Have you ever wondered how people bathed in the kampong? Here is a picture taken in the Fifties at Changi and it provides the answer. Bathing in the rural area varies from country to country. Of course, you cannot expect running water or the private bath. More often than not, you have to bathe in the open. At least, in Singapore, you won't be bathing in the cold air and get a chill.
Two Kampong Girls
Picture - A good day for drying by Yip Cheong Fun
Another fishing kampong scene in the east coast of Singapore in 1940, showing the drying of fishes with a background of coconut trees. This looks like three-dimensional. The composition and layout are superb. Fishing kampong settlements like these no longer exist is Singapore.
This is a tyical fishing scene at Changi, the east coast of Singapore. It is nostalgic. True, the beach and sea and the boats are still there, but the attap huts, the way the fishing folks wore and work, the smell of fishes in the air - they have all gone with the passage of time. The pictue is unique in its composition and form. It is almost three dimensional, and well balanced in layout. More remarkable is the crescent-shaped formation of the fishing folks hauling up the fishing nets and re-arranging them. The shadows and lights and the texture of the sand also make this an unusual picture. The dark sky matches the mood and atmosphere of the scene showing the setting sun and the fishing folks, particularly women at work in a communal setting.
Kampong life is colourful, to say the least, but it is never complete without the images of playful children. The photographer's forte is child portraiture. He was made famous by his many images of children, some dark, some compelling, some uncannily exhilarating, others still reserved, impenetrable. Again, this range of photography is attributed to the number of hours he spent each time, seeking out the local kampong population, if not focusng entirely on children, whatever they were doing. His photographs of children do not so much show his technical skill in developing black and white photos, as his true nature. That soul, an inner yearning, to think all the thoughts in the world and dream all the possibilities unbound. The depth of Yip's perception is as much about the children as it is about himself. If we read a burden of anxiety upon a face, we understand full well that Yip's childhood was not an unblemished one. If we read the light of innocence and imagination upon a face, then we know Yip's experences bore the same if not as a child himself. If we catch the outbreak of happiness through smiles and laughter, we know that this kind of joy is not limited to heady childhood but lives on well into old age. ( *Bibliography: NLB publication - An ingenious reverie: The Photography of Yip Cheong Fun)
A simple kampong house by the sea - but what a beautiful life for young and old. I, too, have a dream, a kampong dream - of kampong houses on stilts - black, brown and beautiful. Was it yesterday that we ran across the wooden planking linking the kampong houses on stilts? Before sundown, we waited outside the houses to look out for the fishing boats returning with dozens of half-naked fishermen untangling their nets. It was in this setting that the photographer was able to capture images of little children running up and down the wooden planking or bridge, with reflections of the kampong houses on the glass-like sea and the returning boats in their pensive journeys buoyant across the calm waterways.
This is a picture of social life within a kampong settlement. This picture by Yip Cheong Fun, like all his kampong pictures in the old days, is not just a mundane record of the past; as a documentary photographer, his passion is to record life and measure the minutest transformation of the social scene and fabric of life. Here is an unusual and rather informal social gathering for dancing and merriment at Tanah Merah in the late 1950s. It's not for a special occasion like weddings - it's just some kampong folks relaxing on a Sunday morning. Such events existed. They represented the harmonious social mingling amongst kampong people of whatever origins - a symbol of relaxed and peaceful lives in our Singapore kampongs in days gone by.
In the 1940s, the coastal areas at Changi were dotted with kampong settlements like this. It is an idyllic setting for a Singapore kampong. All the elements of beauty are there - attap houses under the shade of tall coconut trees, casting their reflections on the face of the sea. Its beauty is subtle - a sort of freshness and glory. We knew it was real, and yet the experience was like a dream. Perhaps, many in Singapore still have kampong dreams.
Kampong Friend - Man's best friend in a typical kampong setting at Kallang in Singapore, adds colour and life to the rural environment. The old kampong scene is never complete without other lives revolving around the people who lived, loved and died in the kampongs. Imagine you were there early in the morning, listening to the birds chirping, dogs woefing, cows mooing, chickens clucking and duck kwaking, and watching other animals frolicking in the first glow of sunlight peeping through the morning mist or verdant haze that covered the branches and leaves of trees and shrubs. It is an enchantment that somehow eludes us, as urbanisation and modernisation set in and Singapore kampongs vanished into oblivion .
Kampong Days - A glimpse of Kampong Life in Singapore. Remember the kampong folks in Singapore - they were the pioneering generations. Many lived by the sea; some lived in secluded spots all over Singapore, particularly near the coastal areas. Kampong Days in this blog give you some notion about the old kampong style of life, the rustic retreat, the rural environment - something far removed from our accustomed urban life and far away from the maddening crowd. So we start off with some pictures of the days gone by, featuring the old Singapore kampong, pictures picked at random from the precious private collection of Master lensman, Yip Cheong-Fun, a recipient of the Cultural Medallion and world famous photographer, elected by the Photographic Society of New York in 1980 as the "Honorary Outstanding Photographer of the Century."
