As a neighbourhood, Potong Pasir has always been encased in a bubble of eccentric nostalgia. The municipality is a world of its own, like a diorama of life in '80s Singapore — but things are quickly changing of course, like everything else in the country.
Once a stronghold of Singapore's oldest opposition figure Chiam See Tong for three decades, the neighbourhood has been undergoing a crash course of modern amenities ever since the ruling People's Action Party took over in 2011. But even before that, Potong Pasir was once dominated by sand quarries, farms, ponds, and even the Alkaff Lake Gardens — which disappeared after 1945 following the Japanese occupation.