This blog is going start with a rant about the mess which is now Serangoon Gardens. This has been happening slowly over the many many decades, but now well... rant begins...
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| One of the few original houses left in gardens |
Serangoon Gardens was built by the British. It was used to house mostly British army and civil servants, and as such, it was a new development. It was built on the idea of the 1950s English village. So it had a circus, and around the circus there were shops, a cinema, and a bus terminal. The streets radiate out from the circus and are interconnected through adjoining roads. There was a combination of terrace and semi-detatched houses. Sometimes there were bungalows - or detatched houses which often also suggested double storey dwellings. The entire vibe was very much lower to middle class housing. Unlike the huge, grand white and black houses which were in Bukit Timah or near CJC, whatever that place is called.
Serangoon Gardens became known as Ang Sa Lee, meaning the Red Roofs, on account of the red roof tiles which were used and were visible when you came in by Lorong Chuan. It must have been a sight when it was first built.
The houses were built to accommodate the equatorial climate. Windows which let in light and air and they were very well ventilated. My abiding memory of being at my grandmother's house was lying in the living room, the high cool ceilings and the ceiling fan allowing refuge from the hottest parts of the day. People would plant fruit trees. Rambutans, mangoes and figs. Pomegrantes were also a popular choice.
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| Here is a pomegranate tree |
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| A mango tree |
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| Frangipani |
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| Papaya, which reminds me of the Artemis of Epheseus |
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| An unoccupied house |
The place was teeming with Ang Mos. The streets even have Ang Mo names. Names like Huddington, Portchester, Brockhampton, Kensington. Eventually, the British Army and Britain in general pulled out and locals began buying the houses. When they first went up for sale, it was civil servants who were given the first opportunity to buy them. This proved a canny investment because over the years, the houses in Gardens have appreciated dramatically.
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| With the original door and window grilles - it should really be restored |
And then, in the mid 80s, it began. These houses were no longer thought impressive enough to keep up with the 'progress' which Singapore was experiencing. So they began renovating them. At first it started with repositioning doors and windows. Then adding on extensions and roofs. And then, they lifted the planning restrictions in the area and double, even triple storied buildings began to be erected. And each building is entire and I mean ENTIRELY different from the buildings which are beside and opposite to them. Some look like mini condominiums. Others are glass and steel, like miniature office blocks. Yet others look like overly large spas with lots of dark woods.
The overall effect of this is one of chaos. Where the houses were once completely alike and therefore Gardens derived its charming character from this little corner of suburbia, now it is this melange of odd sorts. Furthermore, building restrictions say that you no longer have to have gardens, so you can build right up to something like a metre of the edge of the land boundary. And they do. You also have a single story terrace house beside a double or triple storied one. It is quite hideous and comical. But more seriously, it also makes it very hot. The lack of gardens and mature trees and more exposed concrete means that the wonderful breeze which blew through the estate is no longer there. Instead, the bare faces of walls absorb and radiate heat not just through the day, but by night as well.
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Curry leaf plant - my mother has always maintained that you
can tell the race of the house owner by the plants they plant outside,
along the footpaths |
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| An example of the two storied monsters |
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| Banana tree |
There are things about Garden that are now unique in Singapore. The circus, for instance. There is no other circus in Singapore. Every one has now been turned over to a traffic light.
The village feel. Because it is in effect in a tiny island of its own, it has retained its village feel. Large chains and the expat crowd which have plagued Holland Village, have been kept out, retaining some semblance of local authenticity. In Holland Village you are jostling with the gawpers and the drinkers. Gardens still has a low beat family centred pace. Although I have noticed signs of hipsterism, there is nothing like the affliction of severely pretentious and overpriced kopi tiams which has plagued places like Tiong Bharu. Although the few kopi tiams that we had - like Sputnik - have gone the way of the dodo.
I look at the few remaining houses and dearly wish that maybe someone will see the beauty in them and rescue them. They will buy the house and lovingly restore it. Take the aluminum gates and repaint them. The coconut tree and moon in the beach scene in the original wooden door will once again shine in dark silhouette against the burning heat of the noon. The terrazzo floor, so cool and pretty, will be scrubbed clean and bright, like some Mediterranean kitchen. There are so many sweet memories which are contained in its modesty. So much history.
And yet, I know, when I return next year, it will be sold to some megalomaniac who will just knock it down, without a second thought. Upon the tiny little plot, he or she, will put up a behemoth which will have no garden - it will be tiled all the way to the road and then they will attempt to fit a very tiny swimming pool beside the house, which will be two strokes long and less wide. It will be mostly glass, such a strange material to use in such a hot place, creating a greenhouse which will then necessitate airconditioning, and despite it being taller than its predecessor, it will have no view, save for the rooms of other vastly different and quite irrational houses - maybe a Spanish villa knock off - and the roofs of the remaining single storied dwellings. It is too late to save the character of the entire area. The only memories which are left are the ones found in the National Archive, photo albums and my own childhood. It would be so nice if one of these old houses were saved. Perhaps some very rich hipster will be able to do this.
OK, on to the rest of my day now.
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| Capitol Piazza |
I met a friend in town today and I was half an hour early. And so I ventured above ground to see what have changed in this very familiar part of town. I was an IJ girl and this was where I grew up. I'd make the journey from Toa Payoh everyday and I had no appreciation of where I studied, in the beating heart of old Singapore. And why should I? But having studied in the Convent and lived in this part of town, has always stayed with me - the love of the new Gothic and the hustle and bustle of the shops around us. Capitol Theatre was our local theatre. The last film I saw there was
Hellraiser. It was so dreadful I had to leave the cinema.
