The island had become an adventure domain for day-trippers from the mainland. On the bumboat going over there was a father & daughter and group of biking teens. We had been warned in advance that without a dozen passengers the boat would not leave. The opposite shore stood a couple hundred meters off and even mid-week the waiting either end was brief.
By some miracle, neither the authorities, nor the operators here had upgraded to fibreglass, piped music or uniforms. Unusual in Singapore.
The skipper laid a light hand on a wheel reminding of the paddle steamers on the Mississippi from the W. C. Fields days. $2.50 five minute passage. The boredom on the face of the old salt was understandable.
A short distance from the dock on the other side the acres of bicycles suggested the scale of the get-aways. Pulau Ubin was all internal tourism, highly popular among the locals. Fifteen years ago the 2,000 islanders had now dwindled to a couple dozen.
Pulau Ubin—Isle of Tile; granite specifically. Underfoot the stone glittered where quartz was found and took a salmon pink with mica. A good deal of the early building in Sing had been from stone quarried there, quite likely the Fullerton, Raffles & the others.
Within the greenery the instant relief was not unlike the air curtain at the malls, with the refreshing humus of the ground that one almost never got in the city.
Opposite the housing towers of Pasir Ris lined Singapore proper. The Army had taken over the larger island of Tekong and on the other side lay the eastern corner of Johor, Peninsular Malaysia.
All the green zones on the main island had been parcelled out in the urban plan. Pulau Ubin represented something of the unmarked past.
It makes you not want to go back.
An angel of high culture and civilisation Gabriel, ordinarily, big fan of the Republic and its achievements.
Over the years Gabriel had made numerous visits, escorting many newcomers to Ubin. This time it was two compatriots. Michael the R.C. had recently arrived from the South, a big Queenslander like the Angel, unacclimatised and struggling in the heat. We would shorten our usual long march out of consideration for Michael.
Midway along our walk a large troop of monkeys entered the roadway and as we drew near a brief act of copulation seemed staged for effect. As soon as they were done the players approached for payment.
Further on a long, thin snake the colour of the foliage lay leaking blood. Boars that were said to be somewhat less than wild were concentrated on another part of the island.
By the roadside luscious bougainvillea bloomed. The Queenslanders were in their element, identifying a number of the wildflowers in the foliage. Even large, heavy jackfruit that hung from branches close to the trunks of the trees could not be picked out immediately by a Southerner.
The greenery was like a force field beneath the conversation: abundant life in the stands on all sides, yet the impression of only being glimpsed.
Bird-call sounded occasionally, muted by the rising heat.
The famous orang laut, the Sea Gypsies, were said to still live on Ubin. There was a woman who had a particular way with the monkeys, Zainuddin had reported the night before.
Small, jerry-built camps just off-shore were commercial fish-farms, possibly operated by half-domesticated gypsies. Old orang laut could entice fish with stakes in the water, said the Sufi Zainuddin, admittedly a man given to enthusiasms.
We bought water at a clearing from an elderly woman at a tumble-down kampung house with deeply rusted tin roofing, a member of the tribe, possibly.
The woman did seem marked in some particular, native way: small oval eyes flitting like timorous birds on a branch, unlined face and fluid gestures. Even in recent time she had been a great beauty.
One old shop-house of the familiar kind stood near the dock, here without any of the ornament. The remainder of the scattered housing was early colonial-era, seemingly cobbled together with materials found at hand. Like the flora and even some of the fauna, much of the housing echoed the old Queensland from the history books.
At the half-way mark of our trek we rested on rocks overlooking a narrow beach. Uniformed workers from the mainland slept in the improbable postures to which one had become accustomed in noon-time Singapore. Michael had intended a swim to wash off the sweat, but the murky water dissuaded.
Three teachers of a certain age talked linguistics & Chinese characters on the warm rocks by the labourers.
Michael had taught in “China”—a foreign, colonial reference of course. To the Chinese themselves their country was known as the Middle Kingdom. The radical of Wong for King, or Emperor, centred and boxed within a square.
Some of the characters were well-known: the striding stick-figure for man, or human.
When crossed it was… woman?
No. That character was big. Not necessarily big man, though rooted in the concept.
Contemporary languages had lost something by comparison.
The Queenslanders were familiar with waters curtained by misty veils. Tekong Island often had live firing exercises; Gabriel had heard it before from Ubin.
Gabriel was highly knowledgeable about the region, having made it his home almost forty years before. Specialist migrant English had first brought Michael to SE Asia in the 90's. Gabby spoke excellent bahasa Indonesian and Michael was pursuing Mandarin.
In appearance the water seemed warm, if not even tepid at the shallow end. How it had developed its unhealthy colour was uncertain. Beaches and beach activities seemed far-fetched in the Tropics. Exclusive Sentosa, an artificial island off the Southern coast, was famous in Singapore and the wider region for something that was not exactly clear. Inflated property prices certainly. There was a great deal of condo porn in the newspaper, the construction industry big business like everywhere else, all delicately managed by the mandarins.
The beach at Sentosa hosted various special events featuring A-list celebrities. On the crossing to Indonesian Batam a few months before, someone aboard the ferry surprised when they pointed out Sentosa. Earlier the attention had been fixed on the Mad Max petrochemical complex on adjacent Jurong Island. One would need to purchase carefully in Sentosa, in order to ensure balconies and windows were properly angled. Did they bury coolers in the Sentosa sand, as reportedly on the beaches of Dubai?
