Secret red lantern temple in Bukit Panjang


1. Secret shrine; 2. Railway is just behind; 3. Backdrop is Bukit Gombak jungle
¡@

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

¡@