And now the place is utterly transformed.
There were beanbags which you could sit on and take in the passing of life, which is what I promptly did. I took my book out and read it and then, suddenly felt a tremor beneath me. It was the MRT running along, coming to a stop. Imagine to be able to feel the MRT all the way to the surface when it was more than two floors down!
The building there is the I M Pei Raffles City. I saw it being built. It was one of the first buildings which heralded the new Singapore in the 1980s. Singapore had found it way, at breakneck speed out of the gloam of debt which the British had left us. It was now starting to be a pulsing centre of trade and finance. This hotel was built over the bones of the old Raffles Institution. It was done symbolically, I think. Lee Kuan Yew, a famously unsentimental and pragmatic man, decided that the first victim of the redevelopment of Singapore would be his old school, the school founded by Raffles, with its beautiful colonial architecture of wide verandahs and cool colonades, huge frontage and garden which also housed a running track. It overlooked the sea. It was really gorgeous. I was there before it was all knocked down. He took his finger and pointed straight at where he spent the formative years of his life and, almost as an example, that nothing would be spared, raised Raffles City on it. After that, nothing would stand in the way of the mass murder of Singapore's centre. Nothing. The Convent was only saved because of its beautiful chapel and the nun's quarters were the only section that survived. A tiny little slice of Chartres sweltering in the heat of the sun. But the classrooms, with the long stemmed fans and the wooden floors and the glass balustrades - they all went to make way for the perversely hideously MRT offices. Such is the price of progress. It was then I understood that more is never going to be enough.
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| In the distance St Andrews Cathederal |
However, all was not lost. The Civic District, as it is called, has only been saved by its religious and cultural institutions. If the government had had their way nothing would have been left, apart from Parliament Buildings and City Hall. However, places like the Good Shepherd Cathedral and St Andrews, the Armenian Church, and even ACS, stood firm against the face of development. If LKY was tough, they were tougher. Thankfully the madness passed and miraculously the architectural value of these ugly ducklings turned graceful swans were recognised for what they were. It was as if the pain of places lost were almost too much to bear and people began to say, we cannot do this anymore. Still though, the built over the green in front of the National Library and of couse, they knocked the National Library down to build - a tunnel. It was the Singaporean government's final fascist fuck you to those who said there is a reason why we are alive - and it is to love. Fuck your love, they said, and like a deranged Kronos, swallowed up what they could before anyone could get them to change their minds.
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| The moon and the masjid |
I walked from Chinatown to Arab Street. It was the first time I realised that there was a straight road which connected them. You could draw it with a ruler. I never understood this because I either took the MRT or drove. When you do either, you of course, do not realise geography. Geography is best understood by walking.
You start out in the heart of Chinatown and a 45 minute walk takes you past the Old National Archives, Hill Street Police Station, CHIJ, Raffles City, Raffles Hotel, Bras Basah Complex and finally, the Sultan Mosque. By the time I arrived, the call to prayer, the penultimate one, was being sung. I looked up and saw the crescent moon and Venus. There in the clear blue skies which backgrounded the majestic golden dome.
My sister said to me, you know whenever you come back, you always end up visiting a part of Singapore more than any other part. I said, I know. The last time it was Serangoon Road. This time it is going to be Arab Street because I did the rise of Islam. I have totally fallen in love with the aesthetics of Islam. The dreaming minarets, the onion domes, the geometrical shapes, the songs. The gentleness, the aspiration to brother and sisterhood. There is a part of me which is quite angry at the Arabisation of Islam in South East Asia.
My memory of Islam when I grew up was a religion of total accommodation and hospitality. It was able to absorb practices like animism and women did not have to cover their heads up. My Malay friends who were all Muslim, would dress in shorts and T-shirts. When we went swimming they too wore swimsuits like the rest of us. We were all the same. We always, always emphasised our similarities. We were girls who laughed, had crushes, listened to the same music, had periods, hated the same teachers, ate at the school canteen. There were differences, of course, but we learned to live with them and not make a huge deal of it. I carry that memory in me and it makes me so so sad that it has come to this now. I learned Malay in school, all the way to A levels. I don't speak it very well, but because I do speak it, I am always tethered to another language, another race, another culture, another religion. And I love it so so deeply. When we did Islam this year, it was such a joy to eventually learn all about it and to see how deeply, deeply embedded it is in the history of the Mediterranean and to see how to came to South East Asia where it sat alongside with Hinduism and Bhuddism.
Knowledge should make us celebrate, it should make us sober, it should enable us to be stronger and gentler at the same time. It should inspire wonder through insight. It is a tool which we can create with, not exploit and destroy. We are so much better than that and that is what I hold on to.
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| 1001 Singaporean Nights |
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| Turkish Mezze - the loveliest dips I have ever tasted |
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| This is a good Turkish restaurant, a bit pricey, but you know, good |
Well, that's a wrap from me. The only other thing to report is a wonderful afternoon with Lianne. We talked about everything and she gave me a bottle of my very own flower essence. I am truly blessed to have such amazing friends. Lianne's journey and mine have always done in parallel lines. It is always fascinating to see how similarly yet vastly differently we grow year on year.
It is really quite wonderful to be finally at peace with Singapore. To accept it, warts and all.
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