By Ng Tze Yong

I ALMOST couldn't recognise Yee Peng when I met her at a coffee joint at City Hall. She looks skinnier now than how she appeared in her films.

'8kg,' she said.

That's how much weight she has lost since starting work last March on Diminishing Memories II, a film about the rapid changes in Lim Chu Kang.

It is the sequel to the award-winning 2005 documentary Diminishing Memories I, a poignant tale about her childhood in a Lim Chu Kang kampung. Both films will be screened from 19 Sep to 4 Oct at The Arts House.

It will mark the end of one journey for her, and the beginning of another.

Saddled by guilt, Yee Peng, one of Singapore's most promising young film-makers, has decided she now has to look for a 'real' job.

Diminishing Memories II cost $90,000, from sponsors and her savings. But during the one year it took to make, she had to depend on her parents to support her.

'I don't think that was right,' said the 31-year-old.

Her parents never once complained. 'But that made me feel even more guilty,' she said.

She hopes now to look for a full-time job in video-editing and pursue film-making on the side.

'It's not that I lost my passion. But I do not want to pursue it at the expense of my family,' she said.

Her pursuit of her dream was a journey of ups and downs, and one that has taken her 15 years.

When she was 16, Yee Peng applied unsuccessfully to pursue film studies at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. She had discovered her passion late and didn't have the necessary qualifications, so Yee Peng enrolled in business studies instead.

'But every time I saw the film students walking around campus with their video cameras, I couldn't take my eyes off them,' she said.

Determined to equip herself with the right skills, she immersed herself in television production courses during her school holidays. After graduation, she joined MediaCorp to learn the ropes, eventually rising to become a studio director and assistant producer.

After five years of working, Yee Peng applied to take communication studies at Nanyang Technological University, thinking that she had accumulated the relevant experience.

'But I didn't get a reply, so after a while, I called them and they told me I wasn't even qualified to apply,' she said. She found out her application was not even processed.

'I was angry and disappointed,' she said. 'I had the passion, but why was there no opportunity?'

Still, Yee Peng did not give up. Using almost all her savings of $40,000, she went to pursue film studies at Griffith University in Australia.

Three years later, in 2005, she topped her faculty and returned with first-class honours.

Diminishing Memories I was her honours-year thesis project, which won her several film festival awards. Its sequel brought her a different sort of reward - closure. For 10 days after its completion, Yee Peng found herself breaking into tears uncontrollably at various times.

'I was crying as if I was at a funeral,' she said. 'I gave myself a fright.'

She hopes her films will show future generations that there is 'a price for Singapore's prosperity'.

'There were people who paid the price,' said Yee Peng, 'and I want them to appreciate it.'

Her mother, 61-year-old housewife Poh Ah Hua, is relieved about her daughter's decision to get a full-time job. 'The audience sees her work. But I am her mother, and I see her hardship,' said Madam Poh.

Yee Peng's publicist, Miss Dorothy Ng, thinks it would be a pity.

'There are not many independent film-makers in Singapore who can make heritage films in Mandarin and reach out to the people who actually lived through the experiences,' she said.

Yee Peng herself is sad and frustrated. She talks fondly of Australia, where there is greater interest in the arts. Why not emigrate?

'I feel for this land,' she said. Then, she paused.

'You know, it's hard to know what I mean if you have never lived in a kampung,' she continues.

'Growing up in a kampung, my bare feet walked, jumped and ran on the soil beneath me. I played in the rain. I heard it on the zinc roof, I smelled it and touched it. I felt at one with the environment.

'In a flat, I think you cannot feel the same kind of attachment to the soil and to the land.

'I wonder if that's why people leave.'

This article was first published in The New Paper on September 15, 2008.