But a former cholera colony sounded so exciting. I half expected the ghosts of the victims, with sunken eyes and wrinkled skin, to float between tembusu trees and throw coconuts at unsuspecting visitors. But alas, all I encountered was a sun-burnt German tourist. Clearly agitated, he paced up and down the jetty three times before re-boarding the ferry. Perhaps he knew something I did not.
It is not just Raffles and cholera though. In the 1950s, St John’s Island also hosted political detainees, including the late Devan Nair, who went on to become Singapore’s third president (1981–1985). The island then enjoyed a spell as a rehabilitation centre for opium addicts before some bright spark decided to turn St John’s into a resort for holidaymakers in 1975.
The fruits of that labour were self-evident as soon as I stepped off the ferry. Construction workers were putting the finishing touches to a bridge that connected St John’s with Lazarus Island. The Sentosa Leisure Group now controls the Southern Islands of Kusu, Lazarus, Seringat, Sisters and St John’s and plans to join them all together by ferry or walkway.
Even without that connection, St John’s is a 39-hectare hilly island that has long been touted as a premier nature haven. So I followed a path past the Holiday Bungalow, which was basic and rustic but in dire need of a lick of paint, and into the little forest that remained. There was a distant, spooky hum. Paranoia might be to blame but I was convinced that it sounded exactly like hundreds of cholera victims groaning all at once. I was also aware that I was completely alone. I continued along a path that led to the Tropical Marine Science Institute, where one of those threatening signs that are so common in Singapore warned that all trespassers would be hung, drawn and quartered.
Not wishing to retread the same path, I stumbled around in the forest for a bit only to encounter broken, concrete staircases that suddenly stopped halfway up the slope or paths that ended abruptly at a fence. I appeared to be going round in circles. Wherever I looked, there were crumbling staircases or remnants of brick walls lying in the undergrowth. Thick tree roots dramatically protruded through cracked paths at regular intervals. Naturally, my foot found the biggest root and I managed to execute a near perfect forward roll while wearing a rucksack. Like the film tag line once said: “In the forest, no one hears you scream, ‘Bloody bastard of a tree!’”
This is it, I thought, as I pulled the spiders’ webs out of my hair and examined the scratches on my leg. This is where I am going to die. I had no idea where I was and I had drunk the last of my water hours ago on Kusu. I was hungry, increasingly sunburnt and had just ruined the home of an irate black-and-yellow spider the size of my hand. Although St John’s Island had a certain ring to it, as John is my middle name and the name of my father, it just was not glamorous enough. If I had to die prematurely in Singapore, I hoped to be knocked down by a hot mamasan in Chinatown’s Neil Road. That is almost poetic.
This, on the other hand, was a shambles. Eventually, I completed one big circle of nothing in terms of places of interest and ended up back at the ferry terminal. Kusu Island was a weekend on Temptation Island in comparison. I headed off down another path and walked past a tired-looking basketball court that was fenced in and surrounded by rolls of rusty barbed wire. In obsessing over finding something of interest in the forest, I had been oblivious to an obvious feature of the place. The island was surrounded by high fences and barbed wire. In every direction. There were even watchtowers. It felt like a childhood holiday to an old Butlins Holiday Camp in England, where once you had paid your admission fee, the barbed wire was employed to keep you from escaping.
I had another look at the map of St John’s and noticed, to my surprise, that the island did at least have a cafeteria. And it most certainly did ... but it was closed. Being on a hillock, however, it did offer me sweeping views of the nearby fences and watchtowers. If you substituted the Raffles Place skyline for that of San Francisco Bay, this could have been Alcatraz. When I returned home, I discovered that, in 1999, a part of St John’s Island had been sectioned off to detain illegal immigrants. Now, doesn’t that sound just the ideal destination to take the kiddies for a game of beach volleyball?
