Singapore Kampong Days

"In the Good Old Days..."



We think of kampongs as being idyllics retreats located in rural areas and the countryside. Indeed the vry word,"kampong" or "kampung"conjures up strong emotions of nostalgia, of days gone by, of country side living and of closed knit communities. Images of the kampong are very strongly imprinted in the cultural memory of many of us.

An archetypal image photograph of the kampong.

Y K Lai spent his childhood in a Boyanese kampong almost in the midde of town one might say. His account provides  insight into life in a kampong where different races lived harmoniously together. The Baweanese or Boyanese came from the Bawean Island in the Dutch East Indies. They built the Kampung Boyan (Boyanese Village) by the banks of the Rochor River, between Jalan Besar and Syed Alwi Road as early as the time of Munshi Abdullah and Stamford Raffles.

According to records, there was also a village within the town area that was inhabited by the Boyanese called Kampung Kapur (literally ‘Lime Village’) in the western part of Kampung Boyan (Boyan Village).

Here is Y K Lai's recollection.

Kampong Days

Y K Lai

I grew up in an area of saints. St Francis, St Barnabas, St Lawrence,St Wilfred, St George's and St Michael's -- roads, that is. This area, off Owgang Sar Koh Cheok (third milestone Serangoon Road) was known among locals as Hong Loh Yeow (translated literally as shaking stove).

Today, only St George's, St Francis and St Michael's roads remain. What was once an enclave with a large Boyanese (immigrants from Bawaen, East Java) kampong, flanked by single-storeyed civil servants' quarters, raised detached house and the St Francis Girls' School is no more -- replaced by ubiquitous Housing Board flats.

It was in this Boyanese kampong that I spent my childhood and teenage years.

The kampong, the size of about four football fields, had about 50 Boyanese families with a sprinkling of Malay, Indian and two Chinese familes, including mine. Home was a huge zinc- and attap-roofed wooden structure which was sub-divided into three.

A kampung house with the ubiquitous zinc roof.


My parents and the ten children lived in one section, roughly the size of a tennis court, while my paternal grand-parents and three bachelor uncles lived in a smaller section. The third was rented out by my father to a Thai bomoh, whom I addressed as "uncle". He made a living by helping women working as bar girls and nightclub hostesses to be more attractive to theircustomers. This he did by chanting spells and bathing them with scented water.

The house was always filled with the scent of sandalwood incense and kemayen (a kind of resin that gave off a sweet-smelling fragrance). "Uncle" had a daughter from Bangkok who often visited him and she was a typical Thai beauty with flawless skin and a radiant smile. She taught me how to sing Loy Krathong, which I remember till today.

The kampong was bounded by Serangoon Road, St George's Road, St Francis Road and part of St Michael's Road. The civil servants' quarters (housing mainly lower-salaried PWD workers) was in an area that is now St George's Lane while the better-off Chinese, Eurasians and some Caucasians lived in what was then St Barnabas, St Lawrence and St Wilfred Road.

The area had four provision shops, two run by Chinese shopkeepers and two by Indians, along St George's Road. In their midst were a tailor shop and a Malay barber shop. These shops provided almost all the needs of the residents. Nearer the outside world -- Serangoon Road -- was a coffeeshop which still stands today at the junction of Serangoon and St George's roads.

For me, life as a young boy and teenager revolved around going to school and returning home to mingle with my neighbours. In kampong life, all our homes were open to our neighbours. Race was never an issue because we did not see each other as different. I remember that I could walk into any of my neighbours' homes and partake in any meal or dessert they were having. Likewise, my mother always welcomed my Boyanese, Malay, Indian friends or the children of the other Chinese family into the house. There wasn't food aplenty but sharing was second nature for all of us.

The favourite family must have been that of Mohd Jan's. He was a Malay who worked as a driver for the Guthrie company. He moonlighted as a wedding caterer for Muslim weddings on weekends.

That was when he would bring out huge aluminium pots to cook mutton rendang, curry chicken, achar and Muslim fare over charcoal fires in his front yard. Invariably, there would be extra food that he prepared and he would give this to the kampong kids. To poor kids like me, it was the only real feast to be had for a long while and it is not difficult to understand why my love for Muslim food remains till today.

