Home on the Dot

Ghosts are everywhere in Singapore. From the Malay pontianak, a female figure that haunts men, to Chinese festivals that burn offerings for the dead, the supernatural and the occult are integral to everyday life and have long fascinated Singaporeans. But what happens when a ghost is in your home? In this episode, Aisyah investigates when home no longer provides comfort, but instead causes fear. She interviews Dr. Irving Johnson, Associate Professor in the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at NUS, who thinks ghost stories offer a way to resist the discipline imposed by Singaporean institutions, such as schools, the military, and public housing. Aisyah also talks with her mother, a real estate agent whose job regularly places her in haunted houses. She shares the story of a Malay family who moved into a new home, only to find family of ghosts that refused to move out. In a country where housing blocks and highways are regularly built on former cemeteries, it's not unusual to need an exorcist now and then.

University offers many young people their first chance to live away from home. Staying on campus can be liberating, with the freedom to try new things and meet new people. It can also be overwhelming, with so many distractions competing with study time. How can universities make students feel at home on campus? And how can students manage the stress and excitement of university life without the emotional and physical comforts of home? In this episode Esther reflects on her experience living on the NUS campus, and she interviews friends who help her understand the efforts in design and social engineering made by the university to make residents feel at home. Finally, Ryan, Alex, and Bryan, residents of one of NUS' residential colleges, Tembusu, discuss the joys and difficulties of adjusting to campus life while balancing school work. They also introduce their attempts to help others adjust through their online magazine, TreeHouse.

A house can be protected by the very four walls that support it, and a padlock on the door. But how does one defend an entire nation? In this episode, we look at military service in Singapore, and the role it plays in defending home. In this episode, Abi reflects on her childhood fascination with the army, and how the concept of national service fortifies our relationship with home.

Do you love museums or hate them? Are they curio cabinets displaying old junk or treasure chests filled with carefully curated objects that transport you to another time and place? In this episode, Max walks us around the National Museum of Singapore. Along the way, he admits how distant he feels from the exhibits and tries to understand why. To do so he talks to NUS professor TC Chang, who speaks about Benedict Anderson’s idea of the imagined community and how this powerful notion plays out in museums and songs for National Day in Singapore.

The HomeWork Machine

In this age of fast fashion, the whirring sound of a Singer may seem to belong to another era. Instead of the hum of domestic industriousness and thrift, it might be the sound of nostalgia. For my student Min, it sounds like home. In this episode I highlight a sewing machine that bound a family together for three generations, but today stands idle. We travel to hear the machine and its story, in order to understand one woman's commitment to her family and how this machine dissolved the barrier between home and work.

The Home-Work Machine

In this age of fast fashion, the whirring sound of a Singer may seem to belong to another era. Instead of the hum of domestic industriousness and thrift, it might be the sound of nostalgia. For my student Min, it sounds like home. In this episode I highlight a sewing machine that bound a family together for three generations, but today stands idle. We travel to hear the machine and its story, in order to understand one woman's commitment to her family and how this machine dissolved the barrier between home and work.

Why do the dead need homes? This episode highlights the Chinese tradition of burning paper houses at funerals and other annual ritual events. NUS professor Richard Lee, an expert on this custom, details the history behind the practice, which today involves burning decadent mansions with pools, manicured lawns, luxury cars, and servants, all made of paper. On this journey, many questions surface:

- What kind of homes do the deceased want?

- Where do you want to die?

- And how does death complicate the comfort we typically associate with home?

The relationship between death and home is a sobering but important topic.

Once upon a time, Singapore’s hawkers peddled their foods on the streets. But in the 1950s, the government began to shepherd them into hawker centres; congregations of food stalls where food hygiene, stall rental, and business could be better managed. Since then, the hawker centre has been a great success, churning out food so cheap and delicious that eating out is more common than home cooking for many Singaporeans. Many have fond memories of their favourite hawker food and families create nostalgic memories in the hawker centre. In this episode, Raudhah reflects on how food is connected to her notion of home and national identity, and explores the recent developments of hawker culture in Singapore.

About 80% of Singapore’s resident population lives in public housing, more commonly referred to as ‘HDBs’ (after the organisation-in-charge, the Housing Development Board). The quality and affordability of HDBs have been celebrated by many. However, public housing in Singapore is imbued with state assumptions about the notion of home. In this episode, producers Tang Hui Jun and Ryan Ang demonstrate how the state uses the provision of housing to institutionalise ideas of community, race, family structure, and above all: home.

Home. A common word with just one syllable. And yet a word teeming with subjectivity, so personal and abstract that it eludes universal definition. Chris McMorran, the narrator and editor of this project, is an American teaching Japanese Studies in Singapore. He speaks about his own attempts to understand his students’ lives in order to inform his teaching – beginning with what home means to them.