4D | > 22. II

So here is Day 2! I’m shooting after school so I’ll be walking by foot, and thus I gotta go somewhere near in case I got lost… So! I decided to head to the shophouses at Teck Whye which is a few stops away from my place and I’m amazed I’m able to find some rare gems there. 


Chinese Incense Shop – Since 1985

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Random mama shop which looks old but apparently it’s only 2 years old hahaha

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Sintolee Confectioner – An old school bakery which has been running since the 1970s!

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I love rainbow bread… it sums up my childhood omg 

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Is it memories!!!

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Chew Optics which has been here since 1986.

Ok I don’t really wanna tell you jsut but… you know what, forget about buying your spectacles/contact lenses from optical shops in shopping malls because they are expensive as hell. This Chew’s Optics (omg i love them), sells rayban specs so much more cheaper and their lenses OMG i tell you. Normally I get my daily acuvue lenses in shopping malls for like what, up to $60-80? But this…. one month of daily lenses is only priced at $45!!!!! Good find so must share. Thank my later. 

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If you look carefully, they used straws and thumbtacks as support to display their merchandise. How cute!!


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This tonic(?) shop which has been running for 30 years as well. It seems that the shophouses along teck whye lane has the same age… 

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That’s all for Day 2! Gotta rush home and do the rest of my work. Stay tune for the rest of my adventure! 

4D | >22. I

Hi guys!

From my previous dilemma, which was either – should I combine both old people & old shops together in a book or should I just do mainly the old shops itself? After much contemplation, I decided to focus on shops that are 22 years and above! Well, why 22 years? Because I’m 22 and I find it really amazing to find shops that are actually older than me, that has been here since I was born. Like, how do they even run the same business for SO long!?

So I did some research on where are some of the oldest places & shops in Singapore. But first, there’s this motor place called ” Lee Huat Motor Co.” which is near my place and guess what, after checking with them, I found out that they are actually 60 years old!!! That is like…. x3 of my lifetime o m g . And the best part is, they have been at this exact location for 60 years!! Isn’t it impressive?

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Fun Fact: Notice the telephone number written on the signboard. This shop is so old that the telephone number is only 6 DIGITS. 

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Next stop – would be Tiong Bahru. How can I not check it out when it’s famous for having some of the oldest shops in Singapore. But after walking around Tiong Bahru, I was so disappointed because most of the old shops has been replaced with those new cafes 🙁 And I only managed to find a few shops there that remains. I feel like… they need to stop replacing all the traditional old shops… What would Singapore heritage go then?

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Pin Pin Piau Kay & Co. that has been here since 1938!!! It’s a 3-gen provision shop which sells basically everything that you will need. Funny how their signboard can only be found in the back of their shop (below)

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If you ever want old-school cakes, take a trip down to Galicier that has been here since the 1970s. 

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This optical has been here since the 1970s, but the owner didn’t let me take a picture of their interior 🙁


The last trip of the day will be Excelsior Peninsular. I happen to find this old gem “Roxy Records & Trading” online, and it’s a record store which sells really old vinyls!! And their company has been here since 1962.

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The friendly boss of Roxy Records introduced me to head to another store in the same mall with a long history as well! And it’s a shop which sells really vintage stuff.

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To end the day, I decided to make a trip down to the Teck Whye bird shop again to get a few more shots. Apparently the boss owns a bird shop and an aquarium which is just right beside the bird shop itself. The shop has been running since 1978.

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Thats all for today!! Stay tune for the rest of my journey. 

4D | White Hair is Good Hair

In my ideation post, I mentioned about how white hair is good hair right? Since I couldn’t decide on which idea to do, I decided to shoot this concept as well and we shall see what Robert says!

I mustered a lot of courage to approach old people and expected the worst but apparently… 90% of them were willing to let me take a photo of them and were really nice too! I was only rejected by one uncle and he was really hostile towards me 🙁 He said something like “拍摄么拍,开玩笑。” So basically in English he was really sarcastic in saying if it’s a joke that I’m trying to take his picture, and it’s sooo obvious he wouldn’t let me take. But whatever it is! Old people are really nice people, they were all so cooperative and so happy when I mentioned I’m doing a project documenting on white hair is good hair. But really, their white hair is b e a u t i f u l.

Without further ado, here are the shots I took around my neighbourhood. 


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After the crit session, Robert mentioned that the 22 Years & Above series was more interesting as they are more “layers” to it. However, he said I could combine the 2 series together because they are speaking of the same thing, which is age, and in my terms, old but gold. 

My idea for White Hair is Good Hair for it’s film was that I planned to help an old lady dye her hair black, while she speaks about her life and all that. However, the main issue was firstly, finding someone who is willing to let me dye her hair, and second but most importantly, what if there are after effects of the dye and she gets an allergy reaction!? I feel that I wouldn’t be able to bare the consequences so…. Most likely I wouldn’t be doing this? I’m still contemplating…

But anyhow, I’m still considering if I should combine both topics together or I should just focus on 22 Years & Above? What do you think?

4D | 22 Years & Above

Hello world!! I’ve finally decided to start shooting shops that has been around for so so soooo long as I find it really interesting because of its heritage. Don’t you find it amazing at how long all these shops has been around since forever!? There are shops that has been here waaaaay before I was born, or even before my parents are married, some might even be as old as my parents or grandparents!

Therefore, the title of this series is called – 22 Years & Above. And this begins, the journey to the west find shops that has an even longer lifetime than me.

Being the really indecisive me, I only managed to start shooting on the third day of Chinese New Year. And then I realised… most of the shops are not open. But lets see what I’ve got! My Dad (love him), brought me all the way to Little India because he mentioned that only the shops in Little India are opened hahaha. So here are some pictures. But… it started pouring once we alighted from the car -_- So here are just some shots that I managed to take. Pardon for the inconsistent shots!! But I know I will mostly be doing frontal shots in the future.


