‘Thousands of reports, correspondences, memos, private papers, maps, and photographs on various facets of life in Singapore and Malaya had been preserved and are now open to the researcher. The British, as I was duly informed, had dispatched copies of the same documents to different departments within the colonies and to England … Indeed, European imperialism had begotten many ‘children’, each nourishing the other through these circuits of information’ – Syed Muhd Khairudin Aljunied, ‘Perils and Prospects of Researching the Maria Hertogh Controversy’.
‘When I asked if the FJPA could photocopy a few letters I wanted, my request was dismissed and I was even accused by the Head of attempting to ‘steal national treasures’ … After much negotiation with the Head, I was given access to the post-1949 records of two departments of the Fujian People’s Government, but I was only allowed to copy them by hand, so ensuring that national treasures were not stolen!’ – Jason Lim, ‘Digging up the Past in Singapore, Mainland China and Taiwan: Research into the Overseas Chinese Merchants in the China-Singapore Trade’.
