kampong lorong buangkok is a wonderful place to take geography students on a fieldtrip. the two types of landscape - urban and rural - are within sight of each other. as you walk out of the foot path from the village, the tall, modern housing development board (hdb) blocks of flats of buangkok estate, just a few hundred metres way, come into view.
rural folks may not have access to cable tv and the internet but they still can enjoy some modern conveniences like airconditioning, as you can see in this house. the compressor unit is at the back of the house. however, you have to put up more with irritants like the mosquitoes and other insects. i remember my kampong days when the chichak (lizard) always made its appearance when the florescent light came on.
across the canal from the kampong is mugliston park pivate housing estate. you can see the difference in the lifestyle of the people living on the opposite sides of the canal. one thing that i am quite certain is: you do not find domestic helps in these kampong houses.
somehow i can sense that the character of kampongs has changed over the years. when i used to live in a kampong, the front doors were kept open all the time. the only time they would be shut was when the folks retired for the night. today, when we visited lorong buangkok, most of the doors of the houses and those which had gates were shut.
those days, we hardly grew our plants in earthern pots. we either planted them directly in the ground or we used metal tins to contain the plants. we grew plants not for decoration but for their practical utility. in our kampong plots, we grew mainly herbal plants and fruit trees but not so much flowering plants like orchids, hibiscus or bougainvillea.
at kampong lorong buangkok, we found that the villagers were either malay or chinese; we did not see any evidence - like, mango leaves - of any indian family. i find that malays are more creative and artistic when it comes to furnishing their homes. chinese homes can be identified by the red banners hung over the door or the presence of a dog in the compound.
in my former kampong, we had representation from all the four racial groups - the chinese was the biggest group, followed by the malays, then the indians and finally, the eurasians. the chinese belonged to three main dialect groups: hokkien, teochew and hainanese.
one thing which was found in my former kampong but not found at lorong buangkok is the outhouse which served as a toilet. in our kampong, the bathroom was also the toilet where you did your 'small business'. for 'big business' you used the communal latrine.
