RIP  Singaporean brother

if only backspace is so easy.

I wanna plate sambal kangkong on her salad hole and give it a good toss  

*backspaces away everything that will get moi arrested*

𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐖𝐚𝐢 𝐊𝐞𝐨𝐧𝐠 谭伟强, 𝟏𝟖 (𝟓 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟗𝟔𝟒 - 𝟐𝟒 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟑)       “𝐻𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑢𝑛𝑘 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑑 𝑑𝑜𝑜𝑟. 𝐻𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑚 𝑊𝑎𝑖 𝐾𝑒𝑜𝑛𝑔.” – Death Kopitiam Singapore His name was not known and seldom mentioned, but the circumstances behind his death became oxygen for dark stories about the military experience on Pulau Tekong. In fact, the Straits Times appropriated his story in 2016 (and again in 2018) as part of a feature about “Places in Singapore with a dark past”. He sits comfortably on the pantheon of ghosts in Singapore. He featured prominently in local folklore and became one of our first “ghost” stories. That of a recruit found dead and his ruptured internal organs displayed in a stand-by weapon position, by nefarious and unknown forces. That of a third door in a military bunk on the island of Tekong. Details of his death became increasingly indulgent, and the structure of the stories behind his death became at a tad more immaculate. In the last four decades, we have forgotten Tham Wai Keong, his name and his life. In fact, Tham was one of the most outstanding recruits in his batch, possibly the top 10 – 20% of his cohort. That explained why In May 1983, he was continuing his training to be an officer at the Infantry Training Depot (ITD) on Tekong, i.e. he was not a recruit. That was the first glaring distortion. On 23 May 1983, his platoon was at the tail-end of a 136-strong route march contingent. Two botched headcounts later, possibly due to negligence by his commanders, meant that his absence was only discovered several hours later. He was found dead a day later, 20 metres from the route march track. According to the coroner’s report, Tham’s body was facing upward with his webbing and helmet in place. He was clutching his M16 rifle between his legs. The muzzle was filled with mud. His fullpack and uncapped water bottle was found at a nearby bush, and there were no signs of a struggle. In fact, Tham was visibly exhausted, just five kilometres into the march. A greater sense of situational awareness on the part of his commanders might have gone a long way in preventing the death of a young man. The cause of his death, according to the coroner, was a “ruptured stomach” – no further explanation was provided. An open verdict was recorded, but investigators did not rule out the possibility that he might have been hit by an object such as an entrenching tool, which was found near the body. We and Wai Keong shared a common experience - that of conscription and the subsequent military training on the island of Pulau Tekong. Like any male Singaporean conscripted to serve the nation, he expects to return from the jungle and back to a normal civilian future once he has ORD-ed. But in the years after his death, he became our burden and our ghosts. A living mythology, possibly arising from our anxieties and fears, was constructed at the expense of Wai Keong. In the words of one Kavya Deshpande, it “seems unjust that his memory should have been contorted until it was an indeterminate horror story told to me on a school playground.” Year after year, told and retold, at a chalet, in our classrooms and in the jungles of Tekong. We are continually fascinated by the horror and gothic genre. We are perpetually attracted to our own excesses. Slowly but surely, we became the ghosts in our own consciousness. Unfortunately, in this instance, we project our fears, anxieties and the symbolic violence we experienced whilst serving national service, onto the person of Tham Wai Keong, unjustly and unjustifiably so. Today, on the eve of his 41st death anniversary, we hope that, through this post, we can reclaim his name, his short life and the many memories that his loved ones have of him. In time to come, we hope to better chronicle his life story, provided his loved ones are willing to reach out to us. He is not the ghost in the bunk with the third door. He was Tham Wai Keong.   https://www.facebook.com/DeathKopitiamSG/posts/pfbid02JBnyToQe4ReTAnZkoyz1Q7ER9tKZgfZoX9d5Cm4G4Ykx3ZCyEUDSQKgTSrNrGvrKl