A Stream On Pulau Ubin Was Named After My Late Grandfather!

Hi All!

Not all things are meant to be forgotten, and not all things are meant to be the way they are.

Last Sunday on July 29th, 2018, it was a pretty eventful day for me! Met some new people, did some kampong activities, engaged a lot more with the residents on Pulau Ubin and found out some awesome things about my late grandfather!

Be sure to read the previous post first if you'd like to read my posts in chronological order!

To start off the day, I met up with members of the Woodlands Malay Activities Exective Committee (MAEC), whom I had previously met on the previous Saturday on Racial Harmony Day together with MP for Sembawang GRC, Mr Amrin Amin who had actually direct messaged on Facebook Messenger, inviting me for a meetup as he would like to more about Ubin adventures. Coincidentally, the Woodlands MAEC were planning on having a heritage trail event to Pulau Ubin, called "Jejak Warisan Pulau Ubin", which aimed to promote a sense of appreciation to our heritage and roots. After having been featured by ministers Mr Desmond Lee and Mr Chan Chun Sing on Pesta Ubin, Mr Amrin came to know about me and engaged with me, asking if I could help to contribute to their heritage tours planning. I am more than happy, especially if it means that I could play my part in promoting the rich heritage of Pulau Ubin to the youths out there.

The MAEC Team from left to right: Tansel, Aszrifah, Iffah, Hidayat and Zaidi.

And also me, whom after losing quite a lot of weight recently, looked like I'm wearing an extremely large shirt.

At around 10 a.m., I was back on Pulau Ubin right after a week since my previous visit - the trip that reconnected my mom to her home. The MAEC team, had planned for the participants of Jejak Warisan Pulau Ubin to be cycling from one station to the other, so they ventured out to the various bicycle rental shops around Pekan Ubin to ask for their rates and quotation. The event is expected to cater to about 80 participants, so that's some massive coordination that needs to be done right there. While the five individuals went out to survey, I noticed a man wearing a black kopiah and green shirt and I already knew it was Cik Azman, resting at the taxi service booth.

I approached him and no matter how many times I step onto the island, he never failed to display a face filled with surprise and happiness seeing me on Ubin. We engaged in casual conversation, mostly checking on his wellbeing and availability to help out on the Jejak Warisan, where one of the stations planned out included a tour around the now-lost village of Kampong Surau, and no other person on the island is more experienced than the former resident of Kampong Surau himself. He said God Willing, he will be able to provide the tour for the youths. He also updated on Nenek Piah's health, whom the previous week had fallen ill and rested in her son's home in the mainland. Cik Azman mentioned that Nenek Piah has returned back home on the island since last Wednesday, and that has brought a sense of relief and happiness to me knowing that she was doing alright.

I joined back with the MAEC team at the NParks Volunteer Hub, where Hidayat were to engage with the NParks officers to inform them about the Jejak Warisan Pulau Ubin activity. On a side note, it was Hidayat who liaised closely with me and Mr Amrin during the previous meeting and as it turned out, he too was there during the repainting project on Pak Ahmad's house last April, so it really was a small world though I still feel a little ashamed that I did not recognise him then.

A post about Pak Ahmad's House Repainting Project will be out in the future so do keep a look out for that one, too!

The team then rented out their bicycles and headed down to Teck Seng's Place, one of the stations that they have considered as it were to provide the youths a sense of how a traditional Chinese kampong house looked like on the island. I have my own reserved views on the demonstration house, but maybe I'll talk about it on another post.

363C, Teck Seng's Place, Chinese Kampong Demonstration House. Photo courtesy of Hidayat

Upon reaching Teck Seng's Place, we were greeted by Uncle Lim, the guardian and custodian of the demonstration house. I have previously met him during one of the tours i joined in with my colleagues during my first trip to the island after a long hiatus in 2018.

More mention about that first trip in a later post! That post basically will tell you how everything began to snowball from there to where I am today, so definitely one post to keep an eye out for, especially for all you film geeks concerned about my inciting incident in my Ubin adventures.

Uncle Lim informed the MAEC team that he could help to alleviate some of the burdens that was currently on the team's shoulders such as the nightmarish coordination of the different stations, safety concerns as well as food and transportation. Should the team engage in Uncle Lim's services, the mentioned concerns will all be taken care of under him and his team in NParks. 

