Wan's Tekong Journal
Hi all!
My mom is the ninth of over thirteen children and was actually the first among her siblings to be born on Ubin. That of course raised the question as to where then would her elder siblings be born at and where exactly were my late grandparents, Sulong Yunos (Awang Minyak) and Jariah Salim from as well. I asked my mom this question and luckily enough, she knew the answers to them. In this post, I'll be sharing about what I've learnt so far of my late grandfather's origins.
My late grandfather was originally from Kampung Pahang in Pulau Tekong.
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| Historical map of Pulau Tekong. Photo courtesy of "Public Lecture - Tales of Tekong (I): Telling the Story of Tekong Through Historical Maps" |
My mom fondly remembered visiting her paternal grandmother on the island with her father when she was a small child. She recalled how she would eagerly get on board her father's sampan as he rowed the small boat out from Sungei Awang Minyak, along the mangrove-banked Sungei Durian and into the vast open straits. Along the way, they would pass by in between Pulau Sekudu and Ubin and my mom would always admire the frog-shaped boulder that gave the tiny island its name. If the tide happened to be low during their travels, my late grandfather would row his sampan underneath the concrete jetty that stretches out from House No. 1 at Kampung Tanjong, which is today's Chek Jawa Visitor Centre.
After crossing the straits, they would row pass Pulau Sejahat and Pulau Sejahat Kechil to their right and Pulau Tekong Kechil on their left before landing on the sandy shores of Kampung Pahang. From there, my late grandfather would tie up his sampan to a nearby stake or mangrove tree and the both of them would embark on a 15-minute walk to his mother's home.
Along the way, they would walk past some iconic structures that my mom remembered such as provision shops known as "Chin Ah Gu" and "Ah Oon". Kampung Pahang was a predominantly Malay village, but there were also a handful of Chinese residents who lived there including "Chin Ah Gu" and "Ah Oon" who both owned provision shops there and my mom mentioned that they would be extremely fluent in the Malay language.
There was also an Islamic religious school where Muslim residents would attend to learn about Islamic studies. According to my mom, the school was bigger than the madrasah in Kampung Sungei Durian and about as big as the Sekolah Melayu Pulau Ubin in Kampung Surau. After passing by another few kampung houses, they would finally reach my great-grandmother's house - where my late grandfather grew up in from his birth in 1922 to the day he moved out to Ubin in the 1950s.
My great-grandmother's name was Aseah but to the Tekong community, she was more commonly known as Tok Seah.
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| A picture of my great-grandmother, Tok Seah (right) and her elder sister, Tok Aminah (left) taken in circa 1960s |
Tok Seah was often mistaken for a Chinese because of her extremely fair skin and slightly squinted eyes. She would also wear a pair of wooden terompah whenever she would be in the kitchen or when she was out and about in the village. A common activity that my mom would observe of her late grandmother was that she would always be chewing sirih leaves (harvested from my late grandfather's plantation in Ubin) and chewing on small portions of tobacco - better known as sentil tembakau or suntil in the Malay community, which often leaves a blood-red stain on the teeth. Tobacco chewing was also a common pastime for many of the elderly folks there at the time.
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| A pair of traditional terompah shoes. Photo courtesy of Terompah Kayu Surau |
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| An elderly Indonesian woman chewing on sentil tembakau. Photo courtesy of Kabarbanyuwangi. |
My great-grandfather, affectionately known to the Tekong community at the time as Tok Aki Yunos, unfortunately, has passed away years before my mom was born. This meant that Tok Aseah had lived alone in Kampung Pahang for many years with the rest of my late grandfather's five other and younger siblings, Chik (Tok Ayah Chik), Zainab (Nenek Ngah), Salamah (Nekda Salamah), Othman (Tok Andak Atan) and Asmah (Nenek Busu). All of my grandaunts and granduncles have since passed away - with the last of them Tok Andak Atan as recently as 2015.
My mom would describe to me that her late grandparents' house was big and tall. In fact, she pointed out that the house was almost very similar to her house in Kampung Surau. It had a raised ibu rumah on stilts and the rumah dapur also contained 2 doors. The only difference that she remembered was that the serambi was enclosed and that the ibu rumah would only have one room in it while the rest was wide and open spaces. It had a metal zinc roof and it was also painted in a light-blue colour similar to 818K. If I could make a wild guess, my late grandfather built 818K to be an exact replica of his parents' home back in Kampung Pahang.
My great-grandmother also reared a lot of ducks - about 20 to 30 of them - in her lot. My mom said that they did not really rear them to eat their meat but more as to harvest their salted eggs to sell them at the local provision shops there. They would be housed in a coop which was built right next to their well. Among other livestock that they reared included a couple of geese and chickens, too. Unlike my mom's house in Ubin, they did not have an expansive plantation of fruits and vegetables.
During my mom's visit to her father's island home, she would often meet up with her friends there to play traditional games such as five stones, hopscotch and congkak or to roam around in the neighbouring Kampung Selabin (Pekan) to visit the shops and admire the scenery. The Pulau Tekong Basic Military Training Centre (BMTC) now sits on the grounds of Kampung Ladang, which was just south of Kampung Pahang.
