Void Decks

There is nothing void about void decks - the open spaces on the ground floor of public housing apartments, or HDB flats. Better known as the venues for mega events such as Chinese New Year parties, weddings and funerals, they have also served as locations for the simpler birthday parties (watch the cake!)

When there isn't an occassion, the place is *lepak land. Here vagrants lounge, people just wait or **relak (even though they are haunted by other thoughts). Furniture is abandoned as are cats (Vegancat has more pix).

But residents put the place to more creative use than we can imagine. A popular spot for jams, with or without guitars, prancing and other table-top (or chair) dancing or simply a game of counterstrike, flying or biking. Sporting activities include fancy footwork with a football (check how he keeps the ball on his back while he takes off his t-shirt), skateboarding, and acrobatics (you must see this to believe it!)

It inspires poetry, academic musings, and political propaganda. There is a famed political website going by the same name

Turner, David captures the excitement and treasures at void decks in his NewPaper article "I want void-deck membership too" (10 July 2006) but to taste the real flavour of life in the void, you have to view the videos in this blog. They are proof that Singapore is more exciting than it seems.

*lepak = "to **relak in one corner" (ex-policeman quote) although the various online Singlish dictionaries seem to realate this term to sissy behaviour
**relak = to releax