SINGAPORE – This week’s ST×NLB Crossword was constructed by my puzzle co-editor, NLB librarian Sasha Tan, who is part of a team of 40 volunteers from both organisations. Here’s his message to solvers:
For this puzzle, I had a lot of fun weaving in clues submitted by other folks in the team. From SUGARCANE to SECRETLAB, it’s nice to have a whole community of contributors with their eyes and ears out for anything that might make for a good entry. Enjoy!
This puzzle almost makes me feel like I’m back in Social Studies class, learning about NOTABLE (7D) moments in Singapore history.
During the 19th-century colonial era, Singapore was ruled by the British and used mainly as a strategic trade hub for sea shipping. Aside from the area surrounding the port, the island was sparsely developed then, with much land being used to grow cash crops.
These included pepper and gambier plantations in Pearl’s Hill, coconut plantations stretching from Fort Road to Dunman Road, and SUGARCANE (25A) plantations in Balestier. Incidentally, these places were named after plantation owners from those times: Captain James Pearl, Thomas Dunman and Joseph Balestier.
The outbreak of World War II would trigger the next significant chapter in our history, starting with the painful years of the Japanese Occupation.
The Straits Times cover page dated Aug 10, 1965.
PHOTO: ST FILE
This led directly to the struggle for self-determination, first through our initially EAGER (22A) but ultimately short-lived merger with Malaysia in 1963, and then to independence through separation. “Singapore is OUT (10A)”, the front-page headline in The Straits Times reported the morning after Aug 9, 1965.
Then came the introduction of compulsory national service in 1967. Every Singaporean SON (6A) would be required to enlist for two and a half YEARS (3D) of military training to ensure we would be able to defend ourselves against external threats.
And finally, in modern Singapore, we have high-tech innovations like NEWATER (2D) to bolster our water security and the Electronic Road Pricing system, or ERP (12D), to manage the car population on our limited road space. Physical ERP gantries will soon be phased out as Singapore transitions to a new satellite-based ERP 2.0 system.
Social Studies was admittedly not my favourite subject in primary school. It felt dry and dull learning about these facts and events that seemed to have happened so long ago. But when I got older, encountering the same narratives through new perspectives gave me a new appreciation for what I was taught in school.
Illustrator Sonny Liew at his studio, with various editions of his acclaimed 2015 graphic novel, The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye.
ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG
During university, I was blown away by the allegorical retelling of merger and separation in the acclaimed graphic novel, The Art Of Charlie Chan Hock Chye by illustrator SONNY LIEW (1A).
And more recently, the declassification of the ALBATROSS (17A) file, compiled during the merger and separation years by then-Minister for Finance Goh Keng Swee, reshaped how many of us understood that period of history.
The idiom of an albatross hung on one’s neck symbolising a heavy burden originates from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, showing how Goh viewed the merger as a burden that Singapore was bearing.
Future cohorts of Social Studies students will be taught that Singapore was not suddenly and unilaterally expelled from Malaysia (as was the prevailing narrative before) but rather that separation was the result of secret talks and coordinated action between both sides to deliberately present the separation to the public as a fait accompli.
Here’s a few more terms you might not learn in Social Studies.
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