Home on the Dot

This episode marks the beginning of a mini-series of episodes from Home on the Dot about Covid. In this episode, student producer Shriya Sharma shares about her exchange experience in France being cut short. What was supposed to be a five-month-long adventure ended in two months. Shriya describes what it was like hearing the news of her premature recall and making her way back home during a pandemic. She ruminates on her quarantine experience, locked in with her family, and appreciating the safety of home in the Covid present.

The COVID-19 virus has disrupted countless lives as it has become a global pandemic. Hundreds of millions of people in China, Italy, Spain, the Philippines, England, France, Germany, the United States, and elsewhere have been asked--or forced--to stay home in order to prevent the spread of the disease and “flatten the curve.” Never in the history of the world have so many people been at home at the same time. But not everyone can return home so easily, and perhaps not everyone should. For countless university students on exchange overseas, COVID-19 has disrupted their once-in-a-lifetime experience, forcing them to return home almost overnight. But what happens when home is potentially more dangerous than where you are? And how do you cope with the stress of traveling home at this risky moment? In this episode, two students from the United States share their struggles of the past week, as they received multiple messages from their Universities and had to decide whether to stay for the rest of the semester (and risk getting stuck in Singapore) or return to their families in California (and risk endangering themselves and their families). The stress is piling up, from buying hard-to-find plane tickets, worrying about credits and the switch to online courses, saying goodbye to friends, staying healthy while traveling, and not becoming a vector. These amazing young adults demonstrate incredible maturity in the face of unimaginable circumstances.

Can a kitchen appliance change your life? In this episode, student-producer Shriya explores the art of making chapatti, a flatbread that is a staple in households around the world. She discusses the laborious process of making chapatti by hand and shares the sounds of learning this art from her grandmother. Then she introduces the Rotimatic, an automatic chapatti maker designed to revolutionize this labor-intensive task and liberate women from the kitchen. What is gained and what is lost when a new appliance enters the home?

What is the flavor of home? What is the flavor of Singapore? There are plenty of national dishes, including chicken rice. But if there is a national breakfast, it’s eggs, toast, and coffee; three simple elements that constitute the flavor of home for many Singaporeans, wherever they are in the world. In this episode, student-producer Ruby introduces us to the simple breakfast served at kopitiam, or coffee shops, that brew a strong cup of coffee throughout Singapore, and she highlights one of the companies that has standardized this Singaporean breakfast and taken it overseas: Ya Kun Kaya Toast. She also speaks with cultural geographer Ong Chin Ee, who shares his thoughts on Singapore’s food culture, globalization, and the dangers of mummifying foodways.

Institutional homes are often stigmatised as dreary places for the poor, the elderly, and those abandoned by society. In this episode, student-producer Weiyun introduces us to a different kind of institutional home: a halfway house, where some of Singapore’s prisoners serve the last few months of their sentences. Weiyun and Chris tour one facility and learn its role in the broader framework of Singapore's prison system. Then we sit down for an intimate interview with a resident. He shares what it was like to serve time in prison and the newfound freedoms of the halfway house. After drowning in the ocean, he has finally reached the shore. He needs time and space to learn how to walk on land, as he gets a step closer to home. In this episode, we explore Singapore’s prison system and the struggle to get past halfway.

In land-scarce Singapore, the living compete with the dead for space. The result is both high-rise living and high-rise dying. In this episode, student-producer Jia Han examines the columbarium, Singapore’s high-rise solution for housing the cremated remains of its dead. He charts the origins of columbaria in Singapore and shares a visit to the columbarium with his family, emphasizing the role of the columbaria in revitalising family ties and reproducing family gatherings that previously took place at home. Finally, he sits down with Mr. Bernard Chen, a funeral director, to discuss death and negative perceptions towards it within Singapore. He encourages everyone to have an open, honest discussion about death, as this is the only way for both individuals and the nation to plan appropriately for it.

How does a foreign land become your homeland? This is the question migrants and host societies ask every day around the world. Singapore has long been a country of migrants. Ask any Singaporean and there is a good chance that they, their parents, or their grandparents came from elsewhere. Some of these migrants may have planned to return to their homeland one day, but with time this foreign land became home. In this episode, student-producer Ching May explores the challenge of settling into a new land by focusing on an institution that long helped Chinese migrants: the clan association, or huiguan. She visits one of Singapore’s 300 surviving huiguan to ask how it is adapting to the times and how home has changed in meaning for different generations of migrants. She also shares her personal journey as a migrant from Hong Kong who now considers Singapore home, without the help of a clan association. Finally, we hear from Prof Kenneth Dean, an expert on clan associations who leads a fascinating clan association research project, an online GIS-enabled portal called Map of Origins: https://libportal.nus.edu.sg/frontend/ms/sg-chinese-clans/about-sg-chinese-clans

Every Sunday, Singapore explodes with life as tens of thousands of foreign domestic workers escape their workplaces and head to the island's parks, churches, tourist attractions, and other public spaces. When you live and work six days a week in the home of your employer, how do you spend your day off? Where can you go to rest and recharge for the week ahead when your home is also your workplace? For many foreign domestic workers, the answer is a shopping mall, where you can meet friends, send money home, get a haircut, buy clothes, eat familiar foods, and more. The most visible and well-known such place is Lucky Plaza, a mall known as Singapore's Little Manila due to its concentration of shops catering to workers from the Philippines. In this episode, student-producer Celia explores the phenomenon of foreign domestic workers in Singapore and visits Lucky Plaza to hear why so many foreign domestic workers visit there on Sundays. She also reflects on growing up with foreign domestic workers in her own home and wonders what ‘home’ means to them.

Welcome back to Season 2 of Home on the Dot. In this episode, we return to the topic of public housing by introducing the uniquely Singaporean public space at the base of most HDB blocks: the void deck. Despite its name, there is nothing empty about the void deck. It is a vibrant space for play, socializing, and key life events like weddings and funerals. It is also an escape for people when they have no other place to go. Student producer Dana discusses the history of void decks and explains how home often spills out the front door and into the void. She also visits a void deck that serves a particularly unique purpose: as a bird arena. Here, bird lovers from all over the country gather with their cages, creating a community around their singing pets.

On this National Day 2019, follow us into the void!

Young people from around Asia move away from home and family to pursue their education in Singapore. Some arrive as young as 10, moving into dorms or staying with families who are paid to care for them. In a world where educational success can open doors to social mobility and families make financial and personal sacrifices for their children’s education, Singapore has become a beacon of hope for these educational migrants. Who cares for them, and how have they adjusted to life in Singapore? Where is home to these young migrants, who live so far from their families and face so many personal and educational obstacles? And finally, where will home be when their educational journey is finally complete? In this episode, our final installation in Season 1, Samantha speaks with teen educational migrants who share their experiences and reflect on their fluid senses of home as they strive for educational success in Singapore.