It was terrible to witness the slow disintegration of our kampong. It was like watching a loved one go through some life-threatening and debilitating disease that robbed him of his former self.
It was a huge relief when Third Elder Brother announced that he was getting married, and he was taking us to live with him and Sister-In-law. The two of them had applied for an HDB flat, which would be ready in three years, and they invited us to live with them. Buying a flat at plan before it was built, meant the cost was much lower, a down payment sum that Sister-In-Law could afford on her salary together with my brother’s. Meanwhile, Sister-In-Law was eligible to rent an apartment from PUB as she was their employee. They got married straightaway so that we could all move out of the kampong into their flat. She seemed like an angel then, who had been sent to rescue us from our dire straits!
The flat was located at MacKenzie Road, just behind PUB’s Waterworks and Transport Department, where vehicles attending to all the national issues concerning water and electricity were housed. This was a stone’s throw away from the popular Rex Cinema, across from Tekka market. Sister-In-Law took us to see the flat, which was in a four storey walk-up block with no lift. Their flat was on the first floor, at a time when we were still calling it first floor and not second storey or second level. Of course, by this time we were already familiar with the amenities that a modern flat offered, so we did not react like the swa ku way we did upon seeing the HDB flat the first time. The flat was larger than our kampong house, with two bedrooms, a living room, dining room and kitchen with built-in cabinets, an impressive gas hob, an oven and sink with indoor taps that had running water. Of course, Third Elder Brother and Sister-In-Law would have one room, whilst the five of us would squeeze into the other. To our delight, there was also a brand new ice box, an enormous luxury for us. Food wouldn’t be spoilt anymore and we could have ice cold drinks. Best of all, we had our own telephone. Up until now, if needed, we had made use of the village communal telephone. We were exceedingly grateful to Sister-In-Law. Yet somehow, we could not rouse ourselves to feel deliriously happy.
Amidst all the angst of moving, a letter from Singapore University arrived for me. The logo on the envelope was impressive and smart-looking. My hands were trembling as I slit open the letter. My heart thudded in my chest. I could not believe what I read and had to re-read it, my eyes swimming. I had been accepted! I was offered a place for the new academic year in July. How did this almost-not-educated kampong girl get to come so far? What would my father have said about me now? What would Parvathi and Fatima say if they knew? The good apples had fallen on my side of the fence after all. I was delirious with happiness. I had such good fortune while some of my friends didn’t. I felt then, that on some metaphysical level, I would be carrying with me all those who did not get the opportunity to get educated: my mother, Parvathi, Fatima and all the others in our village and other villages, especially the girls. And someday, I would tell the world about them so that they would get their due honours.
But first, we had to face the final hours in our kampong.
We started packing. Not that there was really that much to pack. Sister-In-Law and Third Elder Brother had bought new beds and wardrobes. They did not want our bed bug-infested mattresses to be taken into the new flat. Neither did we, as we hated the effect of bites from bed bugs, which were long lasting. Still, I felt a slight twitch of nostalgia as I said goodbye to the mattress that I had been using to sleep on the floor. Third Elder Brother and I had salvaged it from the rubbish dump of the British family at Atas Bukit, many years ago. The old meat-safe in our kitchen, where we had kept our food, was not appropriate for the flat either, as it had built-in cabinets. The one wardrobe we owned was probably infested with bed bugs too. The karang guni man was a very happy man as he went through things which we were not taking, including the Baby Belling oven, which my mother had not even used. He said he was going to sell it at Sungei Road. All we needed for our move was one small lorry.
On the day of our move, my elder brothers and Karim stopped by to help us load it. Unbeknown to us, our mother had kept her dapur arang aside, wrapped in old newspaper. This was the clay stove that she had cooked on, using charcoals, the same one which she had used as an oven. Now she carried it in her arms.
“Mak! You don’t need this!” Third Elder Brother told her. “There’s electricity in the flat! And a very nice gas hob! Besides, it will smoke too much in the flat!”
“My one!” she said adamantly, hugging the old stove to her as if it was something precious and she could not bear to part with it.
“Mak,” I said gently, to persuade her. “Really you don’t need to cook on this anymore.”
“I want!” her voice rose some decibels, which was totally uncharacteristic of her.
My brothers and I exchanged looks and shook our heads. We knew she was already traumatised by the move, and we did not want to upset her further. It was easier to give in and let her take it. Hopefully she would eventually get used to using the gas hob at the flat; then she would probably get rid of the dapur arang of her own accord.
She sat next to the lorry driver, holding on tight to her clay stove. All of us sat at the back of the lorry, me carrying Robert. We leant against our meagre possessions and faced out at our remaining neighbours, like Nenek Bongkok and Karim, who had come to say goodbye. What would become of them? Nenek Bongkok swore she would not move. Karim was planning to rent a room from one of his fellow band members. Our throats were constricted, so we were not chirpy but we did make promises to keep in touch, though we didn’t know how we were going to do this. We had given our new telephone number to Karim in the hope that at least he would keep in touch. Nenek Bongkok would not know how to use the village telephone.
