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LIFE&FAMILY
150
October14
How easily did you adjust to
Singapore?
I took someone’s advice to join two
organisations: the ANZA writers’ group
and the Prime Time professional women’s
association. As an active member of the
ANZA group for over four years, I made
a number of good friends. And through
them, I was introduced to the Friends
of the Museums (FOM) and its writers’
group.
I’ll admit, it took me a year to feel fully
at home in Singapore, but at FOM I again
found the kind of multicultural, multiracial
and diverse group I’d enjoyed mixing with
in Penang. At first, I resisted doing the
docent (guide) programme, because I
didn’t like speaking in public, but Agnes
Gros convinced me to do it, if only to
help me understand what I was seeing
during my travels in the region. She was
quite right, as I discovered later, when she
and a couple of others visited Penang
with me, to help me set up an FOM study
tour there. They explained to me things
I’d been looking at for years but never
understood.
Soon after that, I joined the 14-week
docent programme for the Peranakan
Museum in Armenian Street and became
a volunteer guide. That experience has
been one of my great joys, really, as have
the friendships that have sprung from it.
Do you still volunteer as a guide?
Since 2010, I’ve been a volunteer guide
for the Preservation of Monuments and
Sites Board – at the Istana on open days,
in Telok Ayer Street and in Phillip Street;
and now that Lau Pa Sat has re-opened
after restoration I take walking tours
there, too.
They’re simply wonderful sites, each
with a fascinating story. Knowing how
they came to be, who designed them
and who the communities were that
used them – and being able to share all
this knowledge – makes me feel more
connected with Singapore, and less like
a transitory guest.
What led to your setting up Five
Foot Way Connections in 2011?
My business is aimed at helping newly
arrived expats settle into Singapore, so it
was a natural progression from my work