BOOK REVIEWS
PULAU UBIN - OURS TO TREASURE
1. Hemisphere Vol 2 No. 1 2002
There are 139 pages, which gently underscore the interconnectedness of the people and their natural environment. Dr Chua takes a balanced view of the fate of the island, recognising the need of Singapore's growing population for land, while at the same time wondering if such an urbanised population doesn't also need the serenity of a rural retreat like Pulau Ubin.
For many years, Pulau Ubin has sustained a wonderfully diverse human community of farmers, fishermen and shopkeepers as well as a rich population of birds, reptiles, mammals and a large variety of indigenous flora. It is a "feast for the senses" according to the author of this timely and gentle book, who advises his readers to: "Go, look carefully, listen And do it soon, before the old Ubin is gone." What started many years ago as a loving tribute to a beautiful, wild and relatively undisturbed place is about to become, sadly, a memorial to a place and a way of life that will not be available to us for much longer. In either case it does its job well.
There are 139 pages, each with fabulous pictures and friendly prose, which gently underscore the interconnectedness of the people and their natural environment. Dr Chua takes a balanced view of the fate of the island, recognising the need of Singapore's growing population for land, while at the same time wondering if such an urbanised population doesn't also need the serenity of a rural retreat like Pulau Ubin. "Once dismantled, we cannot ... restore the wilderness." The book is thorough in its documentation of the variety of life found on Ubin. The index lists by common name species mentioned in the text or appear in photographs. There are also checklists of the plants (scientific names only) and the mammals and birds (scientific and common names) found on the island, with residential and scarcity status indicated.
The only oversight, of which the author and his collaborators are painfully aware, is of the renowned Tanjung Chek Jawa, which at the time of publication of this book, was not well known outside the immediate Ubin community. It is an extraordinary area and an exciting "discovery", a mud flat and mangrove paradise that has given rise to surprising biodiversity. Visitors such as Dr Chua and his colleagues have helped bring public attention to the treasures of Chek Jawa, and a new book is in the works. (This one will be even more poignant than the first because, at press time, Chek Jawa was destined for land reclamation works. Barring a last minute reprieve, its wonders will be lost forever.)
2. The Graduate Jan 2001
Excerpts of a book review by Associate Professor Tan Wee Kiat
Dr Chua Ee Kiam's gentle prose and excellent pictorial presentation brings out the splendours of nature and lifestyle on the island.
... Dr Chua's documentary book, Pulau Ubin -Ours to Treasure, describing these villages and kampongs in addition to the island's plant and animal life, is thus all the more precious. In a somewhat fortuitous turn of events, the contrasting lifestyles of the rural Malay and Chinese can still be found in Pulau Ubin. The interested reader, therefore, not only gets a good and broad overview of the plant and animal life on the island but also of its people, and the racial and religious tolerance and understanding between the Chinese and Malays there. A high quality of life requires not just harmony between man and nature but also among man.
The book triggers a sense of this harmonious balance in the reader with the writer's gentle prose and well-taken photographs, especially in the chapters Nature in the Balance, Portraits of a Lifestyle and The Cultural Heritage. Which reader can remain unmoved by the vivid accounts of the famed Ubin hospitality, and the island's gracious 94 year-old headman and other senior citizens, as well as the leisurely bicycle rides, scenic granite quarries, quiet prawn ponds and zinc-roof houses. This book will also stimulate some of our best minds to think of ways to conserve what is left of Pulau Ubin.
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