Kampong Life: The last villages in Singapore and the stories behind them
Let’s be real: Singapore isn’t synonymous with the rural idyll. The slick, modern city-state is known for its urban sprawl, and shiny, soaring skyscrapers. And even if you think of Old Singapore, you’re likely to picture the iconic, colourful shophouses instead. However, back before brick and mortar are a thing, pockets of verdant land were occupied by villages – or ‘kampung’ in Malay. Each kampung featured traditional Malay attap houses, complete with thatched roofs made with attap leaves, and walls made with hardwood planks overlapping each other. Some had houses with zinc roofs instead – this is the more common version in Singapore’s last remaining villages.
As your grandparents – or even parents – would tell you: kampung life was simple back then. The elderly would sit out in their verandas, the chickens would cluck away in the coops, the neighbours would pop by unannounced, and the whole village would come to your rescue if you needed any help. Rooted in the country’s humble past, the kampung spirit refers to a culture of camaraderie, trust and generosity. While this continues to exist in modern Singapore, it’s more apparent in the kampung where residents are close-knit and neighbourly towards each other – something you rarely see in HDB flats anymore.
However, with the increase in high-rise buildings, many kampung houses have been bulldozed. Today, there are only two villages left in Singapore, but their future remains uncertain. This piece of heritage could soon be nothing more than a memory if not preserved. Here, we shine a light on the last remaining ones and the tours that will give you a taste of kampung life, as well as some known villages that are gone but not forgotten:
- Kampong Lorong Buangkok - This historic slice of land has narrowly avoided redevelopment once, but its future remains uncertain.
- Pulau Ubin - Other remaining kampung can be found on the offshore island of Pulau Ubin where time seems to have stood still since the 1960s.
- Kampung Khatib Bongsu - Said to have existed by 1889, it was situated in the forested area in Yishun, near the mouth of Sungei Khatib.
- Geylang Serai - Geylang Serai’s roots can be traced back to the 1890s when the Malays and Orang Laut were forced by the British to relocate further inland and away from their original settlements at the mouth of the Singapore River.
- Nee Soon Village - Located at the intersection of Thomson Road and Sembawang Road, Nee Soon Village was one of the oldest Chinese kampungs.
- Changi Village - Changi was an idyllic village in the pre-war years, then somewhere between the 1890s and 1920s, the British troops moved in and transformed it into a bustling place of recreation where military men and their families, as well as local bargain hunters, gathered for cheap buys and more.
- Kampong Gelam - Back in the 1820s, Kampong Gelam was a fishing village due to its location by the Rochor River. It was also once reigned by Malay Sultans and housed Sultan Hussain Mohammed Shah, his family and entourage – all reportedly to be over 600 people.
- Pulau Tekong - Before it became the setting for many National Service (NS) ghost stories, Pulau Tekong was a thriving trading station for Pulau Ubin and Johor and by 1898, the offshore island had many kampungs dotted around the island.
- Pulau Seking - Pulau Seking was Singapore's second last offshore village with 44 kampung houses and no roads and cars. It's believed to have roots dating before 1819, with villagers being descendants of the original Orang Selat.
From Villages to Flats – The Kampong Days
The rapid urbanisation of Singapore in the past four decades has seen hundreds of villages demolished and the lands freed up for redevelopment. The life of many Singaporeans of the last generation changed dramatically as they shifted from their kampong to the high-rise public flats. The days of living in dilapidated wooden attap houses with hygienic concerns and limited supplies differed greatly from the comfort of the public housings fitted with electricity, water and gas.
On the other hand, the community, or kampong, spirit is lost when more people tends to coop themselves up in their own flats nowadays, and interaction with neighbours become a rarity. Children of the newer generation have also lost the chance to come in contact with nature; many of them probably have not seen a live rooster in their life.
Nevertheless, there is still one kampong existing on mainland Singapore today, although the land it is standing on is currently facing the prospect of being acquired by the government. Kampong Lorong Buangkok, established in 1956, has a mixture of Chinese and Malay residents living in harmony. There are about 28 single-storey zinc-roof houses here, on a landsize roughly equaled to three football fields. The land belongs to the Sng family, who lives here among the residents and collects only small tokens from the other families as rental fees.
Kampung spirit not a wish to revert to the past, but a longing for togetherness
They sweat it out planting edibles in their community garden, not only for their consumption but also for their entire precinct
Kampung spirit is a positive attitude. It is a value, not an object of heritage that has relevance only in the past. The term can be misleading, prompting some people to assume we have to return to that way of life in the kampung before we can develop a kampung spirit. But much as I have a passion for people to cultivate and develop a kampung spirit, I would never suggest that we return to those impoverished days. This nation has come so far, and progressed in leaps and bounds.
