Tales of a place formerly known as Aukang

My Father's Kampung weaves together personal and public histories, and uses each realm to enrich and reinforce the other

Published Sat, Jan 8, 2022 · 05:50 AM

Heritage

LOCAL history always strikes a heart-chord in a way that grand world history rarely can. Maybe it's because it feels closer to home. We feel more connected to things that we imagine happened in this place (wherever that is), and to people like us (whoever we are).

In that sense, there is no history more local - none that hits closer, literally, to home - than the family sort. There is something reliably poignant about tracing our genealogies, or racing to capture elderly family members' memories before mortality catches up with our work.

That is the quest Shawn Seah embarks on in My Father's Kampung: A History of Aukang and Punggol. Through historical records,…