The simple life: Ms Sng Mui Hong says that since recent reports, strangers have been coming up to her thinking that she's an heiress. -- picture| Hedy Khoo
SAY you own a piece of land that the experts estimate to be worth tens of millions.
Wouldn’t you be happy?
Not Ms Sng Mui Hong. The 54-year-old feisty land owner has been in a foul mood since recent news reports suggested the land she co-owns in Lorong Buangkok is worth $33 million.
She guards her privacy jealously but since the reports, people have turned up in droves to look at her land, said to be Singapore’s last kampung.
Some of her tenants have been approached by property agents.
Ms Sng has also been sought after in the past. She remembers that some even asked for her hand in marriage, considering her a rich heiress.
But with so many strangers in the area now, she has become even more reclusive.
When The New Paper on Sunday dropped by her home, Ms Sng initially refused to talk. But after three days, she slowly opened up and explained her stand.
At a time when many are thinking of making a killing on the property market, she just wants to be left alone on her land, roughly the size of three football fields.
And while some landlords are pushing up rents, she’s maintaining hers, despite them remaining as low as $10 a month.
Ms Sng co-owns the land with her siblings. She herself lives in an attap hut as the ‘penghulu’ (Malay for village leader) of a group of tenants who all want to be left alone.
No media, no visitors, no gawkers and certainly no suitors.
Said Ms Sng in Mandarin: ‘Since the reports, all sorts of strangers have come to the kampung.’
She wants one thing made clear: ‘I am not rich, and I am not selling my land.’
She added: ‘I own this land, but now I have to act like a thief, hiding in my own house, when strangers come knocking on my door.
‘Strange men come calling out my name at my door, so I have to hide. Same goes for property agents.’
She added: ‘My father left us this land because he knew I wouldn’t let go of it.’ ‘He didn’t leave us any money, and even when he was alive, my father was not money-crazy. He charged the tenants a minimum rate to stay in the kampung.’
Currently, the kampung consists of 28 households, which pay monthly rents ranging between $6.50 and $30.
She said: ‘I take after my father in my philosophy of life. As long as I have enough to eat, I don’t hunger after money or to be rich.’
One of Ms Sng’s tenants, Mr Ter Ah Seng, 68, an odd-job labourer said she is just like her father - easy-going and not calculative about money.
He said: ‘You won’t find another landlady like her who keeps such a simple lifestyle and lives in harmony and gets along well with all her tenants.’
He pays her $11.70 monthly to rent the land his house is on. He said the rental has increased only 30 per cent in the past decade.
Mr Ter said property agents have stalked him, thinking he’s the land owner. He said: ‘If they catch me around, I always tell them to look for Ms Sng, because I know what her answer to them would be.’
Which is?
Said Ms Sng, raising her voice to make the point: ‘I will never sell the land if I can help it, because if I do so, I will be unfilial.’
The rugged woman - her skin tanned from hours spent in the sun - softened when she spoke about her mother.
Her mother died from leukaemia, soon after her father bought the land in 1956.
‘My mother stayed here for only one month and two days before she passed away. I was only 3 years old then.
‘That’s why I must keep this land. It is my only memory of her,’ Ms Sng said.
While her father willed the land to be jointly owned by Ms Sng and her three siblings, she said they have all moved to live in HDB flats.
But don’t bother approaching them either.
Unlike some families slugging it out in court over property, their family ties remain strong.
She said: ‘My siblings know I love this land, and I choose to live here because it is peaceful. Money simply can’t compensate me for that.’
‘Even if the land is really worth much, and I can sell the land and move to a huge bungalow with a big backyard, I can never regain this feeling of simplicity and freedom, and be close to my childhood memories.’
Her niece, who wanted to be known only as Miss Sng to avoid overnight friends, agrees with her aunt.
The 34-year-old clerk said: ‘We are not rich, because if we are, I don’t have to go out to work for a salary. We are just simple folk who appreciate the peaceful and quiet life here. I won’t give this up, not even for a bungalow.’
But not all visitors are unwelcome. Ms Sng said: ‘I love students who come to do projects or field trips, because they can learn so much about nature here.’
And those interested to learn that family ties are not for sale may also want to drop by.
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