#cemetery monuments Stamford

[southeastasianists]

Once home to the orang lauts, infested with pirates and now a modern residential town, Telok Blangah is steeped in Singapore history.

A new, free guided walking tour, called the My Telok Blangah Heritage Tour, will trace Singapore's 700-year maritime history - from a trading emporium founded by Sang Nila Utama in 1299 to a pirate-infested free port established by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819, and into a modern city today.

The tour will open to members of the public this Saturday (Jul 20) and run from 8.30am to 12.30pm every third weekend of the month.

Taking in an array of national monuments and historical sites, the tour is one of the nine guided tours developed and organised by non-profit organisation My Community.

GOING ON THE TOUR

During the tour, participants will explore the forested Marang Graves at the foot of Mount Faber, and then take a short walk to the Masjid Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim.

The mosque stands on the former site of a royal reception hall established by Temenggong Daeng Ibrahim, most famous for using the orang lauts - or sea people - under his control to harass small ships that frequented the port.

People can also visit Keramat Radin Mas, the shrine of Javanese princess Radin Mas Ayu. Legend has it that Radin Mas Ayu shielded her father from being killed, only to be killed herself.

The eight-stop tour also includes a cemetery, Taoist temple and the Kampong Silat flats, before ending at the Silat Road Sikh Temple, where participants can look forward to a free vegetarian meal and a hot cup of tea.

President and founder of My Community Kwek Li Yong, 29, said: “Telok Blangah is often overshadowed by its neighbours Sentosa and Pasir Panjang. Most people know it as a small, quiet neighbourhood that’s not very exciting or attractive.

“But there are a lot of stories about Singapore’s development as a port city, and the sites selected showcase the different and lesser-known sides of Telok Blangah.”

Volunteers will take 50 participants on the tour, which looks at how Singapore developed through centuries into a port city.

Telok Blangah was home to the Temenggongs - chieftains who established communities and a series of kampongs, including Kampong Bahru and Kampong Radin Mas.

The settlement at Telok Blangah appears in the Sejarah Melayu - the Malay Annuals. It tells the story of Sang Nila Utama, the prince of Palembang who founded the city of Singapura in 1299.

A section of the story tells how Sang Nila Utama threw his crown into the sea off Telok Blangah to quell a fierce storm.

CONSERVING SINGAPORE'S HERITAGE

Mr Sarafian Salleh, 49, who has volunteered with My Community since 2017, said he first chanced upon the Marang Graves when he was researching his own lineage. He met other volunteers while exploring the area and became a volunteer himself.

Mr Sarafian, who is an engineer, said: “After 12 years of research, I found out my great-grandfather was a ship captain and a Bugis trader. He eventually settled in Singapore.”

He encouraged Singaporeans to come on the tour, adding that people will be able to see some historical sites firsthand. For example, tour participants can enter the Royal Johor Mausoleum, which is typically not open to visitors.

The Telok Blangah tour is fully booked until September, and Mr Kwek is encouraged by the response. The organisation is also seeing an influx of millennial volunteers, with about 75 per cent of volunteers aged 40 and younger.

As a millennial himself, Mr Kwek believes the younger generation is beginning to see the importance of conserving Singapore's heritage.

“Every community has a story to tell. If you look at the museums, there are many stories about people with power. I believe younger people want to conserve the stories of the common man," he said.

Mr Kwek is unsure whether the historical sites will be affected by the Greater Southern Waterfront redevelopment plans, but he remains hopeful.

“I always believe that before we undergo any development, a proper assessment of the cultural significance of the site should be conducted," he added.

“This means it should involve every stakeholder, so that we can make a collective assessment of what is important to us.”

Mr Zainal Angus, caretaker of Keramat Radin Mas, said he is ready to welcome visitors of all ages and nationalities to the shrine.

The 69-year-old volunteer said: “I did this not for me. This is not mine and it doesn't belong to me. This belongs to the public.

"I think I look after this better than I look after my own house. Sometimes I don't even mop the floor at home. When I come here, I do all the cleaning. But I don't feel tired, even though now I have lower back pains."

He rides an electric scooter from his rented home in Telok Blangah to the shrine every day to maintain it, and in August 2002, spearheaded the project to build a new hut around the tomb.

