Ms. Pang Li Kin

As a fresh-faced graduate going for her first job interview at City Hall in 1976, Ms Pang Li Kin found it an intimidating experience. Describing the place as “formidable”, she still has a vivid impression of “the big building, the scary staircase, and the scary interviewers who were puffing and smoking, because at that time it was allowed”.

Yet the confident young lady impressed her interviewers enough to be offered a position as a Publication Assistant in the Publicity Division of the then Ministry of Culture.

By the time she reported to the editor of the publication she was assigned to – Facts and Figures – on her first day of work, the feelings she had towards her new workplace had changed to that of awe.

“It was like walking into a movie theatre with its huge, heavy doors and high ceilings, because in Singapore you don’t see many buildings like that”.
 

Stately façade belies the warmth inside
But that was not the first time that City Hall had played a role in her life. As a girl, she had marched past the steps of City Hall as part of the Girls’ Brigade during the National Day Parade. The grand dame then had impressed her with its stately – if a little cold – colonial façade.

As part of its working denizens a decade later, she discovered its warm heart. Speaking of the contrast, she says: “I saw it then as – oh wow – this big huge building. It didn’t come across to me like it’s alive with people.”

“For people who have never stepped into City Hall, and who have not worked there like us, they will just see the frontage. But when you know that it is alive with people in there, buzzing around, it brings life to the building. This is something people don’t see or know about, and that’s what makes the place meaningful.”
 

Lifelong friendships… and a secret admirer
For Li Kin, the corridors of power in City Hall which saw the birth of important government policies also bred lifelong friendships and fond memories.

There was the secret admirer who left a note on her desk during lunch one day.

“I think he must have been watching me at the canteen, because I did not meet any other people outside my department. I never found out who he was, but I did wonder why he didn’t have the courage to come up to me,” she laughs.

And then there were the colleagues turned lifelong buddies. “A few of them were real trip organisers. They would organise little outings during public holidays and long weekends, mainly to Malaysia – a fishing trip on an island, durian plantations in JB, and even a road trip in Malaysia where we stayed over a night or two.”
 

The stories within those walls
When asked what she hopes visitors today would learn about City Hall, Li Kin turns introspective.

“I think your title – If Walls Could Talk – is a very good one. They would speak volumes about what went on all those years within them. The different events, the different decisions that had an impact on Singapore happened within those walls.

Editing a publication about Singapore like I did might just be a small task. But all the little things we did added up to something meaningful, and hopefully, something useful for many generations to come.

If visitors are able to hear, to feel, to experience even some of that, I think that would be great.”