In Your Neighbourhood #3 - Aljunied Oral History 05/10/01
Community.
How do we define it?
In a simplistic way we can describe community as a group of individuals tied together by locality, relationship, and most importantly, a common historical memory.
Hi, welcome to In Your Neighbourhood as we look at a community's attempt to track its past.
Aljunied division of Aljunied Group Representation Constituency is attempting to envision its past through the voices of its elders.
Member of Parliament for Aljunied GRC, Dr Toh See Kiat.
"I have one heritage programme started where I have actually appointed Gerard Hooi in charge of an oral history project. We have some very senior people with us. Anthony here and Steven Teo, they've been through the best and the worse and we are going to interview them and ask them about what life was. Anthony's father, family has been living around here for a long time, and he tells us stories about this place even before the flats are up. And we are going to preserve all that."
Gerard Hooi is the Auditor of Aljunied Division's Citizen Consultative Committee and he shares with me the genesis of the project.
"We were sitting around one day and Dr Toh who's the adviser of the division, together with some senior grassroots leaders, and we were just reminscing about the place, the neighbourhood in Aljunied. So we thought that its a very good idea to try and capture all these stories from all our senior members while they are still around and I think that all of them, you know, as we chat more about this project, got very enthusiastic. "
So the ball is set rolling.
But the momentum must be maintain or for the project to leap from the drawing board into reality.
Gerard elaborates on his mission.
"I have been tasked to basically organised everything to see how we can make this project work. In the mean time, some of us are beginning to talk to people at the National Heritage Board to look into how the National Heritage Board and the Archives department can help us in our project. At this point, I can only say that we have a very sketchy idea but we will be getting into the details very very soon."
For starters, Aljunied heritage community doesn't have to look too far to get its oral history interviewees.
74 year-old Anthony Loh is another elder who's lived and participated in Aljunied grassroots organisations for over half a century.
Mr Loh has strong ties to the land.
"It was formerly a coconut estate and the place where formerly our CC stands was formerly a duck farm. The piece of land belongs to my father and then it was occupied by a professional farmer. The other part of it where Street 21 is concerned, it was a place with a lot of squatters and the coconut trees actually were leased out to those people tapping this toddy. I'm still living in Aljunied division. "
So what is the most significant advances that you have seen, Mr Loh?
"I would say the most advance is modern sanitation. Water, electricity and all this. In those days, all the squatter areas, we don't have electricity. You may have water supply after 1960. After PAP came into power then we have water. Prior to that they were using wells, kerosene lamps and all those things."
Another Aljunied elder is 70 year-old Steven Teo who's also a long-time resident and grassroots leader. He concurs with Mr Loh.
"In the olden days, there no such good design of housing board. Now there are many nice modern models where every place like the neighbourhood park there, we got a park for people to exercise. And all the road widening, the places all different from olden days."
But both the elders say that there is a generation gaps existing presently.
Mr Anthony Loh.
"Well, I would feel that the younger generations are more fortunate, they have come into this world with modern sanitation and everything is up to date you see, unlike the old days of the old generation. I don't think much of them would have appreciate it because they don't understand it you see. They have not gone through the Japanese occupation then they will not understand much about it."
But I pressed him. How does he feel about an oral history project that'll enable people like himself to transmit their life experiences to the Aljunied young?
"AL: Well I think it's good but I think the present generation will not be able to understand what it's all about before, you see. It was quite a generation gap already. CL: But do you think that by recording it, it will actually help to bridge this gap? AL: I think so."
Of course, the Aljunied of today may not be the Aljunied of yesteryear.
It's landscape has changed tremendously, and most of the idyllic scenes describe in the oral history interviews would have been long gone.
But it doesn't stop the area's MP, Associate Professor Toh See Kiat from trying to create an identity for Aljunied.
"In terms of landmarks, I think there's very few landmarks here actually. It's been a rural area, we don't preserve, maybe we should have but we don't preserve the attap hut or whatever. So I don't think that there's any landmarks that we can preserve but we would create a landmark. To just give you a hint, when Keng Kiat ask me to tell you about a community sculpture, it is a heritage landmark. We intend to make it a heritage landmark."
Let's hope the Aljunied oral history projects do take off.
Wisdom is too valuable a commodity to waste.
For Newsradio 938, I'm Chong Ching Liang.
Related websites:
Newsradio938
http://newsradio.mediacorpradio.com/
How do we define it?