We should not regress to those days of poor sanitation, poor housing and poverty. But we can cherry-pick that gracious way of living, community concern and incorporate it into our modern lives. Kampung life was full of hardships and deprivations. I can vouch for it, being born and brought up in Kampung Potong Pasir, just off Upper Serangoon Road. Throughout those years, my family never had a tap in our house nor a telephone. We always had to share our toilet and bathroom with our neighbours. Life was indeed a challenge. The majority of us had little food or any luxury. Store-bought toys or clothes was beyond our meagre pockets. Our wooden houses with attap roofs had no electricity or running water. A communal stand-pipe provided us with drinking water. For baths and general washing, we had to haul water out of a deep well or make use of rainwater we caught in kerosene pails and buckets. We took every opportunity to be jolly rather than moan our plight. The majority of people in the country were poor. But we were rich in spirit.
Many children lacked the opportunity to go to school, including myself. If my mother had not sold nasi lemak, I wouldn’t be writing. Nostalgia about the kampung does not mean that I romanticise about the past. I do write about smelly jambans. But the precious qualities of resilience and sense of community we shared in the kampung are qualities to emulate to build a strong, united nation. No one was left to die in loneliness. We talked to neighbours and looked out for each other. Each weekend evening, we came together outdoors to chat, recite poetry, tell stories and sing songs. This was kampong spirit at its best. I like the Malay term, gotong royong, which refers to a community coming together to do things in unison.
Singapore has lost its compassionate soul along with its kampong spirit
What has become of Singapore? Have we successfully evolved to become a society of binary minded beings, where the mind only sees Ones and Zeros in our day to day living? A neighbour of mine is in the middle of shifting out and like most of us living in high rise HDB flats, we get help from movers. By all logical thinking for accessibility, the lorry driver temporarily parked the vehicle he was driving on a No Parking lot that has a concrete gradual slope making it easy for the workers to push trolleys of heavy furniture and boxes.
Then came along a parking warden demanding the vehicle be moved while workers were in the middle of loading the lorry. According to him, someone called to complaint and there are white lots nearby (buffered by a metre and a half divider of drainage, grasspatch and tree roots) where the lorry can park. This is very strange because according to my neighbour, there wasn’t anyone obstructed by the vehicle (there is another sloping no parking access 10 mtrs to the right) thus it is either the person who made the complaint (if any) is irrational or the warden lied about it. In any case, what is the issue here? Firstly, there is no loading and unloading bay in a HDB carpark, secondly, the move was done outside peak hours, thirdly this is a one off event (just like weddings, funerals, elections…). My take is that the warden is one that may not be living in a HDB flat, has no discretionary capacity and has successfully evolved into a mechanical enforcer like judge dread.
This is perhaps another of the many examples that appear over the next week in week out reflecting the evolution of Singapore society. Especially in the last 10 years, it does seem that Singapore has lost its compassionate soul that has for many decades long before independence allowed multi ethnicity to thrive and blend its own Singapura flavour. To the leaders of Singapore, do note that The Kampong Spirit is not simply a slogan to rally and move your constituents to do what your boardroom committee draw up. Military dictators achieve the same effect through propaganda. Where Kampong spirit exist, neighbours would have gathered to help out in the moving process and bid a heartfelt farewell to the leaving neighbour. Today, this neighbour of mine might just have had a bitter memory imprinted on their last day in the neighbourhood.
Kampong Life
Pulau Ubin was formerly a cluster of 5 smaller islands separated by tidal rivers. Local Malays once called the island "Pulau Batu Jubin" or "Granite Stone island". This is because, in the old days, the granite from the island was quarried to make floor tiles or jubin in Malay. The name of the island was later shortened to Pulau Ubin. In the 16th century, Ubin was part of the Johor-Riau Empire. The earliest inhabitants of the island were the Orang Laut (or “Sea People”) and indigenous Malays of Bugis and Javanese origins.
