Making National Museum the first pit stop for families on outings

Director sees this as one way it can stay relatable to S'poreans across generations

- Ng Keng Gene

Correspondent Visitors entering the showcase of the National Museum of Singapore's latest exhibition Play:Date are greeted by a wall of McDonald's toys to their right, and rows of Barbie dolls to their left.

The toys may be familiar to millennials who spent their childhoods playing with them, but younger visitors, from Generation Z to Gen Alpha, are likely to find them strange and foreign.

The idea is that the sight of these toys would spark conversations between parents and their children, or even grandparents and their grandchildren, said museum director Chung May Khuen.

"If you look at some of the toys that kids these days play with, they may not be able to understand how a Game Boy is played with, and how some other toys are played, but it serves as a fantastic starting point for conversations," she said.

Ms Chung wants the museum to be the "first pit stop" for families looking to take their grandparents somewhere, and exhibits like these from recent history are relatable and provide opportunities for different generations to interact and talk about their own experiences.

Ms Chung, who became the museum's director in September 2019, sees this as one way that the National Museum can continue to stay relevant to Singaporeans - one of her preoccupations as head of the 136-year-old museum.

Ahead of her fifth anniversary at the helm of the museum, she spoke to The Straits Times about these efforts and the ongoing revamp of the museum's permanent galleries.

Another exhibition that featured contemporary items and showed how these things can bring generations together was the Off/On exhibition on technology in 2022, said Ms Chung.

The museum had put on exhibit items such as an MP3 player from Creative Technology, and a coinafon - the once ubiquitous orangecoloured public payphone.