The last Kampong

I was curious about the place, only passed by a few years ago, and never step foot into the last Kampong of urban Singapore. I wanted to see how life is like after sunrise, and went there after sending Thao off for her early morning flight back home.

Once I got out of the car, sounds of the rooster making its daily wake-up call greeted me. Standing at 60 metres away and separated by a small stretch of forest, I could hear the sound of women talking and cooking coming form the enclave. That is how crisp and clear the air and sound of a typical morning in a Kampong is. Devoid of noise and air pollution from peak hour traffic, it feels like another world, similar to the one I lived in during my childhood weekends. I was lucky enough to have the chance to stay in a Kampong when I was little, even if its only on some weekends. The memories are etched deeply, as the sights and sound of a kampong has disappeared from our land.

It was reported that this last enclave could be making way for urban development soon, and I have to go take a look and probably photograph it as well as its occupants. My expectation of the place being overly-photographed and visited by curious people like me turned out to be true. I met 3 Vietnamese students who were there as early as I am, and managed to make them think that Im Vietnamese with my limited but well-pronounced string of Vietnamese words, but only for a few seconds. It is good to know that people are interested in this way of life, which is how our parents or grandparents used to live, hand forms a part of our heritage. But this being the last one left, made it became sort of a "local attraction", and I can sense that the villagers are getting tired of strangers that come with cameras to record what could be history in a few years. I wanted to make a stronger connection, and tried talking to them, but met with little success because most of the old Malay villagers could not speak English and my Malay is worst than my Vietnamese. I figured alot of people must have tried chatting up with them and they must have repeated their stories and feelings way too many times.

Its a nice place, with lots of mosquitoes and fierce dogs at the Chinese houses. Hence, I spent most of the morning taking pictures at the Malay houses and chat up with a 77 year old Malay granny. We could not communicate much due to language barriers. It feels strange that this is happening to me in Singapore, where English, Mandarin and dialect allows for zero language barrier in any other parts of the island.

I watched her feed her pigeons, which seems like a daily affair, just that this time round, i scared away all her pigeons. So, I learnt that pigeons can recognize people. She looks very healthy, happy and beautiful for a 77 year old, and I thought it must be the way of life in a Kampong. I guess this is the first time that I told someone in her 70s that she is beautiful, and I mean it.

To get them to open up to me, I will have to make a few more trips, which is not a problem as it is very near my place. I went again in the afternoon hoping to see Muslim men coming out of the wooden hut mosque after Friday prayers, but was told by an auntie that they go to the bigger one nearer to my place. I always thought that Malays are more forthcoming and approachable than Chinese, and this time round, it feels the same. I also met 2 Indian men, who came to look for the landlord, hoping to rent a hut for $30 rent a month (something that they read from the newspaper article), and relived those good old kampong days. The younger guy is around my age, and he must have grown up in a kampong, and he tells me, "I like it, very nice place", not once, but twice, and with a glowing smile.

Why does everything have to go after 30 years? Without things that are older than us and reminds us of where we came from, there will be no common identity, only memories that fade and die together with those who cherished them deeply.



9 year old Kamarulzaman returns home from school. (I shot in slides from the whole morning, and this is the only digital picture I got in the afternoon). A picture to start the story.

Festive Season

Its been about a month since I last blogged, but much happened from before Christmas till now. A memorable holiday trip with grandma and family to Ho Chi Minh city and Dalat ended the year on a high note. On the 2nd day of 2009, I was not working, and was opening the door to my house after running some errands when I received a call from office. I was to fly to Bangkok in 3 hours time, to follow up on the situation of the Santika Club fire, which left 1 Singaporean dead and 2 missing. We seldom get called up on last minute oversea assignments, and I was lucky to be at home and ready to go.

There was no lunch for the 4 days that I was there, except for one day when a mobile stall set up shop outside the Police General Hospital. I presumed the owner saw business potential from the media personnel gathered outside the mortuary. After day 1, I got used to standing outisde the area where they held bodies before families claim them. The smell is not as bad as I expected, and our job was made much easier with the accomodating Thai people and police. We could photograph almost anyone and anything, even inside a police station and getting a police colonel to bring out belongings of deceased for us to photograph. This amount of access is never possible in tightly-controlled Singapore. We could always check with the morturay staff for information and photograph in their office. Not to mention, photographing bodies from the Santika fire being laid inside coffins. Everything was just up-close and in-your-face. The tele-zoom was used only when I need to get a clean, tight shot, not to sneak a shot.

The all-too-familiar press censorship occurred once the Singaporean families and MFA officials came to claim the 2 missing victims who were confirmed dead. We were no allowed to talk to the families and blocked from taking photographs of them. We were made to feel like paparazzi, when the stories we were after is truly main-stream. I believed Singaporeans would want to know who perished in the fire, instead of just knowing the fact that 2 Singaporeans died. We are not a nation of billions, and any Singaporeans casualties in such mishap is going to be the talk of town. I came with the mission of finding out how many Singaporeans and who died, and bring this piece of news to the masses. It is understandable that families griefed over the death of their loved ones and be given space to do so (that is why we do not cross the line even if we could), but it is frustrating to be misunderstood and obstructed by our own officials who don't have a clue of our roles, as well as theirs.


Thai press staking out at the Morgue.



Free-for-all access inside Thonglor police station when a family learned the one of the charred bodies is identified as their daughter.

Grouses aside, its an exciting trip given the daily guessing game and stake-out, as well as the chinatown shopping mall fire myself and Mugi (from ST) went to photograph on our own. We went to cover it thinking that there might be Singaporeans in it. Fortunately there wasn't and it was an eye opener to see how the locals manage the scene. It was chaotic, with hundreds of fire fighters, and scores of water jets directed at all parts of the building. I got my shoes soaked as the whole street was flooded, and we didn't stay long due to the unbearable smoke that caused your eyes to tear.


Fire at Sua Pa Plaza, Bangkok Chinatown.

Thao came and join me on the 2nd day for 2 days of shopping while I worked. We stayed in a boutique hotel along Sukhumvit Soi 18, so there was no problem finding food after the day's work end at about 11pm. An eventful trip involving work and play, but I couldn't spend Thao's birthday with her.