Travails of a Trailing Spouse

by Stephanie Suga Chen

  The audience roared with laughter, clapping their hands, the Caucasian in the front row laughing the hardest, slapping his thigh and wiping the corners of his eyes.

  Sarah again marvelled at how pervasive American culture was, this time when a Singaporean comedian, Malay by race, joked about the different races he grew up with while living in an HDB flat – the Indians, who were surprisingly good at soccer, and the Chinese, who weren’t good at all, but always brought the ball; even among all these different races, however, when he was young, what he wanted to be, so badly, was Black.

  “You know that movie Boyz n the Hood?” he asked, to the audience, eliciting some nods. “Based in South Central, about the Crips and the Bloods?”

  “Yeah, I watched that movie,” he continued, grabbing the microphone stand casually, “and I was, like, ‘that is my life!’”

  The audience exploded in laughter again, picturing the young Malay boy, dressed in parachute pants and high-top sneakers, cruising down Bedok Reservoir Road, looking for trouble.

  The movie showed what Singaporeans feared most about the US – drugs, crime and guns – yet here was a Singaporean, describing spending his youth worshipping the depiction and desperately wanting to be a part of it. The US had of late been struggling with race relations, with several cases of black men, sometimes unarmed, being shot and killed by white men, often cops, leading to protests and a growing support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Hearing this comedian joke about Boyz n the Hood against the backdrop of the racial turmoil that the US was currently facing, the irony was not lost on Sarah.

  The comedian whose jokes resonated the most with her (it didn’t hurt that he also had the best delivery) was the final Filipino-Canadian, who described being brought up in Toronto and identifying wholly as Canadian. Then one day during elementary school, he was brought into another classroom by a teacher because a new Asian kid had joined the school and couldn’t speak any English.

  “First of all, that’s racist. I mean, is the kid even Filipino?” he joked, Jason laughing heartily at the “that’s racist” line.

  “Secondly,” he continued, “why did they assume I spoke Tagalog? I’m Canadian, Goddammit! See my maple leaf tattoo?” he said, pulling up his T-shirt sleeve in jest.

  Sarah laughed so hard she cried, remembering the exact situation happening to her in first grade, when a new girl, who turned out to be Korean, had joined her elementary school. The teachers had rounded up all the Asian kids and asked them to try their hand at communicating with her, one by one, as she sat crying at her desk on her first day.

  She wondered how her own children would take this whole “living abroad” experience. Which comedian would they laugh at the most when they were grown – would there be an Asian-American who had also lived in Singapore for them to relate to?

  chapter 30

  IT HAS TO BE ME

  SARAH, SHORT A few friends but with a car, started volunteering for a local meals-on-wheels-type organisation, delivering lunch to elderly residents in her neighbourhood twice a week. The first time, she brought Eric and Ruby, who were off from school that day, wanting to show them a different side of Singapore and to help them realise how lucky they were.

  The volunteer coordinator, a fresh university graduate named Cheryl, showed Sarah the room where she should pack the hot meals, sorted by normal, vegetarian, low-salt and gluten-free. She was given a list of 20 names and addresses with corresponding dietary restrictions or special instructions, along with a map, with the HDB blocks highlighted for her. The kids helped her pack the meals, regular meals in white plastic bags and special meals in red; then they loaded them into the front passenger seat of their car.

  Though Eric and Ruby often ran around at the playground at the base of the HDB blocks, the Lees really had only one friend who actually lived in an HDB flat. That unit had been individually upgraded and renovated by their landlord, who had seen the opportunity to collect higher-than-average rent from bargain hunter expats, who were also happy, as the rate was still less than it would be for an equivalent-sized condo unit.

  The Housing & Development Board of Singapore had been formed in 1960 to aid the country in resettling its residents from slums and villages to safe and modern high rises; since then, it had built over 1 million flats and now housed over 80% of Singapore’s population. It was an ingenious plan, Sarah learned, and was a huge part of Singapore’s advance forward into the modern era. All Singaporean employees and employers had mandatory social security savings schemes, requiring up to 35% of salaries to be saved for retirement, housing and healthcare expenses. This meant that most Singaporeans could own their own HDB flat with virtually no out-of-pocket down payment or monthly cash outlay required. They didn’t have the amenities that the condos had, no pools, gyms or function rooms, but then, Singapore did have numerous public sports facilities located all over the island, with pools and gyms open to everyone, at affordable entry rates (unlimited pool time for $1! Sarah did have to marvel at that).

  There were some quirky aspects of the system, Sarah learned, like the Build-to-Order flat scheme, which had a three- to four-year waiting list, favoured married couples with children, and did not permit an unmarried person under the age of 35 to apply for a flat on his or her own. Some early HDB blocks, Sarah also discovered as she made her first deliveries with the kids, had lifts that only stopped on every other floor. Sarah tried to imagine the cost savings pitch that a designer had probably given, “We could reduce the number of lift lobbies we would need to build by half!”

