By Jermaine Wong (20S03R) and Ruchira Ramaswamy (20S03A)
Synopsis: Everyone has their own secrets, things they’d rather not share, even with the closest of friends. For Simone Garcia-Hampton, the last thing she wants her peers to find out about her is that she is HIV-positive.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
By Huang Beihua (20A03A) and Mah Xiao Yu (20A01B)
A piece of toast held between two chopsticks. It is perhaps an awkward image, but certainly an appropriate cover for The Heartsick Diaspora: this is a book with an appreciation for subtle humour—and certainly much involvement of food. More significantly, however, is the cover’s underlining of the friction, and loneliness, at the core of the book, both of people struggling to come to terms with cultures so foreign to them, yet ones they are bound to pick up.
Continue reading “Raffles Reads: The Heartsick Diaspora”
By Ng Ziqin (20S03H)
It was the last day of school on campus before HBL measures kicked in, but there would be no spirited outings to J8 or NEX with friends that afternoon to celebrate the survival of yet another school term.
Instead, students wiped down their desks with disinfectant spray, sat one metre apart on canteen benches crossed out with yellow-and-black tape, and made tearful promises to stay in touch over Zoom and Houseparty over this period of physical separation.
What did the RI campus look like on 7 April?
Continue reading “07.04.20”
By Raffles Press
In our earlier article entitled A Home Away From Home, we explored how migrant communities in Little India have imbued migrant workers, both Indian and Bangladeshi, with a sense of belonging.
From Bangla Square to Mustafa Centre, there are numerous spaces for foreign workers to mingle, enjoy food from their own culture, and buy goods to send back home to their loved ones—in other words, spaces where they can feel connected to their motherland. And foreign workers have rated Singapore as one of the best places to work: an MOM survey found that close to 90% of foreign workers say they are satisfied with working in Singapore.
Continue reading “Fathers, Brothers, and Sons”
By Raffles Press
When we think of Little India, the typical perspective of a tourist comes to mind: bright lights, flavourful Indian cuisine, and vibrant colours of ethnic architecture all pander to the exotic imagination of the tourist gaze.
Yet, many Singaporeans neither consider the living, breathing community of everyday people trying their hardest to make a home in a foreign land behind the glitzy veneer of a cultural showpiece, nor see the diverse patchwork of ethnicities and cultures weaved together behind the popular perception of a homogeneous Little India.
Continue reading “A Home Away From Home”