In a simplistic way we can describe community as a group of individuals tied together by locality, relationship, and most importantly, a common historical memory.
Hi, welcome to In Your Neighbourhood as we look at a community's attempt to track its past.
Aljunied division of Aljunied Group Representation Constituency is attempting to envision its past through the voices of its elders.
Member of Parliament for Aljunied GRC, Dr Toh See Kiat.
"I have one heritage programme started where I have actually appointed Gerard Hooi in charge of an oral history project. We have some very senior people with us. Anthony here and Steven Teo, they've been through the best and the worse and we are going to interview them and ask them about what life was. Anthony's father, family has been living around here for a long time, and he tells us stories about this place even before the flats are up. And we are going to preserve all that."
Gerard Hooi is the Auditor of Aljunied Division's Citizen Consultative Committee and he shares with me the genesis of the project.
"We were sitting around one day and Dr Toh who's the adviser of the division, together with some senior grassroots leaders, and we were just reminscing about the place, the neighbourhood in Aljunied. So we thought that its a very good idea to try and capture all these stories from all our senior members while they are still around and I think that all of them, you know, as we chat more about this project, got very enthusiastic. "
So the ball is set rolling.
But the momentum must be maintain or for the project to leap from the drawing board into reality.
Gerard elaborates on his mission.
"I have been tasked to basically organised everything to see how we can make this project work. In the mean time, some of us are beginning to talk to people at the National Heritage Board to look into how the National Heritage Board and the Archives department can help us in our project. At this point, I can only say that we have a very sketchy idea but we will be getting into the details very very soon."
For starters, Aljunied heritage community doesn't have to look too far to get its oral history interviewees.
74 year-old Anthony Loh is another elder who's lived and participated in Aljunied grassroots organisations for over half a century.
Mr Loh has strong ties to the land.
"It was formerly a coconut estate and the place where formerly our CC stands was formerly a duck farm. The piece of land belongs to my father and then it was occupied by a professional farmer. The other part of it where Street 21 is concerned, it was a place with a lot of squatters and the coconut trees actually were leased out to those people tapping this toddy. I'm still living in Aljunied division. "
So what is the most significant advances that you have seen, Mr Loh?
"I would say the most advance is modern sanitation. Water, electricity and all this. In those days, all the squatter areas, we don't have electricity. You may have water supply after 1960. After PAP came into power then we have water. Prior to that they were using wells, kerosene lamps and all those things."
Another Aljunied elder is 70 year-old Steven Teo who's also a long-time resident and grassroots leader. He concurs with Mr Loh.
"In the olden days, there no such good design of housing board. Now there are many nice modern models where every place like the neighbourhood park there, we got a park for people to exercise. And all the road widening, the places all different from olden days."
But both the elders say that there is a generation gaps existing presently.
Mr Anthony Loh.
"Well, I would feel that the younger generations are more fortunate, they have come into this world with modern sanitation and everything is up to date you see, unlike the old days of the old generation. I don't think much of them would have appreciate it because they don't understand it you see. They have not gone through the Japanese occupation then they will not understand much about it."
But I pressed him. How does he feel about an oral history project that'll enable people like himself to transmit their life experiences to the Aljunied young?
"AL: Well I think it's good but I think the present generation will not be able to understand what it's all about before, you see. It was quite a generation gap already. CL: But do you think that by recording it, it will actually help to bridge this gap? AL: I think so."
Of course, the Aljunied of today may not be the Aljunied of yesteryear.
It's landscape has changed tremendously, and most of the idyllic scenes describe in the oral history interviews would have been long gone.
But it doesn't stop the area's MP, Associate Professor Toh See Kiat from trying to create an identity for Aljunied.
"In terms of landmarks, I think there's very few landmarks here actually. It's been a rural area, we don't preserve, maybe we should have but we don't preserve the attap hut or whatever. So I don't think that there's any landmarks that we can preserve but we would create a landmark. To just give you a hint, when Keng Kiat ask me to tell you about a community sculpture, it is a heritage landmark. We intend to make it a heritage landmark."
Let's hope the Aljunied oral history projects do take off.
Wisdom is too valuable a commodity to waste.
For Newsradio 938, I'm Chong Ching Liang.
Related websites:
Newsradio938
http://newsradio.mediacorpradio.com/
posted by CHONG Ching-liang | 5:43 PM
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