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temples
of Ubin Tua Pek Kong
temples
by Grayowl
Grayowl
shared this story and photos of his visit to the Ubin Tua Pek Kong
temple on 21 May 05
Hi folks, Today, I popped by at Pulau Ubin to take a look at the Pulau
Ubin Fo Shan Ting Da Bo Gong Miao? (Tua Pek Kong temple), bringing
along a visiting friend from India. While Doris went about offering
prayers to Tua Pek Kong, I followed the rest of the devotees to put
a small note into the Tua Pek Kong "Tiam-you" (add oil?) box (actually
a safe).
From what Doris gathered from the boatman, many devotees from mainland
Singapore have gone across to P.Ubin to pray to Tua Pek Kong. Not
sure if they were former Ubin residents or devotees from mainland.
When we arrived there at 2pm, waiting for quite a while for the number
to fill up to the maximum for the bumboat, I noticed that two of the
giant candles were already burnt almost to the end. The giant joss-sticks
were still burning. There were some offerings, one containing the
head of a pig, a chicken, and a duck. The other was a full size roast
pig. This is little compared to previous times, but it could well
be past the time as we were late. Moreover, tomorrow is the actual
day, as we learnt from one of the temple keepers.
Across from the temple, at the corner grocery shop, there was a table
placed to sell joss-sticks, joss-papers and even the pyramid joss-sticks.
Inside the small hall of the temple, it was quite crowded with ten
persons. Young and old, they went to pray and place the joss-sticks.
They had invited the "Gods" from the main temple up the hill to this
temple to join in the celebrations. So, for once, I was seeing many
statues.
There were three statues of Tua Pek Kong, one slightly bigger than
the other two ... very well crafted and they were given kind of cloth
head-dress. Behind on the wall was the framed drawings of Tua Pek
Kong, the image of which used to don many Chinese homes in Singapore
in the 1950s. On the right of Tua Pek Kong was the Tai Shui. On his
left was Guan Yin.
This is probably one of the few "village" temples that we can see.
Maybe, there may be some in mainland Singapore, but I am not aware
of. |
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Just
as my friend and I were admiring the scene and I trying to explain
to him our Chinese Gods and doing an instant comparative study on
Hindu Gods , the two traditional main stars of the Lao Sai Toh (t)
Opera came to pay their respects to Tua Pek Kong by carrying a big
candle each.
After paying their respects, just as they were about to leave, another
temple keeper asked them to stay. He came out with an old 555 (?)
[or was it milkmaid?) tin, with red papers rolled. Ah, it's 4-D time.
The couple [the cheong-guan (h)] and the princess? - Margaret will
be able to explain more on this - took turns to pick up one number.
The first number picked was 7, and then, it was 5, and then, 7, and
incredibly the last one was 7. Almost seconds after, the telcos in
Singapore are making money with calls back to mainland to buy the
4-D. For mathematicians (the lottery punters are much faster in this
case), they will know how many number combinations this can make.
We left them to the excitement as the temple keeper wrote down the
number on the urn to share with the devotees ...and headed a little
further in to where the hillside temple is. I have seen this many
times but never got a chance to go up to have a look.
The signage was given a new coat of painting. The walls of the path
leading to the temple were also freshly painted, with the murals of
the 8 immortals. Cats and dogs were there to greet us. Save a visiting
angmo, there was no one in the temple. The Gods (statues) were also
missing .. all invited to "town" to watch the opera.
The hillside temple is indeed very nice and should warrant more visits
on normal days. The threatening skies forced us to retreat to "town"
where we ended up in the new LIVE Seafood Restaurant ordering vegetarian
fried rice as my friend is a vegetarian. Good stuff!
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Alas,
the durians were not ripe yet and so we missed the chance to sample
P.Ubin's durian, reputed to be the best local durians.
So, folks, tomorrow
is the ACTUAL day. Pass the word around .. and who knows, each
year P.Ubin might well have a festival with the Tua Pek Kong temple
celebrations. From what I heard from the grocery ah-um (lady), he
said that probably the date, 15th of 4th lunar month could be the
date the temple was consecrated. I think she said that the temple
is very old, probably since about the time when the Chinese decide
to live there. But we will have to do deeper to know.
Looking forward to more reports from other visitors. Tim and Bonny,
going this year? |
Do you have any stories to share about the temples of Ubin?
Share them on the focus
ubin forum...
Links
Temples
and shrines of Ubin on wildsingapore
Wayang stage
at Ubin on wildsingapore
Temples of Ubin: Tua Pek Kong temple an earlier
exchange on the focus ubin forum
New Keramat at Ubin on focus ubin
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