Besides being the essential tool in getting around Singapore over the last two decades by public transport, one man decided to collect them for keepsakes.
My father holding on to two MRT Card folder collections, ‘A Tribute to Magnetic MRT Tickets (1987 – 2002)’ and ‘Leonardo Da Vinci’ collection.
“What’s that?” my 15-year-old brother asked when he picked up a magnetic MRT ticket among the dozens I had laid out on the table.
I looked at him, aghast. “You don’t remember? They are MRT cards, the ones the current EZ-link cards replaced,” I said, proud that I was old enough to belong to a generation who still remembered them.
Instead, like the knit booties he has faithfully kept in a drawer all 25 years of my life, the magnetic cards serve simply as keepsakes of a forgotten time.
In our time when being an 80′s kid was deemed cool by pop culture and society, I felt that my still vivid memory of using a magnetic bus card cemented my place in the “cool” crowd of Singaporeans who boasted and longed for simplicity of yesteryear.
Vintage Local Advertisements collection featuring Tiger beer, Khong Guan biscuits and Fraser & Neave beverages.
Honestly, I never felt like an 80s kid – even though I was born in 1988, one of the coveted Dragon babies of the decade. While we reveled from memories of Sonic the Hedgehog, the Mr. Bookworm series and the humble plasticine among others, we couldn’t quite share the same enthusiasm our older 80s counterparts had with Space Invaders, She-Ra and tikam-tikam.
Hence the memory of using the magnetic cards, giving birth to that warm, fuzzy feeling I had when I looked through the collection of cards, making me feel exclusively “of age”. But that split second moment of preciousness expired and I had to get over myself.
Tribute to Magnetic MRT Tickets (1987 – 2002) Folder Collection.
I pointed out to my brother that the cards were in fact from my father’s collection instead of mine. He excitedly swiped out his snazzy, personified Samsung S3 mobile and snapped a picture of the collection. Moments later, it was on Instagram, christened “vintage” with a hash tag. That post garnered some 38 likes from his teenage peers.
Old Costumes of Singapore folder.
The cards, boasting more than 10 Thematic Edition series among them belong to my 54-year-old father, Isa Darus. While I only remembered the way it slid into the red box by the bus driver, and how its slim form fit into my unabashedly colorful Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle wallet, my father sought to preserve its artistry well before we started to forget them.
From talk among some of my relatives who were employed within SMRT, I’ve learned that he used to often try to suss them out for any word on a new collection.
My father, like most fathers I’ve met or have come across, is a man of few words. Apart from the unconditional love and respect shared between a father and a daughter, I know almost nothing about what he’s really, really like.
Leonardo Da Vinci collection.
But a big clue comes from what he collects, and the things he’s held dear to him. Whether it’s a collection of Ladybird books he used to read to me every night, aeroplane models he’d painstakingly take out from the display cabinet to polish just before Hari Raya, or a pair of knit booties I used to wear when I was an infant, he’d stow them away and not tell anyone of the items’ prolonged existence (well, except for his collection of aeroplanes). In fact, I only came to know of the cards when my family members and I were spring cleaning his drawers one fine afternoon some years ago.
“Oh yeah, I used to go and quickly queue for them before they ran out,” he said sheepishly, as though ashamed that he fit perfectly into the Hello Kitty queuing, crazed Singaporean mold. And that’s all he’d ever say about that. From talk among some of my relatives who were employed within SMRT, I’ve learned that he used to often try to suss them out for any word on a new collection.
Designer Cards
The Singapore Story Folder.
The collection, which he started building in the mid 90s, featured both used and unused cards. These include festive tickets, tourist souvenir tickets, and Thematic Edition tickets. The latter would be beautifully packaged in specially designed commemorative folders, filled with trivia and anecdotes of the theme in question.
Some designs I vaguely recall, such as the Tarzan movie series, the quotable quotes series and the environmental campaign series, whereas others were entirely unfamiliar. These include two editions of the Leonardo da Vinci series, the Art of Ship series and most notably, the Tribute to Magnetic MRT Tickets series, a limited mintage of 12,000 sets. They comprise the final set of magnetic MRT Tickets that were valid for use till 31 May 2002. It celebrated 15 years of the magnetic MRT ticket, the average Singaporean’s mobile companion.
Tribute to Magnetic MRT Tickets (1987 -2002).
I still remember the day my classmates and I excitedly collected our new EZ-link cards – the (slightly) shiny beacons of hope which bore our faces and signaled a new age of taking public transport. We couldn’t wait to test them out.
Hundreds of bus drivers and SMRT service attendants must have scoffed at the general public who kept the lines waiting as they embraced that definitive beep.
Festive Greetings collection of various celebrations in Singapore.
In retrospect, I didn’t seem to mind the lack of creativity present in the EZ-link cards, neither did I mourn the passing of the humble magnetic ticket. In fact, I didn’t bother retaining mine in a drawer of other childhood paraphernalia.
Not that I lacked a sentimental bone in my body, but I thought that if there were to come a day when I’d want to reflect on the intrinsic value of a transport card, archives on the Internet would have it. Unfortunately, if you do a quick Google search, you’ll find only a handful of designs, some for remembrance and some for sale.
Moments later, it was on Instagram, christened “vintage” with a hash tag. That post garnered some 38 likes from his teenage peers.
My father didn’t have any lucrative prospects in mind when he saved his first magnetic card. Instead, like the knit booties he has faithfully kept in a drawer all 25 years of my life, the magnetic cards serve simply as keepsakes of a forgotten time.
source:
http://www.iremember.sg/index.php/2014/04/02/yesterday-in-transit/
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