They bulldozed kampung of my heart

Diary of a Village Girl

Last week, the first farmstay resort at Lim Chu Kang opened its doors. Consisting of a spa and 19 villas, the D'Kranji Farm Resort is part of the Government's drive to turn Lim Chu Kang into an agri-tainment hub. Are the changes coming too quickly to the countryside? ENG YEE PENG, 31, whose films about old Lim Chu Kang are showing this weekend at The Arts House, talks about what it was like to grow up there in the '80s - as told to our reporter

Ng Tze Yong, The New Paper 16 Sep 08;

THE jungle is thick and it is everywhere. I can't find my way home.

In the half-light, I see some bricks, old pots and rusty tins. Is that Ah Pa's old workshop? I stumble over some broken boards. Is this Coppy's old kennel?

18 Mile, Lim Chu Kang. It's a military training area now, with skull and bones on red metal boards.

This was my home.

Was, because it no longer is, although I never really did leave this place, deep in my heart.

In 1986, my family was one of the many Singaporeans evicted from Lim Chu Kang as part of the Government's development plans. Farmers left their farms, moving into new homes and new livelihoods.

It was a traumatic change for us.

Our former MP, Dr Tan Cheng Bock, said many old folks committed suicide from their new high-rise flats.

When we moved, I was only 9. But I remember.

I remember the sound of rubber-tree seeds hitting the ground, making cracking sounds on quiet afternoons.

My cousins and I are running now - racing - from our houses to look for the seeds, so we can rub them real hot and place them on someone else's skin.

And oh, the fighting games!

Picking sticks from the ground to use as swords... rehearsing pugilistic movies, before we did it for real...

I stumble through the jungle. What else do I remember?

The bicycles, the candle-lit lanterns during the Mid-Autumn Festivals, and the titbits uncle who used to come at 2pm in his big red van.

Yes, I still remember.

Even now, I reminisce - like how an old woman twice my age would. In Singapore, time seems to travel twice as fast.

The day I left Lim Chu Kang for good... that was surreal.

I was standing there, embracing everything in my home - house, trees, flowers, animals, plants, wind, rain, sunshine...

I could not imagine that the next day, all these would be gone. My carefree life was crumbling all around me and I did not understand why.

We were required to find contractors to bulldoze our own house.

I wasn't there when it happened. But I went back afterwards, once, to look.

I remember sitting in the back of Ah Pa's lorry. The moment I saw our demolished house, my tears flowed faster than the thoughts running through my head and the emotions rushing through me.

The displacement changed me. I retreated into myself.

At my new school in an HDB new town, classmates asked me why I was so quiet.

I joked about it. But deep down, I was sad.

Did they know that the old me used to beat up the boys in Lim Chu Kang?

In my 20s, I left to study in Australia to become a film-maker.

During my honours year, I asked myself: If I could only make one film in my entire life, what would it be about?

There was only one answer: I wanted to go home.

One day, Lim Chu Kang will be filled with farmstays, spas and restaurants.

I was disappointed when I heard of the Government's plans at first. I didn't think it will fit into the soul of the place.

I am not against development.

The new resort is nice. Each air-conditioned villa is modelled after those of a five-star hotel's. They offer room service, housekeeping and wireless Internet connection.

But I wonder too: How will they keep the soul of this place?

Lim Chu Kang was originally a farming village. The community was uprooted and dispersed. Now, more than 20 years later, they want to 'make use' of its 'rustic charm' to develop it like a tourist attraction?

It was heartbreaking for me to hear it.

Do they know that there are old men today who still dream of the rambutan trees in their backyard?

But I have also come to realise, slowly, that the old Lim Chu Kang was well and truly buried long ago.

And I ought to let it go.

Holding on to it will only break my heart.

The kampung girl who beat the odds

This weekend, Yee Peng's critically-acclaimed films on the changing face of Lim Chu Kang will be screened at The Arts House

I ALMOST couldn't recognise Yee Peng when I met her at a coffee joint at City Hall. She looks skinnier now than how she appeared in her films.

