Memories and Reflections, the Singapore Experience: Documenting a Nation's History Through Oral History (review)

The Oral History Centre (OHC) of Singapore was established in 1979 by the National Archives of Singapore "to record the voices of people who have been eyewitnesses to events and developments that marked the growth of Singapore from a British Colony to an independent country" (ii). The mission statement alone lures the reader into a desire to know more about these eyewitnesses to unusual historical events. A fascinating array of topics make up the collection, such as the Japanese occupation of Singapore, nursery rhymes of Singapore's various ethnic groups, and the development of local medical services. Interviews are conducted in the various languages spoken in Singapore, though predominantly English. The Archive contains more than 16,000 recorded interview hours and is growing by 600 interview hours each year.

Memories and Reflections is a manual for doing oral history as practiced at the OHC. Originally published in 1988, this second edition reflects the changes in practice since the Centre switched to digital technology in 2004. Topics are well organized into chapters following the oral history process: Introduction, Planning an Oral History Project, The Interviewer, The Preliminary Interview, The Interview, Recording Oral History, Processing Oral History, Documenting and Preserving Oral History, Ethics, Disseminating Oral History, and Conclusion. The Networking section lists an array of international organizations from Myanmar to Minnesota. The Annex (Appendix) section offers sample materials from the OHC's archives, including project statements, interview outlines and questions, a foldout containing a flowchart for doing oral history, a sample transcript, and a timeline of Singapore's political development.

Each chapter is clearly organized into subheadings. Textboxes with examples from interviews, and charts with checklists and tabular data supplement the text for easy reading. Well-chosen black and white photographs enliven the narrative, with the added advantage of giving American readers a visual glimpse of Singapore oral history in action. There is no index.

About half the book is devoted to the interview process. An entire chapter is devoted to the interviewer—what makes a good one, how to match an interviewer with an interviewee, and the inevitable language issues in a community as diverse as Singapore. The chapter on conducting the interview addresses tough interview situations, group interviews, and the use of interpreters (which OHC discourages), all punctuated with photographs of actual interview settings, and examples from transcripts to illustrate the point at hand.

As an American oral historian, I was curious to compare oral history practice in Singapore with practice in the U.S. I found mostly similarities; the few differences were a matter of emphasis or timeliness, not substance. For example,

1. a. The chapter "Recording Oral History" begins "Recording oral history interviews ensures that experiences can be captured in a more durable medium and that the knowledge can be shared beyond generations … . No serious oral history programme can hope to do well without investing in the setting up of a technical processing laboratory …" (67), leaving open the possibility of not recording interviews. The implication here is that, though recording interviews is recommended, it is not a requirement for a quality oral history, whereas in the U.S. recording interviews is considered a basic component of the interview process.

2. b. I was struck by how Singaporeans are mainly concerned with ethical issues over legal ones and how we litigious Americans are obsessed with legal issues to the diminishment of ethical ones. The chapter on ethics is short and to the point, beginning "As a public and professional institution OHC must pay close attention to professional, ethical, and proprietary issues … . By adhering to basic ethical guidelines in the course of project planning, staff training, conduct of interviews, handling of copyright issues, archiving and dissemination of records, interviewers maintain their professionalism and the integrity of the organization. Behind all these lie three simple principles: trust, respect, and...