Kampung Baru Alaf Baru

Kampung Baru has always interested me. For the unacquainted, it’s a Malay village situated in the heart of the city of Kuala Lumpur.

So there are traditional wooden Malay houses with chickens running around, and in the background are concrete and steel skyscrapers.

I like the juxtaposition of urban modern and rural traditional that Kampung Baru has. And so what do I decide to do?

Yes, folks, I decide to grab my video camera, drive down to Kampung Baru and shoot myself a documentary film solo-journalism style!

I wanted to find a couple of ordinary folks who live in Kampung Baru and just chat with them and observe their lives.

Kampung Baru is a traditional kampung surrounded by concrete buildings and skyscrapers.

The locals were very friendly and accommodating. Especially when they knew I was shooting a film.

Everyone seemed to have a story to tell and I finally settled on a retiree by the name of Norisah Abu Bakar. Norisah has lived her whole life in Kampung Baru.

Her mother was from Kampung Baru and so was her grandmother. The house she is living in has been around for generations.

The second person I decided to include in my documentary was Abdul Halim Jamaludin. Halim is a local but now lives somewhere else.

However, he still has ties with Kampung Baru since he now runs the family business, which most people know as Nasi Lemak Antarabangsa.

The last character was filmmaker Liew Seng Tat. Although he is not a local, he is from Jinjang which used to be a new village... a kampung baru of sorts. So I thought this was apt.

He was also behind the Projek Angkat Rumah, where he built a traditional Malay house and organised a gotong royong to move it as an art project.

Today, Kampung Baru locals are fiercely proud of their tradition and culture and are worried about its preservation as a traditional kampung.

Everyone I spoke to was very encouraging towards the documentary and the most common response I got was, “Rakam! Jangan tak rakam! Tak lama lagi tak ada apa nak rakam!”

Most of the youth who grow up in Kampung Baru today feel that they are city kids and not budak kampung. And this represents the future I think.

They want to progress and they want to be living modern lives in a modern city. But this also represents a conflict.

Fast modernisation has resulted in unemployment and low wages. Social problems plague the area, as is the case with many urban residential areas.

But then again, many successful individuals, such as entrepreneurs, intellectuals and politicians, have come out of Kampung Baru.

When I set out to make the documentary, I wanted to learn and try to understand Kampung Baru a bit more.

Now that the documentary is complete, I know I’ve learnt more, but to understand it fully is a bit daunting. So I just watched, listened and observed.

* To watch, listen and observe the 73-minute documentary “Kampung Baru Alaf Baru”, tune in to ntv7 this National Day at 10:30am. Log on to www.fatbidin.com for more information.

Zan Azlee is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, writer, New Media practitioner and lecturer. He runs Fat Bidin Media www.fatbidin.com