of course i don’t believe in wonders (mira) but i believe in the uses of a mythologising attitude.

when the new natural history museum opened in april it was to much fanfare and acclamation (i’ve been twice already and it is in kent ridge, for goodness sake.) national excitement crested but just as quickly receded into nostalgia. the revival of the raffles museum’s zoological collection stirred memories for many (including the minz-father): ‘if only we still had the whale.’

‘the whale’ was a baleen which had washed up in port dickson in 1892, and for 70 years after its skeleton had hung imposingly in the foyer of the raffles museum (later the national museum of singapore,) delighting schoolchildren. (its 300km journey from port dickson to singapore ought be a good story when burrowed up by the historians, and why we rather than one of the other british malayan states came to host it.) by the 1970s political not natural history becoming paramount, in 1974 the museum divested itself of its zoological and botanical holdings. whither their place of rest? the university of singapore. no room for the whale; it went across the causeway, last seen in a sabah museum. (minz-papa, wistfully: perhaps malaysia should give it back to us? me: this isn’t european archaeologists plundering the elgin marbles you know; we wanted to give it away!)

nonetheless minz-papa’s mood for repatriation was reflected in the national press. consummate diplomacy may yet wrangle the deed, national pockets are deep in milestone years. it was SG50: public sentiment buoys government largesse. a faint susurration of speculation began to spread. a repurchase could be negotiated. then all rumour ceased: a dead sperm whale washed up on jurong island, our replacement whale.

the words destiny or heaven-send or miracle were not used; the fortuity was carefully called a fortuity. the sole hint of the sentiment was in the name: the media dubbed it ‘the jubilee whale.’ no matter: the unspoken words shimmered in everyone’s mind: sperm whales have never been sighted in the waters of singapore. just at a time when the public yearned for a whale, when we once again had a facility for housing one, and on this year our golden national jubilee, one came out of nowhere to us. (i thought of the star whale in doctor who coming to a distressed starship with failing engines; the queen called its appearance a miracle and enslaved it for the national good. but all good stories can liberate or enslave…) naturally had the press voiced any of this i would have snorted: a coincidence is no miracle, it offends my rational self. but the narratologist in me dislikes this lost opportunity, the failure to tell a story, to turn happenstance into myth.

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and now for a sales pitch: if you would like, you could make a small donation (or a large one if you were particularly flush and so inclined!) towards the whale fund. the scientific team working on the whale writes:

“Staff members from the museum are now studying the specimen; with tissues collected for future genetic work. Attempts are also being made to see what is in its gut, and trying to ascertain what killed it. It will also be slowly defleshed so that its skeleton can be recovered for the museum. Because we are examining it carefully as a research specimen and due to its immense size, this will be a slow and massive (not to mention very smelly) exercise. […] The skeleton, once it has been properly processed, will be displayed in the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum in NUS. It will now really be THE “Singapore Whale” and will enthrall a new generation of Singaporeans and residents.

donations are processed through the university’s giving website; you designate the faculty of science’s ‘jubilee whale fund’, and amounts raised beyond what is needed goes to the general endowment fund for the museum itself.