Love Me, Love Me Not at the History Museum
Yesterday afternoon, we went to the museum to catch the Love Me, Love Me Not exhibition. This was our first time at the museum's temporary location, at the 3rd floor of under-patronised Riverside Point. (Was there a cinema there at some point before? Anyone knows?) I don't know what museum entrance fees were like before, but I was surprised that it only cost us $2 to go in.
The exhibition of Singapore icons was quite interesting, albeit a bit small. We were greeted first by the "Love Me Love My Stuff" exhibit, which was basically a whole lot of HelloKitty stuff. (HelloKitty always reminds me of a conversation that I had with papereskimo back in JC days, when I saw her Hello Kitty ruler and said, "Hello HelloKitty! *beat* Hello Kitty!" Of course, she promptly rolled her eyes at me and ignored my corniness.) Of course, there had to be a reference made to the crazy days of the McDonalds HelloKitty-DearDaniel plush toys.
Of all the sections there, I was most intrigued by the "Love Me Obey Me" one. That's the one that's about the campaigns. Interesting use of the word 'obey', no? There was Singa the Lion and Teamy the Bee. We also saw video clips of the tv ads that were shown during the campaigns. Did you know that mascot for the courtesy campaign was changed from the smiley face to Singa the Lion to get around the issue of racial representation?
The most interesting part of our afternoon, though, was when we were approached by a couple of secondary school to go watch a demonstration of the Merlion38, "Singapore's first instrument". For those of you who don't know, it's basically a kind of a wind instrument that's made in the shape of the Merlion. When played, it sounds quite like the recorder. Anyway, the whole thing turned out to be very lame. I credit the inventor with having some measure of innovation in inventing a new instrument, but did it have to be in the shape of the merlion?? Also, he's designed it to be played to some badly-arranged midi synth music. We got a taste of this music during the demonstration and, according to the leaflet, an accompaniment CD can also be purchased in addition to buying the Merlion38. We left after the performance, during the Q&A session. There's only so much lameness one can take in one sitting.
There was only one other exhibition at the museum, and that was Rivertales. It was about the life of the people who lived/worked along the Singapore River. Nothing spectacularly interesting there. So we walked through that quickly and left.
Even though there isn't a lot of stuff on display, I think it's good that the museum is still open even though the actual building is under renovation. Also, for $2, I thought we got quite our money's worth.
The exhibition of Singapore icons was quite interesting, albeit a bit small. We were greeted first by the "Love Me Love My Stuff" exhibit, which was basically a whole lot of HelloKitty stuff. (HelloKitty always reminds me of a conversation that I had with papereskimo back in JC days, when I saw her Hello Kitty ruler and said, "Hello HelloKitty! *beat* Hello Kitty!" Of course, she promptly rolled her eyes at me and ignored my corniness.) Of course, there had to be a reference made to the crazy days of the McDonalds HelloKitty-DearDaniel plush toys.
Of all the sections there, I was most intrigued by the "Love Me Obey Me" one. That's the one that's about the campaigns. Interesting use of the word 'obey', no? There was Singa the Lion and Teamy the Bee. We also saw video clips of the tv ads that were shown during the campaigns. Did you know that mascot for the courtesy campaign was changed from the smiley face to Singa the Lion to get around the issue of racial representation?
The most interesting part of our afternoon, though, was when we were approached by a couple of secondary school to go watch a demonstration of the Merlion38, "Singapore's first instrument". For those of you who don't know, it's basically a kind of a wind instrument that's made in the shape of the Merlion. When played, it sounds quite like the recorder. Anyway, the whole thing turned out to be very lame. I credit the inventor with having some measure of innovation in inventing a new instrument, but did it have to be in the shape of the merlion?? Also, he's designed it to be played to some badly-arranged midi synth music. We got a taste of this music during the demonstration and, according to the leaflet, an accompaniment CD can also be purchased in addition to buying the Merlion38. We left after the performance, during the Q&A session. There's only so much lameness one can take in one sitting.
There was only one other exhibition at the museum, and that was Rivertales. It was about the life of the people who lived/worked along the Singapore River. Nothing spectacularly interesting there. So we walked through that quickly and left.
Even though there isn't a lot of stuff on display, I think it's good that the museum is still open even though the actual building is under renovation. Also, for $2, I thought we got quite our money's worth.