As I began the trail there was not much high
hopes for being able to experience a much more enriching insight into
Singapore's history. Kampong Glam was a place I believed was familiar to me,
with countless illustrations and photos in our textbooks and two school trips
that I experienced when I was in primary and secondary school. I knew the
importance of understanding the different cultural heritage of the various
races for the toleration and acceptance of our cosmopolitan society. Singapore
history to me was something that was made up of “big events”; the founding of
Singapore, Japanese Occupation, rise of Nationalist movements, merger with
Malaya and finally independence as the national narrative. Kampong Glam became
something that appeared in the Town Plan of Sir Stamford Raffles for the Malay
community.
After this experience of going through a detailed and conscious
effort of learning about Singapore’s history and cultural heritage through
touring Kampong Glam, I felt rather my perceptions slowly alter especially
after visiting certain places. Kubor Cemetery was one unexpected place of
insight. Kubor cemetery was filled with unmarked graves, the wild flora
intertwined with the tombstones of our unknown ancestors. Butterflies were
abound as we stood stoic outside this natural picture. Thoughts of why they may
be unnamed, what kind of lives they had lived and even how they might have
contributed to Singapore's growth in their little ways flooded my mind. A
solemn atmosphere clouded around me and I realised that Singapore's history is
truly an aggregate of all the different people's narratives whether it is from
the top; like the perspectives our colonial masters, or from the bottom; the
stories of the people in the unmarked graves that would never be known.
We passed through North Bridge Road and paused to look at the
present vehicles streaming through. I am suddenly reminded of the fact that
just as there are random roads in Singapore that have been forgotten and taken
for granted, just as the pioneers of the island have been buried and neglected
from history, so are there still figures in society that we have blotted out
their contribution to society. Thinking of the Historiography of Singapore, the
ones that receive the attention and recognition had always been the people who
controlled power in Singapore, people who selected different figures in history
to glorify and marginalise. The focus becomes centralised on a single purpose
of creating national unity that on a fair basis, was needed in Singapore in her
early years of independence. As the society flourishes, one must admit that the
government has taken measures to place emphasis on acknowledging the efforts of
the pioneers through the pioneer generation package. However, how much does it
truly benefit them, would be an uncomfortable narrative that in essence makes
it difficult to give credit where credit is due to the people who have poured
their effort in building their home here.
Another place that left an impression was Arab Street, where we
observed a store that was the oldest carpet store in Singapore selling rare
Persian pieces. We spoke to the storekeeper, a direct descendant from the man
who first founded the store. I was quite surprised by the strong pride he had
in the art of the carpet, a knowledge reserved only for the upper class and
traded with a sense reverence. He brought us through the process of creating
and analysing the quality of a piece with great detail and confidence in his
craft. Here I am inspired by the rich history in Singapore that we have right
under our noses but fail to realise. There is such a variety of different
strands of history that still exist that is still very much part of the
livelihood of the people, making up their identity and sense of belonging to
the vast cosmopolitan society of Singapore.
I travelled into Kampong Glam with different lenses of
biasedness and assumptions in the dismissal of the mundane cultural heritage
Singapore had to offer and left with the sense of unknown nostalgia of knowing
that much more of our past, a connection in being in the very site that has
cultivated that side of history, a part of the Singaporean identity.
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