Lemas Semangat

A photo essay by Ila Ila

Chapter One: mulut ke mulut

On our way with my partner to visit my new HDB flat that was nearing its completion, the Grab driver squealed in excitement as we made the turn into Jalan Bahagia, which translates to Happiness Street.

Wow I grew up here you know, from a baby until I was 18 years old. Used to play football there with my friends every day until close to evening and my mother will be shouting my name from across the field, asking me to come home!  

He took a right into Jalan Tenteram which translates to Peace Street, a place we had never heard of until now. My partner and I had arrived at that time in every heteronormative's couple life, which was to purchase a home from the Housing Development Board (HDB). That was the flat we were about to visit for the first time, and which will be ‘ours’ but will also leave us in debt big enough for us to work hard and be productive citizens. Since I am from the west and my partner is from the east, we settled for a central location; somewhere in Whampoa, located between two expressways and flanked between Balestier, Toa Payoh and Potong Pasir and Boon Keng.

Oh, you moving here? This place is good! You will love it. Of course no MRT but it's OK you will get used to it. Yes, these blocks right here have been around since the 70s. And over there, you'll see those like bungalow houses, that's the first kinds of HDB flats. Back then it was SIT[1]…you know?

Anyway, last time over here there used to be a shrine you know…Ah, of a Malay woman. Her name is Siti Subaida. Many people would go visit her but no-one really know her story. This shrine is very special too. You know why? Because she is a woman? Yes, yes but also because there was a Hindu temple and a Tua Peh Kong built next to hers. Ah, basically like racial harmony but more religion harmony! What happened to it? Oh, I am not sure. They just removed it when they were building those flats right there. This shrine very strong magic one, but not strong enough to beat the system…

And so began my search for the whereabouts of Siti Subaida and the powers she possessed. Who is she and where is she now? A simple search online left me with nothing much to go on. Just one article in the Berita Minggu published on the 31 March 1981 by Ahmad Mohd Don, with the headline 'Makam Siti Subaida yg penuh misteri' (The Shrine of Siti Subaida is full of mystery). According to the shrine's caretaker, Mr Robert, futile attempts were made to move the shrine, to make space for a new road. But it refused to be moved. The contractors tried to destroy the shrine, but they were unable to. They resorted to building a curved road that goes around the shrine.

The article mentioned that the shrine was located at the end of Jalan Tenteram, near Kim Keat Road. I’ve walked down this road many times a day during my commute. The roundabout makes no sense on a stretch of road that's never busy enough to require this design. In the middle is an open field with a path that makes it easy to cut across. The badly digitised picture attached at the end of the article shows a makeshift shelter where a hand-drawn sign at the entrance reads: 'No Smoking, No Footwear, No Pork Meat Allowed.' None of the caretakers knew much about Siti Subaida either, and one claimed that she was moved to this location from elsewhere. Even her origins are contested by multiple narratives. On certain nights, there is a fleeting fragrance in the air, a certain smell of wet flowers, wafting like whispers. I try to locate where the shrine may have been, between Peace and Happiness, standing in the middle of an empty field, but I too have no way of knowing for sure.

‘You know, it starts off and particularly with those who like to put money on horse and numbers. They go to a tree and the word spreads around that if you go and pray by that tree and offer penance, you will be a rich man. And after a while, candlesticks appear. Then a tablet appears; then a table appears; then a roof is put over it. And ultimately, we get permanent building, right in the middle of a circus or at an important junction. I am not against anybody wanting to seek solace from spiritual sources. If anyone can get spiritual comfort or psychological release by either striking the four-digit numbers or praying to the Infinite, I say “Good luck to him!”

Well, the shrine can go to wherever you can find another place to put it. But it is not possible for us to allow a structure to gradually assume larger and larger proportions right in the middle of General Hospital where the sick go. It is not within my dispensation to take public property and say, ‘Here, I give it to your particular sect of devotees.’ It cannot be done. You know, Moulmein Circus opposite Tan Tock Seng Hospital? There is a big tree and a big shrine appeared there. The shrine then disappeared. Then it reappeared and now again, it has had to go. Now, if you go there you will find a nice plot of luscious green grass – as it should be – for everybody.’

