Chinese / Singapore
Xiao xiong de xin yi
(The little bear's new clothes)
Huwei
(Hooe Wai, Francis Wong)
(text/illus.)
Singapore: Ling zi chuan mei si ren you xian gong si (Lingzi Media), 2019. – 28 p.
(Series: Shi cheng wang shi hui ben xi lie; 7)
ISBN 978-981-47-9177-9
Singapore | Chinatown | History 1960s | Craft | Trade | Childhood memories | Picture book
Reading age: 6+
White Ravens issue: 2020
After “Grandpa’s little room” and “Go Trishaw go”, this is the third volume of a picture book series set in Singapore’s old Chinatown. While the earlier volumes featured the lives of the author’s family in the 1940s and the architecture still existant in the 1960s, “Xiao xiong de xin yi” (Little Bear’s new clothes) reflects Huwei’s own childhood memories. A boy wants to find someone to sew new clothes for his Teddy bear, but this turns out to be difficult. On his tour through the old shophouses, people of various industries send him elsewhere - a tailor, a calligrapher, a baker, a market woman, a manure collector – until he finds a toy manufacturer who can sew the required items. Retired architect, heritage preservation expert, and writer Huwei, who published his first picture book at the age of 60, records Singapore’s Chinese cultural heritage in delicate watercolours, not only out of nostalgia, but also with the intention of preserving knowledge about vanishing crafts and educating the younger generation. [LO]