Kampong (village)

A kampong (spelled kampung in Malay and Indonesian) is a village in Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore and Cambodia. The term applies to traditional villages, especially of indigenous peoples, and has also used to refer to urban slum areas and enclosed developments within towns and cities. The traditional kampong village designs and architecture have been targeted for reform by urbanists and modernists and have also been adapted by contemporary architects for various projects. Traditional kampongs are also a tourist attraction.

The English word "compound" referring to a development in a town is from kampung.^[1]

Malaysia

In Malaysia, a kampung is determined as a locality with 10,000 or fewer people. Since historical times, every Malay village came under the leadership of a penghulu (village chief), who has the power to hear civil matters in his village (see Courts of Malaysia for more details).

A Malay village typically contains a "masjid" (mosque) or "surau", paddy fields and Malay houses on stilts. Malay and Indonesian villagers practice the culture of helping one another as a community, which is better known as "joint bearing of burdens" (gotong royong).[7] They are family-oriented (especially the concept of respecting one's family [particularly the parents and elders]), courtesy and practice belief in God ("Tuhan") as paramount to everything else. It is common to see a cemetery near the mosque. All Muslims in the Malay or Indonesian village want to be prayed for, and to receive Allah's blessings in the afterlife. In Sarawak and East Kalimantan, some villages are called 'long', primarily inhabited by the Orang Ulu.

The British initiated the Kampong Baru (New Village) program as a way to settle Malays into urban life. Malaysia's long serving prime minister Mahathir Mohamad lauded urban lifestyles in his book the Malay Dilemma and associated kampong village life with backward traditionalism. He also had the kampng sentiggan (squatter settlements) cleared and new buildings constructed to house them. ^[2]

Singapore

The native Malay kampung are found in Singapore, but there are few kampung villages remaining, mostly on islands surrounding Singapore, such as Pulau Ubin. In the past, there were many kampung villages in Singapore but development and urbanization have replaced them. Development and development plans for Kampung Glam have been controversial. Singapore is also home to Kampong Buangkok, featured in the film The Last Kampong.

Indonesia

In Sumatra the indigenous peoples have distinctive architecture and building type features including longhouses and rice storage buildings in their kampongs. Malays, Karo people (Indonesia), Batak people, Toba people, Minangkabau people and others have communal housing and tiered structures.

The kampong by Peter Nas, Leslie Boon, Ivana Hladka and Nova Tampubolon explores various iterations of the kampong as a rural settlement, mythical place of origin for the Minangkabau, palatial compound, and slum settlement, while looking at attempts to modernize, social changes, tourism, and urbanism.^[3]

See also

• Architecture of Indonesia
  • Batak architecture
• Malay Architecture

Further reading

• Indonesian Houses: Volume 2: Survey of Vernacular Architecture in Western Indonesia R. Schefold BRILL, Jan 1, 2008

References