TOKYO: Japan-Singapore ties go “beyond politics and economics”, Japanese Emperor Akihito said on Wednesday (Nov 30), as the two countries celebrate 50 years of bilateral relations.

The Emperor and Empress Michiko held a state banquet on Wednesday evening to welcome Singapore President Tony Tan Keng Yam, who is on a state visit to Japan.

The second day of his visit kicked off with an audience with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko at the Imperial Palace. Dr Tan, along with his wife Mrs Mary Tan, inspected the guard of honour with the emperor and empress.

Singapore’s President Tony Tan Keng Yam bows to national flags of Singapore and Japan as he reviews the guard of honour during the welcome ceremony at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Nov 30, 2016. (Photo: AFP / Kimimasa Mayama)

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe were also at the palace to greet President Tan.

In the evening, the royal couple hosted a six-course French banquet for the Singapore delegation. There were about 140 guests, including envoys, businessmen and politicians.

The emperor noted that Singapore has grown exponentially since his first visit in 1970.

“Every time we visited Singapore since then, we witnessed the dramatic progress that you made in the intervening years. Now more than half a century since Singapore’s independence, you have succeeded in creating a beautiful, affluent nation,” he said.

Emperor Akihito also offered his condolences over the deaths of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and former President S R Nathan, referring to them as “two figures who led Singapore in its early years” and fostering friendly ties with Japan.

During the banquet, President Tan toasted to “robust and growing ties” with Japan.

President and Emperor Akihito exchanging a toast during the State Banquet. (Photo: Facebook/Dr Tony Tan/MCI)

“Singapore and Japan share many common interests and work closely together in regional and multilateral fora to address issues of mutual interest and to tackle shared challenges,” said Dr Tan.

On Thursday, Dr Tan and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will witness the signing of several agreements, including on educational exchanges and research cooperation.

Both leaders will discuss areas of cooperation between Singapore and Japan. They will also talk about regional developments and discuss ways to strengthen ASEAN’s relationship with Japan.

Japan is Singapore’s second biggest foreign investor behind the United States, while Singapore is Japan’s largest Asian investor.

SINGAPORE: As a national sailor, he represented his country in competitions overseas. Now Charles Lim has gone from racing sailboats to documenting them in action with his video camera.

For the past couple of years, the 43-year-old Singaporean artist has been regularly shooting videos of traditional Malay wooden sailboats, or kolek, as they race in the waters of Indonesia’s Riau Islands.

In the CNA Insider digital documentary Racing Time And Tide, you can see some of Lim’s stunning footage of these kolek – including a heart-stopping scene of a boat capsizing and a bird’s eye view of a race held in August at Belakang Padang, an island near Batam. 

Singaporean artist Charles Lim testing his drone camera at a kolek race at Tanjung Pinang, Bintan. (Photo: Matthew Yang)

The footage is part of Lim’s ongoing art project called Stealing The Trapeze, which looks in part at the culture of boat racing that has disappeared from Singapore but is thriving again in the Riau Islands and Johor in Malaysia.

The full video of Stealing The Trapeze is currently up at the National University of Singapore Museum, as part of an exhibition titled “There are too many episodes of people coming here…”

Lim isn’t the only artist in the show that looks at the kolek. There is also a half-finished boat on display, and it belongs to fellow artist Dennis Tan who is trying to build one from scratch. 

Artist Dennis Tan (second from left) with kolek enthusiast Mazlan Mohd Nasir (left) and the unfinished boat. (Photo: Dennis Tan)

The two artists share a fascination with the kolek, which was a familiar sight in Singapore back in the 1960s and 1970s. Races were often held in the Southern Islands and off the mainland’s coastline before the tradition slowly vanished due to land reclamation and development.

For Lim, it’s a passion that is strongly linked to his childhood growing up in the old kampong of Mata Ikan, where Changi Business Park now stands.

“(The village) used to be near the beach but by the time I was growing up, it was all land reclamation,” he recalled. His father, however, had told him that back in the day, kolek races were held there, and people would also build boats using trees found in the area.

Later on, Lim saw these kolek in action, albeit briefly. As a member of the under-15 national sailing team, he recalled catching a glimpse of these while training in the East Coast.

“I remember sailing close to them and being quite surprised at how fast they were. I didn’t have a good look because I was concentrating on my training, but I do remember thinking that the boats were quite narrow,” he said.

(Screengrab: Charles Lim)

Lim would later be part of Singapore’s national team and race in a couple of events, including the 1996 Olympics. But ironically, it wasn’t until he left sailing to pursue a career as an artist that he would come across these kolek once more.

As an artist, his works often revolve around Singapore’s relationship with the sea, as seen in his exhibition SEA STATE, which was shown at last year’s prestigious Venice Biennale, where he represented the country.

It was around this time that the world of the kolek opened up to him. While preparing for the biennale, he got to know Mazlan Mohd Nasir, a Singaporean who owned one and regularly took part in races held in the Riau Islands. (Read his story here.)

The first time Lim saw an actual kolek race, near Batam’s Sekupang pier, his jaw dropped.

“I was very surprised. I thought the races had died, and then you go there and there were a lot of boats. And a lot of people were watching the races from the harbour, and it didn’t feel like it was about preserving something, you know? It was very much ‘this is what we do and we can do anything with it’.”

