Most well-known is the haj – for which Muslims travel to Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Prophet Muhammad, to perform one of the five pillars of Islam. Jains make pilgrimages to Shatrunjaya in India, which is home to nearly 1,000 temples and shrines.

These rituals are highlighted at the Ministry of Home Affairs’ new Harmony in Diversity Gallery at the Ministry of National Development Building in Maxwell Road. It was launched yesterday by President Tony Tan Keng Yam.

Part of the SGSecure counter- terrorism movement’s community cohesion pillar, the new space features four galleries aimed at sharing the importance of religious harmony.

The first features an interactive quiz that seeks opinions on the country’s religious diversity and harmony.

The second features the commonalities across different religions such as values and practices.

It also highlights that Singapore is not immune to religious conflict and tensions. Among the examples featured are two online petitions last year. The first was against mass animal slaughter as part of the Korban (sacrificial offerings) ritual, which resulted in a counter-petition calling for the banning of the Hungry Ghost Festival.

Another highlight is a multimedia exhibit on the Maria Hertogh riots featuring re-enactments based on sources such as court affidavits and oral history interviews.

The third highlights common spaces and “streets of harmony”. One example is Telok Ayer Street, home to the former Nagore Dargah shrine, Thian Hock Keng temple, Al-Abrar Mosque and Telok Ayer Chinese Methodist Church.

The showcase ends in the fourth, with visitors being encouraged to make a personal pledge to protect Singapore’s religious harmony.

The new space was created in collaboration with community partners such as the Inter-Religious Organisation, which mooted the idea last year. The facility’s board of advisers will be chaired by Singapore Management University provost Lily Kong, who also served as adviser for the project.

The S. Rajaratnam Endowment (was set up to achieve development, peace and stability in the region by deepening international friendships, promoting regional cooperation) will sponsor and support outreach and engagement programmes.

Dr Tan said theHarmony in Diversity Gallery exemplifies what the SGSecure movement is about. “It is the community identifying what is important to Singapore and developing solutions to preserve and strengthen our values and way of life.”

Raffles Institution student Jared Foong, 16, who toured the gallery with his classmates, said: “The gallery covers how we can find similarities among our differences.”

The biggest crowd was recorded on the event’s second night on Aug. 20 when one of Indonesia’s most iconic bands, KLa Project, entertained thousands of spectators, many of whom were fans that had faithfully supported the band since its rise in the 1990s.

It was nearly impossible to find empty space in the manicured garden of the 1.8-hectare Taman Bhagawan, the festival’s main venue in Tanjung Benoa, when KLa Project’s frontman Katon Bagaskara serenaded the audience with memorable hits such as “Menjemput Impian” (Fetching the Dream), “Tak Bisa ke Lain Hati” (Cannot Love Another) and “Yogyakarta”.

The festival also featured scores of other top quality performers including Lisa Soul, Erik Sondhy and White Shoes & The Couples Company as well as Dialog Dini Hari and Endah N’ Rhesa. Showcased local talents included The Blessing Child, Rockabilly Mob, Fendy Trio, Sound of Mine, 4units, Sunday Jam and Gypsy Jazz.

Drawing inspiration from the island’s traditional pasar seni (art market), Jazz Market by the Sea also featured more than 80 curated market stalls, including traditional cuisine, refreshing beverages, fashion, accessories and jewelry, amusements as well as plenty of engaging activities for children, such as face painting and a petting zoo.

“It is designed to be a family-oriented festivity and that’s why we went to great lengths to ensure that the needs of each family member, from kids to adults, were catered for,” festival cofounder Jappy Sanger said.

Most of the stalls, particularly those serving hot foods, coffee and beverages, enjoyed good sales throughout the festival as visitors treated their families and friends to impromptu picnics on the festival’s lawn.

This year the festival took “Clothing the Nation” as its main theme, reflecting its commitment to the nation’s cultural legacy. In line with the theme, it organized a fashion show, classes on batik-making, weaving and embroidery, as well as educational workshops on traditional textiles.

