Secret red-lantern temple
This secret temple is not easy to be discovered. It is
hidden along the railway covered by tall grass. On top of
the hill is our Singapore defense stronghold - MINDEF
Bakit Gumbak quarter. While being on top, the security is tight
like a fortress as there are barbed wires and observation posts. Down there at the hill, it hides a small
hut shrine which we called it Red-lantern temple. See
picture.
Why we called it Red lantern temple? That is because it has a Chinese
style red-lantern erected on the roof the hut. This nick
name was actually told to us by a neighbor. The high raised lantern
made it as a disguising beacon for people from far to find the
shrine like a landmark.
The shrine was located in the
grass land between the bustling
Upper Bukit Timah
Road and the railway. The road was busy for vehicle traffic
but not many pedestrians would walk by.
SPI investigation
On one fine day SPI reporter team took a LRT from CCK station to 10 Mile
Junction. By walking straight down Upper Bukit Timah road, we passed
by a Hindu temple called Sri Murugan Hill temple, and a heavy vehicle park. The
rugged lorry drivers looked at us with curiosity because seldom
people would pass by. However, the opposite side of the road
was quite busy for pedestrians as there was a row of shop houses
mostly for car
repairs and panel beaters businesses.
SPI boarded on a LRT
to the investigation site
Crossing and walking
along Upper Bukit Timah Road. Mindef compounds are situated
on top of Bukit Gombak like a fortress
After about 15 minutes walk under
the hot sun, sweat soaked our bodies head over heel,
and we finally saw the 'red lantern' and the home-built temple. When near,
we cautiously walked into the grass land towards the temple.
We were just not sure what or who would be there; caretakers,
fanatic worshippers or stray dogs? "Hello, anybody here?
We are SPI reporter team", we shouted, hoping somebody friendly
will come and greet us. At least it is a polite gesture to
say hi when we step into somebody's house for we didn't want to
appear as intruders.
Some minutes had passed and we heard nobody respond. Only the
bustling traffic noise that came in bursts filled the air.
We looked up and down for any sign-board perhaps may tell us the
'rules' of entry. We simply didn't want to trespass into any
private property or state-land. No words about the
accessibility of this place was mentioned, whether allowed or not
allowed. So we assume this
temple was open for public and we stepped forth in.
"Hold on" Agent J said, pointing
her finger to a wooden board. That weather-board looked so
unnoticeable and was just anyhow dumped together with some buckets on the
ground. However, looking closer, it seemed to have some
paper notices pasted on but now frayed out. That made us
admire J's sharp observation. The paper notices came in
three versions each in a different language. They were badly
worn at the first sight. But when we examined them closer,
the papers were not naturally 'worn' or seasoned, they were burnt! You
may click to see the enlarged picture yourself. It looked as
if somebody intentionally damaged it or in fact, abused it.
The message on the notices read as below, though largely broken:
"Notice - To the occupier and..", "The owner of ... commissioned
... managed by...", "trespasser of all genders and all ages...
this land belongs to Federal ... Malaysia ... Landlord committee
authorize ... Dated on ... 2003", "Contact numbers 2209388 and
2257827".
See this yourself. You can check out the bits and pieces
that we extracted from the notice board from here:
bit(1),
bit(2),
bit(3) and
bit(4).
1. A welcome carpet?
2. Once that was a government notice board; 3 & 4. Cordon that
used to seal off this place was taken off
1 & 2. Incinerator that
looks like a rubbish bin; 3 & 4. Traces of offering burning were
seen on the ground
This was the best effort we attempted to decode the message.
Pretty clearly, this notice seemed to be posted up by some authority.
But was it for preventing people occupying this land or for the
owner to disallow public from coming in? Looked further we found
at the entrance of the temple a piece of plastic cordon in
red/white color lying on the ground. It looked as if
it was originally used to fence off this area. Somebody must have
ripped the cordon off and destroyed the notice.
These clues made us speculate that the shrine is built and
operated by breaking the law. Some officers from authority
may have come before, barred off the area. But somebody (or
a group of people) destroyed the notice and cordon and continued
the occupation.
What is inside?
Our hearts were thumping fast after we learnt that the jaga or
caretakers of this place may have broken the law for this place.
We smelled the danger of going in. They may mistake us as
people sent by authority to whack down their place, and hence
revenge on us. You know, an outlaw person may attack madly.
To show that we were friendly and open, we raised our voice again
"Hello we are just reporters from a company called SPI. We
are not police. Can we please have a word with you?"
Back to silence, our question remained unanswered.
At a split of second, we each decided to check every corner of
this place to make sure that we were not being ambushed before we
carried out our investigation. A thought of being smashed on
our head from behind by a spade made us shivered. And the
deserted long-grass land was ideal for hiding dead bodies.
We swiftly moved around the hut, inspected every possible hidden
corner, and found nobody. They may be hiding further in the
bush; or simply they wouldn't show up during day-time because they
are
afraid of being caught? Nevertheless, while we were searching
for hide-outs just now, we have seen many astonishing things
around.
Before we moved in to
the premise, we checked the surroundings carefully and made sure
there are no dangers
Not all the deity
statues are equally lucky. We found two ill-treated idols in
the grass, abandoned and cruelly exposed under the sun.
Look closely into their facial expression. What do you see?
This was truly a proper-scale temple with so many idol statues,
although it was set in a scruffy hut. Their collection of idols was
surprisingly complete. Any Chinese deity that you can name,
you can find it here: all kinds of Buddhas, Zhong Kui, Auspicious Bat,
Dragon, Eight Immortals, Guan di, Lao-zi, God of Longevity,
Luo-han, Nuo-zha, Monkey god and Ta Peh Kong, etc. Just for
Guan Yin for example, they had 20+ of statues of it in different shapes
and sizes. Plus several of Guan Yin portraits hung on the
wall. In front of one of the Guan Yin portraits had a
floating oil lamp lighting up!
