We were deeply saddened of the death of Singapore's Minister Lee Kuan Yew. We offer our deepest condolences to the Lee family and the people of Singapore in mourning the loss of this remarkable man, ‘Father of Singapore’. We were on transit in Singapore, so we took the mrt from Changi Airport to Tanah Merah (interchange) to Tanjung Pagar station estimate 36 minutes.
For those who wish to pay their last respects to Singapore's founding Prime Minister.
The 18 sites are located at:
- Aljunied GRC: Kovan Hub
- Ang Mo Kio GRC: Ang Mo Kio Central Stage @ Ang Mo Kio Town Centre
- Bishan-ToaPayoh GRC: Toa Payoh Central Community Club
- Choa Chu Kang GRC: Hardcourt opposite Choa Chu Kang MRT Station
- East Coast GRC: Open space @ Bedok Town Centre
- Holland-Bukit Timah GRC: Senja-Cashew Community Club
- Jurong GRC: Canopy beside Jurong Regional Library
- Marine Parade GRC: Kampong Kembangan Community Club (Foyer)
- Moulmein-Kallang GRC: Hong Lim Park next to Telok Ayer Hong Lim Green Community Centre
- Nee Soon GRC: Hardcourt at Blk 749 Yishun Street 72
- Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC: Sengkang Community Hub (Hardcourt)
- Sembawang GRC: Woodlands Civic Centre (Open Space)
- Tampines GRC: Tampines Community Plaza
Tanjong Pagar GRC: Tanjong Pagar Community Club - West Coast GRC: Blk 442 and Blk 449 Clementi Ave 3
- People’s Association Headquarters
- Marina Barrage
- Singapore Botanic Gardens
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We went to Tanjung Pagar Community Club. On the way there we took lots of pictures because Tanjong Pagar Community Club was being upgraded years ago and Mr Lee Kuan Yew would visit the site and give his opinions to make sure the needs of residents would be fully catered to.
Affordable Housing Development Board (HDB) flats
World's tallest public housing,
Pinnacle @ Duxton which stands at 50-storey high complete with sky gardens and observatory decks; well conserved and refurbished shophouses that exude pre-modern and vintage charm.
Lee Kuan Yew was born in Singapore on Sept. 16, 1923, to a father he grew distant from and a 16-year-old mother who adored him. The family had lived in the colony for more than half-a-century by the time of his birth, absorbing the culture of the indigenous Malays and the colonial British. Called Baba Chinese, they believed in English education, could afford servants, and enjoyed a higher social standing than the poor, often illiterate, recently arrived Chinese immigrants who worked around the city’s riverfront docks as lightermen, rickshaw pullers and stevedores. Though Lee’s father himself rose only to be the manager of an oil depot for Shell, the wider clan was established and well-off.
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Singapore gained partial independence from the British in 1959, then became part of the Malaysian federation in 1963. Two years later it was kicked out of Malaysia because of racial tension — the city state was mainly ethnic Chinese, the peninsula dominated by Malays — and the antagonism of many senior politicians in Kuala Lumpur toward Lee, whom they considered headstrong and unpredictable. Lee was a month shy of his 42nd birthday, and no longer just Prime Minister of a federated state but an independent nation with an evaporating economy and not a single trained soldier of its own to defend it. By late 1965, Lee’s vision for Singapore was formed. It would build its own military, often stealthily, using Israeli military trainers described as “Mexicans” in order not to disturb the country’s Muslims. “They looked swarthy enough,” Lee wrote. And instead of trying to piggyback on the commodity-driven trade of its neighbors, Lee would seek investment from outside Southeast Asia, appealing directly to multinationals in the U.S. and Europe. “We had to create a new kind of economy,” he wrote, “try new methods and schemes never tried before anywhere else in the world because there was no other country like Singapore.”
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Excerpts of Lee Kuan Yew: The Man And His Ideas, are now available in the form of an e-book in The Straits Times Star E-books app. It is published jointly by The Straits Times and Times Publishing as a public service to commemorate the life and work of Mr Lee, who died on Monday, March 23, at 91. It is free.
The original book was published by Times Editions, part of Times Publishing Group, and The Straits Times Press, part of Singapore Press Holdings. It was written by ST journalists Han Fook Kwang, Warren Fernandez and Sumiko Tan. Times Editions is now part of Marshall Cavendish, which belongs to Fraser & Neave.
Mr Lee signed 200 copies of the book which raised $2 million for charity.
The e-book contains the introduction and three chapters of the original book, and has 24 speeches and extracts of interviews.
How to download the e-book for free (please click here):
Type “The Straits Times Star” to search for The Straits Times Star E-books app Download it onto your iPad or Android device Go to "browsing" You will find Lee Kuan Yew: The Man And His Ideas inside The app is designed to work on iPad devices running iOS 6 and above. It is best viewed on tablets. Because of its size, you might want to download it using a wifi connection -
