Singapore in untypical light

What defines Singapore isn’t just its well photographed icons of the modern age, food, its colourful festivals and its now ubiquitous blocks of public housing flats. Lots go on without ever being noticed, including what these twelve untypical views of some of what makes Singapore, Singapore, depict:

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The darkness at sunrise

An incoming storm.

Rainstorms are very much a part of life in Singapore. They can be a nuisance, but are also welcomed for the cooler temperatures they bring. One storm system that is particularly dramatic, arrives with suddenness in the early mornings around dawn, bringing with it a fury of lightning, thunder and heavy rain. The squalls, which blow in from March to November, are known as the Sumatras – after the Indonesian landform they blow in from.

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The (once) shimmering shores

Sembawang Beach, one of the last natural beaches, illuminated by the lights of a celebration brought in by one of Singapore’s immigrant communities.

The Malay Annals, the chronicles of the kings of old Singapura, makes one of the earliest recorded mention of Singapore’s shores. In one of it more well-known stories, a glance at the shimmering white sands of then Temasek was all it took to have Sri Tri Buana or Sang Nila Utama sail over from Batam. Confronted by the sight of a magnificent looking beast that the royal party believed to be a lion, Sri Tri Buana decided to remain on the island and establish a kingdom that he named Singapura after the beast. Except for a vicious attack of sawfish – told in another of the annals’ intriguing tales, the shores provided calm. The British East India Company would see great value in the shores some 6 centuries after Sang Nila Utama and came to lay what would be the foundations for modern Singapore.

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Crossing at speed

Crossing MRT lines, as seen from a moving train.

Modern Singapore makes a huge investment in public transport infrastructure, a key component of which is the MRT. Construction of the first lines, which was initially resisted, began in the 1980s. Three decades on, Singapore is still in a frenzy of building a criss-cross of lines with a view to reduce the dependence on road transport in the longer term. In will also only be a matter of time before the MRT crossing into neighbouring Malaysia. Plans are in place to have the MRT run under the Tebrau Strait and into Johor Bahru.

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The lights do not go out on the shipyards

Working lights at Sembawang Shipyard at dawn.

Once thought of as a sunset industry, the shipbuilding and repair business continues to serve Singapore well. With a long tradition in the industry, it would only be after independence that the business came to the fore. The two shipyard giants, Keppel and Sembawang, have their roots in the post-independence era, built on facilities inherited from civilian and military facilities established by the British. Both were an important source of jobs in early years and together with other shipyards, have established a reputation for efficient turnaround repair times. One contributing factor is the effort put in by some of the hardest workers across the industries that keep the shipyards running 24-7 whenever that is needed.

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Upwardly mobile

Inner workings of a multi-level ramp-up logistic centre revealed by its illuminations.

The entrepôt trade, and what supports it, is one of the things Singapore has been built on. The arrival of the age of containerisation in the early 1970s, transformed the trade and also the ports and goods handling facilities. Like in public housing and in the light industrial landscape, goods handling has also now gone high-rise. Multi-level ramp-up logistics centres have become a feature of the industrial and suburban landscape over the last two decades with much more being built. The transport and storage trade, associated with these facilities, accounts for a significant 8% of the GDP.

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Offshore oil

The petrochemical complex on Pulau Bukom and Pulau Ular / Pulau Bukom Kechil, seen from an offshore patch reef. Pulau Bukom is the site of Singapore’s first oil refinery.

For the oil industry in Singapore, going “offshore” takes on another meaning. Singapore’s beginnings as a main refining centre was in 1961 when Shell opened the first refinery offshore on the island of Pulau Bukom. Singapore has since also ventured into petrochemical processing. Although there are some onshore facilities still running, much goes on offshore with a man-made island made from a cluster of islands off Jurong, Jurong Island, being a main centre. Petrochemical processing facilities have also sprouted up on an expanded Pulau Bukom and on the neighbouring island of Pulau Bukom Kechil (which now has Pulau Ular and Pualu Busing appended to it).

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The light brought by a moving dock

Inside the belly of a Landing Ship Tank.

