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2012, Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia
The proposed building of a major highway and expected extensive housing projects in the forgotten Chinese cemetery at Bukit Brown of Singapore in 2011 had ignited unprecedented national and international attention. Opened in 1922 by the British colonial authorities and eventually embedded with over 100,000 graves of the Chinese diaspora within a site rich in biodiversity, it is now touted as one of the largest Chinese cemeteries outside of China and a possible candidate for listing as an UNESCO World Heritage site. This paper is not intended as a major theoretical framing of larger issues, instead the focus is on chronicling the important resurgence of civil society activism in the process of rediscovery and tracing the challenges posed to the disciplinary political authorities of Singapore. Previous studies about contestation over Chinese burial grounds in Singapore are centred on Western versus Chinese practices and on parochial sub-communal interest versus modernist developmental regimes, without bringing heritage concerns directly into the microphysics of power. This new narrative on Bukit Brown will unveil the extent to which heritage, history and identity had suddenly surged to the forefront of citizenry consciousness and interrogated the fundamentals of governance and national developmental agenda.
2015 •
This visual essay is a record of the social and cultural life of Bukit Brown Cemetery, where the deceased are considered diasporic subjects, even after physical death. This continuing journey was occasioned by the exhumation of about 4,000 graves to make way for an eight-lane highway, which also led to the documentation project on which the materials for this essay are based.. The photographs in this essay depict three major phases related to the diasporic afterlife. First, Seasons of Remembrance considers the annual rituals of Qing Ming and the Hungry Ghost Festival, where the living visit the cemetery to commemorate the dead. Two, Moving House looks at the process of exhumation and displacement, through the lens of both private and state-funded exhumations. Finally, Resettling charts the different ways in which an individual’s diasporic journey continues, where the process of re-interment could lead to other parts of Singapore and even beyond.
This chapter begins by showing how the colonial authorities appropriated Bukit Brown from the Seh Ong kongsi in 1919 thus turning it into a municipal space to ease the shortage of burial grounds on the island. It proceeds to argue that the discourse of public protest and efforts to save Bukit Brown from the impending road has reconstructed Bukit Brown as an “authentic” national space in three different but interrelated ways. First, Bukit Brown’s authenticity is played out in its depiction as a heritage space. Such depictions are generally framed within a dichotomy of sites and in this particular case in distinction against the Gardens by the Bay, a billion-dollar state project in the downtown area, designed to give the city-state an international profile. The second way is as a green sanctuary through the naturalist’s gaze. Finally, Bukit Brown is deemed authentic because it signifies cultural destruction and loss. The threat of destruction and loss conjures up cultural trauma which can be visited upon other cultural-ethnic heritage sites and thus serves as a cautionary tale to other ethnic groups. It is argued that these three discourses of authenticity enable Bukit Brown to transcend its ethnic origins, thus making it accessible to other ethnic groups who, though may not connect to it as intimately or culturally as ethnic Chinese, are able to incorporate the site in their national imaginary.
2014 •
Chinese cemeteries are often viewed as dark and eerie places and are to be avoided except during the Qing Ming prayers. Chinese immigrants to Malaysia but who did not retum to China were buried in cemeteries established by their clansmen. The hundreds of Chinese cemeteries are now part of the Malaysian cultural landscape. Culturally the cemeteries symbolize the core Chinese concept ofthe " unity ofheaven and humans". This concept is manifested through three key cultural values of filial piety, fengshui (geomancy), and yi (righteousness). On the practical level, the management of Chinese cemeteries is nurturing a " green cul個re" primarily through efforts to " humanize" the cemetery landscape. This objective is being pursued in three ways, namely, changing the image of cemeteries, developing garden-type memorial parks, and increasing the level ofhuman presence.
