From Vernon Park to Sang Nila Utama Road

In October 2020, I wrote about plans for a Sang Nila Utama Road in Bidadari Estate, an up-and-coming housing estate at the junction of Upper Serangoon Road and Upper Aljunied Road.

Sang Nila Utama Road will evoke the spirit of ancient Singapura’s first king, and modern Singapore’s first Malay-medium secondary school - the trio share the same name.

Almost two years on, Sang Nila Utama Road is going to open to vehicular traffic. In turn, a nearby road named Vernon Park will be permanently closed on 25 September - as I had predicted in my October 2020 post.

Sang Nila Utama Road on the left, Vernon Park on the right.

Vernon Park connects Upper Aljunied Road and Mount Vernon Road. Both Vernon Park and Mount Vernon Road were laid down in the 1950s; their names were lent by Royal Navy Admiral Edward Vernon (1684-1757, below).

Vernon Park provides access to and serves the Gurkha Cantonment in Mount Vernon Camp, built to house the training and residential facilities of the Gurkha Contingent and their families.

Most of Vernon Park is actually inside the Gurkha Cantonment. On the street directory, the segment inside the camp is labelled Vernon Park too. However, I do not know whether this is the reality on the ground, as I have never entered the camp, and probably never will.

Below is the entrance to the Gurkha Cantonment from Vernon Park. This is where the public Vernon Park ends and the rest of Vernon Park inside the camp begins.

Credit: Google Maps.

Below is a 1979 street directory map of the area, showing the segments of Vernon Park open (blue) and closed (green) to public access today. Sang Nila Utama Secondary School was at the junction of Upper Aljunied Road and Vernon Park; it closed in 1988 and has been demolished.

Sang Nila Utama Secondary School in 1968. Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

The small segment of Vernon Park between Upper Aljunied Road and Mount Vernon Road is open to public access. This segment of road once served Mount Vernon Columbarium and Crematorium. The latter was Singapore’s first public crematorium, opened in 1962.

Mount Vernon Crematorium before it was torn down. Credit: TODAY.

Change came when Bidadari Cemetery was exhumed by 2006 and replaced by Bidadari Park, and then developed into Bidadari Estate.

Because of the estate, the western part of Upper Aljunied Road was realigned to the south. The original stretch is being redeveloped into a heritage walk.

Mount Vernon Crematorium closed in 2004, while the columbarium closed in 2018. Both have been torn down.

As the land around the public part of Vernon Park was freed up, it became possible to build a new, wider road to straighten the two curves that are parts of Vernon Park and Mount Vernon Road. This new, wider road will be Sang Nila Utama Road.

However, Sang Nila Utama Road will be built in two stages, perhaps to allow time for the Gurkha Cantonment to replace the current entrance at Vernon Park.

When Sang Nila Utama Road opens in a week’s time, it will be a meandering road with two U bends (below). The bends will eventually be straightened.

Below is a present-day aerial view of the area, showing the former and realigned Upper Aljunied Road, the segments of Vernon Park to be expunged and inside the Gurkha Cantonment, and the soon-to-be-opened Sang Nila Utama Road with the two U bends. The dark blue dotted line is the segment of Sang Nila Utama Road still under construction, to replace the two U bends in the future.

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

Below is the present junction of Vernon Park and the realigned Upper Aljunied Road. This spot was where Sang Nila Utama Secondary School once stood. This short stretch of road will be renamed Sang Nila Utama Road in a week.

Just up ahead is the future Sang Nila Utama Road, opening in a week.

The public road that is Vernon Park is left over from another era - a narrow carriageway with one lane in either direction, surrounded by trees on one side and the imposing fence of the Gurkha Cantonment on the other.

Vernon Park, a few steps from the future Sang Nila Utama Road, facing east.

Heading east towards the entrance of the Gurkha Cantonment.

The former site of Mount Vernon Columbarium, now the site of a future funeral parlour complex, to be completed in 2025.

Vernon Park facing west.

As Sang Nila Utama Road is meandering, it meets Vernon Park again.

