When you turn off the busy Yio Chu Kang Road in northeast Singapore and follow the long winding road of about 300m, you will find a time capsule.
Located there, on three hectares of green land, is Kampong Lorong Buangkok, Singapore’s last surviving village, where remnants of 1960s life can still be seen.
There are no skyscrapers in Singapore.
Instead, there are bungalows that look like old-fashioned postcards.
Kampung-which in Malay means” village ” – is a rural oasis in a city-state synonymous with its urban life.
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There are about 25 single-storey wooden houses with tin roofs scattered around surau.
Plants that previously covered Singapore, before the construction with massive concrete, such as ketapang, grew freely.
Nearby, power lines hang overhead, a rare sight as most power lines in Singapore are now underground.
Elderly residents sit on their porches and choirs of chirping crickets and crowing chickens – sounds of a bygone era – remove the noise pollution of the city and provide soothing rural music.
The rural landscape is not what usually comes to most people’s minds when they think of Singapore today.
Instead, what is remembered is the boat-shaped Marina Bay Sands Tower, the towering building or the colorful and futuristic Gardens by the Bay.
Singaporesource image,Getty Images
Image caption,the rural landscape is not what usually comes to most people’s minds when they think of Singapore today.
However, until the early 1970s, villages such as Lorong Buangkok were ubiquitous throughout Singapore. Researchers from the National University of Singapore estimate there are as many as 220 villages scattered there.
Today, although little remains of the surrounding islands, Lorong Buangkok is the last village on the mainland.
Rapid urbanization
As a young country with international aspirations, Singapore urbanized rapidly in the 1980s and quickly transitioned from an agricultural economy to an industrial one.
Overcrowded shophouses were replaced with high-rise flats and sprawling skyscrapers, ushering in the so-called “Expressway era” with small streets replaced by multi-lane highways across the country.
With land prices at a premium on the island, rural villages had to budge.
Hundreds of traditional villages were bulldozed, native crops stripped, tracts of land razed and rural Native life destroyed as part of a government-wide resettlement program.
Villagers-some reluctant to give up their precious homes.
Others want to trade rural living for modern toilets and running water.
They were herded into government-built subsidized flats erected on top of their old homes.
Today, more than 80% of Singaporeans live in this building.
Singapore Image Source, Jonathan Chiang/Scint/Getty Images
Singapore experienced rapid urbanization in the 1980s.
With the demolition of the villages came the famous term “village spirit”, used by Singaporeans to describe the culture of friendship, trust and generosity that existed within them.
In the village, residents do not need to lock the door and residents always welcome neighbors, who often stop by unannounced to borrow whatever they need.
This is a way of life that the government is trying to recreate in apartment blocks by increasing the number of communal spaces to encourage social interaction.
In 2017, the Singapore Housing & Development Council partnered with the Singapore University of Technology and design to develop a framework for building urban kampongs, with a high-tech approach of motion sensors and shared Wi-Fi spaces, to foster camaraderie among neighbours.
Lawrence Wong, the then Minister of National Development said one of the goals was to “strengthen the village spirit in our high-rise apartments”.
But communal living is not the only thing to foster this spirit; the environment is also important.
How does the hallway Buangkok survive?
One of the reasons Lorong Buangkok has escaped the fate that befell other villages is because the surrounding area is not as desirable for commercial, industrial and residential development as elsewhere in Singapore-although that is slowly changing.
Formerly the village was surrounded by forest clearings and farms, now flanked by housing and a number of flats.
Another reason became apparent after I met the villagers who rented out some of the houses there: a stubborn woman who held firm to her commitment to preserve Singapore’s only surviving village.
Singapore file photo, AFP Stringer/Getty Images
Sng Mui Hong had lived in the village before Singapore gained independence.
Approaching the age of 70, Sng Mui Hong, has lived almost his entire life in the village.
He was the youngest of four children and he was the only child living in the village.
His late father, a traditional Chinese medicine seller, bought the land in 1956, the same year the village was founded and nine years before Singapore gained independence.
According to local guide Kyanta Yap, who leads tours through the village, most of the land plots are rented out to workers from nearby hospitals and rubber plantations – many of their descendants still live there.
At that time, the monthly rent for each house ranged between S$ 4.50 and S$ 30 (Rp48, 500-Rp323, 000).
Currently, Sng still applies the same tariff to 25 Lorong Buangkok families.
Singapore Image Source, Samantha HuiQi Yow Sng
Image caption,Sng Mui Hong promised his father that he would preserve Lorong Buangkok and not sell his land.
In contrast, renting a room roughly one-tenth the size of a village house, in an adjacent block of government buildings, might cost about 20 times that price.
And houses across the dividing canal can be sold for up to several million Singapore dollars.
Although the village is arguably the most affordable housing in Singapore, no new residents have moved there since the 1990s, and it is unlikely that there will be any new residents in the near future.
As Yap told me: a person generally has to move or die in order for a house to be available and only those with connections to past and present tenants or Sng families can be considered as new residents.
Popular with tourists
Since Singapore came out of lockdown in June, Yap has seen Lorong Buangkok grow in popularity.
Its weekend tours are also in demand among tourists.
It is not surprising because no one can travel and these local tourist attractions “are unique,” he said.
Many also visit alone; the general public, motorcyclists, people who are exercising, and even groups that meet on the Meetup app.
Yap said most came to take a quiet walk in the village and take photos of the rare green oasis located in one of the world’s most populous and most urbanized countries.
Yap added that the isolated and tightly knit community of 25 families living in the village today has become accustomed to curious hikers.
While Lorong Buangkok may be an interesting time capsule for many Singaporeans, it represents something more for Sng.
Singapore Image Source, NurPhoto/Getty Images
Image caption Since Singapore came out of lockdown in June,Lorong Buangkok has grown in popularity.
He recalled how as a child he saw his father use herbs as medicine.
It was from him that Sng took the knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine that he now shares with his neighbors.
The leaves of the henna plant, for example, can be used to relieve open wounds and burns and are also believed to protect against gastrointestinal ulcers.
Nevertheless, Sng knew she was sitting on hot property.
In a country that is sorely lacking in space, many developers are hoping to buy the village.
But no offer was enticing enough for him to retract his promise to his father before he died – to preserve Lorong Buangkok.
As long as he can do something, the land is not for sale.
In 2014, there was a proposal to tear down the village and replace it with a highway, two schools and a public park.
Although the government is still considering the plan, the Minister for National Development, Desmond Lee, stated that “there is no intention to implement this development in the near future”.
Many Singaporeans have voiced their objections to the proposed plan.
Others even pushed for the village to be included as a Unesco World Heritage Site.
However, although the villages were once considered “pathetic” by the Singapore government, there is now a new appreciation for them.