One way in which Singapore plays its part as a member of the international community is in providing humanitarian assistance in the event of crisis and disaster in the region. With 4 locally designed and built Landing Ship Tanks capable of moving men, machine and cargo over large distances, the Republic of Singapore Navy is well equipped to provide support for such a response when needed – as was seen in the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami in Aceh.

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Corridors of sin and also of salvation

A corridors of sin and salvation. The lights are of a Buddhist Religious Centre.

Geylang may be a neighbourhood that has built a reputation for its association with several of the 7 deadly sins, gluttony and lust included. What is perhaps surprising about the neighbourhood is that it is also where the largest concentration of religious institutions in Singapore can found  (see also:Streets of Sin and Salvation).

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Islands of many tales and legends

Kusu Island at twilight.

The southern islands of Singapore, once inhabited by members of the Orang Laut community, have long been the subject of myths and legends. Handed down over the generations, the stories – of spirits and genies suggest how the islands were formed and how the islands acquired their names. Sadly, with the communities now dispersed, much is being forgotten. One that will not be forgotten as quickly is that of Kusu or tortoise island, which legend says a tortoise in rescuing two shipwrecked sailors, turned into the island. The island actually resembled a tortise at high-tide before land reclamation altered its shape. Chinese and Malay shrines maintained on the island, continue to attract Chinese devotees,  especially during the annual pilgrimage that takes place over the ninth Chinese month,

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Regeneration

The deconstruction of the 1973 built National Stadium in 2010, where two perhaps three generations of Singaporeans connected to during the days of Singapore’s participation in the Malaysia Cup football competition.

Regeneration of old places, neighbourhood and places Singaporean have grown to love, is very much a feature of life in Singapore. Many, especially from the older generations have had to cope with the loss of familiar places and the loss of that sense of home such places bring (see Parting Glances: Rochor Centre in its last days, Parting glances: Blocks 74 to 80 Commonwealth Drive and A world uncoloured).

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Light of a not so foreign land

Good Friday at the Church of St. Joseph – where the religious traditions of Portugal are most visible in Singapore.

With a large majority of the population made up of the descendants of the ethnic Chinese immigrants and also an influx of new immigrants from the mainland, and large minorities of Malays and those from the Sub-Continent, Singapore’s many smaller minorities tend to be overlooked. Over the years, Singapore has seen the likes of Armenians, Arabs, Jews, Japanese and as well as those from the extended Nusantara flavour the island. There is also a group that has in fact long had links with the area, the Portuguese or Portuguese Eurasians who feature quite prominently. Many have maintained the traditions of their forefathers and it is on Good Friday every year when some of this is seen in the Good Friday candlelight procession in the compound of the Portuguese Church.

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Where the light does not shine

Where the light doesn’t shine. Workers on yet another skyscraper construction project waiting for transport to their dormitories, many of which are located in faraway and remote locations, late in the night.

Work goes on on many construction sites, which employ labourers from various countries including China, India, Bangladesh and Myanmar, without whom the skyscrapers of modern Singapore would not have been built. These workers, not unlike the shipyard workers, work extremely long hours and are housed in dormitories located in some of the remotest of locations in Singapore.

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Strange Horizons: Past, present and the probable future

One of the last untouched islands of Singapore, Pulau Jong, is seen with the first to be developed for industrial use, Pulau Bukom Besar (on the right), and its smaller neighbour Pulau Bukom Kechil – a juxtaposition perhaps of past, present, and perhaps the probable future.

Pulau Bukom Besar’s development goes back to the 1890s when Shell established a kerosene storage facility on the island, then deemed a safe distance away from the main island of Singapore, outside the then port limits. The age of industrialisation in Singapore brought with it the refinery that Shell built – which heralded the start of Singapore involvement with the oil refining business, in 1961. The expansion into Pulau Bukom Kechil began in the 1970s. More on this can be found on a previous post: Snake Island at dawn through the darkness of the storm.

Sadly for Pulau Jong and its large fringing reef, a 2013 Land Use Plan seems to show that future plans could involve its absorption into a larger land mass through reclamation, joining it with the islands of Pulau Sebarok to its southeast and the enlarged Pulau Semakau (now Singapore’s offshore landfill) to its southwest.