– Transcript of a speech made by then Prime Minister Mr. Lee Kuan Yew (31 October 1965) with regards to the removal of Bhai Maharaj Singh Memorial Shrine from the grounds of the Singapore General Hospital[2].

And that was the end of it. She remains, full of mystery and filled with nothing. Her only power is that she has survived this long. I could not find anything else and my search led me nowhere, except for the coincidental mulut ke mulut[3] encounters that have kept her alive all these years. Oral history is a slippery record, especially in a city that is never still, building itself over and over again, layer upon layer, bigger, faster, better. Most of these narratives remain unwritten or cannot be written when the physical spaces they inhabit have long been written off. Spoken words are vapour trails in a city that is known for its rapid progress; mere whispers against the loudness of the dominant and permissible narrative. But the quality of the whisper forces one to lean in closer and listen for the clarity that may have been compromised. Mulut ke mulut, bisik-bisik, suspended in a stillness that keeps on resisting.

Chapter two: tuhan//hantu

The word semangat, which is often mistranslated as a soul of a living thing, seems to have no fitting English equivalent to truly describe or capture its polymorphous qualities. A soul, yes, but it’s also a kind of energy, a life source, a force that can strengthen when multiplied, or weaken in despair. It is a traditional Malay belief, one which has been lost to or replaced by Islam, that semangat is the size of a human thumb, appearing as a miniature version of the body that acts as a sarung (or casing), in which it inhabits. It was believed that at the time of death, semangat usually passes into another living being. As such, hantu, which is Malay for ghosts or spirits, are believed to be bodiless semangat that linger – trapped in their forms searching for places to inhabit, searching for homes.

There is semangat in all living beings: trees, rocks, and even the sea. If the force is powerful, it attracts other living beings and pulsates in a sort of collective dreaming that protects, guides, and gives in abundance in exchange for gratitude and devotion. In exchange for perpetuity in existence. It was your force that brought us here to your shores and it is this same force now that is splintered, across the present, inhabiting these shrines, keramats, and other sacred beings, into myths that carries with it the same pulse; to protect, guide, and give even though our dreams may not be the same and we may not be as deserving.

Perhaps one can speculate that the Singapore Stone – marked by indecipherable writings – was the earliest known keramat. Described as a rude mass, with rude writings and decorated with flags and offerings, it was blown to pieces to clear and widen the passageway at the Singapore River mouth to make space for 'Fort Fullerton and the quarters of its commander.' [4] Making space, for those in power. This is probably the first known destruction of a keramat too, carried out with no remorse, no fear and no heartbreak, shaping the conditions for future destruction of sacred sites.

But there's always dolat, some cosmic consequence that is deserving of such an act. It is said that once the stone was destroyed, the river became choked with silt. But dolat is never enough of a deterrence. The silted mouth of the river did not stop other ships from coming into the port; it is but only the last fighting breath. Accounts of toppling bulldozers[5] that would not start, or the tree[6] that bleeds when it is being cut…these have become synonymous with the strong magic of these sites and the beings that inhabit them. One can't help but wonder what other dolat early migrants and settlers may have encountered when they began to make space on this island?

The worship of earth gods is a common ancient practice amongst Chinese communities and[7] when land is used in some way, for example to build upon, or to plant, or mine, an altar, mostly in the form of a humble shrine, or even just a pile of stones, is set up on the site so that the local earth god may be prayed to for permission, seeking the god’s blessing to exploit the land and for protection. The Datuk Gong, a syncretic Rock Star God, sits as guardians and protectors across the Southeast Asian region. Here in Singapore, and in Malaysia and Indonesia, this notion was conceived from various beliefs; merging of the Chinese earth deity, Tu Di Gong, together with keramat worship of Datuks, and mortal humans who either have a high standing in society or possess special attributes such as being a medium to spirit realms. One too may place a Datuk Gong outside their houses in the hopes for luck and protection, but is told to never at all costs, invite them in.

hantuhantuhantuhantuhan, hantu. tuhan.

Because a god was once a ghost and

still a ghost that was once

a god and they wait and wait, and wait on you

tunggu,

penunggu,

penunggu rumah

penunggu yang tak berumah,

di luar, tunggu hantu,

si datang pun datang

dan si tunggu pun tunggu

tak bertuhan dan tuhan

yang berhantu.

