This blog post is part of the Random Sampling Singapore project. The Project aims to sample 100 places on the island of Singapore over a one year period in order to gain an unbiased and holistic view of the city state.

End of August my family and I met with my favorite data scientist, Jane Bi, to hunt a coordinate near Redhill MRT. Jane has not only a friendly and kind personality, she also have an extraordinary eye for details. Through her open minded approach another coordinate became very special. That day she is describing as following:

Text and pictures by Jane Bi

We met a 74 years old uncle living nearby who warmly showed us around.

Residents here like planting vegetables, such as bitter gourd, melon, papaya, eggplant and so on. They would usually wrap the fruits with a piece of newspaper or plastic bag, to prevent birds from spoiling them.

There are also several buildings here sponsored by the government. Elderlies and people in need rent an apartment, and receive $400~700 living subsidies every month.

Ghost Festival just passed. We still see a Chinese altar table alongside, and some residual candles under the tree. It’s been said that every Lunar calendar July, ghost will wander around the living world. So people will place food on the street or under the tree, light candles and burn papers, in order to respect ghost of passed-aways, and pray for safety and health.

After discovering the coordinate we hiked further down to Mount Faber park. Jane shared some inspirational photos of that day and a calligraphy about/with sago seeds.