Strange Horizons: Snake Island at dawn through the darkness of the storm

The eastward view from a location off Terumbu Pempang Laut, a patch reef between Pulau Bukom and Pulau Sudong in the Straits of Singapore, at 6.45 am on the first of June. The view sees the silhouettes of Shell’s Ethylene cracker plant at its Bukom petrochemical complex in the band of the light coloured by the sun’s rising under the shadow of the storm darkened sky. The plant, an addition to Shell’s Bukom petrochemical complex in 2010, sits on what is actually the expanded island of Pulau Ular (which translates as Snake Island), southwest of Pulau Bukom Besar. The island is now joined by reclamation to Pulau Bukom Kechil to its east and Pulau Busing to its west and is connected to Pulau Bukom Besar by bridge.

Shell’s association with Pulau Bukom (Besar), goes back to the 1890s when kerosene storage facilities were first established on the island. A refinery, which was to herald the start of Singapore’s thrust into the the oil refining business – Singapore is now among the world’s top three export refining centres, was completed in 1961.

Shell’s expansion into Pulau Bukom Kechil began in the 1970s and displaced the 200o or so inhabitants who were on the island at the end of the 1960s. In both instances, the development required land to be reclaimed from coastal reefs and mangroves as well as the islands’ hilly terrains to be flattened.

Pulau Bukom was the location of a failed terrorist attack in 1974. Mounted by a team of four from the Japanese Red Army and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian intending to blow up oil storage facilities on the island, the aim of what has come to be known as the Laju Incident (the Laju was the ferry that the terrorists hijacked in an attempt to escape), was to disrupt supplies to U.S. supported forces in South Vietnam. More on the incident can be found at the National Library’s Singapore Infopedia page: Laju Hijacking.

Shell’s complex at Pulau Bukom, which incidentally is the Anglo-Dutch company’s largest refinery complex, was in more recent times the scene of a massive fire. The fire burned for some 32 hours on 28 and 29 September 2011 before it was extinguished. The fire, although confined to a small area, caused a huge disruption to the complex’s operations and resulted in a huge financial loss to the company.

Strange Horizons: seeing the future

The future world does seem to have arrived in Singapore. Rising out of what used to be the old harbour is a new world, the seeds of which were really sown at the end of the 1960s. It was in 1967 that Singapore embarked on the State and City Planning Project (SCP) in 1967 with the assistance of the United Nations Development Programme’s special assistance scheme for urban renewal and development for emerging nations. 

The SCP completed in 1971, identified the need for a coastal highway to divert traffic out of the city, requiring land to be reclaimed for what was to be the East Coast Parkway (ECP) and the Benjamin Sheares Bridge. It was with this that the planners recognised that there was benefit in further reclamation of land to provide land for the city’s expansion south, land on which a new downtown is now, some four decades after the initial reclamation commenced, in the process of being built.

Among the first structures rising in the new world are several that have since become one of the most photographed and recognisable structures in Singapore including the Sky Park topped hotel towers and lotus flower inspired ArtScience Museum of Moshe Safdie’s Marina Bay Sands integrated resort complex (2010) and the Supertrees and cooled conservatories of the Gardens by the Bay  (2012) that is seen in the above photograph, which was taken across what today is a fresh water channel of water at the Bay East garden of the Gardens by the Bay.

Strange Horizons: reflections on the alien invasion at the bay

Maybe now not such a strange horizon – the view of the alien structures that have invaded the new world at Marina Bay’s Garden’s by the Bay, reflected off the Dragonfly Lake. The structures are probably among the most photographed in Singapore and are now very recognisable across the world. In the foreground, three of the garden’s 18 Supertrees are seen with the two cooled conservatories in the background. The taller of the cooled conservatories is the 58 metre high Cloud Forest, which replicates the moist cooled environments of the tropical montane regions and features a 35 metre man made mountain along with a 30 metre high waterfall. The longer of the two conservatories is the Flower Dome in which the cool-dry springtime climates of the Mediterranean and semi-arid sub-tropical regions is replicated. The Gardens by the Bay, which is now in its second year (having opened in June 2012), has become one of Singapore’s most visited tourist attractions.