When Little Wan Meets Big Ubin

Hi all!

"Ubin is like this huge, you know!"

While I was clearing up my room, I chanced upon a very old photo album that I have not seen in a long time. Like any cliche nostalgic film/ drama would be, I paused my cleaning spree to flip through the album. To my surprise, it was an entire collection of the times I spent with my mom on Ubin - probably about a dozen years ago or more.

In today's post, I'm gonna dwell a little further back in time - maybe somewhere back between 2005 to 2006; to the memories of the first few times where I stepped foot on Ubin as a small, chubby little boy.

During this time, I was in my lower primary school years. There is not really much to remember about those years; other than the many memories that I had just mostly playing around with my classmates during recess (because I was a good boy and was too afraid to get reprimanded by my teachers in class). And of course, like any other school kid, the things we look forward most to about school are the school term holidays.

Unlike many other families who got to spend the holidays travelling to distant lands like JB and Batam or even beyond - my family had always enjoyed the simpler getaways; those that were a little closer to "home".

Without fail, my mom would not hesitate to always pick a date to head back down to Pulau Ubin. Of course, at that age, I didn't really know too much or bothered about Ubin and why it would later be something of utmost significance in my young adult life. I just wanted to have fun and spend some quality time with my loving parents - to wind down from learning about photosynthesis which at that time seemed like rocket science to me.

Looking back, I do have quite a vague memory of how my mornings went before we headed off for our 'overseas' trip. While my dad showers, my mom would either be frying her signature fried rice or noodles to be packed and brought along for our picnic there and as for me, I would just be picking out my favourite set of clothes to wear. We didn't have a direct bus to Changi Village from our house back in 2005 - 2006, so we would always have to make transfer routes to get there.

Nothing says overseas adventure attire like wearing a Finding Nemo shirt with the word 'SHARK' vaguely smacked onto it.

I remembered having a slight fear of getting onto the bumboats back then - having to make massive leaps from the platform and again on the gaps between the boats, yet again when you're so small everything else seemed too big and out of reach, doesn't it? Oh, and back then the fares were just $2 per person per trip.

Upon reaching Ubin, my mom would always be on a lookout for tandem bikes to rent; and if I'm not mistaken the way things work back then was that the rent would be on an hourly rate. Again it was $2 per hour. (Starting to feel like Daiso, doesn't it?)

To be honest, I don't think my legs ever reached the pedals in these tandem bicycles.

My mom always had a few favourite spots to bring my dad and I around. She would always bring us to see Tanjung Chek Jawa first, though for some weird reason every time we would reach the wetlands, it would always be high tide and I never got the experience of looking at the vast mudflats that my mom always talked about. Afterwards, she would bring us over to Mamam Beach where we occasionally would stop to have a picnic, but we would always make a pit stop at Murai Hut first, which was pretty much the halfway point between the two shores.

My mom resting on the seats at Murai Hut while I was probably playing the floor is lava game. Pak Ahmad's house is slightly behind in the background through the opening in the top left.

Munching away on some sandwiches on Mamam Beach

I'm pretty sure my dad told me, "Stomach in, chest out" in this picture taken at Mamam Beach.

On a side note, Mamam was actually supposed to be called Bamap - as I have learnt through my interaction with the Ubin residents recently. The reason as to why Bamap was changed to Mamam remains a mystery to many - with some people joking that it was because when British cartographers started mapping out Ubin at the beginning of Singapore's colonisation, they had a difficulty pronouncing or hearing 'Bamap' from the natives there and just called it Mamam because it was much easier to do so.

Of course, no trip to Ubin ever felt complete to my mom if she didn't get to see her old neighbours and friends; in particular sisters-in-law Nenek Piah and Nenek Puasa. As a recap, Nenek Piah is Pak Ahmad's wife and Nenek Puasa is Pak Ahmad's late brother's wife, who stayed downhill from Pak Ahmad's house. I remembered being awfully awkward and shy as I would always fall victim to massive chubby cheek pinching. Yet again, back then they were so much younger, healthier and really made the kampung so alive with their presence - constantly looking after their plants, gardens and courtyards ever so religiously.

Standing in front of Nenek Puasa and late Pak Atan's beautiful blue-iconic kampung house before it was rebuilt following a collapse of the durian tree, found in the top-right of this picture, that destroyed the main house in 2012.

After about half a day of Ubin adventures, my parents and I would head back to the mainland and have lunch at the hawker centres at Changi Village. After which we would all wind down and engage in lazy late afternoon naps at home from the sheer exhaustion of our simple 'overseas' trip to Ubin. This would go on for the next few school holidays, probably until I was in secondary school when I have never stepped foot on the island again for nearly a decade due to studies and also in part due to my parent's old age.

I knew - and there is no shame in me for sharing this - that coming from a low-income family my whole life, we couldn't afford to go overseas. We couldn't afford to see the world like how my other classmates would share when school reopened, of their trips petting kangaroos in Australia or throwing snowballs in the Swiss Alps. I could only listen with happiness for them, yet I hesitated to share about my Ubin adventures; because at that time, I felt like Ubin was just any other island, insignificant and boring when compared to the grand stories they shared.

Looking back, I have wondered why we always returned back to Ubin. I wondered what was so special that we had to spend nearly every school term break that I had, making a trip to this island. But now I understand and I am thankful for my mom to always make these trips for me; given how important these trips are in shaping who I am today and what I stand for in the name of conserving Pulau Ubin's community, culture and heritage.

My mom had that much love and longing for her childhood island home, that she took immense pride to bring her son with her to see the island before what she feared would have been too late. She wanted to show me the kampungs, the people, the way of life that she had for the first thirty years of her life. She wanted me to learn about her roots - which inevitably, encouraged me to learn about mine.

My mom, and so are the other former residents who once had the blessings to call Ubin home, are ageing and a lot of them had since passed on. Memories and stories about Pulau Ubin, if not told and shared down to their offsprings or the people that visit them, would simply fade away in the test of time. We would grow to be people who are ignorant about our roots, who do not care about our past and do not understand the importance of our humble beginnings.

There is no future if we do not have a past to look back on: to guide us, to nurture us, to shape us - into who we are and who we can become.