The Mystery of Sarong Island

[Music playing]

Jimmy
You’re listening to BiblioAsia+, a podcast produced by the National Library of Singapore. At BiblioAsia, we tell stories about Singapore’s past: some unfamiliar, others forgotten, all fascinating.

My name is Jimmy Yap, and I’m the editor-in-chief of BiblioAsia, a magazine produced by the National Library of Singapore. In this episode of BiblioAsia+, we’re going to talk about Singapore’s first resort island. It’s not Sentosa, though. Instead, we’re going to talk about Sarong Island, a tiny island just off the northern coast of Pulau Blakang Mati, the old name for Sentosa. In the late 1960s, Sarong Island was marketed as a peaceful escape from the noisy city. However, while the owner of the island tried her best, there were problems she couldn’t overcome. After a year, she threw in the towel. Today, librarian Lim Tin Seng is here to tell us all about Sarong Island, which is also commonly referred to as Pulau Selegu, or Selegu Island. Tin Seng did extensive research and wrote about what he found in a recent issue of BiblioAsia. While digging through the archives, he actually made an interesting discovery. While the newspapers in the ’60s kept referring to Sarong Island as Selegu Island, it turns out they were wrong. Sarong Island and Selegu Island were two completely different islands. Before we start, I’d like to tell people how this story came about. It all started when my wife won a free trip to go on a yacht, complete with dinner, in a radio contest. Imagine the scene. It’s dusk, and I’m on a romantic cruise with my wife. I am of course staring at my phone. In my defence, it was dark, and I was using the map on my phone to find out exactly where we were. The map said we were sailing past Selegu Island, an island I’d never heard of. And that’s how this whole thing started. Hi, Tin Seng. Welcome to BiblioAsia+. Tell us all about Sarong Island or Selegu Island.

Tin Seng
I didn’t know that’s how you identified the topic. Because I thought it was Sentosa’s 50 years. But yeah that’s a better way of identifying a research topic.

Jimmy
Yeah, going on a romantic dinner cruise. But I don’t recommend using your phone when you’re on a romantic dinner cruise with your partner.

Tin Seng
Ah, yes, don’t do that. Well, when I received your email, straightaway I did some quick research. Then I found out something. I found that Sarong Island was formerly named Selegu Island. And I jumped in and started my research. I do a search like what we always do, try to find out what is this Selegu Island and everything. Then slowly when I did this research, a lot of questions started popping up because I started to ask questions like what does this word ‘selegu’ mean and things like that. I looked through a Malay dictionary, John Crawfurd’s one as well. Actually I couldn’t really pinpoint. If you want me to speculate: when I looked at John Crawfurd’s Malay dictionary, he says Selegu is something like capital stock, which means warehouse stock and things like that. So I say, oh, perhaps it’s a place where they store things or maybe ships go past and they drop stuff there. So this was how I started the research. And I’m pretty sure that Selegu Island maybe was Sarong Island, and people used it to put stuff on it.

Jimmy
But actually what’s interesting is that, in your research, what you found was that Pulau Selegu is not the same as Sarong Island. If you read the newspaper articles in the 1960s, they always refer to Sarong Island as Pulau Selegu.