Chapter three: Beringin

As darkness falls, it is as if a second map, a ghostly historical topography, appears on top of the familiar one, a radical disjuncture of memory and topography that is violently, temporarily conflated within the hyper-controlled surfaces of the contemporary city. The new landscapes are thus infiltrated by the ghosts of history, by familiar entreaties for memory within the unending flood of the new.

 – Joshua Comaroff, Ghostly Topographies: Landscape and Biopower in Modern Singapore[8] 

The word ‘reclamation’ is derived from an old French word from the fourteenth century, ‘reclamer’, which means to call upon, invoke, to call back. It also sees its origins from the Latin word ‘reclamare’, which means to cry out against, contradict, appeal, and protest. Somewhere in the mid-sixteenth century, the word evolved to mean 'bring waste land into useful condition fit for cultivation'; this attested to also mean 'subdue' or 'taming for use'.

Reclaim as a verb (with object):
to bring (uncultivated areas or wasteland) into a condition for cultivation or other use.
to tame.
to claim and essentially to possess as own.

Reclaim as a verb (without object):
to protest
to object

At present, 22 percent of Singapore's land mass is made up of reclaimed land. In 1886, a small hill located at Battery Road was levelled and filled into the marshes to allow for more stable ground, and which does not allow for flooding. The area, which is present day Boat Quay, was the first record of land reclamation, a crescent-shaped border fit for ships and other maritime activities. Fit for use. For the nation to be built, the island had to grow and so it did for the next hundred or so years – it appears that largeness in a land-scarce city is of utmost importance. Bigger is always better.

Through reclamation, the island's borders grew from its other parts, flattened and stretched until it too became thin and transparent, the lucent island, the ghost island that is forgetful, that is forgotten. To be a land-scarce city is to have all land marked out, accounted for, and regulated. The Land Acquisition Act expedited the process of land possession by the government for public purposes. With an increase in acquired land parcels, the government became the biggest landowner by 1985. At the time, the government owned 76.2 percent of the land in Singapore compared with 31 percent in 1949[9]. Today, 90 percent of that land is publicly owned; this means it is owned by the government for public purposes. In the name of the public's good.

And here we return full circle; my partner and I, new flat owners on Jalan Tenteram with a lease arrangement made less ridiculous because land is so expensive that this is the only choice that makes the most financial sense. The public too, much like the reclaimed city, has been shaped and tamed into submission. One catches whispers of burning kampungs and people forced out of their homes, out of their land and elevated into dreams 12 storeys from the ground. Tanah, too soft or insufficient at times to hold this promise, required us, the public, to steal buy land elsewhere in the form of sand[10]. The promise of a better future is always amplified; it is hard to hear anything else. To know anything else. As the city-state builds higher and higher, 30, 40 floors above ground to contain this growth, the land itself has grown stranger and far away. Lemah dolat, lemas semangat.

In an article[11] written in 1987 in Berita Harian, the residents of the demolished kampung in Kallang describe a force that keeps attracting them to revisit their old living grounds. Many have been moved to newly built HDB flats, in the New Towns of Jurong, Tampines, and Marine Parade, yet the distance did not deter their return. These residents would gather near the keramat site of another elusive figure, Siti Maryam, whose shrine sits under the Pokok Beringin, a Banyan tree, with 60 other gravesites, some of whom were her family members. Siti Maryam was said to possess healing powers, the protector of coastal communities and bringer of good fortune. Her family was also said to have spread the teachings of Islam to the Orang Kallang[12], one of the indigenous inhabitants of Singapore. Layer upon layer upon layer, always with no way of tracing the source but somehow it almost always results in a painfully predictable end. Her shrine and the other graves were exhumed and removed in 2010.

There are the same geographical patterns too, to these shrines and sites. Trees, elevated grounds such as hills and mounds or bodies of water seem to be recurring markers and companions to these sites. Maybe this is where the semangat saturates and gathers. I wonder if the residents of Kallang still feel this draw given that the shrine and the tree are no longer there in their physical form. Consider the manifold loss; starting from the land itself, the shrine and the tree, the residents and custodians, Siti Maryam and her history and the Orang Kallang and theirs. Multiply that to all the others which have been whittled down to strands and dead ends that snag against the thinly stretched skin of this ghost island. We can see through these layers sometimes.