From Oct 13 to 30, more than 20 free and ticketed concerts and workshops will feature Singapore musicians alongside soloists from hip Norwegian string ensemble 1B1 and the storied Chamber Orchestra of Europe, hailed by BBC music reviewers as the “world’s best chamber orchestra”. The orchestra was founded in 1981 and the members are musicians of nationally based orchestras and music academics.

The festival curated by well known conductor Darrell Ang and violinist Loh Jun Hong began last year, with six concerts played in different rooms of The Arts House.

This year has many more events at The Arts House, National Gallery Singapore and Victoria Concert Hall, divided into the ticketed Chamber Series and free Festival Fringe performances.

From next week, a parallel outreach programme will have festival musicians presenting concert excerpts at heartland libraries and malls.

Organisers say the festival costs about $300,000 to produce this year. It is run by new company Sifom, in collaboration with Arts House – which manages The Arts House and presents the Singapore International Festival of Arts – and home-grown opera company OperaViva.

Festival tickets are priced from $32 to $72 for individual performances, with discounts for viewers watching multiple shows.

Ang, 36, sees this as a festival showcasing the “cream of the crop” of classical musicians in Singapore, notably younger professionals.

“This festival is to focus on, in the space of a month, all the talent we have in Singapore.”

On Oct 13, he leads members of the top-ranked Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the festival orchestra – young professional musicians not with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra – in music from Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite, Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy and RimskyKorsakov’s Scheherazade.

On Oct 14, 1B1 play Vivaldi’s famous The Four Seasons, with four young string players from Singapore aged 10 to 16.

Among them is violinist Basil Ong Tze Wee, who turns 15 this year and is a third-year student at Raffles Institution. He is excited about performing with 1B1 after seeing videos online. He says: “They look very active and energetic. I’ve not seen any other ensemble move a lot as such. It’s unique.”

The festival includes vocal recitals from Singapore Lyric Opera’s honorary artistic director Nancy Yuen, Chinese bass-baritone Ao Li and Russian soprano Vasilisa Berzhanskaya, a 23-year-old guest soloist at the State Primorsky Opera and Ballet Theater in Vladivostok.

Going beyond the traditional repertoire of classical music, Ding Yi Music Company joins Vietnam’s Song Hong Chamber Music at Victoria Concert Hall on Oct 16 for an evening featuring commissioned works by Ang and 20something Singaporean composer Phang Kok Jun, among others.

Then there is Ikan Girl (Fish Girl) on Oct 21 and 23, a 40-minute dance performance with music written by Syafiqah ’Adha Sallehin for The Bhumi Collective, comprising seven Singaporean students aged 30 and younger studying overseas.

The collective brings elements of traditional Malay dance and music to contemporary works and this month showcases an original production, Bhumi (Soil), at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Ikan Girl is based on a Malay folk tale similar to Snow White, about a beautiful girl targeted by a jealous queen. The project is a first for Syafiqah, who graduated last year with a master’s in composition from the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music and teaches at the School of the Arts.

She says: “It’s an unbelievable thing to happen to me. I’m so excited about working with The Bhumi Collective. This will be my longest work and also my first full work with another art form.”

Ms Lee Chor Lin, chief executive of Arts House, says: “This year, it’s grown into a more diverse festival with exciting offerings that will really change people’s minds about classical music.” She hopes to see a third edition at The Arts House next year.

The event is to run until Sunday at the Jakarta Convention Center in Senayan, Central Jakarta, bringing together eminent talents in comics, toys and games, animation and films from home and abroad.

Stars of the creative industry attending the event include illustrator Ross Tran and cinematographer Russel Carpenter from the US, webtoon artist Park Taejoon of South Korea, Singaporean illustrator Stanely Lau and Dutch comic artist Peter van Dongen.

Indonesia’s own creators set to dazzle the convention include comic artist Sweta Kartika, Emte, Faza Meonk and Alti Firmansyah, as well as the founder of Layaria Network, Dennis Adhiswara.

Popcon Asia founder Grace Kusnadi said the festival played an important role in developing the industry.

“We underline the need for the creators to realize their intellectual property rights at this year’s Popcon,” she said at the preview on Thursday evening attended by South Korean and French diplomats and Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) head Triawan Munaf.

