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The True Story Behind Ubin’s German Girl Shrine
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A young German girl met an untimely end on Pulau Ubin in 1914. A shrine set up in her honour becomes Internet-famous. Following a deep search into the historical records, writer and researcher William Gibson discovers some inconvenient truths behind one of Singapore’s best-known shrines.
Dr William L. Gibson is a former Lee Kong Chian research fellow. Based in Southeast Asia since 2005, he is the author of Keramat, Sacred Relics and Forbidden Idols in Singapore (Routledge, September 2024) and Alfred Raquez and the French Experience of the Far East, 1898–1906 (Routledge, 2021). His articles have appeared in Signal to Noise, PopMatters.com, The Mekong Review, Archipel, History and Anthropology, Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient and BiblioAsia, among others.
What William Talked About
02:23 – Whom the shrine is dedicated to
04:07 – How William knew of the shrine and began research on it
06:44 – Different versions of the story behind the shrine
11:07 – Termite mounds as sites of worship
16:13 – How the German girl shrine became well-known
17:36 – Films inspired by the shrine
21:45 – How the shrine changed after the 2015 renovation
24:51 – What William prays for at the shrine
25:35 – What William is working on now
28:27 – Most unexpected offering William has seen at shrines
29:56 – The shrine William would make a film on, if he can
30:49 – Historical memory and the importance of vernacular traditions
Read the original BiblioAsia article on biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/podcast/german-girl-shrine.
Subscribe to BiblioAsia for more stories about Singapore.
This episode of BiblioAsia+ was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by One Dash. The background music "Di Tanjong Katong" was composed by Osman Ahmad and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to William for coming on the show.
BiblioAsia+ is a podcast about Singapore history by the National Library of Singapore.
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