A city that moves, a memory that stays

Abstract

As I walked on the polished floors of Orchard’s famous Ngee Ann City, I could vividly see the reflections of people bustling in and out of shops. Their footsteps blended with the hum of escalators. No one stopped. The modern façade of this massive building offers no clues - no plaque, no memorial, not even a hint in the mall’s sleek design - of the history buried beneath it: a history that once held the resting place of over 30,000 souls. But someone did stop. A man sat near the fountain, staring into space. At first, I thought he was just tired from shopping like everyone else. But soon I noticed his lips moving as if he was chanting a prayer with some fruits and flowers in his hands, and his unfocused eyes seemed to look beyond the polished floors, into something deeper, perhaps something or someone that no longer existed. Perhaps he was thinking about the cemetery stretched quietly beneath the open sky, the gravestones standing among the lush banyan trees, the air thick with the scent of incense, the whispering of prayers of the loved ones who came to honour the dead and its staggering contrast to the new building that has risen with its steel and glass having replaced the stone and soil.