re·claim (verb): to claim the return or restoration of, as a right, possession.

Old Wang is one of the “residents” on the railway gardens at Clementi. He visits his own plot every morning and evening to tend to his plants. Back at home, he has a wife who does not join him in such activities. “Don’t go near to that plot,” he warned this photographer while pointing to another personal garden adjacent to his. “That owner is fierce and will chase you away with a shovel.” Old Wang used to be a teacher but retired a few years ago. He has been coming to this garden for the last three years. His wife is still working, and like her husband, is a teacher. Old as he may look, he carries buckets of water around almost effortlessly. Even as the photographer complains about the incessant mosquito bites, he candidly proclaims that mosquitoes not longer bite him. “They have got used to my flesh,” he said in Mandarin, the subject he used to teach.

“Come back anytime, friend,” Old Wang says to the photographer before he leaves. The photographer walks back to his car parked in a private housing estate 800m away, while Old Wang will take his regular feeder bus home.

This series of pictures is related to a previous post.

Near the railway gardens mentioned here, on what looks like
uninhabited wasteland at first sight, are signs of human existence.

I wish I could post more but the scanner broke down.