By the mid-1800s, a sizable Chinese community moved to the island to work at the quarries. Pulau Ubin became a hotbed for granite quarrying. The granite was used for the construction of the Horsburgh Lighthouse on Pedra Branca completed in 1851, Fort Canning in 1858 and the Causeway in 1923. Many Kheks (Chinese dialect group) also settled on the central and western parts of the island, adding to the vast labour force which worked at the quarries. Granite quarrying activities on Pulau Ubin peaked in the 1930s when private quarries operated on the island. Besides granite quarrying, the island was also opened up for commercial crop cultivation. Coffee, nutmeg, pineapple, coconut, durian, tobacco and rubber plantations were started at different times across the island. Other activities included prawn farming, fishing and poultry rearing. Pulau Ubin retains much of its 1960s charming kampong setting. With its wooden kampong houses and scenic winding forest paths, it offers visitors a unique off-the-beaten-track experience. About 38 villagers continue to live on the island, such as the family of the late village head, Lim Chye Joo, and Madam Samsiah Abdullah, who lives in her 100-year-old kampong home. These villagers depend on traditional farming and fishing for subsistence, while others run provision stores, eateries and bicycle rental shops to support the tourist trade.
In the Ubin village, aside from the restaurants and bicycle rental kiosks, one can also find an old Wayang (“Chinese Opera”) stage and a colourful Chinese temple built in 1969. The former farms, rubber plantations and the now abandoned quarries allow visitors to enjoy a variety of sights around the island. In true kampong-style living, there is no tap water or electricity provided on Pulau Ubin. Residents obtain their water supply from wells, and operate diesel generators for electricity. In 2013, the Energy Market Authority (EMA) embarked on a micro grid test-bed using solar panels and biodiesel to generate electricity in a less pollutive and more environmentally sustainable manner for residents and businesses at the jetty area.
Bukit Timah had kampongs up until the 1980s
Bukit Timah, widely considered an upscale district in Singapore today, was once home to humble kampongs. But they were cleared out by the 1980s, when the authorities notified landowners they had to redevelop their wooden houses into proper houses according to building standards of the day. Many villagers eventually moved out because of this.
With urban development, much of Bukit Timah's kampong past has slowly been forgotten. And chances are, if you didn't grow up there from the 1950s to 1970s, you would never have heard of Kampong Chamar, Kampong Quarry or Kampong Coronation. While many of these villagers have moved into high-rise flats, one of the oldest residential estates in Bukit Timah can still be explored today. Nestled behind Rail Mall, Fuyong estate was built in the 1950s by philanthropist Lee Kong Chian to provide affordable modern .housing during Singapore’s housing shortage. Currently, the Fuyong estate residents remain a close-knit community.
In 2009, a group of them got together to try to secure a longer lease for the neighbourhood, as the lease for Fuyong estate was due to expire in 2046. It was also reported that the group has also extended help to families in the area who needed assistance. Even though some of these kampongs have largely disappeared from our urban environment, some tangible structures within that area remain.
More than 1 type of kampong in Singapore
This is what a kampong where pig-rearing was carried out looked like. Hard to believe that this was Singapore just one generation ago eh?
My young friend PY of Oceanskies 79 once wrote an article about her visit to Sentosa where she learned about kampong life in Singapore in the old days. I pointed out to her that what she learned was essentially about a Malay kampong. Chinese kampongs like the one I grew up in were quite different actually. Come to think of it, not only were Chinese kampongs different from Malay kampongs, among the Chinese kampongs there were differences too. So I take this opportunity to tell you what I know was different. I consulted my good friend Chuck who grew up in the Hillview area next to a Malay kampong in nearby Bukit Gombak.
First of all there are the games. I believe that the games played by the Malay kids and us were quite different. In PY’s article, she mentioned games like gasing and congkak. But as you have probably read from my articles (you can click on the label Toys Were Us on the right side to read these articles) the games we played were quite different. There were also a number of things in a Chinese kampong that you would not find in a Malay kampong. These were usually related to the difference in religious faiths; Malays being mostly Muslims. For example, in a Chinese kampong like Lorong Kinchir which I grew up in, pigs roaming freely was a common sight. Another thing which was mandatory in a Chinese kampong was the Tua Pek Kong temple and wayang stage. Depending on the size of the kampong, the size of these two features also tended to be different. During the Lunar 7th Month, opera shows would be performed.