Perhaps the most prominent statue was the 'Thousand-arms-Guan
Yin' framed in a glass display box, placed right in front of the
shrine. The rest of the idols were positioned on some old
shelves and tables. The whole place although was messy, the
shrine keeper had been putting efforts in maintaining the
cleanliness.
Many well-known deity
idols are found in this home temple
Many deity statues
are vividly displayed here like an exhibition. See close-up
pic.1 and
pic.2
Other than the idol statues there were other interesting things
worth mentioning. The little garden in front of the shrine
had a small farm growing Kang Kong and potatoes. The small
farms looked very well-kept and the vegetation was growing healthy. The looked quite ready to
be harvested. Also a
small banana tree cluster was beside the shrine. There were
bunches of banana growing on the tree though not ripe yet.
On the other side of the temple, amazingly we found a well.
Did the keepers drink the water from beneath? or the well water was
only used for watering plants? or for sewerage? A colorful porcelain dragon
statue was sited on the headstone of the well. We were not
surprised if they would name it 'dragon well' or 'dragon spring'.
The whole place seemed to be well looked after by the keeper.
But there were still physical dangers we had to beware of. For
example, we almost step on a
long nail pointing upward from a
broken panel. Can't imagine the pain if we did step on it.
The owner's identity revealed?
Every one of us was getting very curious of who is the owner or
the keeper of this temple. On one of the racks in the garden
we saw a pair of crotchets hanging over. This made us think
that the shrine keeper may be a disabled man. But then how
would he leave his crotchets here while he was in elsewhere?
May be he was on wheelchair or this was his spare set?
Nevertheless, we observed that the arrangement in the hut looked
more than just a temple. On the back of the hut, there were
some household items like a face mirror, a hand-towel, toothpaste,
shirts, water-boiler (got electricity meh?), cup, pot, washing
powder and oil-lamps. The oil lamps actually gave a very
useful clue that the keeper may stay here at night. They
were portable oil lamps that means he can even move around or
travel along the grass land at night to anywhere he wants.
There were also table and chairs for him to rest or eat, but we
found no bed. So we doubted if he actually would sleep here.
Household items are
found on the back on the temple. Somebody must have live here
A small vegetable
farm with a water well and
banana tree,
enough to feed an individual
The little hut served as a temple as well as a small bunker for
the mysterious shrine keeper. Inside we obviously had seen a
row of idol statues; however, looking closer we found a desk and a
chair with cushion. That made it look like a small office as
well.
We studied the details inside the shrine and found more important
clues.
The important clues were the tablet and a poster pasted on the
left pillar of the temple. On the tablet, there was a phrase
that said "Being Righteous Will Make You An Ever Respectable God"
translated from Chinese. Perhaps that was the life motto of
the shrine keeper; he wanted to become immortal by being
righteous?
On the poster it was filled with newspaper cuttings in both
English and Chinese. Most news were about Chi Kong, health
and sickness of elderly, a prominent script titled in Chinese 'If
Singaporeans do not change their life-style, the number of people
who get stroke attack will increase.' Searching on the news
clips, we finally found a name and a pager number - 'Spirit Doctor
(actually means Shaman or some extraordinary skillful medical doctor) Yuan
Kung, Pg. 92628919'
1 - 3. SPI was
searching for the identity of the dweller of this temple.
Click here
to see an enlarged newspaper script
4. We asked the neighbors around (just opposite the road) for
information about this secret temple
That was a surprising result to us; the shrine keeper is a Shaman
called Mr Yuan Kung and he left a pager number too? We have
tried calling the pager number but yet to receive any reply from
Mr Yuan Kung. Still this was not a strong proof as that
poster served as a bulletin board for other people to advertise. The
shrine keeper's identity still remains as a mystery.
But we were quite close to guessing a plain life-style of a
religion-devoted man, who lives in this shabby hut, routinely
looked after dozens of idol statues. He planted his
own food, built his own shelter and mind his own business.
Such is a care free lifestyle.
A matter of right or wrong?
We tried interview a few people nearby hoping to get more
information about this mysterious temple. Two of the lorry
drivers who parked just outside the road said they don't know.
Asked an old uncle sipping coffee opposite the road, he told us
"That shrine is commonly nicked as 'Big Red Lamp' (the red
lantern) to the neighbors. I heard they have a gang of
regular worshippers going there. But I myself have never
been there before..."
Once again we felt that the temple was a result of shared effort
voluntarily contributed by the neighbors around the area who
devoted to religious worship. Singapore is developing
herself so fast. Ironically behind those shop houses were
rows of modern HDBs and condos forming a satellite new town with
the new LRT. But back to the kampong ages the citizens were
so used to have one or two local temples near their dwellings.
Religion and the temples were a part of their lives. Some
senior citizens may have moved out, passed away, but many are
still here. They opt to have a temple, even illegally built,
to fulfill their spiritual need.
The question of right or wrong, keeps our minds ponder.
Rationally the authorities are doing their job to keep Singapore
organized and control on the land use. But to some elderly
having a local shrine is their priority. With no bad
intention to be outlaw, they just live their own way of life on a
rural land away from the society and their home-built temples cause no harms to others.
1. The nearby shop
houses, soon will be torn down and replaced by new HDBs; 2. Secret
temple as of today;
3. Religious people worshipping in Guan Yin temple, Bugis
1. Shop houses in the
old days; 2 - 3. Life styles of people and their need to worship,
do not seem to have changed by time
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Answering
Mysteries
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