Tin Seng
Yeah, that’s the thing. So I did my research, and I say, okay, it’s pretty easy, I have the background info. Sarong Island was Selegu. That’s how everyone says it. Newspapers say it. Memories. I came across it in the Singapore Memory Project and things like that. Oral history. The former name of Sarong Island was Pulau Selegu. Until I saw this map, this 1966 topographic map of Singapore. It shows the southern part of Singapore; it shows Sentosa. Of course back then it was known as Blakang Mati. And then it shows Jardin steps, which is today’s Harbourfront. And in between this water channel, this Keppel Harbour water channel, you see an island, a very nice island. It says very clearly: Pulau Selegu. I thought, I’m safe. Okay, that’s it, I found something, an image to support my argument. And a nice one as well, a colourful map. Until I spotted another thing, another island down there. Before I go into that island, I need to clarify three things. Three points. You must know that Sarong Island had this bungalow called The White House. Now, this bungalow has been there. Oh wait, it is no longer around today. But it was there before the war. You must know that when Sarong Island was opened up as the first tourist island of Singapore in 1967, The White House was already there. This bungalow was built by Frank Blackwood and he was the Senior Superintendent of Surveys in the Straits Settlements. In other words, there was a property there, and it’s The White House. From there, now we go back to the map, this 1966 map. It’s stated there that this island, which is not Pulau Selegu, just south of Pulau Selegu, has a bungalow named The White House. That’s it, it’s something that you find that questions your research, it questions everything.

Jimmy
That’s very interesting. All this while you had no idea, you thought they were the same, and suddenly you found this map and then this maps says Pulau Selegu is in one place and The White House is on a different island. That’s when you thought something is wrong. Tell us a little bit. We’ll come back to the question of what Sarong Island and Pulau Selegu are, but tell us a little bit about Sarong Island. What was Sarong Island?

Tin Seng
First of all, you must know that this island was considered as Singapore’s first tourist island. It is some sort of a branding. And it was come up by Christina Lee, the former wife of Loke Wan Tho. She bought the island in the late 1950s. She lived there for quite some time until 1966 when she opened it up and established a restaurant there and made it into a tourist island.

Jimmy
So that’s why she branded it as a tourist island, Singapore’s first tourist island. It’s not Sentosa, it’s actually a tiny island off Sentosa.

Tin Seng
From what I found, you can do quite a number of things. You have a restaurant, and the restaurant was located in The White House. It’s called The White House because according to what I read, the house was supposed to be modelled after the real White House in Washington, DC. Hence they called it The White House. Before she opened it up, she actually lived in The White House. Then when she opened it up, it became a restaurant, andit became too noisy for her to live there. So she actually built another house at a different part of the island. Anyway, in this White House you can do a lot of things. You can go there for a drink, for food, it’s famous for its curry, according to what I read and what I found out. And you can watch performances.

Jimmy
So who were going to Sarong Island? Who were the kinds of people going to Sarong Island?

Tin Seng
That’s another question, right? I was thinking, Okay, who are the people? You have live bands and stuff like that. When I went through some of the oral history interviews about people who performed there before, they say that it’s mostly the rich, the more well-off.

Jimmy
So Sarong Island marketed itself as a tourist destination aimed at rich people and they had presumably an expensive restaurant and a bar. There was live music and all that, but it didn’t last very long.

Tin Seng
Yes, it didn’t last very long.

Jimmy
How long did it last?

Tin Seng
Less than a year. It opened in September ‘97 and by August 1996 it was gone!

Jimmy
So it was a very short-lived attraction. Why did it only last a year?

Tin Seng
I believe that it has nothing to do with the business model because I find that it was way ahead of its time. Even for you, you jump on a cruise ship and you have a romantic dinner with your wife. This idea of getting away from the hustle and bustle of daily life, going to somewhere quiet to have a good time and a nice drink – it’s something that we take for granted today. So for Christina Lee to come up with this idea, it was way ahead of its time. Because back then Singapore was very, very different. First thing is the standard of living: people were not as affluent as today. I went to take a look at the GDP per capita back then: in the late 1960s, it was about 700 US dollars. Today it’s like 70,000 US dollars. One hundred times more. That’s quite a lot. So I will say that back then – it’s a very stereotypical way of saying – but people were working really hard, trying to earn money.

Jimmy
But they were not very rich.

Tin Seng
They were not very rich. They did not have the time to go to a place like that, and take whatever they have earned and enjoy just for that moment. They would rather spend it on their family by bringing food to the table and things like that. That’s one factor. Another factor is the location of the island. It is an unnamed island. Imagine an unnamed island before it was named Sarong Island, located off the coast of southern Singapore, off Jardin Steps, off Harbourfront. Sentosa was not linked to mainland Singapore. No bridges. No train. Nothing.