Bekraf took part in the festival to facilitate the talents with capacity -building measures aiming to add value to the products.

This year’s Popcon is aiming to attract 40,000 visitors to 225 stands available. Last year, the festival attracted 37,000 visitors and recorded over Rp 25 billion in transactions.

Dubbed Korea-Indonesia Cinema Global Networking, the three-day event comprises seminars on Korean and Indonesian film industries, Korea’s integrated box office system and co-production study cases; presentations by 12 Korean and Indonesian firms involved in film production, animation and visual effects businesses; and one-on-one meetings between companies from both countries slated for Aug. 11-12.

KOFIC’s Future Strategy Division chief director Lee Sang Seok told a press conference on Wednesday that he expected the event to bring about the first Korean-Indonesian co-produced film, which is most likely to be remake. “Creating opportunities of collaboration will not only just occur in the production of films; there’s also the sharing of knowledge in technological advances along with animation and CGI.”

Fauzan Zidni, a producer at Cinesurya Pictures, said co-production was a good step forward in developing and improving the local film industry. He provided examples of films co-produced with other countries, such as Dain Said’s thriller fantasy Interchange slated for release later this year that collaborates with Malaysia and starring Nicholas Saputra, and Fauzan’s own upcoming movie directed by Mouly Surya, Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts, which is a co-production project with French producer Isabelle Glachant.

Co-producing movies with other countries could be very costly and complex as there is unimaginable difficulty in communication, especially with far off countries such as the US with the huge time difference and the need to translate almost every shape and form of the movie’s material between producers. However, the impact on the film industry is huge in the long-term, including access to a bigger and new market, financial resources from other countries, international locations to shoot, as well as opportunity to learn from each other.

Prior to the event, KOFIC launched a similar program in Vietnam and is currently co-producing a movie with the country.

Korea has experienced growth in its film industry since 1990, leading it to become the seventh- biggest box office market in the world. Meanwhile, Indonesian movies have begun to appear more and premiere at international film festivals, receiving many awards for performances and craft.

For those who are interested in learning the ropes of movie production, Film Producers Association (APROFI) chairman and film producer Sheila Timothy said university students were welcome to join the internship program at the association.

The boy, Zhang Xiaoyou, learned how to stitch and often received European postcards as rewards for his work. After school, he liked to browse through picture books at street stands. He loved visiting the nearby St. Peter’s Catholic Church, a 1930s Byzantine-style structure, where music from the imposing pipe organ and the murals sparked his interest in art.

“My family hoped that when I grew up I would become an architect or a doctor,” he says.

But Zhang ended up choosing painting as a career. Since his retirement from Tsinghua University’s academy of arts and design in the late 1980s, Zhang, now 81, has specialised in reviving the dying art of jiehua, or boundary painting.

Jiehua evolved as an important part of Chinese ink-and-wash painting during the Sui (AD 581-618) and Tang (AD 618-907) dynasties. But as it primarily depicted architecture, vessels and vehicles, painters were required to be accurate, proportional and meticulous in their illustrations.

They were also allowed to draw lines using rulers. But they needed to master brushwork just like in gongbi (meticulous brushwork) painting.

Jiehua provides a visual treat and was useful when producing blueprints for pavilions, terraces and towers. For that reason, the painting style was earlier seen as being too industrial and not artistic enough when compared to the more abstract and elevated shanshui (mountain-and-water) style.

But with Zhang’s works, one understands how he is working to change that perception, and breathe new life into the jiehua genre.

His paintings are now on display, along with the works of former colleagues at Tsinghua University, at the Shaoxing Art Museum in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, through August 31.

Among the works are Old Days of Southern River Towns, a 4-metre-long scroll on silk that captures a night scene in a typical river town of southern China in the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

With his attention to detail, Zhang juxtaposes various architectural forms－including gate towers, arches, roofed bridges, pavilions with open halls and pagodas.

The work also has a linear perspective－common in Western painting－which makes it even more vivid.

The work has a poetic, earthy quality and a quiet elegant tone to it, reminding one of the classic Along the River During the Qingming Festival by 11th-century painter Zhang Zeduan.

