Memories of Bukit Panjang by Lai Tuck Chong

Singapore sheds its old skin ever so often, but I think one place that has changed the most in recent years has to be Bukit Panjang. I studied in that area from the mid-70s onwards. It was happenchance that I ended up there. I had secured a place in a very good school in the East, but because I had moved up North, going to that school became an impossibility, so my family did the next best thing: they found me a place in an English-speaking mission school nearby. Back then, I had to pass by Bukit Panjang everyday to get home. A few of my classmates also naturally came from that area. Chye Khiang for instance, lived in a Chinese kampong up Jalan Cheng Hwa. I met him there once in the early morning. As the sun was not fully up yet, sleepy mist was still loitering around the houses. It gave the place a pretty, ethereal look. I still remember Chye Khiang's slight frame and toothsome smile as he walked down from his kampong. He laughed easily and was a nice pal to have. He and I were in the same NPCC uniform group, as was Boon Hong, whose family owned a timber and paint business in one of the shophouse rows some distance away. This 10-mile stretch of Upper Bukit Timah Road called Bukit Panjang must have been like the last civilisation outpost in Singapore's ulu North before people headed up to Johor Bahru. That's what it felt like for me when I moved up to Marsiling. I still remember that day very clearly, seated at the back of the lorry that helped ferry my family's belongings and furniture to our new abode. The feeling was the same as travelling through Malaysia in the 80s, when small towns mattered and before shopping centres reared their tall ignominious heads. Little did I know then that I would soon get to know this place quite intimately. Boon Hong father's shop was in the last section of a long row of shophouses farthest from Jalan Cheng Hwa. His family did not live there but in a zinc-roofed house not far from Hillview Road entrance. This place was for a long time recognisable for one entity that stood the test of time - a Standard Chartered Bank branch. Unlike modern banks, this one was smallish and approachable. I remember coming here to deposit a large sum of money - workers' wages, to be precise - some $25k or so, when I first started work. It was probably the biggest sum of money I've ever 'kiap' under my armpit so no one would snatch it away! Outside this bank was a very popular bus-stop that served many bus numbers - buses that came from town and heading to Bukit Panjang, Choa Chu Kang, Lim Chu Kang and Woodlands. Residents in Hillview estate alighted here to walk that short distance back to their flats. Classmate Maria Tan, an all-Chinese girl with surprisingly dark skin but a perpetually sunny disposition, lived in one of these HDB flats, now demolished. Her family ran a fruit business nearby in Princess Elizabeth Estate. When visiting Maria, we often climbed the hill behind where she lived. We found out soon enough why the place was called Hillview! Some time later, a large defence camp was built and part of this hill area was cordoned off. Red signs with a picture of a man shooting a rifle warned people to stay away. The shops along Bukit Panjang were two-storey types, the kind you would find in the oldest parts of Singapore. After school, me and my classmates would sometimes wander along the 5-foot ways. I liked looking at watches and a watch shop there was a favourite haunt. Another shop that fascinated was one that sold record players and styluses - the needle points that read the vinyl grooves. A good, sensitive stylus would cost a lot of money. I believed the top brand then was Shure. Over at the opposite side of the road, in a shophouse, was a shoe shop that I also frequented to buy my school canvas shoes. This shop was situated near an overhead bridge after Lor Ah Thia. Classmate Sujianto, an Indonesian, often took a shortcut through this lorong to his home in Phoenix Garden, a bungalow estate. His family seemed pretty well off. If there was a new digital Casio watch, he would be the first to wear it. Sujianto and I got along. He was smart and good in Math. He had also a keen interest in badminton (his countryman Rudy Hartono was King then). But he was not very athletic. I think his pampered upbringing had something to do with that. In person, he was fair and soft spoken and walked with a hunch. Sujianto seemed more mature than the rest of us though. I often got the feeling that our school was just a temporary stop for him. He was not alone in that regard as there were others like him. Quite a few of my schoolmates were from JB. They told me that our school was the only decent English medium one nearest the Causeway and that most of them had plans to leave for overseas study once they complete their O-levels. Eventually, quite a few did leave. Kok Keong was a Malaysian like them. He was another good friend of mine and an active scout. After his O-levels, he went to the UK to further his studies. He was the one I gave my tube of kuti-kuti collection to as a token of our good friendship. Sadly, we lost touch of each other and last I heard, he had gotten into bad company and drugs. A senior of