Next up, we headed down to Pak Ahmad's house, also one of the stations considered by the MAEC team; however along the way to his house, we saw Pak Ahmad zooming past us on his motorcycle, heading down to Pekan Ubin. I knew in that instance, the MAEC team would have to wait quite a while before discussing with Pak Ahmad their plans for Jejak Warisan Pulau Ubin.

As they continued to discussed in Pak Ahmad's stall, I went into the house to meet Nenek Piah who was always sitting at her usual seat in the anjung. When she saw me stepping in, she smiled and said, "Wan! How are you? Are you healthy?" It really struck me to hear that from her, because despite the fact that she was ill for a few days last week, she was more concerned about my health instead. I guess this is what it really means to be a grandmother. I can only imagine that my late grandmother was just like Nenek Piah, too.

After checking in on her health too, I took the opportunity to learn more about my grandparents. As Nenek Piah lived in the first house out of the five by the path leading to my grandparents' home, she would know a lot about them. One thing I found out from her was that the stream branching out from Sungei Durian to my late grandparents' house actually had a name! It was named Sungei Awang Minyak! 

The residents there have named the stream after my late grandfather! My mind was blown when I found out about it. I then got curious and asked about the path leading to the house, too. Nenek Piah replied that the path too was created by own late grandfather! 

My late grandparents' house was the first house to be built among the five there. In the place where I nicknamed Kampong Surau North, I never would have imagined that the person that brought it into existence was my own grandfather. I am not gonna lie, I felt that the area of Kampong Surau North has increased in urgency of preservation and restoration after hearing this. I knew about the huge sireh tree plantation that my grandfather owned, but to have a stream and the entire small village rise from the forests by my grandfather as well, really showed how significant he was for the Kampong Surau and even the Ubin community.

The stream seen branching out from Sungei Durian was named after my grandfather, and the path that led to to my late grandparents' home has led to the establishment of the other houses in Kampong Surau North.

Eventually Pak Ahmad came back from Pekan Ubin after about fifteen to twenty minutes of waiting and the MAEC kept Pak Ahmad up to date on their plans. However, there was a problem. Jejak Warisan was scheduled to take place on August 18th, 2018, but Pak Ahmad's house has been fully booked by a primary school to carry out their own Malay Language Learning Week. The team then had to plan for a rescheduling. They wanted to head down to Kampong Surau with me next, however, I already had intentions in helping Pak Ahmad with something else. It was from there where I bade farewell to them as they headed out to explore the lost kampong by themselves.

I gifted Pak Ahmad with a streamer of national flags, which I hoped would make him and his customers happy seeing the stall decorated in time for Singapore's 53rd birthday. Suddenly, Pak Ahmad put up a huge smile, and rushed his way into his room. After about five minutes, he came out with a lot of Singapore flags of various sizes and a few wooden poles. He requested if I could help him put up the flags as his age does not allow him to do so, and I gladly helped him to do so. It was at that moment that I realised that both Pak Ahmad and I share the same enthusiasm in flying our flags as National Day approaches.

Both Pak Ahmad and I have the same level of patriotism when it comes to flying our red and whites as National Day approaches.

After the flags had been set up, Nenek Piah told me to to rest and drink some water. Pak Ahmad had already left to the jetty to fetch his son Khairuddin, whom I call as Abang Kelana. Kelana has returned back to the island to pass his mom the medications she requested.

It had been a while since Kelana and I met face to face and we caught up on a lot of things, but most of it revolved around the fate of Pak Ahmad's stall. I did in fact bring up to Kelana that I would like to gift his parents a brand new signboard so that passersby can drop by and purchase their drinks and fresh coconuts. Kelana was very open to the idea and appreciated the gesture. I also brought up to him about Ah Ma's Drink Stall, which has recently been completely refurbished and rebuilt courtesy of a group of students from the National University of Singapore (NUS). Kelana knew about it but have yet to see the new stall and invited me to follow him down to the western side of Pulau Ubin to pay the drink stall a visit. But before we headed off, Nenek Piah and Pak Ahmad prepared lunch for us and my goodness, was it delicious!

Some rambutans, a plate of fried beehoon and a bottle of cool mineral water. Simple lunch for a simple life, what's not to love?