Jimmy
But that sounds brilliant. If I want to escape the hustle and bustle of the city, that’s exactly what I want: go to a small island, very quiet. Why is that a bad idea?

Tin Seng
I mean, they can hop onto a sampan. That’s how the guests actually went there: they hopped onto a sampan, and the sampan would bring them down. But what if it rains? That was actually the problem. This was stated. What Christina Lee said in her oral history interview is that once it rained, things changed, because no one would turn up. I believe that no one wants to be on a sampan on the choppy sea trying to get to another part of Singapore just to have a nice drink. They can go to Raffles Hotel and things like that, right? I thought about what they were wearing. I wouldn’t say that Christina Lee did not do anything. She tried to make things a bit better for the guests by saying that umbrellas would be provided. Now, you could still have a good time, although it’s raining. She tried to spice things up a bit, make a different experience. Unfortunately, it did not work.

Jimmy
Right. She closed the island in 1968. What happened to Sarong Island after she quit?

Tin Seng
So after she closed it down in 1968, she went on to do her perfume business. In 1971, it was acquired by the government.

Jimmy
Oh, it was acquired in 1971. So soon?

Tin Seng
Because of Sentosa. They wanted to develop Sentosa into a tourist island, so they had to acquire all this land around it. And they decided to take over all these small islands off the coast of northern Sentosa, and reclaim it. You know, you want to make a really nice tourist island, you have to make the shoreline nice, right?

Jimmy
So they reclaimed the northern coastline of what is now Sentosa?

Tin Seng
Yes. And from this reclamation project that’s where I found another piece of evidence to say that Sarong Island was not Selegu Island. In Singapore, or in any part of the world, every piece, every land parcel will have its own unique identity. In layman’s terms, no two pieces of land parcel will have the same lot number. So I found that 1966 map that says this unnamed island has The White House on it. I decided to push a bit further by looking at the acquisition notification in the government gazette of 1971. Every time the government makes any land acquisition, it would be announced in the government gazette. And in the notice announcement, the lot number and the mukim number would be given. The mukim number is more like the administrative number of the zone. I found it, and then I used that number – which says that this lot number they are acquiring from Christina Lee – to compare with another map and used it on another map, which actually shows all the different lot numbers and mukim numbers of the area. From there, I can guarantee you that these two – Selegu Island and Sarong Island – have different lot numbers.

Jimmy
Right. So that’s like incontrovertible evidence.

Tin Seng
That is the clearest one I can find.

Jimmy
I have to be honest with you: when you first wrote to me and told me that Pulau Selegu and Sarong Island were not the same, I was very puzzled. And actually it’s quite a significant discovery, because in the 1960s whenever they talked about Sarong Island, they always referred to it as Pulau Selegu. So actually you want to be very, very sure that you did not make a mistake, because all the sources of that time actually refer to Sarong Island as the old Pulau Selegu.

Tin Seng
Yes, and that’s the beauty of doing research.

Jimmy
What were your main sources when you did this research? What did you look at?

Tin Seng
Well, if I stick to just newspaper, I think the article would be very different. I would just say that Sarong Island was formerly known as Selegu Island. And that’s it, I’d be in trouble. Yeah, maybe 20 years down the road someone would go and dig out the map.

Jimmy
We have NewspaperSG, which allows us to access the newspaper archive. But as you said, you can’t rely on that alone. Because obviously they make mistakes. So what else?

Tin Seng
As a history major, what you’re actually taught is to look at different types of sources, different formats. We look at maps, we look at articles, we look at books, we look at photographs, we look at the oral history interviews. We just look at everything that we can dig out.

Jimmy
In this case, you had newspapers from NewspaperSG. You looked at maps – where did you get the maps from?