“Selamat tinggal! Goodbye!” Nenek Bongkok said sorrowfully.
“Selamat tinggal!” we said, our voices catching in our throats.
We were saying goodbye not just to our friends and neighbours, but also to our kampong and to a way of life. We would never experience this sort of life again in Singapore. Just as the lorry was pulling out, Karim took up his guitar and sang, “Those were the days my friends, we thought they’d never end...”
And I couldn’t help myself and allowed the tears to roll down my face.
Epilogue
KAMPONG Potong Pasir experienced another major flood in 1978. It devastated the remainder of the village. Two thousand poultry and pigs died, floating belly-up down Kallang River and making a great stench. The low-lying farms and houses were destroyed by the heavy rain and mudslides. After that, the final clear-out began. Bulldozers, diggers and mechanical cranes invaded the village, like alien monsters. They uprooted ancient trees unceremoniously, some of which we had climbed and loved. The attap houses were broken and crushed, years of history tumbling down and disintegrating. None of these things mattered to the labourers. They did not feel what we felt about the place. On the outside, it was just a shanty village of wooden houses with old-fashioned attap-thatched roofs. How could they know what the village had meant to us?
The whole kampong was razed to the ground. Totally wiped out.
All over Singapore, villages were demolished in phases throughout the 1970s, a few in the early 1980s, changing the landscape of Singapore forever. Only one tiny kampong on the mainland, privately-owned Kampong Buangkok, stoically remained, now dwarfed by high-rise flats. Most of the ones in outlying islands also disappeared, except for a few houses left in Pulau Ubin. Cemeteries like Bishan, Choa Chu Kang and Bidadari were dug up, graves exhumed, including my father’s. And in their places, HDB tower blocks rose.
For the first year in our new flat, my siblings and I would nod our heads sadly as we watched our mother struggle to cope. There were many old people like her who had difficulty in adjusting, especially the fishermen and fisher folk from the East Coast, who could no longer fish or smell the sea. Several people like Sivalingam went missing. It was rumoured that some gave up and committed suicide. But the
latter was not official, no numbers were recorded. Others stared listlessly out of their high-rise, louvred windows onto long corridors, wishing for the days when they had walked about freely in open spaces, surrounded by fields and trees, and neighbours who asked after them.
Every day, our mother would squat in the corner of the beautifully-fitted kitchen of the flat to cook on her clay charcoal stove, its smoke darkening the freshly-painted walls.
Acknowledgements
I am eternally indebted to the National Arts Council for approving the FY2016 Creation Grant for me to write this book, as they did with Kampong Spirit - Gotong Royong: Life in Potong Pasir, 1955 to 1965. The funding was an enormous help for a senior like me.
I am very pleased that I managed to hear stories about my kampong from various people who had known of it or had lived there. That has helped me tremendously in writing this sequel. I would like to thank Wendy Tan, who was not a resident of Kampong Potong Pasir but was a keen enthusiast about its history. It was through her introduction that I met two brothers, Tony Tan Choong Hee and Jolly Tan Choong Keah, whose father had owned the fish ponds in my village.
I was regaled by many wonderful stories about their fish-farming days, particularly by Tony, who is the elder.
Thank you also to all the people who had lived in kampongs before and shared with me the stories of their way of life.
I would also like to acknowledge the role of these wonderful resources in jogging my memory: The National Archives of Singapore, The Straits Times newspapers from the 1960s, Wikipedia and Peter H. L. Lim’s Chronicle of Singapore, 1959-2009: Fifty Years of Headline News (Editions Didier Millet, 2009).
The following websites and various posts about Singapore in the 1960s cleared up some facts which I was confused about:
https://remembersingapore.org/
https://thelongnwindingroad.wordpress.com/
http://singapore60smusic.blogspot.sg/
I would like to thank Ethos Books for taking on this book. Up until now, they had published only fiction by me. It was wonderful to be working with Ng Kah Gay again as he was always so positive about my writing. It was refreshing to work with Ethos Books editor, Choo Yanping too, who was vigilant with checking that the facts mentioned were accurate.
Thank you to my editor, Tara Dhar Hasnain. I was very pleased for her to edit this book as she had edited Kampong Spirit - Gotong Royong: Life in Potong Pasir, 1955 to 1965. Her eagle eye and comments were very helpful.
Thank you also to Julia D’ Silva for her help in proofreading the book.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my readers of Kampong Spirit - Gotong Royong: Life in Potong Pasir, 1955 to 1965, who wrote in to say they needed to have a sequel to that book. They wanted to know what happened after 1965, and when the kampongs were dissolved. Their interest and support gave me impetus to complete my kampong saga.
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