Imagine, rows of neatly laid out tombstones right in the middle of a crowded urban housing estate. This is Shuang Long Shan cemetery. Today, we explore this unusual graveyard, a surprising sight in Singapore.
Shuang Long Shan translates to Double Dragon Hill. It offers a glimpse into Singapore’s heritage and history. This Hakka cemetery is not your typical tourist hotspot, yet it reveals another side of Singapore.
Back in 2012, the Singapore Arts Festival staged a programme here called the Lan Fang Chronicles. It was a surreal mix of drama and exhibition blurring fact and fiction.
Oddly enough, Shuang Long Shan is also known as Ying Fo Fui Kun. This is the name of the Hakka Clan and Association running the cemetery. Their main office is in Telok Ayer. A caretaker minds the place, and during Qing Ming, people come to pay respects to their ancestors.
Shuang Long Shan has been a fixture in the Holland Close housing estate since the 1960s. The 1.8-hectare plot sits between flats and a busy road. Inside, around 2,700 white tombstones stand in uniform rows.
For nearly 50 years, residents used the cemetery as a shortcut to the bus stop and MRT station. It was a flat, easy path compared to the uphill public route. But before the Covid-19 pandemic, the Hakka clan association erected gates and posted no trespassing signs.
Some residents were frustrated by the closure. Others were resigned to it. One resident of 50 years even tended a garden in the cemetery, growing vegetables for his cancer-stricken neighbors. A worker said the gates were built to keep drug addicts out.
Once, Shuang Long Shan spanned 40 hectares. In the 1960s, the state acquired Chinese clan burial grounds for redevelopment, shrinking it to its current size. The Housing Board built the tombs in 1965 to rehouse exhumed graves.
The Ying Fo Fui Kun clan bought over 100 hectares of land between Buona Vista and Commonwealth in 1887. They called it Shuang Long Shan and used it as a village and burial ground. Building cemeteries on hills was considered auspicious.
In 1969, all but 1.89 hectares of the land was returned to the state. A 99-year lease was placed on the area where the graves and ancestral halls now stand.
Shuang Long Shan Wu Shu Ancestral Hall houses ancestral tablets from the early 20th century. In 1926, Ying Xin School was established at the hall for village children. The school closed in 1969 due to declining enrolment.
In 1966, the government acquired the burial ground for development. After remains were identified and cremated, the ashes were placed in urns. These urns were placed either under headstones, in the old Ancestral Hall’s columbarium, or at the newer Ying Fo Fui Kun Memorial Hall, completed in 1988.
Today, Shuang Long Shan remains a gathering point for former villagers. It serves as a reminder of Queenstown’s past, a unique blend of urban life and heritage.