Lifestyle

Have you and your family paid a visit to the newly opened Asian Civilisations Museum (‘ACM’) at Empress Place yet? If not, as a volunteer museum guide at the trilogy of national museums in Singapore, let me take you on a virtual walkthrough of three galleries in this museum, so that you might get a flavour of what is on display there. Along the way, I shall be highlighting a few items, which I have found to be particularly interesting.

The ACM at Empress Place first opened its doors to the public on 2 March this year. There are four main galleries at ACM, Empress Place. These are the Southeast Asia, West Asia/Islamic, China and South Asia (India) galleries. Due to space constraints, I shall not be covering the South Asia (India) and the West Asia/Islamic galleries.

The ACM at Empress Place seeks to promote, through her collections, greater awareness of multicultural Singapore’s ancestral cultures. In this respect, locating the new ACM in a colonial government office building (dating back to 1867) on the banks of the Singapore River was a conscious decision. For it was here that the locus of early settlement and the trading activities that were Singapore’s lifeblood was found.

Amongst the items found at the Singapore River Interpretive Gallery is a showcase

of items unearthed in 1998 during archaeological excavations near the mouth of the Singapore River. Amongst these items is a 14th century tiny lead statue depicting a horse and its male rider. This statue bears stylistic similarities to Javanese art. These items (some of which date from the 13th and 14th centuries) lend strong support to the theory that Singapore was once an integral part of a pre-colonial maritime trade network.

Given that Southeast Asia has been at the crossroads of world trade for thousands of years, it is not surprising that interaction and adaptation characterises the cultural development in this region. There are seven themes in the Southeast Asia gallery. They are: (a) Pre-History; (b) Hindu-Buddhist Kingdoms; (c) Vernacular Buddhism; (d) Javanese Kingdoms; (e) the Sinicised Southeast Asia; (f) the Malay World; and (g) Tribal Southeast Asia. There is also the Mary and Philbert Chin Gallery of Southeast Asia Gold, as well as the Southeast Asia Performing Arts gallery, which you should take a look at during your visit to Empress Place. Through its thematic displays, the Southeast Asia gallery of the ACM seeks to explore the heritage of our region and the complexities resulting from the different responses to ideas, religions and technologies from all over the world.

The Prehistory section of the Southeast Asia gallery greets us as we step into the gallery. The displays here seek to put to rest the oft-held view that Southeast Asia history only began in its classical period. A good example is the Gua Cha burial pottery from a burial site in Kelantan, Malaysia, dated 1300 BCE (press the button to the right of the showcase for a photo display to see the context in which these items were found). There are also bronze items from Northern Vietnam and Northeast Thailand. The bronze items from Northern Vietnam are examples of works produced by the Dong Son culture (500 BCE-300CE), which is thought to represent the pinnacle of Southeast Asian bronze making.

The highlight of the Prehistory section is a big hourglass-shaped bronze drum in the Pejeng style. This drum was apparently found in East Java and dates from 600 BCE-300 CE. It measures 161cm high and 81cm in diameter and takes its name from the ‘Moon of Pejeng’ (which is the largest of its kind known and measuring 186cm high and 160cm in diameter).¹ Amongst the motifs on the drum are horizontal bands of saw-tooth motifs. These motifs are similar to those present on Dong Son drums — and may be cited as evidence of possible Vietnamese influence.

The diffusion of bronze technology in Southeast Asia allows for increased agricultural productivity and population growth, thus paving the way for the birth of the first organised kingdoms in the region. Indian merchants brought Hindu-Buddhist belief systems and new ideas about kingship to Southeast Asia over a thousand years ago. These beliefs which presented the ruler as a god-king (devaraja) found ready acceptance as rulers closely identified themselves with Shiva, Vishnu and Buddha. Artists combined imported influences with local materials to portray these imported ideas in styles unique to this region. An example of this is the figure of a serenely smiling Buddha seated in samadhi (concentration) on the coils of the seven-headed Naga (or snake) Muchalinda. This is an 11th–12th century Cambodian sandstone piece, which relates the story of how the serpent sheltered the Buddha from the floods following his enlightenment. In ancient Khmer mythology, the naga symbolises the divine spirit of the earth, and it is believed that the king’s divine power is derived from his mystical union with the naga princess Soma.

The Tribal section of the Southeast Asia gallery highlights the unique material culture of the numerous communities living in remote regions away from the centres of trade. This display aims to explore the complexity and diversity of tribal cultures, as well as to overcome some traditional stereotypes of these cultures. For example, at the Batak² display is a Toba Batak book of magic (Pustaha) containing incomplete spells written by a Batak magician/priest (datu). This raises the issue of what makes a culture ‘primitive’ — can a group of people which has its own written language still be considered ‘primitive’?³ The headhunting artefacts from the Dayaks (Borneo Island) in this section are rather interesting as well.

Our next stop is the China gallery. This gallery seeks to explore the dynamic processes of Chinese civilisation, and this has a certain relevance in Singapore given her historical familiarity with China.

(a) Imperial China and Patriarchy
This section explores the supreme authority of the emperor to rule through a visual display of power — Rule of Law as we know it was an alien concept in ancient China, for the Emperor was chief legislator, the executive and ultimate judge for all his subjects. The concept of patriarchy is also explored in this section as an extension of China’s political system. Items showcased include a moon-white robe brocade from the early 18th century, the 5-clawed dragon motifs on it indicates that it was probably worn by the emperor.

(b) Classes in Chinese society
In ancient China, society was stratified into various classes with the emperor at the apex, followed by the literati, peasants, artisans and merchants. Because of the way China was governed, the educated minority in China formed an important link between the masses and the emperor. This section emphasises the mediating role of the literati in Chinese society. Here, we see a display of a conventional scholar’s studio, together with a showcase of the various objects d’art which could be found in such studios (such as inkstones, ink cakes, an assortment of wolf-hair brushes for calligraphy and painting, and a 18th century couch bed ).

Like Southeast Asia, interaction and adaptation marked the development of Chinese civilisation and there was also influence from other cultures (particularly from India), as much as her ideas and culture were appropriated by others. The selection of stone Buddhist images in this gallery shows how Buddhism became a more deliberate and refined version of humanist beauty in China. The importance of the Lotus Sutra (Saddharma pundarika) and the rising prominence of Tantric Buddhism also contributed to the explosion of images in Chinese Buddhist iconography, of which a wide variety may be found in the bodhisattvas (amongst which is Avalokiteshvara, or Guanyin). Also on display are various artefacts relevant to Daoism (which is a philosophy and religion indigenous to China). Amongst these artefacts is a pair of wooden zodiac signs from the Liao dynasty (907 CE-1125 CE) showing Tai Yin and Fu Xi (symbolising the yin and yang concepts respectively).

Did you enjoy the whirlwind virtual tour of two galleries in the ACM at Empress Place? For those of you whose appetites have been sufficiently whetted, consider making an actual visit to the museum one of these days!

The ACM at Empress Place and at Armenian Street (as well as the Singapore Art Museum) are open from 12–6pm on Mon, from 9am–6pm from Tues to Sun, and from 9am–9pm on Fri (free admission after 6pm).

1	The ‘Moon of Pejeng’ is currently displayed in the village temple of Bedulu, Pejeng in central Bali.
2	The Bataksi is a general name for six groups of people living in Northern Sumatra, around the Lake Toba area.
3	Incidentally, the Bataks are the only Southeast Asia tribal group to have their own writing, and this is derived from Sanskrit.