On its website, Sentosa Leisure Group says its redevelopment plans for the Southern Islands will eventually include “residential, resort, and entertainment facilities”, but is rather short on details. Whatever the plans are, execute them quickly. St John’s Island offers little attraction because it has no focal point. There is no real reason to come here. Kusu Island has its temples and beaches, Bukit Timah has its summit and nature trails, East Coast has its seafood and water sports and Pulau Ubin has its nostalgic kampong lifestyle. St John’s has barbed wire and watchtowers.
Dehydrated and exhausted, I sat at the jetty and waited for the last ferry back to Sentosa. I was early, but there really was nowhere else to go. Apart from a handful of Malay fishermen, I was the only person there. Low, dark clouds accompanied by thunderclaps suggested a downpour was imminent and the whole island now looked gloomy. In the distance, I spotted about 10 birds of prey hovering somewhere behind Lazarus Island. Through my “geeky” binoculars (so christened by my wife), I realised they were white-bellied sea eagles. Common off the coast of Singapore, it was still unusual to see them in such numbers. Considered to be the biggest bird of prey found here, they glided effortlessly across the sky using the warm air currents to float upwards. It was an impressive sight. But as the drizzle started, St John’s Island looked increasingly eerie behind me as the huge eagles continued to soar ominously overhead. For some strange reason, the ferry could not come quick enough.
CHAPTER 12
There are certain things I have never understood about Singapore. I have never figured out why the elderly slap an empty seat on a bus before they sit down. It is most bizarre. They shuffle along the bus looking every inch the benign auntie or uncle, spot an empty seat and promptly go ballistic. Acting as if the seat offended them on a previous trip, they lean over and give it a damn good thrashing. Innocent bystanders are generally confused by the violent and unprovoked attack because it achieves nothing. No dust ever flies up and there is no physical altering of the seat. But still, they slap away like a demented sadomasochist before finally deeming the seat acceptable for their ageing buttocks.
Second, I have yet to be given a satisfactory explanation as to why two parents sitting at a dinner table require the services of a maid to feed their own child. Is it too much for them to feed themselves and their child at the same time? Will their arms fall off if they shovel spoonfuls of rice from two plates instead of one? Or maybe it is the complexity of the procedure. After all, it is a complicated task, cutting up fish balls and rolling them into the screaming brat’s mouth.
And finally, I have never fathomed why Westerners and Western wannabes are so enamoured by Holland Village. Apparently named after Hugh Holland, an architect and early resident of the area, Holland Village is touted as Singapore’s Bohemia, a little enclave of eateries, bars and art galleries. That may be the case, but Manhattan’s Greenwich Village has nothing to worry about. In 10 years, I have not visited the area more than a dozen times and just cannot recognise its attraction. Believe me, it is not through want of trying.
When I arrived, Singaporean and foreign colleagues said, “Oh, if you want a good place to hang out, you must go to Holland V. It’s a great place for chilling.” Be deeply suspicious of anyone who feels compelled to use the word “chilling” in everyday conversation.
“It’s called Holland V? What’s the V stand for?”
“Oh, it means ‘village’. But I always call it Holland V.”
“Why? Is there something wrong with you?”
Whenever the modern marketing weapons of short forms, abbreviations or acronyms are deployed in a desperate attempt to sound hip and clued in, I reach for the snooze button.
But I was an eager tourist back then, dutifully following any direction offered so I took a leisurely stroll around Holland Village one afternoon. Yes, I set aside an en
tire afternoon. The tour was completed in 10 minutes. I spent more time in my Dagenham minimart when I was young, sneaking peeks at the big and bouncy magazines on the top shelf. I seem to recall a handful of restaurants, some banks and, by Singaporean standards, a tiny, colourless shopping centre.
The only memorable evening spent at the bustling Bohemia (it makes me laugh just typing it) came after a last-minute victory for Tanjong Pagar United when I celebrated with one of the players at Wala Wala Bar. We were watching a 1998 World Cup match when I felt something tickle my feet. I looked down and saw a confused, baby rat trying unsuccessfully to find its way back to its burrow. My suriphobia made it exceedingly difficult for me to return after that. But the rat encounter was eight years ago and nothing stands still in Singapore.