Another thing we had was the Chinese Medicine Shop. Practically all Chinese kampongs had one of these. Today, they are still a common sight in our HDB heartlands. Another thing I can think of is the village school. In our kampong, we had a small Chinese school called Chong Boon School （崇 文）. I spent one year there in fact doing primary one. But later I went to primary one again, but this time in an English school. In those days, they were not particular about ages and so even though I did two years of primary one, I was not over-age. As I said before, even among the Chinese kampongs there were differences. This was mainly due to differences in economic activity. For example, compared to our closest neighbour which was Potong Pasir, we had more fish ponds whilst they had a lot of vegetable farms. We also had quite a bit of rubber estates. especially towards the Thomson end of Lorong Kinchir. Potong Pasir was to our south and separated from us by Braddell Road. It was mainly a Cantonese area. We used to refer to it as San Par.
A Malay kampong house
The main section of the house is referred to as the ‘rumah ibu’, which means ‘mother house’. Extensions to the main structure are often constructed to serve as a porch area for receiving guests or as the household kitchen. The house's post-and-lintel structure is supported by timber pillars buried in the ground without the aid of concrete or wooden bases.
Modifications to the traditional dwelling involve the incorporation of modern construction techniques and materials. An example would be the use of zinc sheets, brick tiles or wooden shingles instead of attap leaves for constructing the roof.
From Kampongs to HDB – Singapore Through the Years
With more than 80% of the population living in HDB houses now, it is a stark contrast to how most of our grandparents from the pioneer generation grew up in villages or Kampongs then. Back in the 1960s, most families lived in unhygienic slums and were living in overcrowded squatter settlements. Only 9% of the population owned a flat and it was quickly becoming a housing crisis that gained the attention of the government.
The Housing and Development Board (HDB) was then set up to solve this crisis swiftly, and they did. In a matter of three years, 21,000 flats for public housing were built and 54,000 in five years. Slowly, HDB relocated people living in the Kampongs to newly built high-rise flats with accessible running water and electricity. By 1969, HDB was resettling 6000 families per year. The relocation process usually involves government officials measuring land to calculate compensation for the owners, before allocating them a unit in a HDB flat in the same estate and notifying them of their resettlement period.
While most families were initially reluctant to move to HDB flats, they soon changed their minds after moving as they realised how much living conditions were improved at flats. In the past when people used to live in villages, doing the laundry involved drawing water from the well. After moving to flats, doing household chores were much easier since water was readily available from taps at home in flats. Grocery shopping at the nearest market no longer took a one and a half hour bicycle ride, and there was no longer a need to rear livestock at home at HDB flats. Other major improvements include having sheltered concrete walkways that linked blocks to bus stops. Gone are the days where paths would become streams of mud whenever it rained! Roofs no longer leaked during rainy nights and sleeping on straw mats on the floor became a thing of the past when comfortable mattresses became readily available in flats.
List of kampongs in Singapore
Bah Soon Pah Village (cleared 1977)
Chong Pang Village (cleared 1989) to make way for Sembawang New Town
Chua Chu Kang Village (cleared 1993)
Hup Choon Kek Village (cleared 1977)
Chye Kay Village (cleared 1977)
Kum Mang Hng Village (cleared 1977)
Hainan Village (cleared 1977)
De Lu Shu Village (cleared 1977)
Kampong Sah Pah Siam (cleared 1977)
Kampong Telok Soo (cleared 1977)
Kampong Belimbing (cleared 1993)
Kampong Berih (cleared 1993)
Kampong Buangkok (Last Village Remaining)
Kampong Khatib Bongsu (cleared 2007)
Kampong Koh Sek Lim (cleared 1983)
Kampong Siglap (cleared 1985)
Kampong Wak Hassan (cleared 1999)
From Kampongs to Flats
The rapid urbanisation of Singapore in the past four decades has seen hundreds of villages demolished and the lands freed up for redevelopment. The life of many Singaporeans of the last generation changed dramatically as they shifted from their kampong to the high-rise public flats. The days of living in dilapidated wooden attap houses with hygienic concerns and limited supplies differed greatly from the comfort of the public housings fitted with electricity, water and gas.
On the other hand, the community, or kampong, spirit is lost when more people tends to coop themselves up in their own flats nowadays, and interaction with neighbours become a rarity. Children of the newer generation have also lost the chance to come in contact with nature; many of them probably have not seen a live rooster in their life.
Nevertheless, there is still one kampong existing on mainland Singapore today, although the land it is standing on is currently facing the prospect of being acquired by the government. Kampong Lorong Buangkok, established in 1956, has a mixture of Chinese and Malay residents living in harmony. There are about 28 single-storey zinc-roof houses here, on a landsize roughly equaled to three football fields. The land belongs to the Sng family, who lives here among the residents and collects only small tokens from the other families as rental fees.
