Newspaper mentions - 2025

It was a well written article after months of interview and walking the ground by the journalist Cherie Lok. The abandoned car was to me just a distraction, the real story is about the Bukit Brown memories and memories of the village and school that once stood there and i am very happy that Soh Ah Beng got featured the most among others in this article. He was after all the villager who experience this place from young till now and our constant companion in our discoveries and documentation. Below is the text i extracted from the well written article featured on Straits Times, with photos supplementing it from me except for 1 which featured Soh Ah Beng on the cover of Sunday Straits Times which capture the true essence of the article - Keeping memories of Bukit Brown alive.

Soh Ah Beng at the footsteps of his former school 
(source: The Sunday Times, 23 November 2025)

Who drove into the forest? How 4 abandoned cars ended up near this Singapore cemetery

SINGAPORE – I stand on a patch of soil, flecked with rubber debris, and try to imagine the scene: Was it a car crash? Four vehicles hightailing it through the forest, meeting their messy end in a tangle of vines and branches? Were they flung off the nearby Pan-Island Expressway (PIE) and left to dissolve into obscurity thereafter?

They make a surreal scene, cars from the 1970s scattered beneath the canopy in various states of disrepair. Two retain a recognisable shape, though time and spray paint have chipped away at the original coat.

The front door of one has been removed, as if waiting for someone to slide into the driver’s seat and grip the mossy steering wheel with both hands, maybe even give the radio a go, though who knows what eerie frequency it might be tuned to these days.The third lies some distance away in a roofless heap. The fourth, mostly trampled into the soil, is identifiable only by its steering wheel. Around the cars are strewn other enigmas: a bowling pin in a boot, a Senma rubber sandal camouflaged by dried leaves. The path leading in is strewn with spare tyres and car parts. This is the climax of my brief hike through the wilds of Bukit Brown, guided only by a point on Google Maps that marks the start of the Abandoned Car Trail.

I had seen photographs of the cars online and was gripped by curiosity, unable to believe this scene truly existed in a country as blanched of intrigue – or so it sometimes seems – as Singapore.Surely it will all make sense in context, I thought, and so set off on an unmarked path through the woodland behind the famed cemetery.

Yet, as I find myself in the middle of this uncanny graveyard, I am left with more questions than answers: How did the cars get here? Why have they not been moved? And what does it all mean?

Where did the cars come from? 

I start by searching for answers in the comment section of YouTube, where many a hiker has documented his or her attempt to reach the cars, and Facebook, where others have raised similar questions. Here is where fiction ends and a more measured version of reality takes over. 

The consensus, as I gather, seems to be that the cars are remnants of a junkyard or mechanic’s workshop back when Lao Sua – the part of Greater Bukit Brown, where the cars were found – was a bustling village. This is corroborated by news articles, fished out of the depths of the SPH archive by my librarian colleagues. A 2011 piece in The Sunday Times bears this detail: “Villagers remember there was a car repair shop there by the 1980s.” This story, and eight other clippings, sketch an approximate portrait of the village, which reportedly started with a single family in the 1910s. By 1984, it housed some 200 families within wooden walls – “a stark contrast” to their neighbours’ concrete bungalows, noted The Straits Times piece published that year. 

Kheam Hock village was a place where the living and the dead dwelled side by side in a sort of uncertain harmony that was under threat from as early as 1971. The Public Works Department had then announced in a gazette notification that the graves off Lorong Halwa and Kheam Hock Road were in the path of the proposed PIE. “More than 1,700 graves on the affected site will be exhumed”, was ST’s grave pronouncement. The Government took back the land in the early 1980s, the residents were urged to relocate over the next few years, and the last villagers moved out shortly before the turn of the century. But not everyone has left for good. Several villagers were raised to care for the dead, and it is to the dead that they return every day, sweeping tombs and polishing headstones till this day.

Former Lao Sua resident Soh Ah Beng, who is in his 60s, is one such tomb keeper. He spends most of his daylight hours at Bukit Brown, caring for the dead on behalf of their descendants, who pay him for his services. It is his expertise I tap on my return to the cemetery, following him off the sun-beaten path and deep into the trees. 