Holland Village had changed, quite dramatically in fact. It was an orderly shambles. In other words, the shopping enclave was marked by yet another building site, complete with cranes and those industrial, deafening drills that apparently need to bore their way through to the Earth’s core to allow the new MRT Circle Line to trundle underneath Holland Village in 2010. In the stifling midday heat, I stepped off the bus and the dust in the still, humid air was everywhere. How the poor shop owners put up with these noisy, irritable conditions I will never know. The construction site was surrounded by a 2-metre-high corrugated iron fence right in the heart of Holland Village. Visitors had to negotiate a narrow walkway with the obstreperous drilling on the left and dusty shopfronts on the right. I am sure in the evenings, when dust hopefully gives way to dusk, shopping here is a more agreeable experience, but it is bloody awful in the early afternoon.
The shops in Holland Village were the usual haunts frequented by expatriates and younger Singaporeans: one or two European restaurants, the odd grille, The Coffee Bean and a Burger King. The two-storey shophouses offered fake branded goods, some Singaporean souvenirs and the odd dentist. Intriguingly, there were also a number of motorbikes parked in Lorong Mambong, behind Holland Road. It felt like a dislocated Bali. In effect, Holland Village was Bali without the beach. More so when I visited, with all that bloody dust providing an uncomfortable substitute for sand. Picture a few tanned Scandinavians in sarongs, a group of elderly locals massaging the feet of fat ang mohs and some grungy old German hippy running a bar along Lorong Mambong and Holland Village really could be Bali.
Perhaps that is why the buzzing Bohemia does not quite work here. It is out of place. If the entire village could be lifted and transported wholesale to the East Coast, I suspect it would be a massive hit with backpacker types from all over the world. The setting would certainly match the clientele. Holland Village has everything Bali or Koh Samui offers: bars showing Premiership football, restaurants offering decent international cuisine, fast food outlets, cheap clothes, postal services, banks, bakeries and reasonable parking for scooters and motorbikes. On a much smaller scale, Holland Village does offer the young Singaporean, the tourist, the backpacker and the expatriate all of the basic essentials of a bohemian lifestyle, except sand, sea and sex, that is, which tend to be the most important ingredients. Concrete is no substitute for sand and sex on a building site just does not have the same ring to it.
But the little shopping parade is not without its plus points. The long-established newspaper and magazine stall offers publications from just about every major country in the world. Although it comes at a price. I do not doubt for a second that the Mail on Sunday is not a quality weekend read, but I am not sure it is worth $12.50. The windmill on the top of Holland V Shopping Mall is quaint and you cannot complain about the breadth of cuisine offered here. German, Lebanese and Mexican restaurants are all close to each other and there was even an eatery offering “Brazilian”. I was not even sure what constituted Brazilian fare and the restaurant’s façade did not give much away. There were no photographs of dishes in the window so I had a closer look. There were several shots of women’s legs and the word “WAX” featured prominently on the walls. There was a “male menu” but its offerings should only appeal to Olympic swimmers, Tour de France cyclists and those who frequent Orchard Towers on Friday nights. An employee in the shop glanced up at me and smiled. I almost fell over my hairy legs to get away. That was all I needed. I could have popped in there for a little plate of Brazilian and come away with a giant walnut between my legs.
But I was neither hungry nor in need of a German newspaper, so there was little else to keep me in Holland Village. I took a bus to Buona Vista and then a train to a spiritual haven that has made me far too superstitious for my own good.
Scott and I were in a really good mood. And not because we were lying on a bed together in our boxer shorts. It was 4 December 1996 and I had just signed a two-year contract as a speech and drama teacher. Scott already had a job as an architect in the bag and the next day was my birthday. After three weeks of job hunting and almost no sightseeing, we could finally drop the former and do a little of the latter. Besides, we had to get out of the apartment. We were sleeping in the same bed, cooking for each other and generally turning into Toa Payoh’s version of The Odd Couple. In a certain light, Scott was beginning to resemble Jack Lemmon and I found him rather fetching in his tight, cotton boxer shorts. We desperately needed fresh air, a temporary escape from instant curry noodles and a chance to mix with fully clothed people again. After much deliberation, we settled on visiting the Chinese Garden. Not because we were particularly fond of pagodas and stone lions, but because it was cheap and beside the MRT station of the same name.
