Taken by: Author of notreally.sociologicalthoughts.com
A stroke of serendipity (I’ve had my fair share of these recently) brought my Sunday afternoon cycling date to the entrance of Kampong Buangkok. There was a time when Singapore was filled with these Kampongs (villages) and many of our parents had experiences living in those environments. Our generation has heard plenty of stories about Kampong life and how things used to be in the past – these accounts often differing in emphasis depending on whom we heard them from.
Textbooks used to portray Kampongs as unsanitary – a symbol of a lack of development. However, personal accounts of Kampong life hardly ever emphasized on the lack of cleanliness as a problem. What seemed etched firmly in memories are communitarian bonds, adventurous childhoods and a unique way of life that has been lost in progress.
Bearing these thoughts in mind, my girlfriend and I entered the little village quietly, not intending to disturb the lives of the residents. After all, who would want their living environment to be viewed from the lens of a spectator as if it were an animal enclosure – which led me to my first observation. The only resident who was in sight among the houses appeared upset upon setting sight on us. It made me feel as if they had been disturbed by unwelcomed visitors more often than they could have hoped for and set me thinking how this has come to be.
The thing is the norm of housing has long been shifted from Kampongs to HDB flats in Singapore. Given the amount of land we have, high rise apartments seemed the best way to go and single-storied Kampong huts were quickly brought down to enable progress. I do not challenge this need or even this discourse on progress although there are much that are debatable within. Regardless, it is this shift of norm that has equipped our current generation with a set of lens that see remains of Kampong life as intriguing – the first question we had on arrival at the site was why do the residents still stay within such conditions?
Taken from: http://www.h88.com.sg
Of course, we didn’t manage to get around asking anyone this question since we were already imposing on a certain level. Upon quiet and stealthy observation of the area, I realised that while the living conditions greatly differed from modern HDB dwellers, there were also many similar aspects in terms of the infusion of culture.
For one, there were vehicles parked outside the individual houses (some inside the house itself). Also, I noticed the infusion of popular culture – there were Spongebob soft toys at the porch and we could hear the sound of cartoon coming from the inside of a house – probably a kid watching TV.
Yes, living arrangements there are definitely different – we could see old stoves and refrigerators outside the houses and there were animals reared in cages here and there. The sobering feeling I got was that this used to be the dominant mode of living. Progress has swept the meaning of this culture and arrangement into a category of marginality and villagers are now viewed to be ‘others’ – hence the curious passerbys and random visitors.
This is a group that has held a lost culture firmly and has continued living it. Regardless of the reasons involved, political or otherwise, we are privileged to still be able to witness such arrangements. Plenty of cultural and social dynamics have been traded off for economic progress and this continues to be a point of discussion in Singapore. Regardless of where we stand on this discourse, we should appreciate any remnants of the past and understand these remnants be it through memories, stories, or direct observation.
If the globalizing city creates a stronger propensity for monumental projects (iconic structures such as The Singapore Flyer, The Esplanade, Marina Bay Sands,etc.), then there is a place for community iconic structures to act as a counterbalance by performing a modest but important task of ensuring a stronger participation from various locales, allowing for a greater cultural diversity and the reproduction of community life spaces. – Ho, K.C., 2006
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