Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Shuang Long Shan Wu Shu Ancestral Hall (Ying Fo Fui Kuan)
1) Shuang Long Shan Wu Shu Ancestral Hall (Ying Fo Fui Kuan)
As you take a MRT train towards Commonwealth MRT station, look out the window and you might spot a fascinating sight. A small cemetery located right in the middle of an urban area, next to a few new HDB flats. It is the Shuang Long Shan Wu Shu Ancestral Hall located at Commonwealth Lane.
What was this land originally used for? What group congregated here?
The Hakka clan, Ying Fo Fui Kuan, bought the piece of land where Shuang Long Shan Wu Shu Ancestral Hall was located in 1887. It had originally measured 40.5 hectares of land of present of Commonwealth Avenue. Back then, it was used as a burial ground which they named Shuang Long Shan (meaning Twin Dragon Hill) for fellow Hakka kinsmen from Jia Ying prefecture in Canton, China, with the Ancestral Hall at the foot of the hill. In 1926, a branch of the Ying Xin School was opened by the clan, to provide education to the children of the village. At the school, children were taught Subjects such as Maths, Science, Geography, History, Art and Music in Hakka and Mandarin.
In 1968, the plot of land was bought back by the government
for the construction of public housing, leaving only 1.89 hectare site of the relocated graves and the original ancestral hall. The caretaker of the Ancestral Hall, an elderly who had been in charge of the place for 30 over years, explained that the cemetery no longer contain corpse but were of urns of cremated ashes after the relocation project. He even went on to show us around, relating interesting stories and incidents that has occurred there during his years of experiences. As it was broad daylight, we weren’t as intimidated. Yet you couldn’t help but feel a sense of reverie break over you, as he narrated to us some of the tales of ghostly presence that he had witnessed at night, along with the noises that he used to hear especially during the ghost month. Nonetheless we were so thankful that he could show us around, and explained about the place to us. There was a slight communication problem as Jun Jie and Jeffery couldn’t understand the dialect he was speaking, but they were able to get by, grasping at the root words of what he spoke which appeared to make sense of. Conscious of his language barrier the uncle even resorted to hand gestures to explain to us about the history and significance of the place, to Nithya, Devi and myself.Another thing that hit us during the heritage trail was that dialects and languages such as these were disappearing, and along with a significant part of our heritage and culture. Would we really miss it? Or do we know its disappearing in the first place? These were just some questions we were left to ponder over whilst we left the place.
3:10 AM By PUNITHA