Singapore Radio

The world of media moves quickly – nowhere is this more the case than Singapore, a world-class alpha city that prides itself on being first. This book tracks the journey of Singapore radio from its humble beginnings to its advanced modern-day incarnations. Along the way, Freeman and Ramakrishnan also detail economic, political, cultural, and technological aspects of this medium in Singapore. The role of radio is deliberated, as well as the times when radio and its personalities have broken the rules. In addition, campus radio and social media are also discussed. The book functions as a treasure-trove, partial archive, and starting point for those interested in knowing more about the radio portion of Singapore’s media landscape. At the same time, it serves as a fitting birthday present to the medium, as radio meets and passes the 80-year mark in the country. As such, the book makes significant contributions to multiple aspects of the radio medium as it exists in Singapore, aspects that are not to be found anywhere else.

The definitive guide to place names in Singapore. Place names tell us much about a country – its history, its landscape, its people, its aspirations, its self-image. The study of place names, ‘toponymics’, unlocks the myriad interlocking stories that are encoded in every street and landmark. In Singapore, the coexistence of various races, cultures and languages, as well as its history of colonisation, immigration and nationalism, have given rise to a complex tapestry of place names. Alkaff Quay, Coleman Bridge, Ann Siang Hill, Bukit Merah – how did these places get their names? Nee Soon or Yishun? Serangoon Road or Tekka? First published in 2003 as Toponymics, this updated and expanded edition of the book incorporates a wealth of new findings, from archival research and interviews, and sets out to answer these questions – and any question that might be asked about the origin, meaning or significance of place names in Singapore

Scholarly studies of Chinese culture, history and society, both within and outside of China, generally pay little attention to leisure, entertainment and amusement, though it has long been known that this aspect of life gives a deep understanding of the psyche and soul, and the hopes and fears, of a person. Leisure is a less coerced-upon, mandatory human conduct than work; certainly leisurely conduct is more voluntary, expressive and creative. But when seen as human behaviour, leisure and entertainment cannot be separated from history, heritage, ethnicity, the community, family and kin, rituals and customs – thus a collective activity and its constraints on the person. This book examines a variety of genre of Chinese entertainment, from singing clubs, Cantonese opera and film, to Chinese rock and tourism. Though formally voluntary, Chinese entertainment, when entangled with ethnicity, heritage and history, is ironically a site of both enjoyment and struggle, both pleasure and suffering. This book was originally published as a special issue of Visual Anthropology.