The protests (of the dead, the dying dead, the uninvited hantu and the adopted tuhan, the trees that bled enough to break machines, the silted river, the tired hands of custodians picking leaves from tanah that is not allowed to have roots, the strong magic, semangat that's splintered across, that breathes from mulut ke mulut, bisik-bisik) are mere echoes. But who is left listening? How do we perceive what we can hear?

I find myself thinking of the residents of that kampung and their beringin tree. The word ‘ingin’ attached to the tree, as though it bears our dreams and desires. Maybe it is this that endures, beneath all these layers; it is this that remains incessant and sustained through time. The pulsating force of the collective dreaming, from the dreams and desires which the city demands of its people but does not want to is not able to provide. That's how some of these spaces have survived this long. There is loss and pain in the dreaming but there is refusal in accepting these feelings of heartache. Maybe there is a desire for us to gather and remember, to kuatkan semangat, and grieve.

Ila Ila is a visual and performance artist whose intimate works incorporate objects, moving images and live performance to generate discussion about gender, history and identity, and shed light on communities on the social periphery.

References

[1] Developed in the 1930s by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), it’s a predecessor of the Housing Development Board (HDB) exists as one of the oldest public estates in Singapore; see: Yeo Sam Jo, ‘Life Before HDB: What was the Singapore Improvement Trust?’, 24 December 2017, https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/housing/life-before-hdb-what-was-the-singapore-improvement-trust

[2] ‘Transcript of a speech made by the Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, at a tea party held in connection with Gurgadhi Day in the People’s Association at Kallang’, 31 October 1965, https://www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/data/pdfdoc/lky19651031.pdf

[3] ‘Mulut ke mulut’ is taken from the same article, ‘The shrine of Siti Subaida is full of mystery’, Berita Minggu, 31 March 1981, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/beritaharian19850331-1.2.14.1

[4] Crawfurd, John (1967). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Courts of Siam and Cochin China; Exhibiting a View of the Actual State of Those Kingdoms. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. pp. 45–46.

[5] Bonny Tan, Marsita Omar, ‘Keramat Habib Noh’, 19 August 2016, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1573_2009-09-25.html; ‘God Tree in Toa Payoh, Singapore’, 24 June 2019, https://thoughtmoments.me/2019/06/24/god-tree-in-toa-payoh-singapore/

[6] ‘The Last Rubber Tree’, 17 April 2014, https://thelongnwindingroad.wordpress.com/2014/04/17/the-last-rubber-tree/; ‘Last Post Standing’, 16 July 2012, https://thelongnwindingroad.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/last-post-standing/

[7] Zheng Z.M. [郑志明] (2004) ‘Kejia Shehui Dabogong Xinyang Zai Dongnanya de Fazhan’, [‘客家社会大伯公信仰在东南亚的发展’ ‘Development of Grand Uncle belief of Hakka communities of Southeast Asia’], Quanzhou: Huaoqiao Daxue Xuebao – Ke Xue Shi Hui Ke Xue Ban [泉州: 华侨大学学报 – 哲学社会科学版 Journal of Huaqiao University – Philosophy & Social Sciences], 1: 64-7

[8] Joshua Comaroff, ‘Ghostly topographies: landscape and biopower in modern Singapore’, Cultural Geographies, Vol. 14, No.1 (January 2007), pp. 56-73, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44243681

[9] ‘Land Acquisition Act is Enforced’, 17 June 1967, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/history/events/1f669eff-bc82-49d1-a27c-2624e4cab8c6

[10] Robert John and William Jamieson, ‘Singapore’s Scentless Growth is Built on the Brutal Extraction of Cambodian Sand and Imported Labour’, Failed Architecture, 3 March 2020, https://failedarchitecture.com/singapores-scentless-growth-is-built-on-the-brutal-extraction-of-cambodian-sand-and-imported-labour/

[11] ‘Kg Kallang tiada lagi, penduduk sering 'kembali'’, Berita Minggu, 4 October 1987, https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/Digitised/Article/beritaharian19871004-1.2.13.1.1

[12] ‘Orang Kallang’, Berita Minggu, 13 January 1985