This picture helps to update me. Apart from Bukom itself (also called Bukom Besar) and Bukom Kechil, it would seem that Anak Bukom was actually reclaimed from Pulau Ular. And it looks like Pulau Busing has since been integrated into the Bukom cluster.
I remember Pulau Hantu. When I was little, and my visiting eldest brother Tee Chuan was courting his future wife, Paik Sim, they hired a boat to get there for an idyllic swim. I went along, either because they found me so cute they just had to take me too, or my conservative parents insisted that little ol' me should act as chaperon. I never knew which!
Bukom itself, before all the oil storage tanks multiplied manifold, was zoned into residential clusters. There was Barat (West, in Malay) which in the picture above, would be on the extreme right. Timor (East) was on the extreme left. I lived in Tengah (centre). Here's a pic of me in our company-supplied and very spacious house, hoping that when I grew up, I would be able to ride a scooter like my father...
Bukom was quite modern by the time I went to primary school there. But, if this picture is correct, there were still fishing villages when I was three to four years old!...
Frankly, I don't remember such a scene. But I recall swimming in the sea, although I found only pics of me in the community swimming pool:
There were Christmas parties for employees' children every year. Remember this one, from a previous blog entry?...
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I didn't look happy. But I seemed to be more cheerful in this pic, even if the haircut was something else (I think it was my father's tonsorial handiwork; he was quite a DIY man... he once pulled out a decaying tooth of mine, ouch!!)...
Just one more Christmas party pic (no, I'm not the boy being poked on the cheek)...
I was in Primary 6 when there was a lot of hoohah over the prospect of Singapore gaining its independence from the colonial Brits by way of merger with neighbours to form Malaysia. Some of the pics here are from the photo album we had to fill up as part of a school assignment:
I found, from the album, two pics of my primary school:
Bukomites (yes, that was how we called ourselves) got to mainland Singapore by ferry from the island's East Gate. The terminals at the mainland end were at Jardine Steps (Tanjong Berlayar precinct) and Collyer Quay ("Ang Teng" in Hokkien, meaning Red Lantern).
The names of our ferries included Chantek, Bongsu, Kerang, and Laju (picture below):
Laju became "famous" -- it was hijacked by terrorists on Jan 31, 1974. If you want to know more about that incident, simply do a Google search.
Finally, I was surprised that in Washington DC, USA, there's this!...
What a strange world! Here's the website:
http://www.bukom.com/
But, no, in our neck of the world, "Bukom" is not of Ethopian origin; it came from the Malay language, as per this website:
http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_922_2005-01-19.html
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