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![\"Threatened](\"http:\/\/bukitbrown.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/389489_10150663724687837_651982836_12040570_1126925469_n.jpg\")
<\/a>Threatened Landscapes – Bukit Brown (photo Chua Ai Lin)<\/p><\/div>\n
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At the Gardens, you put on a headset; pressed some buttons to listen to a disembodied voice on a guided tour. It\u2019s like calling your bank to cancel the annual credit card charge. Quite impersonal. At Bukit Brown, there are no ticket queues, entry fees or closing hours. You get to pepper some guy – in a sweat-soaked T-shirt with a towel around the neck – with\u00a0 questions about our forgotten past.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Uphill is a breeze with Brownie Peter Pak\u00a0 telling stories of our forgotten pioneers (photo Catherine Lim)<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n The bonus is that you may be invited to join the Brownies at a zhi char <\/i>place after the tour for a get-together makan<\/i>. How much more Singaporean can you get!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The regular Brownie lunch enjoyed with participants of the guided walks (photo Peter Pak)<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n My latest trip came about on National Day 2013<\/a> which was followed by a family viewing of the annual parade and the fly-past. While the vignettes of our forefathers by the guides at Bukit Brown \u2013 especially that of how they arrived by sea<\/a> and spied the shimmering lights of the harbour of \u661f\u6c4c (Isle of Stars) which must have lifted their hopes of a better tomorrow \u2013 touched many a chord; the vain exhortations by the emcees at the waterfront parade to portray the Merlion as a national symbol fell really flat, especially when the mythical creature wasn\u2019t sure if it was a lion or a transgendered mermaid. To me, it was an apt metaphor of our confused national identity. <\/span><\/p>\n Not so the narrative of Bukit Brown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n NDP 2013@Bukit Brown<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n At the official parade, there was an actress masquerading as a samsui woman. As a young boy heading off to school, I have seen scores of these weathered-beaten, hardy red-hat women from southern China squatting and lining the roadside, some of them holding rolled-up cigarettes with their calloused hands in the early hours of dawn at Redhill Road. I can assure you, none of them look like the ruddy faced actress on the national stage! \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The contrast could not be more stark. Listening to the story-tellers at Bukit Brown<\/a> to me would be akin to reading a rich body of literary work by\u00a0 local author\u00a0 Catherine Lim, or the playwright Kuo Pao Kun.\u00a0<\/span>Bukit Brown\u00a0is<\/strong> <\/em>our\u00a0 history; while some of the NDP performances came across like a fleeting piece of newspaper ad or TV commercial. Not quite authentic.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n New Paper coverage<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n The next day, I picked up a copy of The New Paper to read its coverage of the Brownies\u2019 tribute to our country\u2019s early pioneers. On the following page was a piece on the make-up of the hardcore Singaporean. There were the usual comments about the use of Singlish, the tendency to gripe; pressing lift buttons repeatedly and oh dear, even \u2018common resentment towards foreigners.\u2019 The MP for Marine Parade GRC, Tin Pei Ling, mentioned the love for chicken rice, our hardworking nature and the willingness to stay and defend the country during a crisis. Except for the first item, I wouldn\u2019t call that a uniquely Singapore trait.<\/span><\/p>\n There was little mention about our heritage and our forefathers who helped build the place we now call home. On an existentialist level, they seem to be no longer part of the wellspring of our national consciousness – the collective National Soul. Are we in danger of becoming the equivalent in Plato’s Cave, bereft of our true identity, which seems to have been reduced to the image of a buffet of laksa, char kuay teow<\/i> and other hawker\u2019s fare, and a limited lexicon of words such as \u2018kiasu\u2019, \u2018chope\u2019 and \u2018shiok\u2019<\/i>? Surely, being Singaporean is more that that! <\/p>\n Tiles in the rain (Photo: Daniel Tan)<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s unfortunate that for most of us (that includes me); the history of Singapore has been largely bracketed by or reduced to the two Rs \u2013 Raffles and the founding of our Republic. The first is a man in white; or rather a statue in marble white next to the Singapore River, whom most of us don\u2019t really know much about except that his name has been hijacked for a hotel, school, business hub, shopping mall among others, including Singapore Airline\u2019s business class. The second R would be the story of the Men in White,\u00a0 which I bet many of the younger generation would be clueless of who they are or were, with perhaps the exception of our elderly statesman, Lee Kuan Yew. <\/span><\/p>\n There\u2019s a yawning chasm in between the two Rs. We need to fill them with what would be the equivalents of our own versions of Benjamin Franklin, Rockeller, Carnegie, and Edison in the largely blank pages of our own history. Names like Tan Ean Kiam (banker and philanthropist), Lim Kim Seng<\/a> (Justice of the Peace and Teochew leader) and Tan Kim Ching<\/a> (Kapitan Cina and diplomatic consul to Siam, China and Russia)\u00a0 and bring them back into our national consciousness and collective memory. Make it kind of a Lazarus Project with a uniquely Singapore theme. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Tan Kim Cheng (photo: Claire Leow)<\/p><\/div>\n That\u2019s why I feel\u00a0 strongly that Bukit Brown Cemetery is a heritage landmark worth saving for the sake of all Singaporeans \u2013 now and the future. It\u2019s where the national soul resides. It\u2019s a living museum with names that most Singaporeans can readily identify with, such as the bus routes we take to work (Jalan Boon Lay<\/a>); MRT stations (Boon Keng<\/a>); schools we go to (Gan Eng Seng<\/a>) and makan<\/i> places (Joo Chiat<\/a> Place), to name just but a few. There are more than 40 names of streets and places which can be traced back to Bukit Brown.<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s more, I can imagine their descendants mingling among us \u2013 cheek-to-jowl in the MRT and buses; in the queues at NTUC supermarkets; for Toto and 4-D tickets and the char kuay teow <\/i>stall at Hong Lim<\/a> complex.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Our forefathers came from afar across the seas \u2013 many as coolies including my own grandfather \u2013 and caught a glimpse of \u661f\u6c4c and like the biblical story of Abraham, their descendants have multiplied like the \u2018stars\u2019 they imagine to be the bright lights of the future. They chose to come, live, die and be buried here. We owe our presence to them. We need to remember and honour them. The story of Singapore is built on the backs of immigrants, and we should keep on telling their stories unceasingly. More will come because of they have built, what we will build on the foundations they laid. Those newcomers too will catch a glimpse of the shimmering lights of\u00a0\u661f\u6c4c (Isle of Stars) when their planes fly over Changi International Airport. Majullah Singapore!<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n <\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>
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