Kampong

A kampong or kampung (both Malay and Indonesian spelling) is a village in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore and a "port" in Cambodia. The term applies to traditional villages, especially of indigenous people, and has also been used to refer to urban slum areas and enclosed developments and neighbourhoods within towns and cities in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Christmas Island. 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.

Traditional houses and pond pavilion of Kampung Naga, a traditional Sundanese village in West Java, Indonesia

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

Brunei

In Brunei, the term kampong (also kampung) primarily refers to the third- and lowest-level subdivisions after districts (Malay: daerah) and mukim (equivalent to subdistrict). Some kampong divisions are sufficiently villages by anthropological definition or in its traditional sense, while others may only serve for census and other administrative purposes. There are also some which have been incorporated as part of the capital Bandar Seri Begawan and a few towns.

A kampong is generally led by a ketua kampung or village head. Infrastructure-wise, it typically has a primary school and a balai raya or dewan kemasyarakatan, the equivalent of a community centre. Because many kampongs have predominantly Muslim residents, each may also have a mosque for the Jumu'ah or Friday prayers, as well as a school providing the Islamic religious primary education compulsory for Muslim pupils in the country.[2]

Both "kampong" and "kampung" are used with equal tendency in written media as well as in official place names. For example, Keriam, a village in Tutong District, is known as 'Kampung Keriam' by the Survey Department but 'Kampong Keriam' by the Postal Services Department — both are government departments.[3][4]

Indonesia

In Indonesia, the term "Kampung" generally refers to "village" which is the opposite of the so-called "city" known in Indonesia as kota. Although actually, most of Indonesian cities are initially consists of a collection of kampung settlements. "Kampung" also usually refers to a settlement or compound of certain community of certain ethnic, which later become the names of places. Such as Kampung Melayu district in East Jakarta, Kampung Bugis (Buginese village), Kampung Ambon (Ambonese village), Kampung Jawa (Javanese village), Kampung Arab (Arabs village), etc. The other Indonesian term for "village" is desa.

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

Orang Kampung means "people from/of the village" in Indonesia and it sometimes becomes a degrading label such as in America the term hillbilly. Kampungan is an Indonesian term to address behavior, acts, traditions, customs, and other things associated to that which resembles villagers.

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.[5]

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 or orchards 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). They are family-oriented (especially the concept of respecting one's family, particularly the parents and elders). It is common to see a cemetery near the mosque. 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 kampung sentiggan (squatter settlements) cleared and new buildings constructed to house them.[6]

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 plans for Kampong Glam have been controversial. Singapore is also home to Kampong Buangkok, featured in the film The Last Kampong.

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References

"From 'Kampong' to 'Compound': Retracing the forgotten connections". singapurastories.com.
Azahari, Izah (21 October 2017). "Brunei will remain a MIB-guided nation, thanks to religious education". Borneo Bulletin. Retrieved 29 August 2018.
"Geoportal". Brunei Survey Department. Retrieved 2017-09-10.
"Postcodes". Brunei Postal Services Department. Retrieved 2017-09-10.
Schefold & Nas (2008), p. 14
Loo, Yat Ming (2013). Architecture and Urban Form in Kuala Lumpur: Race and Chinese Spaces in a Postcolonial City. Ashgate Publishing.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)