My first encounter with history was at the age of eight when my parents first brought me to visit Fort Siloso and the Sentosa Wax Museum, where I first saw the two famous wax figure re-enacted scenes of the British and the Japanese surrenders during World War II in Singapore. Moreover, when I was a child, there were more Mandarin historical dramas being screened on TV than nowadays and my mother would encourage me to watch them nightly so that I can know more about the past. I became curious to know why historical events happened, what were the feelings and experiences of the people in the past and how these events affected the present world we live in.
All these experiences captured my imaginations as a child and I grew to like history more as I found it interesting with all the very colourful human stories about different historical personalities. These are historical stories that reflected the timeless reality of human nature in both its positive and negative aspects with plenty of applicable good lessons to remember and bad mistakes to avoid. Moreover, the world and its people that we know today have all been shaped by the past. Unless we know about the past, we cannot understand the present world and its people. Furthermore, I am by nature, nostalgic and reflective, and so whenever I passed by any particular place, I was always interested to know what great things or events happened there and who the people involved were.
I remembered how as a ten-year old boy, I started reading my elder sister's secondary history textbook. By the time I was in secondary one, I was determined that I would pursue a career in history. My interest in the subject was so insatiable that I would be secretly reading history books underneath the desk while lessons were going on in class! Even though I did not have interesting history teachers, my passion in history continued. The teenage boys of my time were all influenced by the government and societal pressure from family and friends to aspire to be engineers. I was one of the few who went against the pragmatic trend and dared to aspire to be a historian.
When my classmates heard about my ambition, they never failed to laughed at my ambition as they thought that a historian was a most "useless", "boring" and unprofitable occupation! I disagreed with them of course and it helped that one of the key traits in my personality is the independence and determination to pursue my passion even if I have to do it alone! I have never looked back since then, and have been pursuing my quest for historical knowledge from secondary school right to my current Masters program.
I have with the passage of years found history to be more interesting than ever, especially when from JC onwards till university, I was exposed to the fact that although there are definite historical truths, history can be subjective with many different interpretations and viewpoints by many different people. History is thus "alive" and not "dead". Just like science, some of the so-called facts and interpretations of history can be overturned by new discoveries based on new evidences! Some of what we know to be historically true today may potentially be exposed as false tomorrow!
Moreover, history becomes very real and exciting with field trips to both preserved sites and unexplored ruins in wild desolate places. In recent years, I have enjoyed doing a bit of archaeology by researching and exploring such unexplored ruins and tunnels in the jungles of Singapore and Malaysia using old maps in search of the unknown. This ties in well with my adventurous spirit built up through reading many adventurous stories as a child. History has thus become an adventurous past-time for me.
During the teacher recruitment interview by Ministry of Education, a panel of 5 interviewers asked me, "Why do you want to be a teacher?" I answered without hesitation, "I love history and I want to teach it well." In my six and a half years of teaching history, I have enjoyed imparting my knowledge of history to my students by experimenting with various teaching and presentation methods such as videos, role-plays, debates, newspaper reviews, field trips, re-enactments in historical costumes etc. I am glad that I have managed to change many of my students' negative views of history. I am proud to recall that the majority of my last two batches of secondary 2 students in 2005 and 2007 broke the "history curse" by choosing to do elective history over other humanities subjects. Previously, history had always been the least popular humanities subject in BSS. Breaking the "history curse" in BSS is one of the greatest and most memorable achievements and fulfilments in my life.
Having the chance to be a free-lance specialised World War II guide recently is also like a dream come true as it allows me to exercise my passion in history and yet finance my studies at the same time. However, this is an unpredictable temporary sideline that cannot be sustained for long. Ultimately I want to pursue my PhD in history so that I can lecture the subject at university level. A substantial part of my meaning in life consists of studying and teaching history. To me, history is my interest, passion, hobby, studies and job - all in one! I intend to pursue it till the day I die!
Thanks Mum and Dad! You are the people who played a part in instilling the love for history in me. Unlike other parents, you have always allowed me to choose my own studies and job and supported me in my choices!
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