Like the Bugis people from Sulawesi, these were seafaring folk, also called orang selat or Straits people, and they had settled along Temasek’s old coastline long before Stamford Raffles recognised the island’s strategic position along the shipping routes between East and West, purchased it from the Temenggong of Johor and claimed it for Great Britain.
The aboriginal people had lived on long boats or sampan panjang. They had served as warrior rowers in royal shipping fleets for the Temenggongs and Sultans of Malaya and Indonesia, though it was rumoured that some of them had turned to piracy. In the end, when they had given up their nomadic ways, they built houses on stilts along the coast and became fishing folk so that the sea remained an integral part of their lives. Though they were Malays, many of them were not Muslims. Some converted when Arab traders brought Islam to this part of Asia around the twelfth century.
Some city dwellers in their concrete houses looked down their noses at them, and called these kampong dwellers squatters. The term sounded like a dirty word, bringing with it an image of a ghetto, of people living in squalor. It was true that the majority of the village people were not rich, that rats and mice might wander in from the adjacent farms and wild fields of lallang, that flies, cockroaches and centipedes would lurk in their jambans or outhouses, and emerge from their stoves and from behind cupboards. But the villagers saw wealth in their families, friends and neighbours, and in the countryside and nature. Despite common misconceptions, kampong houses were kept scrupulously clean. Malays, like Peranakans, honoured their home and treated it like an istana or palace, no matter its size or location, whether the floor was mud-packed, timber or marble.
“No one is so poor that they cannot be clean,” Kim Guek used to say to Pansy. “As long as we have rain water, we can stay clean.”
Their home was spotless, the floorboards shone. Kim Guek had embroidered pretty lace runners, crocheted antimacassars for the backs of chairs, weaved flowers from crepe paper and cat-gut, and sewed beads onto slippers for sale to the rich Peranakan ladies. As soon as she was old enough, Pansy started helping her mother in the housework and sale of her goods. In the evenings, they worked at their craft, their fingers moving like lightning, their eyes getting teary from the hissing carbide and kerosene lamps, whilst Hock Chye sat on the verandah to mend his nets. The congenial atmosphere would press itself into Pansy’s memory, her parents captured in the amber glow of the lamps, their love for each other warm with quiet joy. And the sea was always there, like a constant and faithful lover, whispering reassuringly outside the windows and under their house.
“Mesti ada adat. Must have culture and decorum. Without it, one cannot rise above one’s gross behaviour,” Kim Guek had said as they worked. “A real Peranakan lady must be able to do fine embroidery, beading and cook delicious meals.”
“Your mother would know,” Hock Chye had said to Pansy, looking up from his task at hand and at his wife in admiration. “You must try to be more like your mother.”
Pansy had rolled her eyes upward. But it was true that Kim Guek’s elegance was unsurpassed. Even the other villagers recognised her graceful ways and marks of good breeding, which suggested that she came from a fine family, probably from Malacca. How she came to live in a fisherman’s hut, nobody knew and nobody asked. Pansy had glimmers of insight, tiny windows which opened to the possibility that her mother might have come from a different environment. But she dismissed them as children do, not imagining that a parent had been anything but a parent, nor had a life before their children knew them. Pansy realised her mother was refined but then she thought that was just her mother’s personality. She would like, however, to excel at the things that were important to Kim Guek, so that her mother would be proud of her. But she could never be as good, her brain too scattered, her mind too much on other things like poetry and adventures beyond the ken of an ordinary girl.
“Squatters!” Pak Abdul once fumed, when someone read out and translated the item in The Straits Times newspaper to him. He was the penghulu, the village headman, descended from the orang laut. “Orang itu fikir mereka lebih atas! Those people see themselves as Higher Beings! How self-righteous! To us, our kampongs are definitely not squats! Squats suggest filthy, unauthorised makeshift dwellings. This is our chosen way of life, in simple wooden houses that are designed and constructed to fit in with nature, with the trees that surround them; windows and verandahs open to the winds, sea and sky. Who would prefer to live otherwise? Hemmed in by concrete walls? With doors that remain shut except for access, keeping people indoors, like prisons?”
It was true that even though it was already 1953, their villages still did not have private bathrooms, or indoor taps to provide running water, or electricity, like the privileged folks in town. But this was true for many other kampongs on the island, still dependent on the village well for water, where villagers traipsed to the one stand-pipe for drinking water. Singapore was still largely rural—vegetable, poultry, pig, cattle and fish farms were widespread, like the verdant forests where monkeys, mousedeer, wild boar and pythons still roamed. At night, bats still flew, and some said with trepidation, the pontianak, the female vampire. Stories about the beautiful temptress abounded. Perhaps they were told to intimidate the children and men, to
