of rambutans to Han.In its heyday, there were 200 rambutan trees in the orchard. Retiree Alex Tan, remembers visiting thegarden when he was a child in the 1950s. “It was a vast landscape of trees,” he recalls. “I will normallysit on the stone chair. Everywhere was greenery. What was significant was the quietness from theoutside world – the traffic being a distance away. In those days, there were hardly any vehicles drivingalong Upper Thomson Road.”The orchard was sold to other owners in 1962 when Han left Singapore, and was later converted into achicken farm. The farm was eventually evacuated when the state acquired the land. Now the place isovergrown and nearly impenetrable.Today, Lim Mu Xue’s painting of the orchard is one of the few records to the place, and interestedhistorians such as Lai Chee Kien, an assistant professor at the Department of Architecture at theNational University of Singapore, have been using it as a guide to locate the Orchard.One line at the back of postcard:No.8Han Rambutan Orchard, Upper Thomson Road, c. 1936An Abandoned Fruit Orchard in the Middle of a Forest