The junction of Vernon Park (left) and Sang Nila Utama Road (right). The short stretch of Vernon Park between this junction and the entrance to the Gurkha Cantonment (off-photo to the right) will be renamed Sang Nila Utama Road in a week.

Sang Nila Utama Road will be one of Singapore’s longer street names, hence the length of its name plate.

Let’s see how the area looks like in a year!

Memory bridges and barriers

I owe an immense debt of gratitude to the faceless transcribers who listen to National Archives oral interviews done in Hokkien, Teochew, and Cantonese, and transcribe them in Chinese characters.

I don’t understand the three aforementioned languages, and besides, listening to hours of tape recordings made in the 1980s - usually with poor audio quality - can be an exhausting chore.

Instead, with transcriptions, I can read the Chinese characters at a quicker pace, and scan entire blocks of text for keywords. My command of Chinese is not very strong, but regular practice has made it better.

Thanks to the transcribers’ labours, a whole world of memories and experiences from the 1920s to 1980s - lived history - has opened up for my study. Many interviewees were already elderly folk when they were recorded in the 1980s. They were born in the 1920s, 1910s, 1900s, one in 1894. They should have passed on by now.

I wonder how much I would have missed out if I had not understood Chinese script. I also wonder how much I’m missing out by not comprehending Malay and Tamil.

Despite relying on Chinese transcriptions to access interviewees’ recollections, I still occasionally listen to their voice recordings, if only just to feel them addressing me from another time, another realm.

The Jalan Lam San Roadside Shrine

At the corner of Brickland Road and the Kranji Expressway, to the west of Choa Chu Kang town, is a small, nondescript lane called Jalan Lam San.

Lam San is Hokkien for Southern Hill. The place name goes back to the 1940s, and the road is a remnant of a rural past that will soon make way for Tengah town. The road is currently used by heavy vehicles like dump trucks to enter and leave Tengah town’s construction sites over which thousands of new flats will rise.

But more on the curiosities of the place name and the road for another time. This post is about its roadside shrine.

Like the Datuk Gong shrine of Joo Chiat Place Car Park, the shrine is but a few years old. To be exact, it appeared between April 2018 and September 2019, according to Google Maps.

Base picture credit: Google Maps.

As the shrine is near the entrance into Tengah town’s construction sites, my guess is that it materialised as work started on Tengah town and Jalan Lam San started to be frequented by heavy vehicles - and their drivers and workers. The religious among them set up an altar by the road to offer prayers for safety during their work shifts, and over time, more and more deities were added to the altar.

This is the shrine today, next to the pavement and road.

One must cross a makeshift bridge over the open drain to get to the shrine.

It has the look of a structure haphazardly cobbled together by cheap materials salvaged from construction and rubbish sites - the divine amidst the dumps.

Like many ground-up roadside shrines, there is an eclectic mix of deities from Chinese and Indian religions. Visitors are free to add deities to the shrine, and everyone contributes to the general upkeep of all deities.

There’s Da Er Ye Bo, the popular ghost dispatchers in charge of escorting the soul of the deceased to the 10 Courts of Hell for judgement.

A tiny Earth Deity figurine.

Quite a few Hindu deities in the mix - I see the family of Shiva, Parvati, Murugan, and Ganesha; Parvati is flanked by Saraswati (with the musical instrument called the veena) and Lakshmi (with the lotuses).

Not a bad combination below - Guan Di (Emperor Guan, the deified Romance of the Three Kingdoms hero Guan Yu), who stands for righteousness, brotherhood, and martial qualities; and Ganesha, the remover of obstacles and the Lord of letters and learning.

A tablet dedicated to the Earth Deity, tucked away at the side.

The shrine should last as long as there is construction work in the northern part of Tengah town, as long as the area around Jalan Lam San is not redeveloped, and as long as the authorities either do not notice its existence, or turn a blind eye. Even then, I would be surprised if it lasts another 10 years. For such ground-up roadside shrines resting in public spaces are usually ephemeral.

But even as shrines and altars are transient, devotion is eternal.