Memories of Sembawang

When I first read Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea" about 50 years ago, I was around the age of Manolin, the young apprentice of the old man in the story, Santiago.

I'm now the old man...just like changing roles.

It is the touching story of an old fisherman who shares his personal life experience with a little boy.

The lesson: "Learn to fish" (figuritively speaking).

There's a Chinese proverb: "Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime".

In his review of the book, Bob Corbett wrote:

"The Old Man and the Sea" is a magnificent story. At one level it is the tale of a man and a fish, at another, a story of man versus nature, at yet another, the story of the culture of manhood, courage, bravery in the face of existence, and at yet another a history of what life was like when individuals were more the central actors on the human stage and not groups or organizations.

Hemingway's world is not my world. I am no Santiago, no macho man. And the culture of today has little place left for the radical individual whom Hemingway celebrates and Santiago portrays. Yet the power of Hemingway's telling is such that I couldn't help but be on Santiago's side, to admire him, to ache with his loss in the end to forces greater than he.

This great individual, the man who stands alone, is not alone completely by choice. He has developed a friendship, a working relationship, a love with a young boy who began fishing with him when the boy was only five".

The sea has always fascinated me. I've spent a great deal of my time at the seaside during my younger days.

At various times, I have lived near the sea...Sembawang, West Coast, East Coast and Changi Point.

After all, Singapore is an island, surrounded by water. (It sounds strange to state the obvious...but this is just to emphasise the point that water is life).

In my twenties, I was staying alone in a rented room in Sembawang when I was working at Woodlands Road. My buddies and I used to visit the jetty at Sembawang for line-fishing and to catch "flower crabs" during weekends.

This is the picture of the jetty at Sembawang Park as it appears many years ago when I was staying at Sembawang Road 13¼ milestone, near the famous "Patio" food street which was popular among the Australians, New Zealanders and British servicemen of the ANZUK Forces.

The row of bars along Sembawang Road near the "Patio" food street. Photo taken in 1967.

Sembawang, an idyllic, remote village, is located at the northern-most part of Singapore.

Chong Pang was the "town center" of Sembawang. I used to go to the "Sultan Cinema" in the evening to watch movies at only S$0.30. The movies are usually second-run, 2 or 3 months after their first screening in the cinemas in the city.

Photo Credit: Jerome Lim; Source: National Archives of Singapore (NAS).

"My Home Town, Chong Pang" blog by the Story of Bing here .

The village folks in Sembawang are mostly simple, humble people who eke out a living in the Naval Base before its handover to the Singapore government by the British.

Whenever people who live in Sembawang goes to the city, they will say "I'm going to Singapore"....as if Sembawang is not part of Singapore : )

Perhaps its the proximity of Sembawang to Johor where travelling time is shorter to Johor than to the city areas in Singapore, regarded as a faraway place.

In the 1970s, the villagers of Sembawang were adversely affected by the withdrawal of the British servicemen and naval forces.