It was a strange moment, and it caught me off guard.
I had just completed my last visit to the Old National Library at Stamford Road, weeks before it was due to be demolished. Now, I’m not typically inclined toward any kind of animism, the idea that buildings or places have a spirit, but as I walked down the steps away from it, I stopped, turned around, and just stared
A full minute, maybe more.
The building itself was never grand in a traditional sense. A red-brick structure that felt more like an oversized cottage than a national monument. Not many stories, but containing many.
And soon, it would be gone, unceremoniously, because the old had to make way for the new. That’s how these stories are supposed to end, right? We settle for the memory of “once upon a time” as our “happily ever after.”
I found myself choking up a little and muttered, quietly, “Thanks for the memories. Wish you could have stayed.” Then, a little embarrassed, I turned and walked on, as we do.
Progress, Our National Instinct
On my travels, I’m constantly fascinated by, and occasionally irritated with, the way different cultures live. Italians won’t drink (nor sell, to my chagrin) cappuccinos past the morning. The Japanese don’t eat and walk at the same time. Spaniards shut down for a midday siesta.
The anti-establishment part of me instinctively rebels against these rules. They feel dogmatic, even arcane. “This is the way it’s always been done” is rarely a satisfying explanation. Shouldn’t we move on with the times?
It’s baked into our own DNA, isn’t it, this need for progress. It’s codified in our pledge, embedded in the tripartite pillars of what makes a great nation – happiness, prosperity and progress. Majulah Singapore makes the same case as “Onward, Singapore”. The forward motion is not accidental; it is foundational to our identity.
And for good reason. In the post-separation years, survival demanded it. Economic growth required focus, discipline, and a willingness to be unsentimental. Progress meant in with the new, out with the old. That seemingly cold-hearted pragmatism was not a flaw; it was necessary.
But what happens when we lose ourselves in the chase?
We’ve been circling that question with increasing urgency, especially in recent conversations around ForwardSG and what it means to be Singaporean. These attempts to define our national identity trigger a kind of collective unease. Like we’re being asked to pin down something that has always been easier to perform than to say out loud.
Our minds move quickly to the familiar. Food, first – chicken rice, nasi lemak, roti prata. Then language, lah, meh, hor? And when we reach for our history, we instinctively hit rewind: the karang guni, the ice-cream bicycle, Rochor Centre, the Old National Library. People and places we have already moved on from, fading away like polaroid photos.
The unease coming from realising that so much of what we claim as “ours” exists only in the past tense.
What Places Remember for Us
Places matter because they tell stories a nation cannot quite articulate about itself.
The Romans have their Colosseum, a formidable structure even today that marries the victory and tragedy of their all-conquering history. The Japanese have Kinkaku-ji (Golden Pavilion), that embodies the restraint of wabi-sabi and classical Japanese aesthetic.
The Spanish have La Sagrada Família, a beautiful cathedral that captures the core tension of sacred devotion and artistic rebellion in their historical fabric. Each of these places told a tale beyond brick and mortar. Preserving them was not just preserving a monument, but a way to retain the soul of a nation.
Image Source: https://www.roots.gov.sg/Collection-Landing/listing/1191657
The red-brick Old National Library may not have reached those heights, but it had heart and character. It was a place where memory lived physically, not symbolically. A bypass tunnel in its place may signal progress, quite literally, but it does not signal identity.
We’ve had similar conversations about Rochor Centre, and the Old National Theatre. Always after they’re already gone. Demolition cannot be the only solution available to us.
Beyond Buildings
The same tension shows up elsewhere.
I recall my grand-uncle comfortably moving between Teochew and Malay, sometimes within the same conversation, before switching to English to chat with me. There was no anxiety in that fluidity. It felt natural, even confident. Today, we speak about multiculturalism as a strength, yet remain uneasy about dialects and native tongues, as though their flourishing might dilute a carefully managed national identity.
We rightly celebrate our food culture, but too often take it for granted. Rising rents and commercial pressures quietly choke out smaller operators, even as we praise affordability and diversity in the abstract. The hawker uncles and aunties who define our culinary identity are disappearing, not dramatically, but gradually. Which somehow makes it easier to ignore.
We preserve selectively. Buildings become museums, dialects become heritage trails. But a culture kept behind glass is not the same as one allowed to live.
Holding On
There’s a Latin phrase often attributed to classical thought: principium est dimidium totius, or “the beginning is half of the whole.” A nation that treats its beginnings as disposable risks becoming unmoored. Aspiration alone is not enough to sustain identity.
Singapore’s story is still being written. But stories gain meaning not by accelerating endlessly toward the future, but by knowing where they began. If history is to mean anything more than nostalgia, it has to be allowed to live alongside us, not just behind us.
We’ve become very good at moving on. Perhaps it’s time we got a little better at holding on.
What stays, even as we move on?
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