After our lunch, Kelana brought out his dad's motorcycle and we rode on to Ah Ma's Drink Stall. I honestly have never been to the western part of the island, what more the drink stall itself. We passed by Jelutong Campsite and Puaka Hill and after a good five to ten minutes' ride from Pak Ahmad's house, we reached a huge structure. It was the revamped Ah Ma's drink stall and it looked amazing. From afar, there was a lady who was seen waving almost frantically to Kelana as we slowly approached her. Her name was Ivy and she was the daughter of the Ah Ma who ran the drink stall. Kelana introduced me to her as the grandson who found his grandparents' house in the forests and also showed her the pictures taken of me during Ubin Day, and immediately Ivy was excited to meet me.

The new Ah Ma's Drink Stall. Photo courtesy of Ria Tan

Ivy and Kelana were close friends and they both ran their parents' stalls as a source of income for them on the island; so they had a lot of business entrepreneurial discussions, one of which was the discovery that Pak Ahmad's stall was the third in line to be completely rebuilt and renovated by the NUS team. Just like that the concerns Kelana had for the fate of his dad's stall had disappeared. 

Ivy knew about my plans in rebuilding my grandparents' home and highlighted to me the difficulty that I was going to face, however she advised me to link up with a certain someone as he would be there to give the necessary support and push for the rebuilding of the kampong houses in Pulau Ubin. Ivy too just like many other residents that I have met, gave me her blessings and support and wished me the best in rebuilding my late grandparents' house.

Took a photo together with Ivy by her temporary makeshift drink stall before her new stall could be opened upon completed safety checks and procedures.

Kelana then brought me around to a few other places around the western part of Ubin and I saw some amazing sights, but I couldn't take any pictures, so sorry about that! We then made our way down to my late grandparents' house back in the east where I continued to clear away more leaves and litter away from my grandparents' house, being extremely careful not to harm any trees as requested by NParks' rules and regulations.

So happy to see the path becoming more and more obvious, in fact when we both entered, the path was still pretty clear of leaves and litter from the previous week.

To highlight the day, after cleaning the entire prayer room, I have placed the sign which I have created the day before in it. To me, the sign serves as a reminder that not all things were meant to be forgotten, and not all things were meant to be the way they were. I hoped that through this new sign, it serves as a motivation to myself to strive for my ambitions to bring this place back to life.

818K, Kampong Surau, Pulau Ubin. No longer lost and no longer forgotten.

As Kelana too grew up in the area before moving to their current house in Kampong Sungei Durian, he wanted to walk down the path from my late grandparents' house back to the front where his house once stood. I myself have not dared to travel in unfamiliar territory but I was glad I got Kelana there to bring me down. He could recognise the path based on the trees, which I am not familiar with. The most fun part about the trip, was to discover the remnants of the other houses down the path!

The remnants of Sidek's house, my late grandparent's immediate neighbour

The remnants of Sawall's house, with the generator still intact and the zinc roof of their house just centimetres away from it.

We were unable to find any traces of Dolmat's house, who was the husband to my late-eldest aunt, Ketom Binte Sulong, Pak Ahmad's old house too could not be found mainly because it had been dismantled and reassembled to form their current house today, and that's pretty awesome!

To end off such an eventful day, Pak Ahmad harvested nearly a dozen durians which had fallen off his own durian tree and prepared a small durian party for his family and me.

Pak Ahmad seen chopping the durians open at the back, while the family maid and Kelana prepare some to be brought back home for Kelana himself and for me. I was genuinely afraid of the durians smelling throughout my bus ride home, but as it turned out, the cure for it was bundles of newspapers and loads of curry leaves. That's an Ubin guide to any of you stuck with public transportation!

Pulau Ubin's durians are one of a kind, especially for this one that I got to enjoy just minutes after it had fallen off the tree.

Just a gentle reminder before I end this long post, to always seek permission from the residents of Pulau Ubin if you want to bring back the durians. They have spent years growing it, so please don't undermine their hardwork by flocking to the island and stealing the durians away from them.

With that, I know this post is extremely long, but it was also such a meaningful Sunday on Pulau Ubin. I thank you for spending your time in reading it and I'm looking forward to my future adventures to see what more is there for me to learn about my grandparents and Ubin!

Read the next post in "My Ubin Journey"!
Sign Is Gone, But Not My Hope