It’s difficult to talk about a residence in a deeply manner without staying more than a day. In my case, however, a total of 4 hours after three visits is what I get. I can’t complain about the 2 hours of traveling which required switching between 3 transportation lines as this kampong is the subject I chose, and I have to find the theme out of it.

So I think the third trip kinda proofs that ideas will come to you by itself. I kept getting something new in every trip. When I try to investigate some aspect of the kampong, the kampong put me down at some point and came up with another point for me to make. Long story short, the idea for the video is born.

The whole video format is inspired by video essayists on Youtube who narrate their subjects and sometimes interact with what they edited. So, it’s my first self-narrating video, please pardon my tones and accent.

When a type place became rare, people are ensured to make a big deal about it. This is my answer to what I try to contribute for the kampong’s overdone status. This video focus mainly on one random interviewee, and usually the representative, Auntie Sun is the one who do the explaining. When a random villager has the same issue with their as what the representative said, this issue can be proven kampongwide. (Auntie Sun told the same zoom-in-to-a-grandma-house story on my second kampong trip.)

I hope that it came out sort of like a public announcement, not to leave them alone, but respect them as a residency of Singapore. They don’t mind their kampong is famous, but worried that their peaceful life style is affected for the rest of their retirement.

 

As I returned from my hometown village for Chinese New Year, I was curious about whether there’s a similar kampong in Singapore since Malaysia and Singapore shares a similar cultural history. In Malaysia, there’s hundreds of kampongs just for the Chinese, as they were one of the tactics conducted by the British to isolate the Communist military troops from their families and relatives food supplies and medical aids. We called them Kampung Baru as in New Villages.

Once the keywords, “Singapore kampong” were inserted into the search engine, Google showed plenty of web articles referring the “Last Kampong in Singapore”, Kampong Lorong Buangkor. The results did not surprise me much as it was expected for a developed country like Singapore. However, it intrigued me for being the last spot where I can witness a living history of Singapore’s urbanization. Not to mention, the observable contrast of modernization must be so obvious as it is located in the middle of a town.

During the Valentines Day, I began my search through some taps on Google Maps. A train ride to Khatib and a bus ride to Gerald Drive, within 2 hours, I reached my destinations. Unlike Malaysia’s Kampongs which usually have a big gate welcoming the visitors, Kampong Lorong Buangkor has a sign that points towards their one and only surau. (As shown in the video.)

The housing area was unorganized, there’s no finely paved roads, and there’s not much informative locations I can ask about. That’s why for this first trip to the location, I went stealth mode, which was basically filming the kampong stealthily. Fortunately, no one was standing in the outdoors at 12 noon but me. So, all the from the lorong to the end of the kampong, it was just me with my camera, walking through awkwardly. I did see some villagers on the way but I didn’t establish any conversation. This is because I was wandering about my topics for this project.

The second topic I was considering, was the buskers in Singapore, mainly concentrated in Orchard area. I’ve only found three of the frequent buskers by the time I visited the locations provided by the Internet. It was a raining afternoon which caused many of the buskers stayed home. Few of them who do street performing for living or publicity stayed around their spot while others didn’t show up. There’s another factor that my buskers didn’t go well. It is because I relied on articles and information on the Internet for past times. Many of the sources are at least one year old. Thus, some may have change their locations and did not have a platform to confirm their updates.

Therefore, there’s a few challenges for the future of my Singapore Diaries. Which theme I’m doing? In what format shall I present my narratives? What would be my content and context? And how should I establish them?

There are lots of questions worth brainstorming. So stay tuned….