Tin Seng
The National Archives. They have a lot of digitised maps.

Jimmy
Okay. And then you also looked at the government gazette you said. Where can we find the government gazette?

Tin Seng
You can find it on Level 11 of the National Library.

Jimmy
Oh, okay, so you actually went to the physical…

Tin Seng
Oh, yes. You have to, you have to do that.

Jimmy
So you can’t just sit on your bum and do your research.

Tin Seng
Yeah, that would be great. One day if they digitised the entire collection, that would be the best. I will say, thank you very much. But unfortunately that’s not the case.

Jimmy
So you actually had to go down to Level 11 and look up the government gazette.

Tin Seng
But they call me weird because I like to do this type of stuff.

Jimmy
No, it’s fun. Were you worried when you found out that these two were not the same but everybody else thought they were?

Tin Seng
Yeah, I was very worried because you’re actually questioning conventional truth, conventional wisdom. So I’m saying, oh, my god, if I don’t support my discovery, I’ll be in trouble. Everyone will write in and ask me how I got it. That’s why I decided to look at these mukim numbers and everything.

Jimmy
As you say, conventional wisdom holds that these two were both the same thing. So if you want to overturn conventional wisdom, you actually have to provide quite a lot of evidence. So if someone questions you, you say, no, actually, you know, the newspapers got it wrong. These are two different things. And here are the mukim, the lot numbers that demonstrate these are two different things. And here’s the map that shows that The White House is on one island and Pulau Selegu is a different island.

Tin Seng
In fact, there’s one more source that I looked at. And that’s the aeriel photographs in 1949, taken by the Royal British Air Force when they flew over the area and took a picture. In the picture it clearly shows there are two islands. You have Pulau Selegu packed with thick forests, and then you have another island. Based on the map, which I mentioned, that is the unnamed island which would then become Sarong Island. On there you can see this little property there, this little square.

Jimmy
The White House.

Tin Seng
I believe that’s The White House.

Jimmy
Pulau Selegu – what did they use it for?

Tin Seng
Sarong Island is Hard Rock Hotel. Pulau Selegu is where the Pulau Selegu Cable Car Towers stand.

Jimmy
It was called the Pulau Selegu Cable Car Towers?

Tin Seng
Yes.

Jimmy
Okay, I just call it the Cable Car Towers. I didn’t realise it was called the Pulau Selegu Cable Car Towers.

Tin Seng
In fact, in the 1960s, after they acquired… In the 1970s, there’s already a mention. Based on all the stuff that I read, the differentiation between these two islands was stated very clearly. The government actually stated that this is Sarong Island and that is Pulau Selegu.

Jimmy
How do you think they got conflated? I mean, why did the newspapers get it wrong?

Tin Seng
That’s another question, right? I was thinking that it could be because it was unnamed, Sarong Island. And the reason is because its location is very near the northern coast of Sentosa, to the point that during low tide, the sea will recede. Then there would be a piece of swampland. So I believe that it could be a tidal island.

Jimmy
What’s a tidal island?

Tin Seng
Tidal island is not really an island. During high tide it is an island, but during low tide it becomes part of the mainland, part of the bigger island. This is my speculation. And then there’s this island called Pulau Selegu. Perhaps from there there’s this confusion: how do I name this island? I know there’s this island. And then it just happened that nearby there’s a Pulau Selegu and it kind of got mixed up.

Jimmy
I have to say I really enjoyed reading your piece on Sarong Island. I was so surprised to learn that Pulau Selegu and Sarong Island are two different things. But I thought that it was a really great piece of research to be able to establish that these two were actually separate plots of land. As a result, we can now state for the record that they made a mistake in the ’60s, that newspapers of the ’60s made a mistake, and that conventional wisdom was wrong. And these were not the same thing. You’re working on something else for BiblioAsia. What are you working on now?

Tin Seng
Okay, so if I can get it completed, it will be on a house. I won’t tell you what house and the architecture story behind this house.

