A Frenchman in Singapore

This senior is help­ing other seniors get active, and edu­cat­ing peo­ple on the first British res­i­dent and com­man­dant of Singapore.

BY: Jean-​Claude Fuchs

[cap­tion id=“attachment_1730” align=“alignleft” width=“300” caption=“Jean-Claude Fuchs (sec­ond from left) at the open­ing cer­e­mony of the Far­quhar exhi­bi­tion at the National Library in 2010. Seen here is then-​chief exec­u­tive of the National Library Board, Dr N Vara­prasad (far right).”][/​caption]

What is a French­man like me doing in Sin­ga­pore? I am not the only French­man here as there are some 10,000 French­men cur­rently liv­ing in Sin­ga­pore; most of them are expa­tri­ates with their fam­i­lies but only a few (I have no idea how many) are retired PRs (like myself) who have partly set­tled down here.

For me, I try to enjoy the “good things” that one can enjoy here like the food, exhi­bi­tions, libraries and parks, and I try to over­come the “bad aspects” of life here – like “kia­su­ism”, the lack of curios­ity, lack of inter­est for his­tory and the arts by many Sin­ga­pore­ans, plus the incon­sis­ten­cies that I believe exist in the laws and sys­tems, as well as in the media. Being 65 and liv­ing in the heart of Marine Parade, I am in a com­mu­nity which is 20 years ahead of the other com­mu­ni­ties in Sin­ga­pore, where there are one in five res­i­dents cur­rently aged 65 and above and where the Gov­ern­ment is con­duct­ing a five-​year study to under­stand the needs of the age­ing com­mu­nity. The study find­ings would then be applied to the rest of Singapore.

Help­ing seniors

As a senior myself, I wanted to do my part for the com­mu­nity and help the elderly there. When I spoke to the for­mer chair­man of the Marine Parade Cit­i­zens Con­sul­ta­tive Com­mit­tee, Stephen Puhain­dran, early last year, he muted the idea of an inter­est group on wine tast­ing. Though my answer was, why not, I how­ever had some doubts about the response of such an ini­tia­tive. My doubts were con­firmed, because, there was very poor response but I believe with more pub­lic­ity, this can be resolved.

The idea behind such a group is dou­ble – cre­ate an inter­est group for the elderly hav­ing a com­mon inter­est (they like to drink wine, espe­cially red wine, which most peo­ple know is good for your health, pro­vided you drink it at rea­son­able doses). The sec­ond idea behind the wine tast­ing group is to offer the mem­bers the oppor­tu­nity to test three to four dif­fer­ent wines for only $12 to $18 (depend­ing on the cost of the wines) instead of buy­ing a sin­gle bot­tle that would nor­mally cost them S$20 to S$40.

I believe by hav­ing such an inter­est group or any other group much less would allow the elderly to get out of their homes and be in com­pan­ion­ship with oth­ers. It is bad for any­one to be alone. Most peo­ple, espe­cially women above 50 who are divorced, sep­a­rated or wid­owed and live alone, are look­ing for new part­ners because they suf­fer from lone­li­ness. It is hard for the elderly as they might need help or assis­tance with their daily activ­i­ties. Lone­li­ness was the rea­son why about 15,000 elderly died as a result of the excep­tional heat wave that struck France in August 2003. I want to get as many elderly in Marine Parade out of their homes and doing some­thing that they have a pas­sion or inter­est in.

Keep­ing busy

So how do I keep myself active beside my pur­suit in help­ing other elderly? I try to find a bal­ance with my phys­i­cal activ­i­ties (speed walk­ing, DIY at home), intel­lec­tual activ­i­ties (read­ing, research, chess, work­ing on projects) and leisure activ­i­ties (Inter­net, video films, wine tast­ing, etc). What has also kept me busy is talk­ing about Major-​General William Far­quhar (first British res­i­dent and com­man­dant of Sin­ga­pore) and restor­ing him to his right­ful place in the his­tory of Sin­ga­pore. I feel he has been over­shad­owed by Sir Thomas Stam­ford Raf­fles and was treated unfairly when he was sum­mar­ily sacked in 1823.

I have been research­ing Far­quhar and have met up with his­to­ri­ans and cura­tors to under­stand the man. In May 2008, I even trav­elled to Scot­land and the places asso­ci­ated to Far­quhar. This all resulted in a five-​month exhi­bi­tion in the National Library in 2010 on Far­quhar in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Sin­ga­pore Her­itage Society.

So what’s next after Far­quhar? I am focus­ing my efforts on the Marine Parade pilot study on the elderly where I help sug­gest and look at the fea­si­bil­ity of imple­men­ta­tion of activ­i­ties for the elderly, with the sup­port from the Marine Parade Cit­i­zens Con­sul­ta­tive Com­mit­tee. The wine tast­ing inter­est group that I men­tioned ear­lier encom­passes this. I have also sug­gested other inter­est groups such as vis­its to muse­ums and art exhi­bi­tions, walks to nature parks, and elderly trips to France and other Euro­pean coun­tries, and I have rec­om­mended work­shops for elderly that have been suc­cess­ful in France such as enhanc­ing one’s mem­ory, and Inter­net and com­puter knowl­edge. We will see what works out in the end … but what­ever hap­pens, we will man­age to come up with activ­i­ties for the elderly so they can remain active in the com­mu­nity and not seden­tary at home – a win-​win for everyone!

Jean-​Claude Fuchs, 65, has been liv­ing in Sin­ga­pore for eight years and is a proud res­i­dent of Marine Parade, Singapore.