Ng Tze Yong, The New Paper 16 Sep 08;

I ALMOST couldn't recognise Yee Peng when I met her at a coffee joint at City Hall. She looks skinnier now than how she appeared in her films.

'8kg,' she said.

That's how much weight she has lost since starting work last March on Diminishing Memories II, a film about the rapid changes in Lim Chu Kang.

It is the sequel to the award-winning 2005 documentary Diminishing Memories I, a poignant tale about her childhood in a Lim Chu Kang kampung. Both films will be screened from 19 Sep to 4 Oct at The Arts House.

It will mark the end of one journey for her, and the beginning of another.

Saddled by guilt, Yee Peng, one of Singapore's most promising young film-makers, has decided she now has to look for a 'real' job.

Diminishing Memories II cost $90,000, from sponsors and her savings. But during the one year it took to make, she had to depend on her parents to support her.

'I don't think that was right,' said the 31-year-old.

Her parents never once complained. 'But that made me feel even more guilty,' she said.

She hopes now to look for a full-time job in video-editing and pursue film-making on the side.

'It's not that I lost my passion. But I do not want to pursue it at the expense of my family,' she said.

Her pursuit of her dream was a journey of ups and downs, and one that has taken her 15 years.

When she was 16, Yee Peng applied unsuccessfully to pursue film studies at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. She had discovered her passion late and didn't have the necessary qualifications, so Yee Peng enrolled in business studies instead.

'But every time I saw the film students walking around campus with their video cameras, I couldn't take my eyes off them,' she said.

Determined to equip herself with the right skills, she immersed herself in television production courses during her school holidays. After graduation, she joined MediaCorp to learn the ropes, eventually rising to become a studio director and assistant producer.

After five years of working, Yee Peng applied to take communication studies at Nanyang Technological University, thinking that she had accumulated the relevant experience.

'But I didn't get a reply, so after a while, I called them and they told me I wasn't even qualified to apply,' she said. She found out her application was not even processed.

'I was angry and disappointed,' she said. 'I had the passion, but why was there no opportunity?'

Still, Yee Peng did not give up. Using almost all her savings of $40,000, she went to pursue film studies at Griffith University in Australia.

Three years later, in 2005, she topped her faculty and returned with first-class honours.

Diminishing Memories I was her honours-year thesis project, which won her several film festival awards. Its sequel brought her a different sort of reward - closure. For 10 days after its completion, Yee Peng found herself breaking into tears uncontrollably at various times.

'I was crying as if I was at a funeral,' she said. 'I gave myself a fright.'

She hopes her films will show future generations that there is 'a price for Singapore's prosperity'.

'There were people who paid the price,' said Yee Peng, 'and I want them to appreciate it.'

Her mother, 61-year-old housewife Poh Ah Hua, is relieved about her daughter's decision to get a full-time job. 'The audience sees her work. But I am her mother, and I see her hardship,' said Madam Poh.

Yee Peng's publicist, Miss Dorothy Ng, thinks it would be a pity.

'There are not many independent film-makers in Singapore who can make heritage films in Mandarin and reach out to the people who actually lived through the experiences,' she said.

Yee Peng herself is sad and frustrated. She talks fondly of Australia, where there is greater interest in the arts. Why not emigrate?

'I feel for this land,' she said. Then, she paused.

'You know, it's hard to know what I mean if you have never lived in a kampung,' she continues.

'Growing up in a kampung, my bare feet walked, jumped and ran on the soil beneath me. I played in the rain. I heard it on the zinc roof, I smelled it and touched it. I felt at one with the environment.

'In a flat, I think you cannot feel the same kind of attachment to the soil and to the land.

'I wonder if that's why people leave.'

FYI

Tickets are available at The Arts House Box Office or from www.theartshouse.com.sg.

For information on the films, visit diminishingmemories.spaces.live.com