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In Karakorum, Mongolia (2002) |
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In Karakorum, Mongolia (2002) |
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Other Interests
The main interests of my life have always been travel, history, cultures/anthropology, politics and finance. My interest in topics relating to these areas do change from time to time. Some of my current likes include:
I am particularly interested in documenting on the web either through text or photography traditional festivals and customs of Singapore, and have since 2003 set up a few websites (- look under my Singapore page) on some of these topics.
I used to be quite engaged in collecting stamps and tourism/political propaganda, both of which are closely linked to my core interest in travel, history and politics. I was, for a period, actively trading in stamps. My key collection interest have been with the former Yugoslav & former Soviet republics, Singapore, Hongkong, Macau, China, Pacific, South Africa, Namibia and Aland. For me, they represent the possession of something from faraway places which used to be fairly inaccessible, and thus manifestations of exotic places and imagination. However, postal administrations round the world have increasingly abused this element of excitement in stamps, printing enormous quantities of stamps at an increasingly high denominations. This is the equivalent of printing money, thus causing inflation. Eventually, in doing so, they killed the golden goose that laid the eggs. The appearance of the internet now connects one to people and websites from far corners of the world, rendering stamps somewhat less attractive. Sad it may be, I honestly believe that philately as a hobby is dying.
Tan Wee Cheng, Singapore 
weecheng.com