FOR more than half a century, the remains of 34,000 people lay buried beneath this hill in Yishun.Unnamed and with no one to mourn their passing, they lay in their resting place until a small landslide earlier this year uncovered a number of earthenware urns.
The hill is near Block 299, at the junction of Yishun Avenue 2 and Yishun Ring Road. Not many residents living there know about it. There are no headstones and no visitors. But a nearby temple is planning to hold a prayer ceremony to 'free' the 'lost souls'.
The exposed urns were located along the side of the hill, which is surrounded by blocks of flats and a few temples. They were sticking out of the ground and caught the eye of one passer-by.
Mr Tye Lee Sun, 55, was on the MRT train with his wife on his way to town when he passed the hill. The sharp-eyed funeral director from Peace Casket immediately knew what they were. He said: 'Being in this line, I knew immediately that those urns were used for storing human ashes. 'I felt that the ashes should be handled properly. It's not right to leave them out there like that.
'What was interesting was that these big urns - 75cm high - were only used in olden times to store exhumed bodies. They're not like the 25cm-high urns we use for storing ashes today.'
Mr Tye had been so concerned that he went out of his way to take a closer look at the urns last Tuesday and then called The New Paper Hotline. When we went there, a marble memorial tower at the main entrance, built 28 years ago, is the only giveaway to the burial site.
Known as the Teochew Memorial Park or Guang De Shan, the park was established in 1909 by Ngee Ann Kongsi, a foundation dedicated to serving the local Teochew community. The foundation is funded by Orchard Road's Ngee Ann City, according to the foundation's website. The urns were buried there by Ngee Ann Kongsi in 1950.
The Nam Hong Siang Theon Temple, which is 500m away from the memorial park, will conduct a prayer session from 31Mar to 2Apr.