his, Kam Loong, whose sister was my sister's classmate, was the same. Sent to the UK to study, he instead partied and loitered. His parents threatened to cut him off after learning that he had spent a fortune there with no good results to show for. It's a pity. Kam Loong was quite the orator and was a good inter-school debater. School debate competitions were a big thing then in the 70s and 80s. He was someone I had looked up to. In any case, news of what happened to them were mostly 2nd-hand information. Until I hear from them proper, I'll treat such info as heresay. The changes that has happened to Bukit Panjang are plenty. First, the junction that connects Woodlands Road and Choa Chu Kang Road used to be a circus. I would know because I drove to school when I was 14 and that circus was my first roundabout. There was a police station where Ten Mile Junction shopping centre now stands. Behind it was Bukit Panjang English School, a quaint little primary school housed in a brick and teakwood building. It was painted in shades of natural green. Across the road from this school was a post office that was converted from a childcare clinic. Beside this, a windowless Telecom switch building that looked like a solid block of concrete (they were always like that). A narrow metal track road ran between these two buildings. Before the BKE was built, we NS men used to start one topo exercise from this spot. We would then hike across vast farmlands all the way to Sembawang, near where the former Seletaris mineral water processing plant was. It's quite the distance. Stray dogs were plenty as well as treacherous ponds. We often kept to the tracks for safety. And clutching map and compass, would plod on from one farm to the next. That Seletaris factory later became a Coca-Cola bottling plant. It was situated previously along a now defunct road called Jalan Ulu Sembawang. This snaked from the main road near Chong Pang Village into farmland and kampong. Folks often traveled on this back road to search out a no-signboard restaurant. Over the years, Bukit Panjang town started to show its age when traffic increased and kampongs got cleared. It was irrevocably changed when a few rows of its shophouses were demolished in 2005 to make way for an up-market condominium. This condo looks like one of the many steel and green-glass ones along Paterson Road. Why it was built in ulu Bukit Panjang town and so close to the main road left me scratching my head. Maybe the developers knew something I didn't. The answer became apparent in the last three years when much more development occurred around it, turning the place into a mini Hong Kong condo city. The first condos in Bukit Panjang sprang up in Diary Farm near Hillview. High rises in Cashew Road soon followed in the early 90s. The areas near Diary Farm were mostly wild nature back then. Its boundary linked Chestnut Drive which besides having a private bungalow estate (some fancy units there) it was also home to a few tobacco leaf farms. That place became a popular cross-country route for my school. We often joked about making cigars out of those leaves but we never did. I often joined my school's scouts (Kok Kiong's troop) on hikes around the area and would end up munching on wild pink jambu fruits. That area is vast and runs all the way to Bukit Timah Hill. If you knew your way, you could hike past a quarry to its base at Hindhede Road. Hindhede Road itself was home to a well-ordered Chinese Kampong that stood on a network of canals. The houses were zinc-roofed and slated and puntuated with glass louvre windows. Classmate Ser Yang and his brother Sze Heng lived there. Ser Yang was a very good table tennis player and he taught me not a few tricks, including how to top-spin. Sze Heng was more the ladies' man. One was in NPCC while the other joined the Red Cross. Bukit Panjang New Town sprang up at a time when I was busy with my career so I didn't see it evolve. I didn't like the place much because the area was low and the flats were close to one another. Come May, it felt warm and stuffy living there. For years it was as isolated as nearby Jalan Teck Whye HDB estate, until the LRT was built. That gave birth to Ten Mile Junction station and shopping centre. Naturally, the police station that was there made way, as did that quaint primary school. Now, if you visit Bukit Panjang town, you will be greeted with more construction and road works. A future MRT station will open there. You can still catch glimpses of the old town if you look hard enough. Boon Hong father's shophouse row is still there, the last surving stretch. An iconic clan association building is not lost and sits not far across the road. A restaurant there is famous for its crab tanghoon (if it has not moved). The areas around Lor Ah Thia has long been demolished and grassified. It was home to a kampong and one time whilst on my way to buy shoes I recall seeing a Chinese wayang set up near its entrance. It must have been Hungry Ghost month. With so many physical changes to the town these days, I doubt even the ghosts of yesteryear will recognise the place. Like me, they will wander and wonder to find familiar landmarks of an era now slipped quite permanently into the past.