Singapore is tiny, and today the entire nation is really just one city. It takes less than 45 minutes to drive across the island, with traffic. But in the 1950s there were mainly villages known as kampongs, a local Malay word. Kampong communities were strong and close-knit, but the living conditions weren’t easy. Multiple families might share one toilet or one kitchen. Many of the kampongs relied on gas for lighting and cooking. And most houses were made of super flammable palm leaves or wood with roofs made of sheet metal. [...]
When planning for a growing population, most urban planners expand their cities outward, but in land-limited Singapore, that’s not an option. Today, Singapore’s tallest public housing buildings are 50 stories high –the tallest in the world. Today, Singapore is the third richest nation in the world, and 80% of Singaporeans still live in these tall, cement HDB flats and there are about 10,000 public housing buildings on the island. It’s not the glitzy, futuristic Singapore skyline you see in movies like Crazy Rich Asians. Much of the island is full of tall cement buildings with housing block numbers, painted boldly down the sides, which help Singaporeans locate themselves in the monotonous sea of nearly identical buildings. And new flats are going up all the time. [...]
In Singapore, where land is scarce, it’s not unlikely for apartment buildings to be built on top of land that was graveyards not too long ago. But building on top of a graveyard has its complications, and in one cemetery called Peck San Theng, the new housing development disrupted more than just the dead — it disrupted a way of life. “When I was a kid […] wandering around the hillsides, you know walking through the grass, we [said] prayers. We [made] offerings,” says Kwan, someone who grew up near Peck San Theng cemetery. His father would bring him to the cemetery to pray at the graves of their family and friends. Kwan’s family was Chinese, and they believed that if the dead were well-taken care of, it not only meant peace for the departed, but it could also bring direct benefits to the descendants.
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