I slept in 'haunted' Tekong bunk with third door and survived

I don't believe in ghosts.

(Or Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past, the new movie starring Matthew McConaughey, because, well, it stars Matthew McConaughey, but I digress.)

Two weeks ago, an army recruit reportedly became “delirious” on the ferry leaving Pulau Tekong and died hours later in hospital.

A male colleague heard the news and suggested that the Tekong ghost had struck again.

“What Tekong ghost?” a female colleague asked.

How could any Singaporean not know about the ghost of Pulau Tekong? Didn’t she see that episode of Incredible Tales on TV?



It’s one of our young nation’s most cherished urban legends, along with why an octagon is engraved on our dollar coin and the myth of the Singaporean with an opinion.

There are a few variations to the tale, all set in Pulau Tekong where generations of young Singaporean males are sent for basic military training.



Decades ago, a recruit from Charlie Company went missing after a long route march. He was later found in the woods, dead from an apparent stomach rupture, but somehow the story became he was found disemboweled with his intestines neatly laid out in front of him.

Anyway, after that, there were reports of “hauntings” in the bunk he had slept in. So an exorcist was called in. The bunk had two doors. The ghostbuster recommended building another door to let the ghost out.

Of course, I do not know how true any of this is, except for one thing – the third door exists.

I was from Charlie Company and I stayed in that bunk for the three months of my full-time national service. When I was there, the third door was padlocked and never opened.



But I was an extremely “blur” recruit – and not just “acting blur” as my instructors and platoon mates accused me of doing. I was so blur that I assumed it was perfectly normal for a bunk to have three doors and thought nothing of it at the time.

The only thing I was haunted by beeing called a "chee-bye brain" by my sergeant after I misunderstood some instructions at the range. I lost my innocence that day.

After deciding I had been sufficiently verbally abused in the army, I managed to get myself posted to the navy, where I was attached to the big ships known as LSTs or landing ship tanks (which have since been replaced).

Then I was told that those old LSTs were bought from the American navy who used them to ferry dead soldiers during World War II and wouldn’t you know it, the ships were haunted too!

Maybe Matthew McConaughey isn’t so bad after all.

- Published in The New Paper, 31 May 2009

UPDATE: Why I ain’t afraid of no ghost on Pulau Tekong

The Sunday Times: Charlie, we may have company

How to be a good neighbour, according to HDB

Don’t vandalise. Don’t litter. Don’t urinate anywhere other than in a toilet unless you’re living in the jungle.

These are some of the takeaways from a guidebook called My Neighbour, My Friend, It Begins With Me, launched by the Housing and Development Board (HDB) last month. The rather slim volume can be downloaded from the HDB website at www.hdb.gov.sg.

Let me contribute something that is not in the guidebook: Don’t waste time and money coming up with a guidebook that states the obvious.

Everyone knows vandalism is a crime punishable by caning. Just ask Michael Fay. And you just have to read any “Singapore is a Fine City” T-shirt to know that littering, urinating in lifts, spitting and bird-feeding are also frowned upon.

The guidebook is the result of recommendations from a “workgroup” set up last year to “examine how neighbourliness could be improved”.

Now I want better neighbours as much as the guy living next door to me, but a guidebook with “simple pointers on how to be closer to our neighbours, as well as the common do's and don’ts of high-rise living” appears, uh, misguided.

It assumes HDB residents want to be good neighbours but are too oblivious to know how. Thus, such Pollyanna advice like “Talk to your neighbour and be prepared to listen” and “Be friendly and lend a helping hand”.

Oh, if only the world were the candy-coloured two-dimensional cartoon depicted in the book, peace would be in the Middle East and potato chips would be good for you.

But alas, people don’t behave inconsiderately because they lack a guidebook to tell them how not to. They do so because they couldn’t care less about being good neighbours, much less downloading any book to teach them how to be good neighbours.

But to its credit, the workgroup “recognises that there may be a small minority of residents who are not receptive to general public education on neighbourliness and display anti-social behaviour without consideration to their neighbours”.

This is where the handbook finally comes in handy because it also tells you how to deal with such nightmare neighbours after the talking and listening don’t work. It gives you the Community Mediation Centre hotline number and its operating hours.

And if mediation doesn’t work, it’s off to the courts to see the Magistrate. Just don’t wear your “Singapore is a Fine City” T-shirt.

In the end, the only way to deal with bad neighbours is not to be their neighbour any more – move.

- Published in The New Paper, 24 May 2009

Why can't my home be as tidy as Mas Selamat's hideout?

Did you see the pictures in last Tuesday’s New Paper of the Johor Baru house in Kampung Tawakal where escaped terrorsist Mas Selamat Kastari was arrested?



It was like the tidiest terrorist hideout I had ever seen – not that I have seen that many terrorist hideouts.

I’m used to flipping through interior design magazines and seeing these pictures of other people’s beautiful homes and thinking, “My god, compared to them, I live in a pigsty.”

By the way, living in a pigsty is not so bad anymore since swine flu has been renamed Influenza A (H1N1).

But thanks to Mas Selamat, I now realise that I’m not only living in a pigsty, but I’m living in the undesirable part of the pigsty where the local pigs send foreign workers to live.

How did my home become such a mess? Where did all this clutter come from? How can a fugitive have better housekeeping habits than I do?

I’m assuming Mas Selamat didn’t have a maid. Neither do I because, you know, good help is so hard to find these days.

And here I was, thinking he was hiding in constant fear of capture somewhere in the woods, feeding on insects and sleeping without a mattress, blanket, pillow, bolster or air-conditioning – in this heat!



While all this time, Singapore’s most wanted man was reportedly going fishing, picnicking and growing rambutans as he lived among some remarkably clueless villagers.

(But his kampung house looked like it didn’t have any air-con, which made me feel slightly better.)

Mas Selamat even had a garden. The only garden I have is the mildew growing in my bathroom.

But you know what I’m really jealous about? He had a punching bag hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the living room! How awesome is that? It was like his own private gym. No membership fees required.

You think my wife would let me have a punching bag hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the living room? All she gave me were these two little dumbbells, but I really shouldn’t talk about our kids like that.

You know what? That’s who I blame – the kids. Because of them, my HDB flat has never been – and will never be – featured in Home & Decor.

They spill. They vandalise the walls and furniture. They leave toys accumulated over numerous birthdays and Christmases all over the place. They hide half-eaten sandwiches in the storeroom that you discover months later when you’re wondering, “What the hell is that smell?”

Once you have children, you can kiss any illusions of having a picture-perfect home good-bye.

But for all the messiness, I suppose having a family is still marginally preferable to being a fugitive. Though I wouldn’t mind some free rambutans.

- Published in The New Paper, 17 May 2009