Kampong Lorong Buangkok: Singapore’s last village
A beautiful memory of the past still exists in the North-Eastern part of Singapore – Kampong Lorong Buangkok. Although Singapore is surrounded by many villages and islands, many of them are inaccessible to the public. Kampong Lorong Buangkok is the last surviving village on mainland Singapore, which once had 220 scattered kampongs around Singapore. Before it was a kampong, this place was once a swamp that was vastly different from the kampong we see today. In 1956, a traditional medicine seller named Sng Teow Koon bought the land and rented out small plots of it to Malay and Chinese families. These families then built their own houses, which are the houses that we see today.
Nicknamed Kampong Selak Kain, it refers to the way villagers used to hitch up their traditional skirts as they made their way through the floodwaters. Stilt houses built with wooden walls and thatched roofs made with palm fronds (also known as attap) were the basis of a Kampong house. However, these materials were fire hazards, and along with the high population density, this increased the risk of fires in villages. This resulted in the demolition of the kampongs, eliminating the “kampong spirit” that brought the community together. The team at Walk Walk personally went down to Kampong Lorong Buangkok to take a look for ourselves. When you arrive at that area, it is pretty obvious where the Kampong is from the looks of it. Situated in the middle of all the HDBs, you will walk past the Coast to Coast Trail on the way. When you first arrive at the entrance of the Kampong, you will be greeted by a sign as shown below.
Kampong Lorong Buangkok now houses less than 30 families, including Sng Teow Koon’s daughter, Sng Mui Hong. While housing prices have increased in the surrounding areas of the village, Sng Mui Hong still keeps her monthly rent for each house more or less to the original rate of S$4.50 to S$30 (£2.40 to £16.20) today. The low monthly rental is thus arguably the most affordable housing one can get in Singapore. However, getting a house in the village is not that simple. These houses can only be occupied if someone has moved out or passed away, and the new occupant has to be connected to the past and present tenants. The community remains tight-knitted as they are all long-time occupants of the village and/or descendants of the occupants, helping to keep everyone close together. This village’s community spirit relives the memories of the “kampong spirit”, long lost with the development of HDBs in Singapore. Though the government has tried to maintain the “kampong spirit” through communal living and shared spaces in housing estates, the “kampong spirit” within Kampong Lorong Buangkok differs from that of the HDBs. If you look closely at the area around the kampong, you will notice that nearby power cables hang overhead, which is a feature of the past in Singapore. Singapore’s rapid development has shifted the power cables underground, which prevents safety risks compared to overhead power cables. So, the next time you visit the area around Kampong Lorong Buangkok, be sure to look out for the overhead cables!
The Last Kampong in Singapore
As the last surviving kampong on the mainland, Kampong Buangkok serves as a juxtaposition against the modern cosmopolitan city, highlighting the camaraderie and kampong spirit that is paradoxically absent in today's world
In cosmopolitan Singapore, everyone and everything is hectic and fast-paced. Yet in a corner of Singapore, exists a place where time slows down to a peaceful pace, and residents enjoy a simple yet relaxing lifestyle, content with their status quo.
This xanadu of greenery and nostalgia exists in the North-Eastern part of Singapore. Established in 1956, Kampong Lorong Buangkok is the last surviving kampong (Malay term for village) on Singapore's mainland. The kampong was also known as Selak Kain, which meant 'hitching up one's skirt' as people used to hitch their skirts up to wade through floods whenever the kampong experienced flash floods in the 20th century
The land was first acquired by Mr Sng Teow Hoon, a traditional Chinese medicine seller, who rented out land for people to build homes. It was later handed down to his children, one of whom is Miss Sng Mui Hong, who is currently still living in the kampong. Kampong Buangkok used to house about 40 familes, but has since shrunk to the size of approximately two soccer fields with less than 30 families now. Each family pays a token sum of less than $30 to Miss Sng as monthly rent.
Kampung Spirit & Gotong Royong
Kampung Spirit: Blast from the past
Those were the (kampung) days. An important part of Singapore’s treasured heritage, the kampung (village) spirit refers to a sense of community and solidarity.
Life in a kampung was mostly harmonious and it was not uncommon for people to readily offer their neighbours food, help and support. Oral history interviewee Chan Chong Beng remembers that he could even sleep with his doors open in the kampung without worry.
As the nation progressed and these villages made way for housing estates, the kampung spirit can still be seen, most recently in how neighbours have reached out to each other during COVID-19. Check out this curated selection of photos, audiovisual content and oral history extracts to find out more.
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