To be honest, an elective like ‘Singapore’s Natural Biodiversity’ was not my first choice. It wasn’t even close to first. Turns out I ‘did not bid’ – and yes, I am doing air quotes with my fingers here – for my electives and got placed into this particular one. At the onset I felt a little wronged (a little being angry-emails-and-smashing-walls little) seeing as all my friends were in Psychology, an elective I had dearly wanted to get into. So it was with a heavy heart that I trooped down to the first lesson.
Okay, big mistake. There was nothing to be afraid of. Turns out everything was wonderfully all right; we got to go on field trips, we got to learn about sea cows and sea grass (unfortunately there are, in fact, no sea cowboys) and we got to enjoy ourselves much more than those poor people in psychology. I sat in on a couple of lessons and all I can say is I will never suffer from insomnia again.
The entire module ended off with conservation, and what we can do to help the Earth. I don’t think, personally, that I can do much. By myself. Besides, there are already so many people in Singapore trying to preserve, trying to conserve; ACRES, WWF Singapore…what can I, one person, one single measly person who isn’t so sure about saving her grades, let alone the environment, do?
Then again, there is such a thing as the Change the World poem. Ghandi, King, Mandela…they started out as one man standing alone against stereotypes, against hardship, and yet they pulled through. And maybe I as that one person might not succeed in changing anything, but it’s no loss to me if I fail, and it’s a gain for everyone if I win. I can start small – doing the usual donations, volunteering with the organizations, and perhaps something will change. I won’t see the difference, but hopefully someone else will.
There wasn’t any climbing to do this time around, but plenty of walking. Walking – let me rephrase that – with your bag on your back since there weren’t any lockers to stuff them into. And I haven’t unpacked my schoolbag since the March holidays. You get the idea.
Take the mudskippers. Sure, they weren’t skipping around in the mud as much as they were swimming in the water, but there were a lot more than I had expected to see. They really are amazing creatures (mudskippers, not hobbits). As part of the group who did the presentation on mudskippers I was looking forward to identifying the, um, googly eyes of the giant mudskipper. We did manage to spot it using its pectoral fins to steer itself around, although we didn’t catch any of the marks it makes while walking along the mud. Turns out we didn’t get as close to them as I would have liked, but it was an interesting experience all the same, seeing as the only skippers I’ve ever seen are the Captains of the destroyers at the Navy Open House.
Fiddler crabs were in more abundance than you would find Republicans at a Tea Party meeting. The entire mangrove was swamped (excuse the pun) with them. I honestly hadn’t expected to see any critters, judging from the dismal turnout during our last trip. And I think that the most cynical part of me had doubted that such strange crabs actually existed. The wonders of Photoshop, I think, are pretty well known nowadays. But they turned out to be true enough, although why any crab would want a huge claw is beyond me, as is why females are attracted to large claws. And I haven’t figured out how the fiddler crab balances itself when it crawls. If I were walking around with myself on my arm I don’t think I would have lasted more than three seconds upright.
The mangroves were a whole other thing. For once I appreciated how sturdy they were – strong, rooted deeply into the mud. I’d known for a while how mangroves supposedly protect people from tsunamis – let’s just say the people of Pasir Ris have nothing to fear from any major wave coming to Singapore in the near future. They were huge and almost in a way majestic. After my, ah, enlightening experience I went back and did a bit of research. Besides providing protection from various natural disasters (storms, hurricanes, typhoons) mangroves also stabilize and prevent shifting of the coastline. Which is just as well, seeing as Singapore doesn’t need another change in its coastline. Mangroves are also an integral part of the marine communities, seeing as they provide food via a detritus food chain starting from fallen mangrove leaves. They also provide a habitat for animals like prawns, crabs and fish at critical phases of their life cycle by functioning as a feeding ground for the young.
I’ve said this in the previous blog post – that Bukit Timah was tainted by the human visitors – and I’ll say this again for Pasir Ris Park. Although this was worse. There were cans, bottles, even a pink shampoo bottle strewn all over the place. It was as if someone had hosted a ‘have a picnic in your local mangrove’ day.
I know with that statement I'm going to have angry ecologists and environmentalists trying to find out where I live, but in my defence I was six at the time. So as the bus pulled out of VJC heading towards that same long road, repatriations were the first thing on my mind,
Well, actually I was wondering when the thing was going to end so I could call my mom. But I digress.
We got off the bus and I went to put my bag in a locker – ‘stuff’ would be the more appropriate word – and placed the key very carefully in my pocket. Then onward and upward we charged, into the valley of not-much-death rode the noble fourteen and all that.
In my view there are three parts to an upward climb: the first where you’re all interested in what’s going on around you, the second when you’re reduced to wondering how you’re ever going to get down again, and the third where you hit the top and after a brief bit of euphoria you sit down and don’t feel like moving for the next couple hundred years. This hike pretty much confirmed that opinion. Before we got up to the South View Hut I was snapping pictures like Charlie Sheen snaps at the world in general.
For minutes on end we trekked in silence, once in a while stopping to see some oddities that Mr. Shi would point out along the way. 
Some of us, I think, were much too enraptured by the enchanting beauty of the true world; others were just trying not to talk for fear that various insects would land on them if they so much as uttered a word. A few of the more cautious ones were watching every step they take in case they ended up falling down a rabbit hole and be reduced to playing croquet with flamingos while trying to fend off homicidal Queens.
I’m not going to lie and say I was completely awed by the astounding properties of a forest I never knew Singapore had. It was like that for the first part, but then I began to move to the second part of my hiking mantra: the this-is-too-high-I’m-never-going-to-get-down-again bit. For most part of the trail, then, I was more preoccupied with my limited supply of water, the various ants crawling up my leg and the fact that this was turning into a mini-Mount Bintan.
But we got up all right, in the end, and it was all there the way I remembered it – that big random rock with the words ‘Bukit Timah Summit’ and the height and all that. 
Some sort of smile actually broke out on my face when I saw that rock. I didn’t say anything, just went to the bench nearby and sat down and drank from my water bottle. After some joking about what a mysterious triangle was doing carved on the rock (please, doesn’t everybody know that the Nula from planet Lionor always leave a triangle wherever they visit?) it was time to go back down again.
I’ll stop short of using the word(s?) ‘eye-opener’, but the trip was certainly meaningful and definitely memorable, if mostly for the way Marcus lay on top of the rock like a sun-bathing seal. It revealed a new side of Singapore, besides the exams and urban life and tall buildings, something tranquil, something almost ‘kampong’, left over from the old days. And it served as a solemn reminder to all how precious little we have left of Earth, and what we aren’t doing to save it.
Along the trail I saw empty plastic bottles. Aluminum cans. Crumpled paper. Empty bunkers. All these little signs of human disturbance, all these extrinsic objects, only made an empathetic point about what we have done to the world, hammered home the point of us biting the hand which has fed us. There was no way I could miss that, no way I could pretend I’m just being stupid and Bukit Timah hill isn’t going to die on us. So to answer the question, I’d change us. To let the flora and fauna flourish once more, to allow the vibrant growth of an environment and biodiversity pulsing with life…we have to stop making the same mistakes we’ve been for the past decades. We have to bring back a little more true, original nature, and put in a little less of our own.