Mr Zainal said two or three individuals have approached him about taking over the role, but none of them have stayed on. Despite his age, he is not worried about finding a successor.

"I don't know when I can do this until, but as long as I have the energy ... maybe the spirits will choose the next one."

People who want to register on the tour can go to My Community's eventbrite website.

[lebjaperal]

Last Sunday, I visited Fort Canning Park in Singapore, which is like Rizal Park Luneta for Singapore's residents. One of the things that caught my eye was a pair of Gothic-designed gates that led to Fort Canning Green. I went through one of the gates and saw grass-covered slope of the hill. The green expanse made me want to lie down and rest, maybe even roll down the grass from the Fort Canning Centre to the edge of the park. That was until I saw the walls that surrounded the green. On the walls were numerous tombstones. I later learned through Singapore Infopedia that Fort Canning Green served as a cemetery from 1822 to 1865. Starting out as a small parcel of land on the slopes of Fort Canning Hill, the cemetery was expanded in 1834. (A much earlier cemetery, located near Stamford Raffles' bungalow on Fort Canning Hill, was used from 1819 to 1822.) In 1846, the Gothic-designed gates and wall, which were designed by Charles Edward Faber, were built to enclose the cemetery. Another Gothic-designed structure on the green is the Napier Monument, which is a memorial to James Brooke Napier, the infant son of Singapore's first Law Agent, William Napier. Speaking of infants, a tombstone that grabbed my attention was that of Carl Wilhelm Andreas Albert. This baby, who died when he was only two months old, was born in Manila in November 1854 and died in Singapore in January 1855. The language used on his tombstone was German. When the Fort Canning Cemetery became full in 1865, it was closed down. A new cemetery was opened in Bukit Timah, which was used until 1971. In 1953, it was decided that the Fort Canning Cemetery would be turned into a "Garden of Memory." Some tombstones and statues were transferred to the grounds of the Armenian Church of St. Gregory the Illuminator on Hill Street. There are also some tombstones and statues near the one of the Gothic-designed gates of Fort Canning Cemetery. These, though, came from the much-later Bukit Timah Cemetery. As I strolled around the green, I wondered if those who were having the time of their lives eating, drinking and playing games there actually knew that the grounds they were on were once the abode of the dead. (at Fort Canning Park, Singapore) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjJpc6zv0jM/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[newstfionline]

Here Lies a Graveyard Where ‘East and West Came Together’

By Ian Johnson, NY Times, April 4, 2017

SINGAPORE--In the middle of this island nation of highways and high-rises lies a wrinkle in time: Bukit Brown, one of the world’s largest Chinese cemeteries.

Now neglected and overgrown, it offers an incredible array of tombstones, statues and shrines just four miles north of the downtown’s banks, malls and regional headquarters.

For years, the 213-acre site was a destination for Halloween thrill seekers and bird watchers, a haven of green in an overcrowded land. But in recent years it has become something much more powerful: a pilgrimage site for Singaporeans trying to reconnect with their country’s vanishing past.

That has put Bukit Brown at the center of an important social movement in a country that has rarely tolerated community activism--a battle between the state, which plans to level part of the cemetery, and a group of citizens dedicated to its preservation.

Surprisingly in a culture of relentless modernization, its advocates are scoring some successes in limiting damage to the cemetery and raising consciousness about the island’s colorful history.

Built in 1922, Bukit Brown was the final resting place for about 100,000 Singapore families until it was closed in 1972. Its importance is greater than its relatively recent 50-year history implies because many historic graves were relocated there from other cemeteries that were paved over.

Add in an abandoned cemetery next door for a prominent Chinese clan, and experts estimate that up to 200,000 graves are sprinkled amid the surrounding rain forests, including those of many of Singapore’s most famous citizens.

“You have to think of the cemetery as an amazing historical archive,” said Kenneth Dean, head of the Chinese studies department at the National University of Singapore. “But given how things have developed recently, I have deep concerns about how long it will survive.”

Those worries have to do with this city-state’s insatiable appetite for land. Singapore’s 5.7 million residents live on 277 square miles, a bit less than the area of New York City, but the land has to accommodate more than a municipality’s needs. It must hold the infrastructure of a country, including military bases, landfills, reservoirs, national parks, and one of the world’s busiest airports and harbors.

