Good afternoon class.

My name is Herlina and today I will be presenting a brief of my op-ed titled

“….”. If you take a look to the right of the screen, this is the ‘1932 Story’ café which is situated in the
Bukit Timah Railway Station.

Before I start proper on my op-ed, I thought it wld be beneficial to give a brief history of Bukit Timah
Railway Station. It used to be one of the stops along the Singapore-Kranji Railway, and you could
take the train around the other stops in Singapore like Bukit TImah, Holland Village, and you could
even take the train to JB or KL if you wanted to.

Unfortunately, the Singapore government took over the railway system and it was decommissioned
in July 2011. It now serves as a long urban trail for trekking along the Rail Corridor. So, you may be
wondering why is the café called 1932 story? If you notice this circled part, this is actually the BT
Railway station building and guess when it was built? yes, 1932.

If you walk into the Bukit Timah Railway Station, you would be greeted with the wide expanse of the
blue sky and a brightly painted yellow train. Story 1932 café is nestled hidden in the left side of the
screen here.

So, fun fact the building used to be the Railway Staff housing quarters which has evidently been
repurposed into the 1932 story café.

Step into the café and you will be greeted with a rustic, rattan furniture. The train ticketing counter
now forms part of a table for eating. There are yellowed train stubs framed up. You can really tell
that the café put in a lot of effort to commemorate the history of the Bukit Timah Railway Station.
Café goers span across multiple generations, from grandparents to a mother with a young toddler.

So, how did I arrive at my research questions. Well, I noticed that the café provided such an
immersive experience for the café goers, in particular the grandparents, who were reciting stories of
the railway station to their grandchildren and allowing them to understand the historical significance
of the place.

This led me to raise Qs on the value of having a tangible, physical heritage site, how crucial are they
and how does one truly come to appreciate and emphatise with the historical significance of a
place?

The first source that I arrived at is Hisory… by Dr Suhaimi Afandi who is a senior lecturer in the
Humanities & Social Studies Education at NIE. An interesting perspective he provided is that “the …”.
He feels we no longer question the …….. I do think the author is referring to places that are
“unintentionally sought out”, meaning places that we do not intend to visit but happen to walk past
by chance. I think it is the very fact that we do not intend to visit these places gives rise to a lack of
motivation to learn more about these heritage sites, which would require more effort to bride this
information gap.
This is in contrast with intentionally sought out places. I would argue that there seems to be a
rekindled sense of curiosity in wanting to visit “interesting sites” in Singapore among the
young generation, perhaps stemming from boredom and the need to explore and discover
new things.
Thus, despite the presence of tangible sites and an underlying sense of curiosity, the author
highlights that there is a lack of active engagement with the sites >

Moving on to the 2nd source, which is a UNESCO Case study on promoting participation in ….;
In this case study,titled the Beautiful Story Telling Grandma Project where over 2,000 female
grandmothers in South korea were sent to nurseries to tell folklore and traditional stories to
about 460K children.

The study found that the program helped …; Evidently, this seems to be a new way to
transmit …; and allows the elderly to play a more active and crucial role in society.

So, going back to my research questions, reiterated here for your reference. The current
approach to appreciating heritage sites is more passive; we visit a heritage site, see the
artefacts and read the information plaques. Though the preservation of a physical heritage
site is important, it is the careful restoration of heritage sites with an added ‘café’
experience that help to increase the tangible and intangible value of a heritage site. In
bringing intangible value, the elderly can no doubt bridge this