Zhang’s skills come from both traditional Chinese and Western art, which he learned at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts from 1954-59.

Zhang, who was one of only 16 students who enrolled at the academy when he was chosen, then studied under the guidance of modern masters of both ink art and oil painting, such as Wu Zuoren, Li Keran and Dong Xiwen.

Zhang’s classmates then included Yuan Yunsheng and Zhu Naizheng, who later become established oil painters.

“We were to be educated to be ’experts at fine art’, said the student recruitment notice,” Zhang recalls.

After graduation, he taught sketching at the college until he retired in 1985. He also coproduced huge “red classic” canvases commissioned by the Revolutionary History Museum, now the National Museum of China, during his years at the academy.

His interest in jiehua was ignited during a trip to Thailand in the late 1980s.

There, he found a brochure on this form of Chinese painting.

Speaking about how he became interested in the genre, he says: “We had learned the basics of Chinese painting at the preparatory courses in the first year at the CAFA. Then, I specialised in oil painting. But it didn’t occur to me until reading that small booklet that jiehua had existed as an independent genre.”

After returning home, he began searching for materials on the genre but found it was dying as very few painters were practicing it.

Speaking about what he saw, he says: “No one took it seriously. And it took days and weeks to complete a painting because of the detailed work needed.”

Zhang then decided to use his decades of experience as an oil painter and his knowledge of Chinese painting techniques to revive jiehua.

He also began studying ancient Chinese architecture to make his works more realistic.

Now, he also seeks inspiration from the Dunhuang murals, which he copied during his frequent visits to Gansu province in the early 1980s.

Zhang’s jiehua paintings are now with museums and private collectors at home and abroad.

He currently paints about eight hours a day. He is looking to pass on the baton to younger painters.

The low-lying capital is crisscrossed by a network of canals that once sustained rice fields and transported people. These days, many are dumpsites too polluted to even support most marine life.

Attempts to restore this aspect of Bangkok to its reputation as the Venice of the East have come in fits and starts.

The latest round, ordered by the military government, requires up to 50,000 squatters living above some 200km of canals to be relocated. This will allow the waterways to be cleaned and dredged to control floods, as well as accommodate commuter boats.

City administrators will connect households to central wastewater processing plants so that the run-offs from kitchen sinks need not drain directly into the canals.

“We are not like the mafia,” Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) deputy governor Amorn Kitchawengkul says while poring over a wall map of the city veined with renderings of canals. “We try to move the people to a good community and good environment.”

His comments fill long-time residents with both optimism and dread.

On the northern edge of the city, one section along Lat Phrao canal is strewn with rubble from demolished homes as workmen lay concrete blocks for new dwellings further inland. The new houses, which cost Bt100,000 (US$2,800) to Bt400,000 (US$11,400) each, will be funded through a collective bank loan taken out by the community, says its leader Auoychai Sudprasert.

“It took three months to persuade my neighbours to move,” he says. “I told them: If you don’t move, the courts will make you move anyway.”

According to Amorn, Lat Phrao canal is so polluted that the amount of dissolved oxygen in its water – on a scale of one to 10 – is less than one. But experts say that has more to do with city planning than squatters.

According to the BMA, only about 45 per cent of the wastewater in Bangkok is treated. The rest discharges from sinks and other sources directly into drains and canals.

Adding to the liquid slop is the overflow from septic tanks that few homeowners bother to maintain properly. “Only if they cannot flush the toilet will they call in a truck to empty the tank,” laments Amorn, an environmental engineer.

Mongkol Kongsri is wise to the filth lurking beneath her wooden house perched on one side of the Song canal. The 60-year-old shopkeeper spies her neighbours fishing for tilapia beneath the water hyacinth bloom, but she confides: “I won’t eat them. I will travel to the market to buy my fish.”

Currently, the only private commuter boat service in Bangkok’s canals runs along Saen Saeb, a strategic East-West waterway which passes by the central shopping district, the back of a palace as well as several institutions. It ferries some 60,000 people a day.

In April, the BMA began operating a service that connects commuters to the westernmost skytrain station in Bangkok. It uses fibreglass boats with closed circuit cameras, space for wheelchairs and Wi-Fi. Rides are free for now, and some 3,000 people use it every day.

