“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.” — Rachel Carson, The Edge of the Sea

This is a story of sand, the seemingly small and insignificant particle we seldom think about.

Singapore’s miraculous development rests on a strong hunger for land to house its bustling commercial and residential growth. Since independence, it has increased its land mass by approximately 22%.

Where did all this sand come from?

At first, from within. With the flattening of its hills, the clearing of rivers, and the re-deployment of soil from here to there — in a blink of a century, Singapore became a tabula rasa. Cosmetic but practical surgery; the contours and terrain of its face bearing no resemblance to that before.

Shifting sand in such large quantities across borders creates deep changes on both sides. For every Singapore resident enjoying the immense Marina Bay Sands on reclaimed land, there is correspondingly an (allegedly) affected fisherman, a villager, a farmer, whose livelihood has been adversely affected by sand dredging.

Even if reports that islands in Indonesia have disappeared due to the illegal export of sand appear hyperbolic, drawing a final conclusion is difficult in such murky waters. What we do know for sure is that for all these grains of sand that have acquired some amount of acceptable paperwork and found transport across the seas, Singapore is now home, permanently.

The sand dunes of Singapore stand tall in Pulau Punggol Timor, neatly sorted and quietly guarded.

As with everything superlative in Singapore, the dunes are no more than 2 stories high, flat-topped, and appear sorted by colour. Unlike real sand dunes, they are neither habitat nor protection for any natural ecosystem. Unlike real sand dunes, they were not shaped by the blowing of wind, nor grounded by vegetation. Instead, their consistent height and precise geometric angles make for a surreal landscape — a constructed desert in urbanity.

This is where we found ourselves walking on an overcast Sunday, having reached here from lush greenery through long, endless roads enjoyed mostly by cyclists. The only evidence of the nearby sea was the occasional flattened crab corpse.

Nestled between the colourful foreign worker dormitories off Punggol, Seletar Air Base and the wide, flattened landscape of Yishun Dam, Pulau Punggol Timor stands alone and distinct. An expansive stretch with shades of alabaster and copper, dunes looming quietly.

Across from the dunes, loosely put up boards cover up what seem to be more sand — all that is visible are tractors that peek out from above.

Pulau Punggol Timor is a barren stretch of land, and you would be forgiven for bypassing it without much thought. It’s not the most welcoming area either, for when the sand dunes finally give way to a lusher, greener, landscape, what stands out are the red police signboards warning against trespassing.

It is after all, a forbidden shrine unto development.

The island itself was a product of land reclamation from a decade ago, when space for future public housing was conceived from the land and the sea. Today we have the new Punggol Park and the upcoming Punggol estate areas, Coney Island, but what came first was an island from foreign sand to house foreign sand.

A few still bear living witness to what came before and that which will come. Where Punggol ends and Yishun begins is a small community of fishermen, living in a space of solace and respite, where sand mixes with water and mangrove with road. Blink and you’ll miss them — but their story is intrinsically tied to that of the sand dunes.

Hidden away are the forbidding (yet endearingly personal) signs to the fishing jetties. They read: “NO ENTRY”, “BEWARE OF CROCODILES”, and “PRIVATE PLACE!!!” amongst others, including a red SG50 sticker.

The signs are appropriate for a small group of fishermen that fiercely protect their privacy. Once Hakka restaurant cooks and owners, they retreated back to commune and toil under nature’s hand, which is seen as a preferable way of life to the toxic fumes of urban kitchens.

Beyond the gates, their world is as they describe: simple, peaceful, and not intruded upon.

Past the huts and the dogs are makeshift jetties that lead out to sea. The uncles weave fishing nets together blithely, but are more reticent about their tale. With no signs of nostalgia or bitterness, they tell us how prime fishing used to occur right under the now-Yishun Dam, but how they were displaced down the river when Sungei Seletar was dammed and when Pulau Punggol Timor was created.

The fish they catch are now fewer and more precious, sought by the zi charowners and gourmand old hands in the know — half an hour after high tide is when the regulars come in to cash in on the day’s catch.

Away from the roads and dunes, protected from the sound and fury, they make offerings of leftover bread to the smaller fish nearby, and wax lyrical about the spectacular sunsets they witness almost daily.

Sand however, holds no curiosity for them, though they quietly observe the vehicles coming back and forth from Pulau Punggol Timor laden with it.

The sand dunes and its sand economy highlight the belief that a country constantly under construction is a country that is growing. However, it is easy enough to spot the cracks in this logic in this quiet space, where a different barometer of the economy is used and where peace of mind takes precedence over business.

Here, the uncles in their fishing boats watch the vehicles making at most a trip a day carrying sand to elsewhere in the city, and they draw their own conclusions. And then they return to their slow passing of time.

Traditionally, pottery and its glazes are made with native minerals, rendering ceramics a perfect representation of the local terroir. At the last remaining Dragon Kiln in Singapore, a final firing exercise was a hosanna of community nostalgia, where the organisers made it a point not to use foreign clay or superior materials to fire up the pots, but to use the soil from around, making it a “Made Local” exercise in itself.

But can we ever be sure that the soil around us is ‘local’, given how an increasing part of Singapore is made up from the borrowed and the bought?

The ‘creation myth’ of Singapore as bounded by limited resources has resulted in a Singapore that is almost wholly dependent on the foreign — on foreign workers and in this case, sand — but yet a Singapore that is more successful in assimilating the latter than the former.

And the interesting irony is that while Singaporeans appear more hostile towards migrants with each passing day, many if not most of our buildings around us are built with foreign materials. The sand that we live on is for a significant part, perhaps — not ours to begin with.

So we could get up in arms. Or we could perhaps adopt the gentler stance of the fishermen folk. To have a bit of a grumble, and then to return to the sea and sky, for that much is immutably shared.