Jimmy
Okay.

Tin Seng
I won’t tell you which one, you will have to look it up.

Jimmy
Okay. I also understand that you’re hoping to write something on Canberra House. Or is it a separate thing?

Tin Seng
Oh, this is a separate one. So I’ll be writing on two houses next.

Jimmy
Canberra House, I believe, is going to be turned into a library of some sort.

Tin Seng
That’s what I heard.

Jimmy
So they’re going to add a library to Canberra House. I think it’d be interesting to read about the history of Canberra House, which is somewhere I think in Sembawang.

Tin Seng
Yes, it’s now called the Old Admiralty House. It was the residence of, if I’m not mistaken, admirals during the British colonial period.

Jimmy
I am looking forward to reading it. I hope you make yet another discovery. Okay, so before we go, I just want you to reply very quickly, one-word answers if you can. Coolest person in Singapore history?

Tin Seng
Fandi Ahmad.

Jimmy
Very good answer. Which historical figure would you like to have dinner with?

Tin Seng
Fandi Ahmad.

Jimmy
Clearly you’re a very big football fan.

Tin Seng
Oh yes.

Jimmy
Most underrated or intriguing period in Singapore’s history?

Tin Seng
Great Depression.

Jimmy
Oh, why do you say that?

Tin Seng
Because I always wondered what happened here.

Jimmy
What book are you reading now? What’s on your nightstand?

Tin Seng
Edward Rutherfurd’s China.

Jimmy
Oh, I have not heard of it. What is that about?

Tin Seng
You must know who Edward Rutherfurd is. He’s a historical fiction writer. What he does is he picks a setting of a city and talks about its changes, puts families in it over five, six hundred years. Sometimes he can go even further.

Jimmy
One-word answer. History is…

Tin Seng
Repetitive.

Jimmy
BiblioAsia is…

Tin Seng
The best magazine in the world.

Jimmy
That’s very kind of you. I’m not sure if it’s necessarily true. I just want to thank you, Tin Seng, for joining us today and sharing your research journey and sharing this. For people who want to read about Sarong Island and get much more detail about what Tin Seng has been talking about, just pick up a copy of BiblioAsia from the library, or go to the website at BiblioAsia.nlb.gov.sg, or use Google and search for Sarong Island and BiblioAsia and you’ll find the story. It’s really fascinating, it’s got some great pictures of Christina Lee. She’s also a photographer, right? Very talented lady.

Tin Seng
She’s amazing. She’s so good that she was published in Nat Geo magazine. And if you look through the newspaper articles on her photographs, you can see that everyone was just praising and praising her.

Jimmy
Well, I’m really glad that BiblioAsia had a chance to publish your article and publish all the photos about Sarong Island and about Christina Lee. I just want to thank you once again, Tin Seng, for joining us. And we look forward to reading about your unnamed house and about Canberra House in issues to come. Thank you very much, Tin Seng.

Tin Seng
You’re welcome.

Jimmy
If you’ve enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast and BiblioAsia newsletter. Thank you for joining me on BiblioAsia+.

Lim Tin Seng, “From Sarong Island with Love: Singapore’s Original Tourist Isle,” BiblioAsia 18, no. 3 (2022).

Mrs Christina Balsara, oral history interview by Patricia Lee, 18 July 2001, MP3 audio, Reel/Disc 4 of 9, 30:28, National Archives of Singapore (accession no. 002542).

“Pleasure Isle for Tourists,” Straits Times, 29 February 1964, 1. (From NewspaperSG)

Parliament of Singapore, Reclamation at Sentosa Island, vol. 37 of Parliamentary Debates: Official Report, 31 January 1978, cols. 254–55. (From National Library, Singapore, call no. RCLOS 328.5957 SIN)

This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Gibson Analytics. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Tin Seng for coming on the show.

The BiblioAsia Podcast by the National Library Singapore tells stories about Singapore history.