With us are Bukit Brown regulars Raymond Goh, 61, a pharmacist, and Peter Pak, 52, an IT project manager. They often help families locate the resting places of their ancestors and, along the way, tell me what they know of the workshop that may have left these vehicles behind. It was, according to a former mechanic whom Mr Goh had spoken to, not an official business. There was no signboard, nor was it likely registered. It probably popped up to serve the needs of residents, parked along a small dirt road veering off the main thoroughfare. 

Driving was, after all, becoming more commonplace by the second half of the 20th century. In Jalan Singapura: 700 Years Of Movement In Singapore, historian Eisen Teo traces the steady ascension of motorised vehicles: A 1955 government masterplan logged around 50,000 motor vehicles, of which some 31,000 were cars. Just 20 years later, that number had swelled to over 143,000 cars and 280,000 vehicles in total. 

The two cars still relatively intact may have been fairly popular models – at least one was likely a Toyota Corona, by the estimate of vintage car enthusiast Jimmy Fong, 29, who runs the blog SG Classic Rides. Why, then, did the villagers not take the cars with them when they left in the 1980s? 

“They must have been beyond repair,” muses Mr Pak. “Some of these were used for just spare parts.” 

“Cars require money to fix. It might have been easier to just leave them here,” Mr Soh points out in Mandarin.

One of the more intact cars for now
(photo by me)

Trash or treasure? 

Mr Soh adds that many families and construction companies treated Bukit Brown as a dumping ground after it was vacated. It seems like the problem continues to persist. On our way back to the main road, we encounter a “no dumping allowed” sign along Lorong Halwa, warning of a $50,000 fine if convicted. In an e-mail reply, the National Environment Agency (NEA) informs me that it has encountered 25 instances of “improper disposal of bulky waste along the adjacent roads of Lorong Halwa and Kheam Hock Road and within the Bukit Brown closed cemetery since 2023”. Most consisted of furniture and renovation dross. 

Such waste is removed immediately after determining that ownership cannot be ascertained, NEA adds, not elaborating on which objects are left untouched. And so, elsewhere in the undergrowth, more sentimental leftovers remain. On our two-hour trek through the rest of the forest, we stumble upon a toy truck, a purse and a chamber pot, likely gifted to a newly-wed couple.Larger ruins punctuate the landscape too: benches, latrines, even the porch of a house. 

Remains of a Kampong shower with a Potty 
(photo by me)

Remains of a Kampong house 
(photo by me) 

To some volunteers and heritage buffs, these artefacts do not quite possess the allure of the cemetery itself, revered for its rich collection of graves, including those of notables such as philanthropist and businessman Gan Eng Seng and Dr Lee Choo Neo, the first woman to practise medicine in Singapore. In the words of all things Bukit Brown (atBB) guide Fabian Tee, 58, a legal executive with a statutory board, this is “the real founders’ memorial”. 

The cars and other leftovers, on the other hand, are unlikely to appear in the National Collection any time soon, being “unrelated to the burial site, and in a highly dilapidated state”, as determined by the National Heritage Board (NHB). When considering items for the Collection, NHB looks at their socio-historical significance to Singapore and the region; stylistic design and aesthetics; and physical condition, like structural stability.

Though individually of questionable historical merit, other enthusiasts believe this collection of forgotten memorabilia coaxes together the story of a bygone way of life. 

“What it tells us is that Bukit Brown isn’t only stones and bones of people who are dead. There was an entire kampung that supported it,” says Mr Darren Koh, 57, a volunteer with atBB. The community group was formed after the construction of Lornie Highway – the project that bisected the cemetery – was announced. 

“These are testament to the people who used to live there, and these are testament to their stories. They may not be the big stories, but they are the stories of the people who built Singapore.”

For Mr Soh, a walk through the thicket is a trip down memory lane. He moves with easy confidence, needing to snap only the occasional stem to make sure he does not lose his path. 

Here are the stairs of a house he used to frequent – “an old girlfriend’s”, teases Mr Pak with a wink, to which Mr Soh scoffs, “anyhow say”. He has lost contact with the family, but still returns regularly, waiting these days for durians to drop from the tree in front of their house.

