‘Ah Gong, We’re Helping You Move House’: Culture, Environment, and Bukit Brown's Legacy

Meet the people fighting to keep this slice of Singapore alive.

Written by Chervel, Rui Heng and Nafiesah.

Remnants of offerings from a pre-exhumation ritual performed at one of the graves at Bukit Brown Cemetery. PHOTO: BONG XUE YING CHERVEL

In a small clearing surrounded by trees and dense vegetation, a group stands quiet and still. Around them, grey smoke from burnt offerings rises into the air. Only the rhythmic chanting of a Taoist priest, clad in traditional ceremonial robes, breaks the silence.

On his cue, the group bows to the remains of their ancestor. Then, after the ceremony is concluded with a symbolic knock on the grave, the family treks back through the thick undergrowth. Climbing over bumpy slopes and treading across uneven ground, they return to their cars. 

The clearing is empty again within minutes, save for the scattered remnants of offerings.

It was Raymond Goh, expert grave hunter and Bukit Brown tour guide, who brought us to such a scene.

Sweat on his brow and a small smile on his face, he explained that this was a traditional Chinese pre-exhumation ritual. It is customary that this ritual is conducted to “inform” those entombed in their resting places before their remains are moved to a new “home”.

The family would return the following week, for their ancestor’s exhumation, cremation, and relocation.

More and more people are relocating their ancestors’ tombs, he told us. He estimated that nearly 200 tombs are being exhumed from Bukit Brown yearly.

Grave hunter and guide Raymond Goh in front of the Sounds of the Earth outdoor memorial at Bukit Brown. The installation features about 80 unclaimed artefacts collected during the Lornie Highway construction process. PHOTO: NAFIESAH BINTE TAJUDDIN 

Raymond Goh, 60, is a member of the heritage society all things Bukit Brown (atBB).

He and his younger brother, Charles Goh, began exploring the area together as early as 2005. They both now have extensive knowledge of Bukit Brown.

Bamboo stick in hand and towel slung around his shoulders, Goh has spent his Saturdays at this cemetery since 2006, be it guiding public tours or exploring and rediscovering old tombstones.

On the day we met with him at Bukit Brown, we watched as Goh and a companion of his uncovered a hidden grave before our very eyes.

The headstone, dilapidated and tilting forward at an angle, was shrouded with leaves and vines. 

With his bare hands, Goh ripped these vines aside. A picture of a man was revealed. 

“Handsome,” he remarked. “And young.”

Water applied to his palm, he swept his palm across the tombstone’s surface, and a story made itself known. A man, died aged 34 in the year 1941.

Goh feels that Bukit Brown Cemetery is an intangible part of Singapore’s heritage and that it has to be preserved.

“The whole fabric of Singapore: Social, History, Life. Embedded in this (tombs) and people don’t know what’s lying here.”, he said.

What Lies Beyond

An unclaimed tomb within Bukit Brown cemetery, un-maintained and overgrown with vegetation. PHOTO: NAFIESAH BINTE TAJUDDIN

From a distance, it might seem like these unobtrusive, odd-looking rocks sticking out of the greenery are simply random stones. However, if you looked just a little closer, the faded engravings carved onto its surface are a dead giveaway.

According to Goh, these tombstones can bear interesting details, some not so apparent at first glance.

Information such as the date of birth, date of death, status, where the deceased were from, names of their wives, children, and grandchildren, as well as how they died could all be recorded on the tombstone’s epitaph.

The size of the grave lot, the presence of any photographs, ornamental carvings, porcelain, and coloured glass could also hint at the economic status that the person once enjoyed in life.

Even the type of stone used, and how rough the surface of the rock is, could indicate the era someone was buried, or re-buried, at Bukit Brown cemetery.

“That’s why every tomb here tells a story,” said Goh. “And the fact that they have to be sacrificed and we don’t keep all this (tombs) is very unfortunate.”

Headstone sections of the Bukit Brown Cemetery Memorial art installation located beside Lornie Highway. The intricacy of the carvings on these headstones usually indicates that the deceased is of a higher socio-economical status. PHOTO: NAFIESAH BINTE TAJUDDIN 

Highway through History

The first private cemeteries at Bukit Brown were opened in the 1870s for people of the Chinese Ong clan. The land was subsequently acquired by the colonial government, and the new municipal cemetery at Bukit Brown was officially opened in 1922. 

Bukit Brown was closed for burial in 1973, with 100,000 graves within its land. Much of the cemetery has been reclaimed by nature and covered in plant overgrowth since then.

In 2011, it was announced that over 4,000 graves at Bukit Brown would be exhumed to make way for the development of a new eight-lane highway.

