Civilian War Memorial

It is four tapering white columns, joined at the base, that Singaporeans call the Chopsticks; the National Heritage Board records their height as 67 metres. Each column stands for one of the communities that suffered under the Japanese Occupation of 1942 to 1945 — Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian — and the memorial is Singapore's first monument built for civilian rather than military dead. It sits in a public park, so there are no gates, no opening hours and no admission charge; a visit is a few minutes to read the plaques and walk the base.

Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew unveiled it on 15 February 1967, and it is a two-minute walk from Raffles City and City Hall. Esplanade MRT on the Circle Line is the closest station and lets you out almost at the park's edge on Bras Basah Road, while City Hall (North-South and East-West lines) is a few minutes' walk across the road from Raffles City.

The detail most guides leave out is that this is effectively a tomb, not just a monument: a vault beneath the columns holds 606 urns of remains recovered from wartime mass graves across the island in the 1950s and 1960s. If you want to see the site actually in use, come on 15 February, Total Defence Day, when an inter-religious memorial service is held here with religious leaders of several faiths — it is open to the public, not a closed official event.