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This bookstore has been here at this spot for 40 years!!

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A fabric store that has been around for 30 years.

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Not sure how long this tailor has been here but it looks shaaaady.

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A bird shop located at Teck Whye which has been here for 40 years!

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He also owns the aquarium beside it hmmm.

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Yangtze Kiang Uniform Shop which I believe has been here for quite awhile, as I remembered getting my primary school uniform from there! Have yet to check how long is their heritage.

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A Chinese incense shop which has been around for 30 years. Really friendly staff as they told me to take more pictures.


I will be roaming around Singapore to take more pictures!! So stay tune. 

4D | Project 1 Ideation

Hi guys,

My indecisiveness is killing me, but luckily, I managed to scope down to… 2 ideas. So in this tiny space of mine, I will list down the ideas I had.

Idea #1: Temples of Singapore

If you know me, you should know that my mandarin is shit. Hence my Dad says I’m a fake Chinese ha ha ha. My mandarin didn’t suck that much back then as I was quite fluent in it till I’m Primary 4, when my Grandma had pass on. As I come from an English speaking family, I didn’t get a chance to practice my mandarin, so my mandarin deteriorated as years pass. Fun fact: I’m a Taoist but I don’t really know whats going on in my culture/religion because my family isn’t that religious or traditional. I mean yes, we do pray from time to time, go to temple visits but when I asked my Dad what is the reason or what does this signify… Apparently, he doesn’t know too as he simply follows the “tradition”.

So. This inspired me to do a topic on Chinese Temples. During my temple visits, there’s this question that kept bugging me, how did they manage to built this intricate architecture and also managed to bring the hugeeee Buddha statue into the temple??? And I mean huge, like HUGE. If you’ve been to temples you should know what I’m talking about. Ok, besides that, I really LOVE the carvings and statues in the temples. It never fails to amaze me how detailed they can be. Therefore, that was how I got upon to taking pictures of the Chinese temples in Singapore.

BUT. It didn’t quite sit well / feel right to me to be snapping away in the temples as it’s a sacred and holy place… As it’s quite disrespectful in a sense? Therefore. Idea 1: Chinese Temple Bye.

Idea #2: 1 Room Rental Flats aka 33m2

I even thought of a cool name for this project and it’s called 33m2. As 1 Room Rental flats’ size is 33 x 33m2.

I’ve always been quite “passionate” (is this the right word to use?) about senior citizens and I’m not being pretentious or what but something in me wants to do something for them. And actually, I’ve done a project on 1 Room Flats for my FYP in my Poly days. So basically, I’ve studied and research this 1 Room Flat located in Marsiling and realised that it consists of mostly senior citizens. The thing that I couldn’t understand was why was the environment there so… dull? I’m talking about the common spaces here. The elderly who lives there are either alone, outlive their family members, or was abandoned. Some are even sick or have difficulty moving around. Some don’t even leave their homes! This may result in depression or isolation. And do you know there are cases where senior citizens who are living in 1 Room Flats actually dies from loneliness??? So, what should we do, or what can I do? All this led me to my FYP… and my project was try to better the living environment for the residents there by re-desigining the common area to enhance and encourage socialisation to take place.

Ok I anyway my FYP was really very much 3D based but lets take a chill pill on that. So besides focusing on the senior citizens, what else can I look at or how do I look upon 1 Room Flat in a different light? Robert mentioned that I could focus on the living spaces as he mentioned that it can be interesting. I thought about that and another fact here. Do you know that it’s possible for 2 strangers to be living together in the 1 Room Rental Flat? I thought I could touch on this topic as it would be interesting to see how 2 strangers live in a space and that reminded me on how this Japanese Couple took 118 pictures of different HDB flats.

But the thing is… I didn’t have the “drive” to take photos of 1 room flats anymore as I felt that I’ve sort of done this and wasn’t as motivated to do so anymore. It’s a pity but I hope that I will find that drive again! Idea 2: 1 Room Flat Bye.

Idea #3: 22 Years & Older

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While I was buying food from my nearest coffee shop, I will always pass by this particular fruit stall and that has been there since FOREVER. Well maybe not forever, it seems to be there since… I can’t really remember. So I thought, why not do a series of shops that has been here like for generations and generations? I thought a good margin would be 20 years and older, and I was like, why not make it 22 years and older? That is how old I am this year, and it would be really cool that a shop has been here waaaaay before I was born. But guess what? I took some test shots of some shops and when I asked how long have they been here… I got a shock. 

So since I took some pictures, I guess this is one of my “finalised” ideas? And I kinda like it. But the thing is… I only got this idea inspo over the festive period and can only managed to start shooting on third day of CNY… So most of the shops weren’t open! The photos will be shown in the next post, or tomorrow during the critique :p So stay tune.

Idea 4: White Hair is Good Hair

landscape-1485452731-gettyimages-632712282Carmen Dell’Orefice, 85 years young in Guo Pei Couture’s show

This idea was basically derived from the 1 Room Flat senior citizens. As I wanted to do “something for them”, the first random thing that jumped into my mind was – “Why not dye their hair for them?” I felt that maybe they would feel different after an image change and hair is something that plays a very big part in our appearance. I’m sure this might give them a esteem boost or make them feel younger and happier!

But then I thought about it, why am I trying to cover their white hair? White hair is beautiful too! Though its a sign of age, but it comes with wisdom, experience and evidence on how long you’ve been on Earth, and the things you’ve seen that the young has not. And it’s funny how the trend of the younger generation hair now are all ash grey, platinum grey and so on! They deem white hair as old, yet they are dyeing their hair grey to be “trendy”, how contradicting? 

So, why can’t white hair be good hair?