More than 20 percent of the country is built on reclaimed land, leading its two immediate neighbors, Malaysia and Indonesia, to ban the export of sand to Singapore in order to protect their own land. And with plans calling for Singapore’s population to increase to 6.9 million by 2030, land is at a premium.

Part of the solution has been to look inward. In 2011, the government decided to smooth out a bend in the island’s north-south highway by cutting through Bukit Brown. Soon after, the government announced that within 40 years the rest would be paved over, too.

After watching many of their best-known monuments and neighborhoods leveled over the past decades, Singaporeans began to take action. At their center is an informal group of two dozen volunteers who call themselves “Brownies.” They offer free tours and run a website that details the cemetery’s history and includes testimonials by locals and visitors.

One of the first Brownies was Raymond Goh, 54, a pharmacist who used to lead Halloween tours around the cemetery. (As in many parts of the Chinese cultural world, Singapore is obsessed with ghost stories and ghoulish legends.) After a while, Mr. Goh began to read the inscriptions on the tombstones carefully and was surprised at the antiquity of the graves.

“I noticed a lot of graves looked very old and, in fact, that some were from the time of Raffles,” Mr. Goh said, referring to Singapore’s British colonial founder, Sir Stamford Raffles. “I wondered how come nobody told me this was here?”

When the government’s plans were announced in 2011, Mr. Goh and his brother Charles wondered how to save Bukit Brown. They began training other volunteers, including university professors familiar with the world of academic research, former journalists who help with public relations, and business people who provide community outreach and funding. In other words, it was a cross section of middle-class Singaporeans who felt nostalgic about the lost city of their youth and were eager to better understand their cultural roots.

Brownies have guided me through the site several times over the past few months, and I thought it was indeed a marvel. The lush vegetation made us feel cut off from the thriving modern city, while the tombstones were beautiful in their own right, even without explanations.

Some are like mini-fortresses, guarded by stone Chinese or British lions, or even Sikh soldiers. Others were decorated with Taoist and Confucian images and symbols. Some told of the dead person’s loyalty to a political party or a lost dynasty.

Thanks to the explanations by guides, I began to understand how this city-state was crucial to the British Empire’s Asian holdings.

We surveyed the enormous mausoleum of Ong Sam Leong, a supplier of labor to the Christmas Islands, who died in 1917 and whose grave was relocated here. I also saw the grave of Tan Kim Cheng, who married Anna to the King of Siam, and those of revolutionaries who supported Sun Yat-sen when he was plotting the ultimately successful downfall of China’s last dynasty.

Many of the tombs were decorated with the distinctive tiles used by longtime Chinese immigrants to these regions, while others showed the strong influence of Malayan culture.

In terms of trees and wildlife, Bukit Brown evoked London’s Highgate Cemetery; as a retreat from daily life it felt like Green-Wood in Brooklyn; and as record of one country’s famous people it recalled Père Lachaise in Paris or Buenos Aires’s Cementerio de la Recoleta.

For Professor Dean, these tombstones show the rich links between Southeast Asia and specific regions of China. Under his direction, a team of researchers is entering data from the gravestones into databases, allowing the development of maps showing how clans and villages migrated from coastal China to these faraway shores.

Recently, one of Professor Dean’s projects received government financing. Although officials refused numerous telephone and fax requests for interviews about the cemetery, they seem to be coming around to understanding its importance.

Already, the government has yielded to some of the Brownies’ demands. Originally, 5,000 graves were to be moved, but that number has been reduced to 3,700. And instead of pulverizing the tombstones, they are being cataloged and stored in a warehouse. In addition, the government has set up a heritage-assessment board to review future projects.

This willingness to compromise seems to reflect a broader sentiment in a society that has moved so quickly that people feel rootless and without deep ties to their country. During one walk through the cemetery, I met a Ministry of Defense official who asked that only his first name, Pete, be used because of the sensitivity of his position.

“Our nation is a young one, and we’ve been so focused on the future that we sometimes forget the past,” he said. “Bukit Brown is a huge trove of stories.”

[polchinskimemorials]

Types of Stones Used in #CemeteryMonumentsinNYC

Polchinski Memorials designs cemetery monuments according to client’s choice of stones. This slide discusses the different stones used in making monuments. http://goo.gl/cXdEFW