With the fading role of canals in transport, these waterways are now rimmed by backyards rather than front gates. Yet the khlong – as they are called in Thai – continue to evoke a strong sense of nostalgia.

“Thai people’s lives used to be closely tied to the khlong,” Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha reminisced last year. He made city administrators erect a temporary floating market next to his office at Government House.

A more authentic experience awaits visitors in the capital’s western district of Thonburi. There, playful egrets bathe at sundown while vendors peddle vegetables from slim wooden boats. Warrens of narrow streets inevitably lead to a bridge or bank.

Taksina Charanya, who is due to be relocated from her canal home in northern Bangkok, hopes the rehabilitation project will recreate this pastoral idyll in her neighbourhood.

“I hope we can have a cycling path,” she declares. “And a small floating market. People would be able to earn a living on their boats without going into town and paying high rents for shop space.”

They will also get a respite from Bangkok’s gridlocked streets. Jongjit Pungwattananukul, 51, now rides the BMA boat service home every evening to avoid the traffic jams, but says she will weigh her options as soon as the BMA begins charging for this service. “If I take a bus and motorcycle taxi home, it will cost me only Bt25,” she says.

For the average Bangkok resident, it seems, the attachment to canals lasts only as far as their baht can stretch.

It will be reconstructed at the controversial Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in Bagac, Bataan, sources said.

Owned by architect and construction and development mogul Jose Rizalino Acuzar, Las Casas Filipinas has been buying up very old houses around the country, demolishing and reconstituting them in his hometown in Bataan. He has transformed a complex of reconstructed houses into a “heritage resort.”

Although Acuzar has been praised for saving the structures, he has also earned criticism for removing them from their original geography, thus destroying their physical, social and historical moorings.

Since Bagac is a seaside town, Acuzar has also been criticised for exposing the structures to the elements that might only hasten their deterioration.

Casa Ordoveza was constructed in 1744. It is believed to be the oldest bahay-na-bato in the country after the still-existing Jesuit House (built 1730), now the Museo de Parian, in Cebu City.

In the journal article, “Casa Ordoveza of Majayjay, Laguna: The Evolution of a Provincial Ilustrado Family (1637-1990)” published in the Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society in March 1991, historian Luciano P.R. Santiago writes that Casa Ordoveza was located on what was then “camino real” or the royal street (now Blumentritt Street) built by Majayjay gobernadorcillo Don Lorenzo Pangotangan.

Pangotangan (money-lender in Tagalog) changed their family’s surname to Ordoveza in 1849, notes Santiago.

Santiago takes notice the historical significance of the dilapidated but still at that time, surviving, structure.

“The longevity of the Ordoveza house as well as its continuous possession by the same family for two and a half centuries,” writes Santiago, “constitutes a rare occurrence in the Philippines, a country which has suffered since time immemorial from many a calamity both natural and manmade.”

Last year, a book about the house and the family was published. “Casa Ordoveza: The Story of an Illustrious Filipino Clan” was authored by Santiago.

A source told the Inquirer that the house, demolished late last year was reportedly bought by Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar of Bagac, Bataan where it will be reconstructed.

In a text message, Las Casas management confirmed to the Inquirer the house was indeed under construction in Bagac.

‘Sad story’

Danny de Luna of the Quezon Heritage Council said the demolition was “a sad story.”

“We from the Quezon Heritage Council can only do as much as we can preserve in Quezon province that’s why we encourage local people to stand and preserve their own heritage,” De Luna said. “However selling it (Ordoveza house) to the Acuzar is the lesser evil [since] at least the whole house can still be seen in Bagac, Bataan.”

The Heritage Conservation Society (HCS) lamented the demolition.

“Based on Republic Act 10066, all these old houses being transferred to Bagac, Bataan, are presumed to be Important Cultural Properties, and therefore are protected by law, unless the presumption is lifted,” HCS said.

“Our government cultural agencies should come out with a definitive statement on the transfer of heritage, especially since it goes against international conservation standards and deprives communities of their heritage,” HCS added.