![\"Darren](\"http:\/\/bukitbrown.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Darren-Koh-2_-Mr.-Foo.jpg\")
<\/a>Darren Koh at the tomb of Chew Geok Leong (photo Mr. Foo)<\/p><\/div>\n
It has been a long time coming, 3 years in gestation but Darren Koh – a pioneer member and solid contributor of the FB group community Singapore Heritage Bukit Brown Cemetery <\/em><\/a>– has finally joined the ranks of Brownies who conduct guided walks. All Things Bukit Brown (atBB) caught up with Darren – whose day job is lecturing\u00a0 on taxation in a tertiary institution – and asks why now and what took him so long?<\/p>\n atBB <\/em><\/strong>: You have been following and contributing to the community online for a number of years, why have you now decided to join the ranks of brownies who conduct guided walks?<\/p>\n Darren<\/em><\/strong> I blame Chew Keng Kiat!\u00a0 Some time ago, we were chatting and I asked him if he recalled when the \u201cbrownies\u201d came into being.\u00a0 He dated the Brownies back to one evening in Sago Lane \u2013 in fact the funeral of Raymond Goh’s father.\u00a0\u00a0 Keng Kiat mentioned there was this group of people at a table at the end of the tentage. I reminded him I was there too – I was sitting with Mil, Su-Min and Vicky at one end. Keng Kiat mentioned that everyone at the table agreed that the Goh brothers could not possibly hunt down tombs and spread the knowledge of Bukit Brown all on their own.\u00a0 Plans for the 8 lane highway \u00a0had just been announced and time was short.\u00a0 That was about when everyone at the table agreed to take on the guiding so that Raymond and Charles <\/a>could focus on the tomb hunting.\u00a0 \u201cTeach us.\u00a0 Let us do this for you.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 And so \u2013 to the memory of Keng Kiat at least, the Brownies were born.\u00a0 Unfortunately for me, my asking when the Brownies was born also pencilled in his memory that I had not guided any walks.\u00a0 Since my conversation with him about that evening, he has often taken the opportunity to ask when I would actually guide.\u00a0 Even as recently as this year’s Chinese New Year dinner, Keng Kiat nudged me again and said “Look around you – everyone at that table so many years ago has gone on to guide. You are the only one who hasn’t. When are you going to do so?”<\/p>\n Truth of the matter was that it was always going to be a matter of time. I was in the midst of getting a new programme running at the university, and that was just soaking up my time.\u00a0 I did not have many people helping me teach then, and I was teaching many of the courses myself.\u00a0 And the courses took place at the weekends.\u00a0 So I really could not go out to the hills as often as everyone did. As you point out, I have been keeping in touch with the Brownies and following the discoveries, the developments, the joys and the lows.\u00a0 But always once removed.\u00a0 I must say, the Brownies were kind enough to include me in many of the offsite events (read \u2013 dinner!, etc) and it was at one event when one of our guests asked if I was a Brownie that I sort of blurted out \u201cNot really \u2013 I have helped out in some walks but have not guided one myself.\u00a0 I do not think I can wear the title until I have done that.\u201d And that I think was when Catherine jumped in an said, \u201cHe’s an Associate Brownie!\u201d So yay!\u00a0 I had a place!<\/p>\n Now that the programme at the university is more settled, I can breathe again, and I was looking to get out of the air-conditioned world, and maybe get more exercise, and do something I like…. I realised why not just guide walks.\u00a0 It ticks all the right boxes \u2013 it’s in the midst of \u00a0nature, it’s out of the artificial world of the office, I will walk a lot, and I will get to do what I like \u2013 tell stories.\u00a0 A perfect fit. And so, after a couple of weekends of doing my homework (i.e. walking the hills, trying to find the tombs, getting lost amongst the stones), I started guiding.<\/p>\n atBB<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Share what has been your experience like so far after 3 guided walks.<\/p>\n Darren <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0It’s been great! Each one has been different: the routing, the tombs we visited and therefore the story that was told was different. And in the last walk, I even had to abort a visit to two tombs and think of rapid replacements as the tombs I had wanted to visit were inaccessible.<\/p>\n It is usually good to have people ask questions \u2013 although sometimes that is scary as you never know which angle they will come from.\u00a0 But the good thing about being a volunteer guide is that I can say \u201cI don’t know \u2013 will have to get back to you on that.\u201d A bit more difficult to say that in my normal classes!