(Screengrab: Charles Lim)

He proceeded to shoot a video of the race – and continued to shoot videos every time he was able to tag along with Mazlan, who eventually invited Lim to his father’s village on the small island of Keban to watch a team practice.

Lim even tried sailing a kolek. “It’s hard, you need to be quite fit! It’s really nice, actually, but also a big scary. The boat is always at risk of sinking” he laughed.

His kolek adventures have led to the creation of a couple of artworks that have been exhibited in Ireland, Japan and Singapore.

BUILDING FROM SCRATCH

At the same time, Lim began introducing other people, who were also interested in kolek, to Mazlan.

One of these was Tan, who joined Lim in one of his visits to Keban. There, he came across a couple of these old boats.

“During my first time there, I saw two unseaworthy koleks on the side of the island’s pathways,” recalled the 41-year-old architecture-trained artist.

Dennis Tan hard at work on his kolek. (Photo: Dennis Tan)

Tan was so enamoured by the boats and the stories behind them (they were past winners of kolek races) that he later spent his weekends on the island, where he soaked in the stories his hosts, watched sea trials, and even tried to build an oar. At some point, the boats were bequeathed to him.  

His experience there led to the idea of trying to build his own boat. Early this year, Tan received an artist residency under the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore. After the boats, as well as some raw timber, were shipped to Singapore from Keban, he spent four months at his temporary space at Gillman Barracks trying to make a kolek.

One of the kolek that was transferred from the island of Keban to Dennis Tan’s studio at Gillman Barracks. (Photo: NTU CCA)

It proved to be difficult, admitted Tan. But for him, it’s not just about the act of literally building the boat but trying to understand the entire culture that surrounds these boats.

“It’s an endeavor to recover a traditional, old craft and not just (treat it like) a pseudo-archeological discovery,” he said.

At the moment, he has put the project on hold, because of lack of funding and space. But in the meantime, the two original koleks he found in Keban are now on display: One is at Gillman Barracks while the other is at the  NUS Museum, together with Tan’s unfinished kolek.

As for Lim, his video documentation continues. And it has come to the point where it’s not just about art anymore.

“Watching kolek racing excites me on a visceral level. It looks more exciting than normal sailing, actually,” he laughed. “There’s something that I can’t quite describe that is there through experiencing it.”

The former national sailor also has a far-fetched dream. “In some ways, what I hope would happen is for local sailors to build a boat in Singapore and then form a team of local people to go and take part in the races. We could have kolek racing instead of F1 right?”

Dennis Tan’s unfinished kolek (right) and the remains of one of the old kolek from Keban are on display at the NUS Museum’s latest show “There are too many episodes of people coming here…” (Photo: Geraldine Kang)

SINGAPORE: Singapore and Myanmar will begin discussions on a bilateral investment treaty, as well as update an avoidance of double taxation agreement, announced Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Wednesday (Nov 30).

Mr Lee made the comments at an official dinner he hosted for visiting Myanmar State Counsellor, Aung San Suu Kyi at the Istana’s Banquet Hall.

Singapore has been a long-standing and steadfast friend of Myanmar, said Mr Lee, and the two countries are looking to do more together as they celebrate the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations.

Mr Lee noted that the two countries’ economic ties are strong and that they are increasing their trade and investments in each other, showing Singapore’s confidence in the long-term success of Myanmar.

He also hailed the two countries’ people-to-people ties, noting that Ms Suu Kyi’s visit coincides with the mutual lifting of visa requirements for Singapore and Myanmar ordinary passport holders, which takes effect from Dec 1. “We also hope to increase air connectivity between our countries so that our people can visit each other more easily,” he said.

In his speech toasting Ms Suu Kyi, Mr Lee also noted that his personal connection with the Nobel laureate pre-dates Singapore’s independence.

He spoke of how his father, founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew travelled to Rangoon – as Yangon was then known – in May 1965 after attending a conference in India, and was sent off at the airport by Ms Khin Kyi, Ms Suu Kyi’s mother, who was then Burma’s ambassador to India.

Presenting a photograph of the meeting to Ms Suu Kyi, Mr Lee said: “The photo reminds us of the longstanding goodwill and friendship between our two peoples and countries and leaders.”

(Photo: Justin Ong)

“It’s a real surprise and it shows that the ties between our countries are stronger than we imagine,” said Ms Suu Kyi of the photograph.

“And these ties have been growing steadily stronger and stronger, and warmer and warmer,” she said. “And I believe there is more understanding between our countries now than there has been in the past.”

She noted that some of the business leaders she met earlier in the day had long-standing connections with Myanmar. “These connections form a kind of bond which goes beyond simple business interests.”

Ms Suu Kyi added that she welcomes Singapore businessmen in her country. “We believe that, from these businessmen, our businessmen can learn not just the ways of making money, but how to make money without corruption. That is very important.”

The Nobel laureate is scheduled have breakfast at a hawker centre with Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on Friday. Mr Lee noted that food – especially hawker food – is very close to the hearts of Singaporeans, and that he was “particularly happy” to hear of Ms Suu Kyi’s hawker centre visit.

“I understand you are looking to upgrade wet markets and build hawker centres in Yangon – something like the hawker centres we have in Singapore,” said Mr Lee. “We are happy to share our experience and we’ll persuade our hawkers to divulge some of our secret recipes – whether it’s chwee kueh, chai tao kueh, chicken rice and laksa – and then more Singaporeans will go to Yangon to enjoy the meals there!”