Common spaces #1: the HDB
Previous posts on this blog has mentioned some culturally significant landmarks in Singapore, such as the Merlion Tower, the Esplanade, Victoria Memorial Hall, Ann Siang Hill, Emerald Hill. However, the one space most commonly featured in Singaporean literature is also perhaps the most ordinary one: the HDB flat.
The HDB flat serves as the background for numerous pieces of Singaporean literature. Possibly due to the Asian family-centric culture, many conflicts presented in Singaporean texts happen at home, and thus in a HDB flat. There are conflicts between husband and wife that even when taken out of context and presented on paper as mere conversations, still unmistakably happen in a HDB flat. One can almost see in front of their eyes a twelve – squared – meter bedroom, the pastel paint on the wall faded and peeling.
“Why do you always wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom?”
“Just now I forgot to bring in the slippers when they washed the corridor.”
“It’s nothing, someone threw a bottle down the rubbish chute.”
“Did you have to beat him so hard?”
“Do you think if we had a house like that we’d be happy?”
“Ever since I married you there’s been nothing but money problems.”
- excerpt from ‘What they talk about when the children are asleep’ by Alfian Sa’at -
Or the conflict can be between parents and their children living in one flat, a generational gap that is unavoidable with Singapore’s rapidly modernising values. A prominent example of such literature is the award-winning play wo(men) by Faith Ng, a young playwright. The play explores the build-up of tension and eventual blow up between three generations of women living together in one HDB flat. In fact, the whole play took place inside the flat, so much so that the flat seems like their little bubble of a world.
The HDB building is also quintessentially Singaporean in the way it represents all things orderly, efficient and standardised in Singapore. Some authors look at it as the symbol of Singapore’s rigidity and conformity, as a ruthless white-washing of the past and of its unique quirks in the name of urbanisation.
They erase the flaws,
the blemishes of the past, knock off
useless blocks with dental dexterity.
All gaps are plugged
with gleaming gold.
The country wears perfect rows
of shining teeth.
Anaesthesia, amnesia, hypnosis.
They have the means.
They have it all so it will not hurt,
so history is new again.
The piling will not stop.
The drilling goes right through
the fossils of last century.
But my heart would not bleed
poetry. Not a single drop
to stain the blueprint
of our past's tomorrow.
- excerpt from ‘The Planners’ by Boey Kim Cheng -
Some instead choose to embrace the commonness of the HDB flat like the commonness of everyday life in Singapore, and even find in it peace and and idyllic charm.
In this light by wash of traffic and the rain
hushed to gentleness in moistened air, how easy
to find forgiveness now.
There’s Bach playing
in the next room, warm coffee, pen, and every book
you’ve loved for company. Outside your lover
clears the table, does the plates, sets the laundry
spinning, makes lunch for tomorrow
which may never come. Then you hear
the shower flush on, water drowning out rain,
skin blest by nothing more than soap
and electric light. The radio sputters into static,
dies. Night after night a closed door opens
and at last you lean into the world, whose arms
are warm and smell of Lux.
- 'Finding Enlightenment in the HDB heartland’ by Alvin Pang -
As can be seen, the HDB flat is an ever-relevant imagery in Singaporean literature. Though all HDB blocks might look the same on the surface, each Singaporean has their one version of the HDB flat filled with memories and events. Hence, the HDB flat can be said to be a private space that takes on no significance by itself, until it bears the marks of its owners.
