Hougang The Documentary: a love letter to that little blue back harbour
A moving portrait of Hougang, its people and its history
We’ve all heard the story. Once upon a time, Singapore was just a fishing village. Thanks to our founding fathers, Singapore was transformed to become the modern city-state we see today.1 All hail progress.
Hougang The Documentary lovingly showcases different perspectives to that narrative. Here lies Hougang, directly translated from Chinese to mean “the harbour in the back”, pronounced Au Kang in Teochew, or with the h-sound (How Kang) for the less dialect-savvy among us. This was where Teochews lived and tended to the land. Not quite a sleepy fishing village, it was a thriving, bustling district with pig farms, fisheries and markets.
All that changed in the name of modernisation. As with so much else of Singapore, swathes of land were reclaimed by the Singapore government and the people of Hougang were uprooted from their kampungs and relocated to HDB flats. Much more modern, and much more sterile. Gone were the farms, the attap houses and the open areas where children would play together. This was a necessary part of modernisation and so people had to accept it, whether they liked it or not.
Perhaps adding salt to the wound, the language policies of the day sought to prescribe the very means by which people spoke, with cheerful posters carrying slogans like: “Mandarin’s in. Dialect’s out.” Out it goes, along with your way of life, the posters seemed to say.
But the Teochews did not stop speaking Teochew. You could take away their lands, their farms and the places they treasured. But you could never take away their spirit.
Against that backdrop, a young opposition politician by the name of Low Thia Khiang decided to run for Hougang SMC in the 1991 General Elections, giving rally speeches in Teochew. His campaign struck a chord with Hougang voters. As described by an Hougang resident in the documentary, there was something defiant about that choice to campaign in Teochew, and it resonated.
Low Thia Khiang won with 52.82% of the vote share in 1991, and the WP’s vote share in Hougang has never dipped below that level since. So Hougang SMC, which was first created in 1988 and held by the PAP in its first 3 years of existence, has since been held by WP for some 30 plus years and counting.
It’s certainly not the case that the PAP didn’t try to win Hougang back. Over the years, the PAP tried various different tactics, from telling voters that PAP-held constituencies would have priority in getting lift upgrades, to calling Hougang a “slum”.2 Lee Hsien Loong was remarkably candid in a 2006 rally speech when he proclaimed that if the opposition won too many seats, he would need to spend time worrying about how to fix the opposition and buying his own supporters over:3
“Right now we have Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong, Steve Chia. We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in Parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I’m going to spend all my time - I have to spend all my time - thinking what’s the right way to fix them, to buy my own supporters over, how can I solve this week’s problem and forget about next year’s challenges?”
He (or his press secretary) later offered something like an apology, reportedly saying that: “[i]f the exact words he used offended, he is sorry.”4 This sounds to me like: sorry if you were offended, but I was speaking the truth.
In any case, the message was clear. Vote for the opposition at your own risk. If you want upgrades just like the rest of Singapore, you’d better vote for the ruling party.
Ultimately, these tactics backfired massively on the PAP. Hougang voters were resolute. They were not to be swayed by morally bankrupt politicking or the partisan use of a national scheme. One Hougang resident summed it up perfectly in what was probably my favourite moment of the documentary. After recounting how she often had to single-handedly carry a stroller and heavy bags up the stairs, she says, with exasperation:
”I pay tax, you know??”
As she put it, Hougang voters were not children to be swayed by promises of lollipops. They knew what they wanted and they cast their ballots accordingly.
Low Thia Khiang says in the documentary that there’s a yardstick of fairness and justice in people’s hearts. Or in Chinese, 公道自在人心. People know what fair treatment is. And they want to be treated fairly. Punishing people for voting in a certain way is not fair. Pragmatic as Singaporeans are brought up to be, there are higher values.
There is a certain stubbornness and grit, perhaps even defiance, in the voters of Hougang. It feels like when they vote, they too are sending their own message. People with backbones will not vote for spinelessness.
And perhaps that’s how Hougang has remained a rare opposition stronghold in a country dominated by a single ruling party.
No doubt, some will say that the WP is peddling nostalgia to win votes. I’m sure there’s some element of that. But the documentary is also so much more than that. It’s a beautifully shot tribute to Hougang, celebrating shared heritage and exploring the question of identity. And is it really so wrong to think that there’s something special about the little town that has so boldly said no to the ruling party over the past 3 decades (a feat that no other constituency in Singapore can claim)?
To me, the documentary hits the right notes. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend giving it a watch.