Director's Note

For many of us, going to the cinema to watch a movie was a rite of passage. But these days, we are spoiled for choice – one need not “go” anywhere to watch a flick or two with device in hand. It is thus timely that writer Alvin Tan shows us how the moviegoing experience in Singapore has changed in the last 100 years.

It is not a well-known fact, but one thing that cinemas helped usher in is air conditioning. Movie theatres were one of the first places in Singapore to get this revolutionary technology. Fiona Williamson brings us the cool story of how this process unfolded.

I used to love going to the movies and I remember eagerly turning to the newspapers to find out what was showing where. I don’t do that anymore though. Newspapers have certainly changed a lot since I was a teenager. But that’s to be expected. The Straits Times turned 180 in 2025 and you can’t realistically assume something will remain unchanged over 18 years, let alone 180. To mark this momentous event, former Straits Times journalist Irene Hoe delves into the archives to bring us lesser-known facts about Singapore’s paper of record.

The double coconut palm is an endangered tree that produces the world’s heaviest – and also the world’s most suggestive-looking – fruit. Because it takes 25 to 40 years to reach sexual maturity, getting these trees to reproduce is a tall order. In fact, to fertilise a female double coconut tree in Honolulu in 2011, botanists in Singapore and Honolulu had to devise a way to transport pollen all the way from Singapore’s Botanic Gardens 11,000 km away. In his colourful Hawaiian shirt, Choo Ruizhi plays tour guide across history and geography.

Bata is a household name and many of us would have grown up owning a pair of Bata shoes, especially for going to school. Bata may look like a local company but it was actually founded in a town that is now part of the Czech Republic. In the old days, the company would send Czechs to cities around the world to work in Bata stores, which is how Jan Beránek’s granduncle Silvestr Němec ended up in Singapore fighting the Japanese during the Second World War. 

These are just some of the exciting stories that you can find in this issue of BiblioAsia. Kick off your (Bata) shoes, turn on the air conditioning, grab a piña colada and enjoy!

Alicia Yeo
Director
National Library, Singapore