Potong Pasir is no longer a kampong in this century. Houses are no longer made of wood and attap-thatched roofs. It is now a modern, concrete high-rise HDB town, known for its sloping roofs. These days, whenever I mention its name, people say, “Chiam See Tong”. Indeed, Mr Chiam was the first and only (so far) opposition leader to hold the ward. In 1984, Mr Chiam, as leader of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), contested the seat against the People’s Action Party’s (PAP’s) Mr Mah Bow Tan, won with 60.3 percent of the votes against the PAP, and thus created history. He was the second opposition politician ever to be elected to Singapore's Parliament, after J. B. Jeyaretnam of the Workers' Party (WP) in 1981, and is Singapore's longest-serving Opposition Member of Parliament (MP) in a Single Member Constituency (SMC). In 2009, Mr Chiam celebrated his 25th year as MP for Potong Pasir. The previous year, he had suffered a stroke, which led to some reduction in his active participation in his party. PAP’s Mr Sitoh Yih Pin won back the seat for PAP in 2011. The most interesting personal connection in all this for me was that Mr Chiam was my science teacher in Cedar Secondary School in the 1960s, before he went into politics. He was a mild-mannered and inspiring teacher.
Besides the HDB tower blocks, there are now posh private bungalows and condominiums in modern Potong Pasir. Of course, they all come equipped with running water and electricity. Upon my return from UK, after having been away for more than 30 years, I visited Potong Pasir. The fish ponds that had characterised our kampong had long been filled up. Its vegetable farms, trees, fields of wild lallang, and cottage industries like the char kiak maker, envelope and rattan factory, were all gone. Its face had changed radically. There was no longer any village. I roughly estimated that the site of my family attap house would have been located around the present Block 107. I guessed this because of the mock-Tudor houses on the hill nearby, which are still standing, and which my family house had faced.
The hill at Woodleigh, which we used to call Atas Bukit, is now not as high as it used to be from Potong Pasir’s ground level. This is due to the building up of a layer of foundation and drainage for the new HDB town of Potong Pasir. The Kallang River used to be almost on the same level as our village ground, which was why our kampong used to get flooded often when the river burst its banks. Now the river is far below the steep, grassy banks, so the modern town is in less danger of getting flooded. The river used to flow past our village to pour out under Merdeka Bridge, but this has now been diverted to Marina Bay, after the East Coast land reclamation and the creation of Marina Bay.
The river has also been cleaned up after the Public Utilities Board (PUB) launched the Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) Programme in 2006. A beautiful linear park with splendid rain trees and floral bushes has been created along the banks of the Kallang River. These days, people can take walks along the river, through the tunnel under the Central Expressway (CTE), and go right into Toa Payoh. After flowing past Potong Pasir, going towards the sea, the river passes through Kallang, where another beautiful park had been created. Today, there are modern shops and a shopping mall in Potong Pasir, which has its own Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) station on the North East Line.
Construction work is currently going on to build a most sought-after HDB complex at Bidadari, the former Christian cemetery across from Potong Pasir. Its close proximity to town has jacked up the Build To Order price of properties here. This location had been our park and playground when I was a child. Next to it used to be the beautiful lake and verdant green hills of Alkaff Gardens, where we swam and picnicked. The lake has been filled and the hills have been levelled. Soon all these will be history, and the scenery and recreational activities these places had provided will become fragments of memory for those of us who grew up around here. And when we have passed on, only books like this will attest to their original use and beauty. Fortunately, one pair of Victorian wrought-iron gates that used to be at one of the entrances to the cemetery has been preserved, and they will stand in the grounds of the future HDB estate. Also, a small pond has been incorporated into the design to pay homage to the sprawling gardens which had once graced the landscape for generations and had attracted locals, tourists, film-makers and film stars. I understand that it will be called Alkaff Lake in honour of its eponymous gardens.
Several places that existed in the kampong days and were associated with the kampongs are still present, though transformed: the historic part of St Andrew’s School and the Sri Sivadurga Temple are both on Meyappa Chettiar Road, though the road leading to the school is now called Potong Pasir Avenue 3, which didn’t exist before. The mock-Tudor houses on the hill still exist; so too the Masjid Alkaff on Pheng Geck Avenue, across the road from our village. But by the time this book is published, the building of the residential/shopping complex linked to Potong Pasir MRT station will be completed. The site stretches from Meyappa Chettiar Road to Potong
