plain, it proved to be a comfortable and simplistic outfit fashioned from light and airy materials, making it just as common an attire as T-shirts and blouses today. 

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Compilations, Culture, Features, Go Where?, Prexcursion

Where Past Meets the Present — Gentrification in Joo Chiat 
Reading Time: 8 minutes

By Georgia Ong (26S03O), Lerraine Neo (26A01A), Looi Ee Xin (26S03M) 

What comes to mind when you hear “Joo Chiat”? Perhaps it’s the many cafes adorning the streets, or the Peranakan shophouses that are abuzz with tourists. Or maybe, you’re more familiar with Joo Chiat’s sisters, the neighbouring Katong and Marine Parade estates, with malls like i12 Katong or Parkway Parade. 

Regardless, there’s one common thing that all these things share—the vitality they bring to the neighbourhood. When one thinks of mature, culturally significant estates, characteristics like TCM shops, playgrounds, worn-down buildings, wet markets and places of worship may arise, but that’s not the case for Joo Chiat. 

Joo Chiat, Singapore’s residential Peranakan neighbourhood, has managed to pull off the unthinkable—effortlessly weaving culture with culture, past with present, allowing for a cohesive identity that remains culturally relevant even with the evolving times. 

This is gentrification in Joo Chiat. 

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Compilations, Culture, Features, Humans of RI, Special Editions, Student Features

To Speak the Language of Home: Raffles Dialects
Reading Time: 9 minutes

By Koh Shin Robbie (26A01A) and Tok Kai Xue Traven (26A01B)

In 1959, Singapore saw the first of many key developments to its education system: a bilingualism policy. Its premise was simple—English, as the language of international business, would be mandated to be taught in all schools. Alongside this, the study of one’s mother tongue (namely Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil) would also be made compulsory to ensure students did not lose touch with their cultural roots.

In an instant, dialect languages were taken out of official usage. Radio stations switched to purely official languages, and an entire Speak Mandarin Campaign was launched with vigorous dissuasion of dialect use.

Photo from a speech by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Source: Zaobao SG
Text in the background translates to “Speak Less Dialect”.

For Mandarin, however, this line of reasoning proved rather ironic. In the face of institutional pressures to adopt Mandarin as their home language, what would happen to the dialect-speaking households which relied heavily on Hokkien, Teochew or Hakka to communicate on a daily basis? How would the precious, dialectal tongues which served generations upon generations of ancestors manage to maintain their relevance?

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Compilations, Features, Humans of RI, Special Editions, Student Features

Project Oopsie Daisy: More Than Just an “Oopsie” (CE01 Spotlight Special Edition 2026)
Reading Time: 5 minutes

By Tan Yan Qi (26S06M)

If you asked me two years ago about where my CE01 project would go, I never would have been able to guess that we’d be doing what we are now. 

Project Oopsie Daisy started out as a simple VIA which aimed to promote horticulture as a method of improving mental health. Fast forward to Year 5, downsizes in the core team left only 5 members: Alice Chen Anhan (26S03L), Cecilia Wong (26S03K), Jyoti Adithi Narayanan (26S06M), Looi Ee Xin (26S06M) and me. 

I vividly remember how the search for a partner organisation went back then. We sent emails to community organisations (the usual targets), hoping to expand our range of beneficiaries beyond children, and somehow landed up on the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) volunteering website.

“Why not?” was the general consensus when we reached out to IMH. To be honest, it seemed rather laughable that we were even trying, but it was a last-ditch attempt after failing to hear back from our other prospective partner organisations, and there was no harm in trying, right?

Less than a week later, we received a reply. And thus, we started our volunteering journey at IMH.

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