A short walk away is the foundation of his old school, the now-defunct Chin Chung Public School. As we ascend the steps he climbed as a child, I ask if this journey brings back fond memories.  “No,” is his brisk reply. “I didn’t like school. I was retained (a year) in Primary 3, Secondary 1 and Secondary 2. And when we were punished, we’d have to run around the field there.” He gestures to the forest floor, now crowded with enough vegetation to trip even the most skilful of sprinters.

Mr Pak has a more sentimental take: “You can imagine how daunting it must have been for Ah Beng to climb these steps as a young boy. You’d think your school was the biggest thing in the world.” 

To him, the school, which he and Mr Soh finally tracked down in 2021, is an exceedingly exciting discovery. By piecing together its ruins and old photographs, he is able to visualise how it must have looked in its heyday. 

Together with Soh Ah Beng at his former school - Chin Chung Public School
(photo by me)

Perhaps, then, these relics exist not just for the benefit of those who know what it was like to live and move among them, but also for those too young to remember, or those who no longer have a physical remnant of their past to cling to. As Ms Catherine Lim, 66, a retiree and founding member of atBB, points out, the settlements around the graves in Bukit Brown are also “microcosms of other kampungs at the time”.

Mr Daniel Ho, 79, and his five siblings once lived in Whitley Road, in a compound that fit three houses and five families. Certain details stick out in the mind, particularly that it was “super big”, crowded with fruit trees – “durian, rambutan, coconut, you name it”, he says – and built with wood. He and his family remember the tiny spring opposite their home, ever-flowing, clean, fresh and perfect for swimming, “like a big bathtub”. The homespun fun they had flying kites and catching birds. The weather, too: the bucolic cool of life beneath the trees. Mr Ho, now retired, left the village in 1978 and moved to a Housing Board flat in Telok Blangah. “I miss the open space and the fresh air,” he muses. “And the peace of the graveyard.” 

With their former playground along Whitley Road now paved over with modern developments, places like Bukit Brown, with its still-towering fruit trees and stubborn kampung walls, are the closest things the family has to a remnant of their old way of life. And it is this material link to the past that makes Singapore interesting, says Mr Goh’s brother Charles, a regional safety manager in a construction firm. He stumbled upon the cars nearly two decades ago, when he was leading ghost tours around Bukit Brown and looking for ways to spice up the journey to this “underworld”. 

“People always talk about wanting to leave Singapore, but there is heritage here, there are stories to be told,” says the 57-year-old.“When we bring people to these places, we want to tell them about Singapore’s past. It’s something we can be proud of, something that should be treasured and conserved if possible.”

Bukit Brown is not dead 

What does it mean to keep Bukit Brown alive? Is its legacy anchored in the dedication of individuals like 59-year-old researcher Khoo Ee Hoon? She can often be found hunched over burial records at the National Archives, painstakingly working out the number of graves in Bukit Brown, or mapping out the layout of the village with the help of former villagers.

Or is conservation a community effort – atBB and its faithful band of self-proclaimed “Brownies” leading weekly tours, putting together a self-guided trail of 32 graves, complete with QR code essays and an Instagram campaign? 

Bukit Brown is unique in the devotion it inspires. Clearing cemeteries to house the living is par for the course in Singapore – Bidadari and Bishan are a few examples, but neither has a Facebook group with over 12,000 members and daily posts. So why is Bukit Brown the exception?

“I think a few factors were aligned,” says anthropologist Hui Yew-Foong, who led the documentation of some 4,000 graves that were affected by Lornie Highway’s construction.For one thing, he thinks society has matured beyond bread and butter issues, and is now concerned also with “finding the soul and identity of the nation”. Plus, Singapore’s early “developmental warpath” and the trail of exhumations it left in its wake make Bukit Brown a “rarity that helps to anchor our collective memories and sense of belonging”.

The 12,000-strong Heritage Singapore – Bukit Brown Cemetery Facebook group keeps the fire burning too. “In the age of social media, the digital public sphere facilitates platforms where like-minded people can easily find one another, share ideas and nourish their passion for a cause, leading, sometimes, to further offline activities,” he adds.

