EDITOR’S NOTE Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. - Captain Kirk (from Star Trek)
take its form in plane tickets, overweight bags, and stamped passports. We begin each trip with a return ticket at hand. Travel becomes a conscious decision, something made out of the spirit of adventure. These
-
that connects us in a worldwide network, of waves of migration where livelihoods were created, of the means we travel with, and of the ones who get left behind in the midst of travel. Beyond our personal experiences, lies a complex world with people scattered globally. Some travel out of choice, while others were thrown into unknown frontiers. At times, travel even con�licts with nature. We often travel without giving thought to where we travel from, and what enables us to travel. Thus, the theme for this issue is “to boldly go”, where we seek to understand how travel works and who were involved in it. Our team set out to unpack the multiple layers within travel, be it in Singapore or around the world. While we continue to look at tourism (Zhi En, pg. 26-27), we stretch beyond our comforts and begin to look at spaces that bring people to places. From airports (Adeline, pg. 34-35) to train stations (Emily, pg. 18-19), - - - --
and even the roads that we tread upon (Min Lim, pg. 38-39), we sought to explore these transient grounds and understand their signi�icance to travel. More than that, we look at how people used to travel; be it on
resettled communities from the Paci�ic Islands (Jia Yi, pg. 20-21), these articles remind us that not everyone had a willing choice in leaving home. Sometimes, even nature gets pulled into travel and become displaced from its natural habitats (Ruizhi, pg. 22-23). As we begin this discourse about travel, we delve into its multiple meanings where it becomes more than just a state of motion; it becomes a source of livelihood, a badge of national pride, a place where lives collide, and even a scar that one should never forget. I hope this issue of Mnemozine will lead you down pensive thoughts before the summer holidays begin. This marks my last issue as Chief Editor, and I look forward to passing Mnemozine on to newer batches of editors. Mnemozine has always been a mainstay in the NUS history community, be it our undergraduates or alumni. We work hard to live up to past standards, and represent our community in schools and amongst our corporate partners. As always, I thank the History Department for their kind support, and my team of designers, editors, and writers for their quality work and time. Mnemozine depends on readers like you to contribute and push for better articles here. Here’s to the summer break ahead, and may you venture ahead with brand
I hope this �inds you well.
Chief Editor Chng Shao Kai
2
- - - - - - - - - - - - ----
new eyes.
---
ones who stayed after travelling, or were left behind. From the Indian Partition (Glenn, pg. 28-29) to
-
�lying boats (Swee Yik, pg. 16-17) or the forgotten kolek (Joshua, pg. 32-33). Finally, we seek to address the
- - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
romanticised notions of travel often cast a shadow over the bigger picture – of train stations and airports
-
perspectives in foreign lands, and conquer the world bit by bit with every footstep. Wanderlust begins to
- - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
W hy do we travel? Sometimes, our hearts become restless in the comforts of home. We itch to seek new