so sorry... heres the legend of datuk...
The last sultan of singapore was ousted, and exiled himself on
tekong, i heard from my OC, this old Master Warrent, who'd just
recently made senior warrent we've heard...
Seems after this sultan died on ubin, his body was brought back to
mainland singapore for burial. B4 his death, he was known to all on
tekong as datuk, as he was still influencial enough. One year, a
lot of the villagers dreamt about datuk, telling them his birth
anniversary was coming up, and he wanted to watch chinese opera.
Seems most people ignored it, and a village promptly burnt to the
ground. After this, the villagers got a opera troupe in to perform,
and every year after that. When I was there for BMT, there was some
sort of opera thingy performing during one of the days... so i
guess there is some truth to it.
The villagers also have claimed to see datuk wandering along the
piers, now known as the old pier, not the tekong ferry terminal. n
fact people still claim to see him now and then. Once the villagers
had obeyed him, and brought in the opera every year on his
birthday, he supposedly watched over all the inhabitants of tekong.
During the jap occupation, the japs gathered up the villagers and
lined them up along the jetty to be excecuted. The villagers were
wailing "Datuk Tolong Datuk Tolong(Datuk please Datuk please)" The
japs, to show their patriotism, they raised a rising sun flag b4
the excecutions, but the flag string snapped and the flag fell down
to the ground. It was raised again, but snapped again. The 3rd time
it was raised, it snapped yet again. By then, the japs who were
also superstitious, were feeling uneasy, and asked the interpretors
what was going on. That when the interpretors relayed the story fo
datuk to the japs, and the japs decided to spare the villagers for
fear of offending Datuk.
Now my personal experience with Datuk is in a sense, astounding.
Astounding enuf that i now firmly believe in the legend. My BMT was
the obese batch. Every other week we had to undergo a sort of
classification test, where criterias were to be met to be able to
book out. For 3 successive tests, i was confined the whole weekend.
Then, for the 4th test, that weekend I had a friend throwin' a
party. I really wanted to book out badly... 'cause i wanted to go.
Well... the criteria was to either lose at least 15kg from my
original weight i think, pass the 2.4km run, or do at least 4 chin
ups. I only lost 8 kg b4 i came up against an invisible barrier...
my chin ups i managed 3, from previously 0, my 2.4km run, last
timing was 13.3something... i was determined to pass it, but i knew
i was gonna be confined... and i was very sad. As I ran, i was
saying under my breathe "Datuk Tolong" and my timing for that day
miraculously was 11.34. It was barely a week since i ran
13.3something and i managed a 2 minute improvement within less than
a week! incredible? my platoonmates all said i was suddenly running
very fast that day. So i met one of 3 criterias, but it wasn't
enuf. I needed to meet at least 2. Well.... i was still
disappointed, but feeling good about passing the 2.4 in good
time.
That night i did guard duty. Next day, when i returned to my bunk,
the 1st thing my buddy told me was: "Buddy! you're going home!" i
told him to stop joking, but he told me it was true. Seems the OC
had suddenly revised the system... instead of meeting fixed
criterias, he was allowing those who had shown significant
improvements to book out, and those who met the criterias, but who
hadn't improved much since the start, were confined. When I heard
that, I knew Datuk had heard, and helped. I got to go home, n go to
the party. Ever since, I've told all my friends going into tekong
BMT about datuk, and how they never know they might be able to get
a little extra help from him.
Terima Kasih Datuk!