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| The former Kampung Ladang as seen on a map. Photo courtesy of Pok Pok and Away |
During certain visits, my mom would recall that she would follow her dad to visit her aunts Salamah and Zainab, who moved to Kampung Seminei - a considerable distance from Kampung Pahang. Sometimes, they would invite my mom and grandfather to stay the night there as well. My mom had fond memories of her visits to Tekong when she was a young girl. Over time as she grew older, her visits to Tekong started becoming less frequent and when her uncles, aunts and grandmother moved to the mainland in the 1970s through 80s following the Government's move to transform the island into a military training zone, my family's presence on Tekong ceased to exist for good.
Today, Tekong is largely known by Singaporeans all over as the place where the boys turn to men. Stories of the island's community, history and culture remains almost as big a mystery as that of Ubin and quite a handful of other offshore island kampungs in Singapore. While some of these stories are locked up deep inside the national archives, there is no denying that meaningful, heartwarming, moving and inspiring stories about the Tekong people are out there stored away in the thousands of people who once grew up on the now-militarised island. Unless their Tekong stories are relayed to their children, just like how my mom's Ubin stories were relayed to me, these stories too will go undocumented and fade away in the test of time.
On a side note,
I grew curious about the origins of how Kampung Pahang got its name as naturally, one would associate the name to the Pahang state in Peninsular Malaysia. I beg to wonder if Kampung Pahang in Pulau Tekong had anything to do with the state up north or historically speaking, had anything to do with the Pahang kingdom.
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| A visualisation of the extent of the Pahang Kingdom back in 1853 - 1874 and its geographic relation to Singapore. Photo courtesy of WHKMLA Historical Atlas, History of Malaya |
Upon doing a quick research on Pulau Tekong's origins from the NLB resources page, I came to learn that among four of the origin stories - one source stated that the earliest settlers of the island were a group of Orang Melayu Pahang who settled there in 1804. It was also believed that the island was named after Teluk Tekong, a place where most of these settlers came from in the Pahang kingdom.
Concurrently, tekong also means to block in Malay - which was in reference to the island blocking the mouth of the Johor River; and this is the origin story that I am more leaning towards to.
In 1857, Pulau Tekong actually played an important role in the Pahang Civil War (1857 - 1863) also known as the Perang Saudara Pahang or Brother's War. The war broke out due to conflicts in the succession of the throne following the passing of the ruler of the Pahang kingdom, Raja Bendahara Siwa Raja Ali - or just Tun Ali for short. Tun Ali had initially appointed his first son, Tun Mutahir to be the rightful heir. In Tun Ali's will, it was stated in one of the clauses that Wan Ahmad, Tun Mutahir's younger brother was given Kuantan and Endau to rule - in which Tun Mutahir ignored and disregarded which deeply enraged Wan Ahmad. In retaliation, Wan Ahmad was said to have fled to Pulau Tekong to prepare for an armed attack in Pahang. Wan Ahmad was successful in 1863 after several attempts over the six years and the death of his brother following an illness. It was said that thousands of Orang Melayu Pahang fled their kingdom during the civil war to Johor, Terengganu and some even to Pulau Tekong.
As for now, I have very limited information and my understanding is definitely still weak on the complicated history of Malay kingdoms and rule - but I can't deny that it is definitely an interesting topic to learn deeper in if I were to really understand more about my identity and family roots.
In fact, it now raised a question to find out if my great-great-grandparents were among those who moved from Pahang to Tekong during the early settlements or were among those who fled here during the Pahang Civil War. If it were true, then there is a possibility that I might be a descendant of Orang Melayu Pahang as well.
Or, there is also the possibility that they might have been from elsewhere and just happened to call Kampung Pahang their new home in the early 20th century.
Or, there is also the possibility that they might have been from elsewhere and just happened to call Kampung Pahang their new home in the early 20th century.
The quest to find out more about my family roots, identity and heritage continues.
This post is in loving memory of my great-grandparents, great-grandaunt, granduncles, grandaunts and grandparents and may Allah SWT grant them the highest level of Paradise:
Tok Seah
Tok Aki Yunos
Jariah Binte Salim
Sulong Bin Yunos
Chik Bin Yunos
Zainab Binte Yunos
Salamah Binte Yunos
Othman Bin Yunos
Asmah Binte Yunos
Tok Aminah
Al-Fatihah
بِسْمِ اللّهِ الرَّحْمـَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
الْحَمْدُ للّهِ رَبِّ الْعَالَمِينَ
الرَّحْمـنِ الرَّحِيمِ
مَـالِكِ يَوْمِ الدِّينِ
إِيَّاك نَعْبُدُ وإِيَّاكَ نَسْتَعِينُ
اهدِنَــــا الصِّرَاطَ المُستَقِيمَ
صِرَاطَ الَّذِينَ أَنعَمتَ عَلَيهِمْ غَيرِ المَغضُوبِ عَلَيهِمْ وَلاَ الضَّالِّينَ
May Pulau Ubin thrive again, with its people in its heart.
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