Heritage

Professor Cheng Pei-kai. (SPH)

Overhaul of the Chinese value system: How can Chinese meet the challenges ahead?

Professor Cheng Pei-kai spoke to Lianhe Zaobao about China's history, culture, and values, and not boarding a ship that sank.
Of the four confidences, cultural confidence is no doubt the most essential quality, for without which, the rest can neither stand nor work. (iStock)

China needs a ground breaking “New Culture Movement”

Does modernisation equate to abandoning tradition? Will copying-and-pasting Western models work? What can China learn from its 5000 years of civilisation?
Professor Wang Gungwu. (SPH)

Wang Gungwu: When “home” and “country” are not the same

Historian Wang Gungwu speaks to Zaobao about home, country, land, and the world in a globalised era.
Yangmeizhu Xiejie has been preserved amid major urban redevelopment. Over half of the 1,100 residents have chosen to stay on.

Preserving the hutong: "What’s in it for us?"

Heritage conservation sounds ideal, but not every resident of Beijing’s heritage streets wants their homes to stay.
A sketch of the old Shuang Lin Monastery by well-known Taiwanese historian Lee Chian-Lang. (SPH)

A 120-year-old Singapore monastery is getting a makeover from mainland China and Taiwan experts

Singapore’s oldest Buddhist monastery, the Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery, is set for a fresh round of restoration works. Its bell and drum towers, which are in severe disrepair, will be rebuilt at an estimated cost of $7 million, and will open to the public by the second half of 2022.
The Universal Gate at Tsz Shan Monastery, designed by Prof Ho Puay-peng.

Encounters with Chinese Architecture

Professor Ho Puay-peng of NUS is an architect by training. His signature architectural work is the HK$1.5b Tsz Shan Monastery in Hong Kong, commissioned by business magnate Lee Kah Shing. Interestingly, Prof Ho’s father Ho Beng Hong was also an architect whose designs include several Chinese architecture-inspired modern buildings in Singapore. ThinkChina invited Prof Ho to reflect on how classical Chinese architecture has evolved and changed in contemporary times outside of China, through an exploration of his own works and those of his father.