{"id":306,"date":"2013-03-04T07:10:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-04T07:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbbd.sg\/blog\/uncategorized\/the-cut-and-the-fruit-trees-of-kampong-chai-chee\/"},"modified":"2021-05-15T14:24:26","modified_gmt":"2021-05-15T14:24:26","slug":"the-cut-and-the-fruit-trees-of-kampong-chai-chee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbbd.sg\/blog\/2013\/03\/the-cut-and-the-fruit-trees-of-kampong-chai-chee\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Cut” and the fruit trees of Kampong Chai Chee"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"THE<\/center>
\nRecently I chanced upon Koh Hong Teng’s THE CUT<\/a> on the SingaporeMemory project, a beautifully illustrated comic about kampong living in Chai Chee. When I got to the end of the comic, I suddenly realized that it was, rather coincidentally, about the area I was living in. I recently moved to Kembangan, and have been taking afternoon walks around the neighbourhood (see the Lengkong Empat blog<\/a> for more). One of my goals on my walks has been to locate the overhead bridge over the PIE (Pan Island Expressway) so that I can walk to the other side of Bedok and maybe even walk to Bedok Reservoir.<\/p>\n

The other day, while in search of the bridge, I walked to a dead end from which I could see a big portion of the expressway behind the trees that lay behind, but there was no human access or bridge at that particular end. And after reading THE CUT, I feel compelled that the jungly dead end point I walked to was probably very close to the area described by the narrator — the part of the PIE next to Bedok North, on the side of where the alleged site of the former Chai Chee Hill ought to be.<\/p>\n

For me, walking to that fenced-up dead end felt a bit like Koh’s childhood self peering through the fences, except instead of seeing the exotic remnants of the soon-to-be-rendered-obsolete pig farming industry, behind the fence there is just a big steel highway that I can’t cross, in place of it.<\/p>\n

I wonder if any of the many fruit trees illustrated in THE CUT have survived the massive changes to the area.<\/p>\n

Read Koh Hong Teng’s THE CUT on the Singapore Memory Project<\/a><\/p>\n