We shall now proceed to the second story. Make sure you don't trip and fall at the staircase! On setting foot on the wooden flooring of the second level, you are greeted by a metallic statue of Lieutenant Adnan bin Saidi staring at you.
Turning to the left, two panels of glass (called the "Windows of Memories") with information regarding Lieutenant Adnan from interviews with people who were very close to him are visible. I turn left once more, into a small room with yet more artifacts used more commonly in the war. They include a Lee Enfield rifle, an Arisaka rifle, trenching tools, clothing, etc. At one side of the wall, there are also several watercolour pictures from an elderly Chinese man who lived through the war.
I walk out of the room and make my way to the middle of the second floor. There, a large, hollow, half stone cylinder protrudes from the wooden flooring. Above it, a slightly larger but otherwise rather similar cylinder is attached onto the ceiling. On four sides of the bottom cylinder are four box-like structures with telephones. The "boxes" are stuck onto the cylinder by only one of their six faces. When I pick one telephone up and put it to my ear, a pre-recorded voice track starts and someone talks about information related to the text in the hollow (which lights up out of the blue) at the topmost face of the "box". The same goes for all the other "boxes", except that the voice recordings vary in languages. They are in either English, Chinese or Malay. It turns out that the below cylinder is actually a mirror whereas the cylinder on top has some miniatures showing some British officers discussing at a table and several trees. I later discovered that the cylinder was supposed to be the "Well of Reflections".
Behind them, there are two mannequins attired in the uniforms of the soldiers of the Malay Regiment. The uniforms are namely the walking out dress and the officer's uniform.
In front of the cylindrical structures, there is a fake cell with a metal statue of a male prisoner of war (POW) behind the bars. Behind and beside the prisoner are several of his artworks (not genuine, of course) about the prison.
Lastly of all is the mini theatre. It is located just beside the "jail" and shows a short, approximately 10 minutes in length show from time to time. Everyone has to wear earphones to hear the sounds of war better. The show begins in a serene Malay village at Bukit Chandu, but the peace is unfortunately shattered when the Japanese invade the area and attack using troops and bomb-laden planes. The sounds of chaos are rather realistic, and so are the scenes (visible with the aid of a projector) and sounds of war. Much of the show focuses on the brave resistance put up by the Malay Regiment against the Japanese, with Lieutenant Adnan bin Saidi in particular. The show ends with some words of wisdom by one of the survivors who was previously in the Malay Regiment, and it turns out that he is the narrator after all. His words left me in deep thought.
Well, it looks like we have covered the entire museum already. Perhaps this entire tour did not even take us one hour, but it definitely did leave us with lasting impressions about the horrors of war and made us truly appreciate the noble sacrifices made by the soldiers of the Malay Regiment to protect their homes from the massacre of the Japanese. I hope that through this tour, you would be able to realize how great these heroes were-some of the many heroes who willingly perished in an attempt to piece back the shattered peace.
While World War 2 did leave many people with bitter and painful memories, it did at least reveal the heroes in our midst-heroes, whom we never fully understood until the time of war and peril. Maybe every cloud ever has a silver lining after all. However, as from the general point of view, the negative side of the second world war and the fruitless resistance put up by the Malay Regiment definitely outweighed its positive side. Hopefully, the time will never come again when yet more heroes will have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the golden peace which we enjoy today.
Hopefully, you have had a memorable experience at Reflections at Bukit Chandu. Our next tour will be to Labrador Park, a park teeming with flora and fauna. But just as one cannot judge a book by its cover, the peaceful appearance of Labrador Park can be deceiving. So, what may the lush greenery and the bustling fauna conceal? We will show you the secrets within the nature park during our next trip. Until then, see you!
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