Islamic Art at the Asian Civilisations Museum

I landed in Singapore in the wee hours of Sunday October 4th. As with past trips, I deliberately stay awake on my first day, eat an early dinner, and go to sleep. Once I have a good sleep, I will have adjusted to the time difference.

I spent part of my first day at the Asian Civilisations Museum. But, before I describe my time there, I need to relate the woeful tale of my broken laptops.

I came to Singapore with two laptops in need of repair. Late last year, the keyboard on my trusty HP laptop started malfunctioning. I purchased a replacement keyboard online, and then I went to two repair shops in Honolulu. Both the shops declined to install the replacement keyboard because they didn't have the tools to do it, and they said that nobody on the island had those specialized tools. So, I reluctantly purchased an ASUS laptop from Best Buy to replace the HP laptop. Within two months, the screen on the ASUS cracked. There was a tug of war between me, ASUS, and Best Buy on the warranty, and I eventually gave up. I went price shopping and I was quoted USD800 to replace the screen, which was more than I paid for the laptop. So, here I was with two broken laptops. I decided to live without a laptop for a while and bring both of them to Singapore for repair. In Singapore, there is a mall called Sim Lim Square which specializes in electronics, and there are dozens of repair shops in the mall.

I arrived at my mother's condo a tad bit after 6am. I hung out for a bit, and then made my way to Sim Lim Square just after 10am. As it was Sunday, there weren't many shops open. I wandered around looking at Yelp ratings for the shops that were open before I settled on a one-man shop. The proprietor quoted me SGD50 to install the keyboard on the HP. The screen replacement for the ASUS cost more but it was a lot cheaper than what I was quoted in Hawaii. The keyboard replacement would take two hours, and I agreed to leave the ASUS there so he could repair it later.

With that, I had two hours to spare, so I headed to the Asian Civilisations Museum to look at their new Islamic Art exhibition, which is a joint exhibition with The Louvre. I probably saw some of the pieces when I visited The Louvre in 2024, but this exhibit was curated with a more specific focus. There were two rooms of exhibits - one for Mughal artifacts and the other for Ottoman artifacts. However, they didn't just display pieces from these respective geographic regions; these pieces were supplemented with artifacts from Southeast Asia to draw a connection on how the Mughals and the Ottomans influenced Islamic Art in Southeast Asia. Overall, this was a fascinating and educational exhibit.Read more