The Chinese and Japanese Gardens afforded us our first glance of the country that existed behind the housing estates. Ironically, the green spot was cultivated in the mid-1970s to serve those very housing estate workers and residents, but it was our first glimpse of the garden city. Until then, we had only seen the city. The 14-hectare Chinese Garden and the 13-hectare Japanese Garden were beautifully landscaped and, like most Western visitors, we were impressed with the traditional features of Chinese gardening art, particularly the seven-storey pagoda modelled on the Ling Ku Temple Pagoda in Nanjing, China. The only viewing tower we had encountered so far was in the Toa Payoh Town Garden and that really was a limp erection in comparison.
We stopped for lunch at the Bonsai Garden because the cheese slices in our sandwiches were melting. In a conversation I will never forget, we sat there for at least an hour, plotting our spectacular ambitions for the following year in Singapore. Some we achieved, some we did not. Scott could not fulfil the easiest and most important ambition—to stay in the country. Thanks to those incomprehensible civil servants at Immigration (although there is another, more adequate description of their profession beginning with “c”), Scott had his employment pass application rejected three months later. There was no explanation given. Treated like a criminal, he was ordered to leave the country within seven days. I have never forgiven the immigration authorities for their inexplicably draconian, heavy-handed behaviour. For the record, Scott is now an accomplished architect living in Hertfordshire with his wife and son and is reaching most of the targets he laid out while eating sweaty cheese sandwiches in the Chinese Garden a decade ago. Well done, Singapore Immigration. You really made the right decision there.
On my birthday the following year, I took my partner back to the same spot at the Bonsai Garden for lunch, told her about the conversation with Scott and we inevitably ended up discussing our plans for the next year. Being a creature of habit, I have returned to the same spot on the same day almost every year since. At the risk of sounding like a pretentious wanker, the annual trips feel quite spiritual. If I go alone, I analyse the year that has passed and lay down what is realistically achievable in the next 12 months. When I am alone, I find myself muttering aloud although I am not sure why, or to whom. On one occasion, I failed to notice that a cleaner had wandered in to sweep the footpath. He spotted a lanky lunatic eating a cheese sandwich and giving a sermon on the mount at Bonsai Garden and nearly fell into the pond. I may not be able to tu
rn water into wine, but I can almost always make cleaners fall into the water.
There was one birthday, somewhere in my late twenties, when I had to travel to England for an extended writing assignment and missed my annual pilgrimage to Jurong. The following year did not go quite according to plan. It was probably a coincidence and I may well be talking rubbish, but I have not missed a year since.
One of the advantages of visiting the Chinese Garden today is that it is free. Like Haw Par Villa, Sentosa, Holland Village and countless other tourist attractions around the country, the Chinese Garden was currently in the midst of redevelopment and most of the Japanese Garden had been fenced off. The operator rightly assumed that it would be presumptuous to charge visitors for the privilege of admiring piles of sand, No Entry barriers and the exposed backsides of foreign workers.
Do you think there will ever come a time when the upgrading ceases in Singapore? Can you ever envisage a day when the hammering in your neighbourhood stops? Let’s dream of a day when some bright spark at the Urban Redevelopment Authority eventually stands up in front of his colleagues and cries, “Let us put down our drills, step down from the cranes and tear down the fences. Let’s stop digging holes in the country today!”
“But what would we do with all that corrugated iron fencing?”
“Bury it on Pulau Semakau for all I care. I’ve had enough.”
“But you know the economic threat Singapore faces. What about China and India?”
“All right, bury it there then. Along with the drills, cranes and concrete mixers. Let’s just allow the country and its people a five-minute respite to breathe a little.”
Final Notes From a Great Island Page 10