Sentosa was at the other extreme from untouched Ubin. But it was doubtful the water could be any cleaner there.
In almost three years in the Tropics the beaches had remained unvisited. Some months before Gab had proposed Sentosa for one of our marches. Thus far the issue had been avoided, without the matter blowing up into another argument.
Down on the great Southern land the distaste for beach culture had always rubbed people up the wrong way. The new landlord at Carpmael, Mr. Tan, went swimming at East Coast every morning, where the flotilla of container ships reminded of the D-day landing.
Like many traditional fisher-folk, the earlier inhabitants on the Equator would rarely have entered the water. Certainly the look of the soupy brew half on the boil was not encouraging.
We continued with Chinese themes: the national language, the so-called dialects, the mania for English. There was no interruption from the firing on Tekong that morning; no sign of soldiers bivouacking in the scrub. The ADF was now closely integrated with Singapore in the stance against rising China. A range of perspectives from the chaps on the subject.
The veils that were slowly raised from the waters promised some kind of revelation that never arrived.
In order to shorten our circuit we had caught a taxi before the walk and the same driver was found again on the return. Gabriel would lose a ten dollar wager insisting the fellow was female. The Angel could not be persuaded. In their love of humanity, angels of a certain bent often confused Arthurs and Marthas.
Again, it was a compelling figure behind the wheel here. A business-card finally established the gender.
Smooth somehow in face and limb and unexpectedly pale. The man apologised for his poor English in an unusual brogue, even in the Singaporean language laboratory.
On the steering-wheel the man’s touch was delicate. A short, obese chap with breasts that had fooled the Angel; an unusually attractive manner in the figure. In the past the man had driven other kinds of vehicles, mostly at night or early dawn, one would bet.
Like the storekeeper within the jungle earlier, the pigmentation was as unusual as the sleekness and delicacy. Almost certainly this man laid his head down at night beneath one of the darkly rusted roofs of the island, if not the branches of a totem tree.
Periodically after protests, suggestions of developments on Pulau Ubin needed to be denied by the government. Ubin was sacrosanct; the place would be preserved for future generations, they said.
In an elaborate PR exercise even in the last day or two, the chief story on page one of the Straits Times again reiterated the same.
Time after time surveys found Pulau Ubin voted the top attraction in the country.
Foreign tourists never heard about Ubin; the big-ticket items attracted all the attention of those seekers. In fact there was nothing in particular to draw international tourists to Ubin; numerous other islands in the region catered for such markets—resorts, wetlands, nature retreats, diving, surfing & fishing.
Pulau Ubin was a guilty pleasure for Singaporeans themselves. The office-working mall-goers & car drivers had been hoodwinked by the life they were living in their city-state. The sorry fact had not made it into the Hard Truths book written by the great helmsman, who had taken the island on its celebrated journey from Third World to First in the remarkable thirty years. Nonetheless, many in Singapore knew the truth for themselves.
The old man was not entirely to blame of course. Singapore was a creation of geo-politics and the larger modernist project—the same thwarting, the same blind, wilful lust and passion as everywhere.
Walking within even remnant forest or jungle, even in the unforgiving Tropics, involved a kind of sci-fi tripping for the contemporary urban dweller. One needed to return to Pulau Ubin on the weekend to observe the flocking from the other side. It would be something to behold from the ticket office on the dock. The young clambering aboard the little bum boats, with their bright faces pointed toward Ubin.
The foyer at the dock was over-size for a working day. Weekends and public holidays all the old peeling boats dock-side would be needed for the escape. A mini hajj for a large proportion of the population, between getaways further afield.
Cities all over the globe experienced the same weekend exodus. In Singapore's case local conditions produced a particularly intense cabin-fever.
International visitors routinely stayed 3-4 days in Sing; the natives themselves sought release at every opportunity.
Gabby did not like to hear bad-mouthing of the country he called home, where the old rascal had found love and a comfortable niche. The pleasures and virtues of Singapore were undeniable and self-evident. Cleanliness, security & safety, a shopping paradise, the transport system. The horrendous education sausage machine many wanted to claim as a plus.
Permanent Residence was greatly sought-after, especially by the less-favoured of the region. Dubai was said to be modelled on the great success story on the Equator, and many other newly rising cities.
Gab, it’s a bloody well police state no two ways about it, captured by a biz cabal linked to Western corporate interests. Wouldn’t damn well matter, if it wasn’t attracting all these imitations... For crying out loud, you know what I’m talking about.
The big Queenslander didn’t like it. Yes to this and yea to that, but hold your horses, Sonny Jim.
Love had softened the old lion’s brain.
A composer, albeit one born in the wastes of outback Queensland, inevitably had one foot in the dazzling bewitchment.
Easy to criticise…
What, in Singapore? Easy to criticise?
Sixty year single party rule cleverly managing the electoral system. For years the infamous Cold Storage had locked up political opponents and critics. Law suits that bankrupted later critics were another useful recourse.
Over three years we had crossed & re-crossed the island, a few hundred kilometres covered perhaps, arguing the toss every step.
Gab, we’re jiggered, man. Gonners. Toast. And this place is leading us to hell on a very fast train.
The R.C. Michael shook his head at the contention.
Singapore 2011-26
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