It was a nice 15/10/2011 (Saturday) morning when the bunch of us
embarked on a guided touraround
the cemtery at Bukit Brown, which was also known as Kopi Sua
(Coffee Hill). As would happen, we sorely underestimated the
ferocity of the sun and ran out of water early and the rest of the
trip was spent trying to stay alive in the heat. Nonetheless it was
worth a trip anytime though I daresay we would be better prepared
if there was any next time.
As they say, and myself too a few times already in this blog, a
picture says a thousand words, so here goes:
The gate that marked the entrance of Bukit Brown Municipal
Cemetery, though it was hard to ignore the sprawling graves
everywhere, even outside of the supposed boundary.
A few minutes walk after walking through the gates, there was a
huge open space.
Its immensity can be seen from how small the solitary portable
toilet appeared to be here. It would also appear that offerings
were burnt on a large scale here as can be seen from the scorch
marks on the ground.
It would be hard for me to post every picture (with edits). In the
same vein, though I initially wanted to group my pictures together
as I post, I decided that chronological order would be better and
the theme can always be pointed out again in any case. Here, a tree
can be seen growing out of the compound of a grave. This was no
young tree and we initially thought that it was borne by nature as
a seed to take root there.
A closer look revealed that the tree appeared to have been planted
purposefully there. Talk about wanting to stand out indeed. It was
rather attention-drawing to say the least. The workmanship of the
graves were astounding: the tree root had succeeded in shifting the
stones, but not break them.
Rows upon rows of graves. This section appeared to be more orderly
and uniform in comparison to the rest of the
cemetery.
The usual Chinese guardian, one of two stone lions standing guard
at the tomb.
If you wished to beautify a tomb without having to spend a bomb and
still make it stand out, this method worked well too. Small
colourful bush/shrubs were the norm while the large tree in the
first couple of pictures was the exception.
We plodded along the road further. Of course, as the name
suggested, this place was hilly as can be seen in the sudden drop
in this picture. Besides good fengshui, hill burials served a
practical purpose of affording better drainage as
well.
And the road winds too.
The tombstones weren't all old and uniform too. This one was fairly
recent and decidedly less "Chinese". I hadn't realised then that
the stone was smooth enough to cast a reflection. Now I do. Unlike
the barely visible grave on the left, it was clear that this one
wasn't forgotten.
This one proved more perplexing. Nobody quite got what was housed
beneath the stone. It could even be a memorial of sorts. What made
it even more interesting was the marker a human length behind the
tombstone. What was the significance of the
marker?
There was even a number engraved on the base of the tombstone.
Nobody could understand the inscriptions either, which made it even
more of an enigma. We do not know all of our history and yet we are
bent on destroying them. This would most certainly be a rather
regrettable point.
A quick look through the undergrowth where we were climbing. It was
clear that someone had hacked this route through the undergrowth
for people to reach the graves higher up the hill.
A random shot to take advantage of the strong contrast afforded by
a parked Audi's silver paint
against the dark green vegetation.
It is not often in Little Red Dot that one gets to enjoy such a
scenery. How much would we really stand to lose in developing this
plot of land? Perhaps we know best only after we lose
it.
I was surprised to find a flight of stairs leading from the
road to......what appeared to be nowhere. Yet it looked like it
wanted to lead us to something and we followed
through.
And this was what we found at the base of the tree at the end of
the flight of stairs: The resting place of Mr Lim Chong Pang, a
famous businessman whose namesake evokes thoughts of delicious
hawker food. For such a celebrated person, it was perhaps
surprising that it was less grand that expected, and appeared to
have been less taken care of as would have been
expected.
The road seemed to go on forever. That was particularly true in the
searing heat.
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