The announcement saw a renewed focus on Bukit Brown, with activists from both the Singapore Heritage Society and atBB lobbying against its construction.

They were joined by Nature Society Singapore (NSS), a local non-profit group dedicated to the preservation of biodiversity and wildlife. 

Lornie Highway, which cuts across a big valley within Bukit Brown, was completed and opened to traffic in 2018.

The remaining Bukit Brown areas have also been slated for residential development since Concept Plan 1991. However, the Ministry of National Development has stated its intent to: “keep the cemetery areas for as long as feasible, and only develop them for housing in the longer term if the need arises.”

More than Just Graves

In 2012, the NSS published a positioning paper about Bukit Brown cemetery, recommending that it be “designated as a heritage park, with cultural and nature/ecological components integrated into one entity.”

In terms of ecological significance, Dr. Ho Hua Chew posited in the paper that Bukit Brown provides multiple ecological services; carbon sequestration, a natural air-conditioning effect, and flooding reduction via slowing down the percolation of water into the ground.

68 year-old Leong Kwok Peng, Nature Society Singapore’s Acting Chair for the Conservation Committee, similarly claimed that Bukit Brown contains “important green areas”.

Mr Leong Kwok Peng at one of his Nature Society Singapore expeditions. PHOTO: MR LEONG KWOK PENG FACEBOOK

Bukit Brown occupies 233 hectares of land and is considered by Leong as an extension of the Central Water Catchment Area’s MacRitchie forest.

There is a wide range of biodiversity found at Bukit Brown including birds, land animals, and also reptiles. Notably, 94 resident and migrant bird species were recorded in Bukit Brown in 2007. 

“Squirrels, pangolins, they even reported sambar deer there as well,” stated Leong. “Those animals would not be able to cross the highway.”

With the highway slicing between the MacRitchie forest and parts of Bukit Brown, some animals who travelled between the two areas had their foraging and feeding grounds limited.

Every Singaporean a Naturalist

As Singapore faces the pressures of development and limited land, it is essential for youths and the public to speak up for preserving natural spaces like Bukit Brown.

"The Nature Society Singapore is just one voice, but if youths and the public make noise together, it’s a whole different game," said Leong.

A single voice might not carry far, but a united call for conservation could prompt a change in society and policy to benefit conservation efforts.

One such successful instance was Chek Jawa. The wetland area in Pulau Ubin was slated for reclamation and urban development in the early 2000s, until the area’s rich biodiversity was uncovered during a nature outing.

“We thought that one will be a gone case,” Leong recounted. “You could actually see the dredger out there, ready.”

Due to public-led volunteer efforts, the area’s rich biodiversity was brought into prominence. Chek Jawa remains as un-gazetted land, and is now a nature reserve managed by the National Parks Board (NParks)

Since 2018, the NSS has been organising events and initiatives to enhance students' and teachers' knowledge and passion for nature. This programme is dubbed Every Singaporean a Naturalist (ESN).

Leong said that he hopes that all Singaporeans become naturalists of some sort. 

“Educating the young is very important. Start them young. Identifying a few species of birds, a few species of trees,” he explained. “Once you can identify, it matters a lot – you have that connection. If you know that this tree is mahogany, then when you pass by a tree like that and recognise the name, it’s different.”

The NSS Youth Naturalist Leader Network (YNLN), led by NSS Assistant Director Huang Ningxin, encourages participants and alumni to focus on environmental stewardship, conservation, and sustainability within their schools and communities.

The first workshop was held on 11 March 2024 at Raffles Girls' School (Secondary), and was attended by 13 Youth Naturalist Leaders from four schools. During the workshop, students participated in a design thinking exercise to identify nature-related issues in their schools and create solutions for their peers.

Despite its size, Singapore still has some vital natural pockets left—forests, mangroves, and coral reefs—that support biodiversity, offer beauty, and enrich future generations. 

But Leong reminded us that these are simply fragmented remnants. Gone are the days where Singapore had an abundance of secondary forests and mangroves.

“It all adds up, you know? You take a bit of green areas here, a bit of green area there, your green area becomes smaller and smaller,” said Leong. “So it’s a cumulative effect, rather than one single incident.”

He spoke of how a world without nature would be a “harsh space”, about how he doesn’t “think the quality of life will be there”. 

Then, as we sat together at the void deck coffee table where we interviewed him, Leong posed us a question as he gestured outside, towards the HDB estates across the road, at the greens of the grasses and trees and the light of the setting sun.

“Imagine, you look at Potong Pasir. You take away all the trees. What would it look like?”