Yishun is home to an ant shop, which explains my hesitation in going for the ant pop-up exhibition set up by @tinytopia. But the sky turned overcast, rain was drizzling, and my plan to explore free outdoor playgrounds fell through. Heck, I thought, I would just pay the entrance fees.

I made a good decision because the value I derived exceeded the monetary value of the tickets. Firstly, the pertinent characteristic of a particular species was salient compared with a significant aspect of Singapore’s founding years. This parallelism was unique and cleverly executed - and I felt respected that the organisers had poured so much thought into finding similarities that didn’t feel contrived. Secondly, we were lucky enough to receive a guided tour by the antbassador. My children and I happened to be the only ones on the tour. She was gung-ho and sensitively explained things in a way that my son could comprehend. She took things in her stride when my daughter wandered off to find her own happiness.

Honestly, the parallels were too much for my brain to remember. But I thought it was so cool that:

• we actually saw the four stages with our own eyes, aided with a magnifying glass
• this larva spins silk, which is then used by adult ants to demarcate different spaces
• the shield ant curls into a ball to prevent attack from its predators. It co-exists peacefully with other ant species because it eats their droppings
• I already knew that ants have two stomachs but today I learnt that they pass food from mouth to mouth.

These tidbits will be lost on my boy but he said he enjoyed feeding a mealworm to the ants. Indeed, seeing the ants congregating to attack the live mealworm made quite an impression.

Later, he recounted how he and his classmates had left bananas outside their school to entice ants to come. I reckon that his $18 ticket was worth it if he was encouraged to share about his school life! I just hope that he doesn’t pester me to keep ants, especially since there is an ant shop in Yishun.