That’s the way it is these days in Singapore, where anybody getting buried in the government-owned Choa Chu Kang Cemetery (the only one accepting “new” bodies) is guaranteed only this briefest of stays. The reason is dead simple: land is scarce.
Over the past two decades, the government has exhumed thousands of graves whenever it needed the ground for development. R.I.P. has thus taken on a weirdly transient connotation, rather like taking turns on a time share. Out you go after 15 years; in comes someone else for the next stint. And once dug up, you can’t expect to be repotted somewhere else–unless your faith bans cremation, as in the case of Muslims, Jews or Parsis. Next stop is the crematorium and a little niche with a marble plaque in a state-supported columbarium. Mind you, it will be at the government’s expense. But if no relatives claim your bones, your ashes will be scattered at sea.
That’s the fate of many at the old Bidadari Christian Cemetery. Old, sprawling trees shade sparse tombs, many already dug up. Tall weeds and flowers have reclaimed the grounds, with angels and crosses seemingly floating on this grass sea. On the day I went I didn’t see a soul, except for a lone jogger, amid the songs of birds and crickets. Alas, this place of meditative repose sits opposite a new train station, which the rail operators refuse to open until there is sufficient demand. So the deceased will just have to make way for higher-density housing.
Even I, a supposedly pragmatic Westerner, am troubled by this apparent disregard for one’s ancestors. To Chinese, considered more superstitious, tombs are a physical link between the living and the dead. Destroying that link brings untold bad luck. After all, as a restless spirit, wouldn’t you torment someone who digs you out of your final home?
So it was that I watched a recent documentary film by Tan Pin Pin, “Gravedigger’s Luck,” profiling one of those who actually do the digging. It’s gruesome work: opening coffins to pull out the bones, washing them in a little bucket before handing them over in a plastic bag to the family to take to the crematorium. I asked the director to put me in touch with the man. I wanted to know his thoughts on modern Singapore’s attitude toward the dead.
Chan Ah Kow, a former pig farmer, has been working as a gravedigger ever since his land was repossessed by the government 30 years ago. This year he’s already excavated about 300 graves. When he’s in luck, the tomb is dry; when he’s not, he can be knee-deep in muddy water, groping around. Chan doesn’t see himself as a brave man. He says that when he started his job it took him a week to muster the courage to dig his first grave, and over the years he’s had his fair share of frights. He can still remember having to dig up a tomb that was only a few years old. The body wasn’t fully decomposed, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. “I could still feel some flesh around the bones,” he tells me.
The 65-year-old is one of 50 or 60 gravediggers, most his age. “Young people are not interested in this job,” he says. Would he want to be buried, I ask? “No,” he replies, adding that it will be up to his sons to decide. But to him, it would be a waste of time and money. Especially since you’re sure to end up as ashes.