<\/p>\n The one thing I am reminded of, is a piece of advice shared with me by a good friend Tony Oldham, whom I got know well while we were travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway.\u00a0 He was an archaeologist and anthropologist, and was also a tour guide in Europe. He said, \u201cNever let a few facts stand in the way of a good story.\u201d\u00a0 Something which I have since learnt is very true:\u00a0 the people who come for the walks are not here for a history lesson, or a degree in decorative arts.\u00a0 The finer details therefore do not exactly matter. \u00a0What matters however, is the story of the person we are calling upon:\u00a0 we bring that person to life when we relate their life and times.\u00a0 Even more so if we can weave a line from the person we are calling upon, to the visitors today.\u00a0 You can see for instance, the change in people when I reveal that we know so much about how Soh Koon Eng died because the daughter of the boy Koon Eng shielded with her body told us the story.\u00a0 Or when they realise the man in the small grave I am talking about was none other than Lee Kuan Yew’s grandfather … All links from the past to the present that they know.<\/p>\n The one regret to date?\u00a0 I wish I had more time to share more with the visitors, but we have 3 hours before we tire.\u00a0 There is only so much we can share in each session.\u00a0 The only problem is when there are certain expectations \u2013 just as Frances Yip will never be allowed to have a concert where she does not sing the theme song from the Bund\/Shanghai Beach, there are certain tombs that visitors ask for.\u00a0 Then you are stuck in who else to call upon with the time you have left in the walk after up have visited those \u201ctop tombs to visit\u201d.\u00a0 I think I will have to be a bit more creative in routing my walks, or just learn to say \u201cNot this time.\u201d<\/p>\n atBB <\/em><\/strong>What would you say is your main interest in Bukit Brown?<\/p>\n atBB<\/em><\/strong> notes: bush bashing does not involve machettes as such, more walking sticks and some Brownies carry a small cutter to help them clear vines.<\/p>\n atBB<\/em><\/strong> Tell us a little something about yourself.<\/p>\n I have been telling stories since I was young \u2013 I even won a school prize and represented the school in a story telling competition when I was in primary school!\u00a0\u00a0 I think the best way to tell an idea is to put it in a story that the listener gets.\u00a0 The question is how the listener gets it:\u00a0 and I have to tailor the story to the listener.<\/p>\n Darren <\/em><\/strong>In many ways, all my past I have been a story-teller: as a lawyer and a chartered accountant who specialises in taxation, I have learnt to use the skill to help in negotiations, in drafting documents, in preparing defence files and in tax audits.\u00a0 Since I switched to academia \u2013 it is all about telling stories again, although this time I tell them to students, in the hope they will learn to tell their own stories themselves.<\/p>\n Having dissected a snake in school, I am not that worried about them.\u00a0 But I do fear cockroaches \u2013 don’t ask me why \u2013 so thank goodness they are not one of the worries i have out in Bukit Brown.<\/p>\n I used to be able to say that I have worked in all the northern continents except where the polar bears roam \u2013 but the bears are now roaming further down south into North America so I will probably have to revise that statement now.<\/p>\n atbb observes :<\/strong> <\/em>As you can tell from his interview, Darren is quite a wit and most diligent, the bonus is\u00a0 he\u00a0 comes with a wealth of knowledge about Chinese culture and temples and is also one of the pioneer membersof the yahoo heritage news group. His next guiding session is at the first regular first weekend guided walks<\/a>, atBB is launching,\u00a0 starting in June on the morning of Saturday 6 June, 2015, so please register here <\/a>if you want to \u201cexperience\u201d him in person.<\/p>\nDarren<\/em><\/strong> It\u2019s \u00a0the transmission of culture and the understanding of history!\u00a0 There is much to be told from the stones: they tell of the person.\u00a0 From the research we get the story to enable us to link the person from the past to what it means today.\u00a0 That is the job of the storyteller \u2013 that’s why I love it when people get the stories!\u00a0 Personally \u2013 I’m not the greatest fan of bush bashing \u2013 the effort undertaken to find the tombs of people.\u00a0 I think my mechanical-pencil hands were not meant for hacking through forests with machettes.\u00a0 But give me the facts, and let me tell the story \u2013 that is my forte.\u00a0 Right now, we need to tell as many as possible the wealth of history and culture that lies in Bukit Brown.<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n