Visit to National Museum of Singapore

Everything went in a rush this afternoon. However, since our research is about wedding, what I saw in the photography section of family impressed me a lot.
In this section, the collections of old photographs depicted the 100-years family life in Singapore. In the beginning, photography is luxury only for the royal and rich. There was a famous photo of the Dutch blood Sudan queen Khadjia Khanum. Even though interracial marriage was not common, we could still see the symptoms from a royal wedding. Another photo leaving me a deep impression was one on the Armenia wedding. It was said in the record that the new couple both were Armenia living in Singapore. At that time, this wedding was grander than ever and was reported by the Channel Times in enormous space. It took place in inner race, which showed how the community utilized marriage as a tool to consolidate the commerce relationship and keep the family ties. Aside from the above, I also saw some traditional marriage- form records there. A photo of a family where there were a group of children with around a husband and two wives, represented the Chinese polygamy. The main purpose of this system was for a continuous clan, which means more wives, more children, but with the influence of the west after Singapore falling into a colony, this custom died away. Accompanied with its disappearance was the widely accepted monogamy.
It is always an amazing thing for me to know about the past life. More than a personal memory of a family, these photos are also precious records of a nation’s memory.From a narrow view on the family frame, the process of how multi-culture was rooted in Singaporean history was emerged through the stories behind each photo .