AS THE DICTUM GOES, EAST SIDE ?

AS THE DICTUM GOES, EAST SIDE ? 

Sleepy side?
Inside? Outside? 

Offside? Backside? 

When my mother was growing up she spent almost all of her childhood living in the East – with her two siblings, one older brother and older sister. She was the youngest of the litter. 

Sleepy side? 

My father was from Malaysia, so he doesn’t know how to take the MRT, but ever since the new station came up he’s been contemplating losing his car finally (that COE …), but I fear despite being from the North the 3 Cs still ring true to him. He was the youngest of the litter. 

Since the TEL opened, I have sworn vehemently that Marine Parade has gotten more crowded. My family’s HDB has come to be a very powerful investment. We believe that if we finally sell our flat (5 minute walk to MRT and East Coast Park!) we’ll fetch a pretty penny. 

Inside? 

My neighbourhood, Marine Terrace, is essentially a massive silver zone. My maternal grandparents contribute to this statistic. There are at least 4 separate old folks' homes within a kilometer of my house. I believe that a large contributing factor behind our successful balloting of our house was the proximity to my grandparents. 

Outside? 

On Singapore Trivia Night, a level one question is the fact that Marine Parade was the first housing estate entirely built on reclaimed land. The land on which I pen this poem is artificial. It was ferried over, padded, crushed, smothering the sea and her children to put ourselves first. We are the champions of nature. Look – you can’t say that, we didn’t destroy the beaches… we just … moved it. Further outland.                                                                         

Offside? 

I walked side by side with a girl who I believe I still yearn for along the ECP. She was picking up little shiny pieces of stone that glimmered under the setting sun. I didn’t want to ruin the moment and tell her that this sand was all fake, these beaches all artificial, all stolen back from nature. She said that it was seaglass. I held a piece in my hand and bit into it; like rock candy. She said I was being stupid. 

Backside? 

All of my early schooling years were done in the East. I studied in the runner-up to Tao Nan and then our Prime Minister’s proud Alma Mater. As a result, most of my closest friends have grown up and stayed in the East. In JC I started bleeding Red, Blue and Gold in the West instead, and an hourly commute back and forth. I was very thankful when the brown line opened its doors. I watched ministers’ sons and daughters, and a Bentley once, at the rotunda. I recall getting into an argument about what class division existed within our school. He said, “here, the upper class is GCB, the middle class is landed and condo.” I asked, what about me – a person staying in a HDB? 

Best side?

One of the saddest things that has happened to the neighbourhood in recent memory was the destruction of the Marine Parade Community Building. It had this faux-Gaudi architecture, abstract, bold and ugly, honestly. To this day, I still cannot see the vision, why such colours were chosen, why it looked so … sci-fi, so alien, otherworldly. But it had character. It was bold when our nation looked towards sanitation, uniformity, and anonymity. 

One of my earliest childhood memories was in this library. I was a gremlin child, no older than 4 or 5 surely – my grandparents had taken me out to go gai gai – and I spent an afternoon dragging chairs from one end of the library to another, until the librarian came and gave me a stern talking to. 

Over the week of its demolition, I watched the facade of the building be torn down, piecemeal, bit by bit, like crows devouring a carcass. The excavator beaks dug into the pelt, it bled black wire and steel rods. It exhaled cement dust, and screamed crushing metal. Bones snapped and obediently buckled. The foundation gave way. A crash on the breakwaters. The shell crumbled, the pathetic animal within still writhing. And there was silence, and the slow rebuilding of a building less offensive – more in line with our national identity. Sanitised, simple, efficient. 

No side.

The march of progress shall continue inexorably. It will not wait for you or me. 

During one of my family trips to JB, my father sat with me eating Roti Tissue by the roadside in a supper eatery he said he had frequented as a child. He pointed out that the building across the road looked exactly like how it was as a child. Hong Leong remained there. The carpark, unchanged, the road still with the same crack, the prata still tasting the same. 

One day, I shall dream to walk down Marine Terrace with my daughter holding my hand. Perhaps I, too, shall get lucky with my balloting – should her grandparents decide to stay. My mother would take her to the new library, and she would play with the chairs. My father could walk with her down the ECP to pick up seaglass. I might walk with her down my old primary school (likely demolished), and our Senior Minister’s secondary school (likely ceased operations), and she might weep, lamenting that nothing stayed the same. 

20 November 2025