It has been 14 years since public interest in Bukit Brown was most acutely kindled after a detailed government announcement designating the area for residential use. In that time, the Brownies have swelled their ranks, but interest among the young has started to plateau, according to the observations of Singapore Heritage Society (SHS) president Fauzy Ismail. Together with atBB, SHS put out an open call for Bukit Brown heritage guides in December, receiving 100 applications. However, once training concluded, none of the 20 selected trainees followed through with organising their own tours. 

“Few people have time to do things for free in Singapore. Especially for the younger generation, it’s removed from their periphery,” he says. “Their parents and grandparents know about Bukit Brown because they might know people who were buried there, but Gen Z doesn’t know anyone there. There are more pressing issues for them, like housing and wages and jobs. So their voices are missing on this issue.” This does not mean, however, that the movement is doomed. Members of atBB say curiosity among university students is growing, especially after the pandemic drove them to take a closer look at their backyard. And though this interest does not yet translate into volunteer hours, the important thing is that a passion for heritage has been seeded in the youth. 

“Who knows? Maybe if Bukit Brown is still around when their careers are more stable, they may come back,” says Mr Koh, a Malaysian citizen who has been a permanent resident here since 2001. “So I’m not so worried. I think the interest is there, and cometh the hour, cometh the man.”

The road ahead 

Not everyone stumbles upon Bukit Brown in search of the dead. Some are lured by other curiosities – the abandoned cars, in my case, or the “Avatar” trees, ficus trees so nicknamed because they resemble the trees in the 2009 blockbuster movie. “We need to recognise that the way these young people are exploring the space is very different from our generation,” says another Brownie, Ms Bianca Polak, 53, a Dutch citizen and Singapore PR who has lived here for more than 25 years.

“At least they are coming through the space, and while they are here, they will stumble upon some of the graves, and maybe they’ll discover our Wayfinder guide and start exploring the history of the cemetery.”  One of atBB’s long-term goals is to have the cemetery enshrined as a Unesco World Heritage Site. Ms Lim says the country’s only World Heritage Site, the Singapore Botanic Gardens, tells mainly the story of its colonial past, and Bukit Brown completes the picture. “It represents our migrant story.” 

It preserves, too, the exchanges between Singapore’s different cultures, says Mr Koh, pointing me to the words of local playwright Alfian Sa’at: “A dialogue between histories, between the Nanyang and the Nusantara, between the past and the future, the living and the dead.” 

But such a bid first requires a closer look at the archives. “Not enough research has been done to determine how intersectional Bukit Brown’s history is,” says Mr Fauzy. “Right now, conserving Bukit Brown is a good goal to have, but it still needs to be balanced against Singapore’s developmental needs and the interest of the public. If we conserve it, but the public does not see its value, then we’re just keeping a white elephant.” 

For now, part of Greater Bukit Brown has been zoned for residential use, while the existing cemetery areas will be “kept for as long as possible”, to be reviewed only in the long term “when the need arises”, so said the Ministry of National Development in a 2022 written reply to a Parliamentary question. 

Which means Mr Soh, who lives in an HDB flat in western Singapore but returns there only to sleep, can cling on to his “real” home in Bukit Brown. Plying the same paths he has followed all his life, he is not yet nostalgic. 

“Why should I miss it? I’m here every day.”  

Down The Rabbit Hole is a series in which reporters at The Straits Times chase down answers to niche questions and follow where their curiosity leads them.

Further Reading from my blog if the above article interest you. 

Parliamentary Question by Ms Janice Koh (Bukit Brown). Rojak Librarian, posted on 9 July 2013

The school in the jungle off Kheam Hock Road (Chin Chung Public School). Rojak Librarian, posted on 12 December 2021

Revisitng Lorong Halwa - the avatar trees trail. Rojak Librarian, posted on 20 March 2024

Aerial view of Bukit Brown in 1948 - Kheam Hock Village. Rojak Librarian, posted on 5 September 2014

Resource Guide on Bukit Brown. Rojak Librarian, posted on 9 July 2023