Journal of Historical Geography
The politics of space: changing discourses on Chinese burial grounds in post-war Singapore1995 •
Gdańskie Studia Azji Wschodniej [Gdańsk East Asian Studies]
Speaking of the Dead: Human Remains as Heritage in the Singapore Context2024 •
This article considers, in the Singapore context, the legal status of unburied human remains having heritage value, which might be in the form of a deceased person’s corpse that has not been interred; or preserved remains, possibly in a museum or a private collection. It is submitted that, following the guided discretion approach adopted in recent cases concerning human tissue obtained from living human beings, such human remains should be regarded as having the status of property. This would, among other things, enable civil and criminal proceedings to be pursued in domestic law if such remains are removed from archaeological sites or museums without authorization, and for international frameworks facilitating the return of illicitly exported cultural objects to apply. The article also looks at the status of buried human remains, grave goods and funerary monuments, and guidelines concerning the proper treatment of remains in a museum setting. Provided that the interests and beliefs of the community, ethnic or religious groups from whom human remains originated are considered, research into human remains and their sensitive display in museums are important ways for us to learn more about our origins and ourselves.
Journal of Cultural Heritage Management and Sustainable Development, 13(1): 87-107 - https://doi.org.10.1108/JCHMSD-08-2020-0116
Ocón, D. (2023).Balancing Sustainable Development and Cultural Heritage Preservation: Luxury Burial Legacies in Singapore2023 •
Singapore tops multiple global rankings for the consumption of luxury products. In this land-scarce and densely-populated city-state, to purchase a high-end car, landed property, or to have a fine dining experience, ranks amongst the most expensive in all Asian cities. That luxurious approach in life, however, does not find a parallel in death. As this paper indicates, a life of luxuries in Singapore does not necessarily mean deluxe burials, graves, mausoleums, or shrines. In fact, due to scarcity of land and the tight control on its usage, there are limited options for the well-off to display the same sense of wealth in death as they did in life. This paper explores the correlation between elaborate burials and the right to eternal rest, and investigates how a land-deprived country faces the challenge of sustainably balancing modernisation aspirations with respect for burial customs and cultural heritage.
BRILL eBooks
Chinese Cemeteries as a Symbol of Sacred Space: Control, Conflict, and Negotiation in Surabaya2015 •
In this contribution we attempt to clarify the relation between graveyards and popular cultures, focusing on the relations that exists between common peoples’ everyday life and graveyards. We show first that burials and tombs are quite popular in quite a number of senses of the word. Second, we show that graveyards can be very close to people, physically and mentally, depending on local customs, local histories and national or island-wide tendencies. Especially the origin of the graveyard and the development of settling and graveyard in mutual dependency can shape very different positions for a graveyard in local cultures and society. 在這篇文章中我們試圖探討墓與流行文化之間的關係,尤其昰一般大眾的日常生活與墓的關係。我們首先呈現喪葬與墓其實相當具有流行性;其次,說明墓其實在實質上與精神上都與人們有著相當緊密的關係,在不同的地方文化、地方歷史、以及全國性的趨勢下,有著不同的緊密程度。墓的起原與成形以及其後的趨勢走向描繪出多方的面相,墓園昰可以被解讀成地方社會的流行文化。
TUYỂN TẬP HỘI NGHỊ KHOA HỌC TOÀN QUỐC LẦN THỨ NHẤT ĐỘNG LỰC HỌC VÀ ĐIỀU KHIỂN
Thiết kế và chế tạo cánh tay robot 5 bậc tự do ứng dụng xử lý ảnh để phân loại vật thểSmall Wars Journal
SWJ Book Review -Sri Lanka's Easter Sunday Massacre2024 •
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Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 1st Conference of Visual Art, Design, and Social Humanities by Faculty of Art and Design, CONVASH 2019, 2 November 2019, Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia
Sundanese and Modernity in Sci-fi Comic (Case Study:Astahiam Nyasab series of Sundanese Magazine Mangle in 1986)International Journal of Experimental Pathology
Tumourigenic effect of Schistosoma haematobium total antigen in mammalian cells2009 •