A favourite pastime was to go on spider hunts and my companions were always two of the boys from theChinese family. A secret spot where fighting spiders with red mandibles -- prized catches -- were to be found was the mangrove swamp along the Kallang River nearby. It was quite lucrative as I sold the spiders to classmates in school who had no inkling where these could be found.

Kampong life in the evenings would involve almost all of the boys trotting down to the BODCA (British Ordnance Depot Civilians' Association) field in St Wildred Road for a game of football. There were kampong footballing heroes aplenty -- players like Matmoon Sudasee and Buang bin Napiri who turned out for Singapore.

When night fell, residents would gather at a makeshift sepak takraw court in the middle of the kampong. Out came the kerosene pressure lamps and they would be hoisted on tall poles to light up the court. On windless night, the court was used for badminton. The jagoh kampong (kampong champion) was a man named Suri. He taught me the finer points of the game and I am indebted to him for helping me become the RI singles champion in 1966.

I left the kampong when I started working. My parents and my younger siblings too moved on to a five-room HDB flat in nearby Geylang Bahru in the early 1970s when the kampong land was slated for development into a HDB estate. To this day, I still meet up with some of my former neighbours, whether Malay, Boyanese, Indians or Chinese, many of whom had opted for flats in the same area.

Where oh where is Old Singapore?

Recently I asked a childhood friend who had immigrated to Australia for many years whether he would consider coming back to Singapore to live. His answer is of relevance to the topic I a writing on. He was full of praise for Singapore, its shopping centres, its mrts and new flats. He also praised the economy and the global outlook of the country. But, no, he would not consider living in Singapore again. "Why?" I asked him.

Not because I am now an Australian citizen he told me but because in his words, "There is no sense of stability, of continuity in Singapore." Not that everything is changing because this is inevitable with progress in a small island but there are no links, no connections with some meaning in my past which would make me feel belonging. All that is gone, swept away bu the steely determination of the country to modernize.

Take a look at Chinatown, that is the so-called Chinatown that are mentioned in the same breath as visitors, shopping and tourists. Sir Stamford Raffles may have intended to mark out a "Chinese Campung" area where the Chinese would be allowed to settle but from that it is a mockery to call the area that has evolved "Chinatown" which is what the National Library does in its information note,

"Chinatown is Singapore's largest Historic District, and the four sub-districts of Bukit Pasoh, Kreta Ayer, Telok Ayer and Tanjong Pagar were given conservation status in the late 1980s. Much of the town has changed, but fortunately, some remnants of its colourful past still stand and old traditions still endure. During festivals like the Lunar New Year, there's celebration and special shopping. And as to be expected Chinatown is always dressed for the occasion, colourful, lit up and buzzing with activity, attracting not just Chinese but other locals, and tourists as well."

Nobody who ever lived in Chinatown called it Chinatown. The term was borrowed from "Chinatowns" of San Fransisco, London, Amsterdam and Sydney and apply to Singapore so that tourists would feel comfortable.

In one stroke Singapore old town as I prefer to call it was appropriated and given over to the tourists. Those who lived in it became curiosities to be gawked and pawed over much like the cheap trinkets sold from pushcarts for visitors.

It is important that we respect the life and experiences of our forefathers as they actually were and not turned them into some kind of oriental exotica like what we see in the photograph for the voyeuristic pleasure of tourists.

My aim is to put across in my own limited way a sense of what life meant then for us old Singapore town dwellers.

A gentler, more relaxed and forgiving Singapore.



In any case, in the past people always refer to the place where you live - Geylang, Hylam street, Bukit Pasoh End, Si Beh Lor or wherever you happen to be.

In any case, in the past people always refer to the place where you live - Geylang, Hylam street, Bukit Pasoh End, Si Beh Lor or wherever you happen to be.

So Telok Ayer Street was often simply referred to as Ma Cho Keng Tau Cheng (in front of the Ma Cho Temple) or if you live further down as Guan Soon Kuay (Guan Soon Street).

Similarly Amoy Street was referred to as Ma Cho Keng Hau Piak (back of Ma Cho Temple). Because Amoy Street was near the Cantonese areas in Smith Street and New Bridge Road it was also known as Ha Mun Kai by the Cantonese,

These names have a simple elegance reflecting the community context.