  While delivering meals, Sarah encountered a completely new Singapore that she had not been exposed to up to that point. Although she often ate at the local hawker centres and shopped at the local markets, there was something very different about being right there, at someone else’s door, sometimes stepping inside, even if only for a few seconds.

  Many of the elderly people loved to see Ruby and Eric, so Sarah brought them as often as she could. They would ask how the kids were doing and reach out to touch their faces. Many doors remained closed, of course, and Sarah would just hang the bagged meal on the door and carry on to the next one. On one occasion, the previous night’s dinner was still hanging on one of the doors, causing Sarah a moment of panic as she knocked loudly on the door. Not hearing any movement inside, she called Cheryl, the volunteer coordinator, who confirmed apologetically that the recipient had gone on a holiday and Cheryl had forgotten to make a note on the record.

  Sometimes the door would be opened by a younger person, a son or a daughter perhaps, or even a helper sometimes, giving Sarah pause; if they could afford a helper, surely they shouldn’t be eligible for free meal delivery services? Another time, a young woman dressed in office clothes saw her in the lift and exclaimed, “Meals on wheels? I used to do that too, in secondary school!” Sarah smiled at her, thinking, what a strange connection to make with someone, but a connection nonetheless.

  On a few occasions, she had walked past a young Caucasian sitting at an outdoor hawker centre, casually drinking a glass of barley tea or eating a plate of rojak, and watching a football match playing on the ceiling-mounted TV; each time, she had wondered how he had made his way here, away from the expat enclaves of River Valley or Holland Village, to the heartlands of Singapore. Had he married a Singaporean? Had he adopted a Singlish accent to fit in? Or perhaps he was a teacher at the international school located nearby who happened to be off on the same day that Sarah made her deliveries.

  One week she was assigned a runner, another volunteer who didn’t have a car of her own, but would accompany her on the delivery route, running the meals up while Sarah stayed in the car. The woman introduced herself as Lily; she was from China but was unlike the women Sarah had met in her condo. Lily had met a Singaporean on a dating website, got married and moved to Singapore about a year ago, and was living in a rented HDB flat with her husband. She was trying to find a job, but her English wasn’t fluent enough yet, so she volunteered a few days a week
to fill her time, normally as a runner with another volunteer driver, who happened to be away that week.

  After a quick assessment of “Which is worse, your English or my Chinese?”, they started conversing in Chinese, Sarah pleased to have another language partner but also self-conscious of her car, her expat status, her designer handbag. Lily commented on how hard it had been for her to make friends in Singapore, everyone busy with their own lives. Sarah responded that she understood, but hesitated from volunteering any more information, thinking much too far ahead at how the woman would react to their condo, the pool, her helper. Her worries were unnecessary, however, as when Lily’s normal partner returned, she went back to her regular route, running into Sarah only occasionally and exchanging no more than a friendly hello.

  One morning, as Sarah was walking back to the carpark after her last meal delivery, a man who was walking a few metres in front of her slowed his pace, then flung a near empty bag of kopi, the local-style coffee served in a plastic bag tied tightly with a string and a straw, off to the left. It flew through the air, the weight of the liquid remnants bringing it down firmly under a tree. Sarah was appalled; although Singapore wasn’t as sterile as the rest of the world might think, still, the nearest trash can was located perhaps only 100m away and straight in the direction they were both walking. It was also rare to actually see someone in the act of littering in Singapore, which carried a minimum composition fine of $300, up to a maximum of $2,000.

  She considered chastising him, or at least trying to shame him by pointing out the trash can; instead, she settled for giving him a dirty look as she walked past, but later regretted not going back to retrieve the discarded plastic bag.

  Sarah met Gina at her condo downtown and they walked across the road to the river, took the jogging path along the water until construction on one of the bridges stopped them, then turned around and took the same route back.

  Sarah gave her friend the rundown on her and Jason’s less-than-fruitful marriage counselling session, the incident at the tapas restaurant and subsequent week of silence, and the détente they had reached, which Sarah wasn’t sure was sustainable.

  “So he hasn’t drunk at all since then?” Gina asked. “Not one drink?”

  “Nope, unless he’s been drinking when I’m not around, but I don’t think he’d risk that,” Sarah said. “But I just feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “Hmm, that’s tricky, isn’t it,” Gina wrinkled her bottom lip, thinking. “How’s his job going?”

  “Fine, I guess,” Sarah responded, “not much to report. He keeps saying it hasn’t even been two years, they’re still getting set up. I guess things just move slower in academia. I try to resist the urge to give him advice, like, all the time.”

  “I hear you,” Gina said. “It’s really hard not to micro-manage our husbands’ jobs, since we don’t have ones of our own right now. Sometimes I want to take Mark’s laptop and just start emailing his team myself.”

  “Yup, exactly,” Sarah nodded. “But enough about me and my sob story, has your charming husband bought anything interesting lately…?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Gina said that his latest target was actually a plot of land in Napa Valley where he wanted to build their dream house.

  “Well, that sounds pretty manly,” Sarah said. “Building a house?”

  Gina looked at her and said, “Oh sorry, did I say building? I meant, hiring a celebrity architect to design it, to include all the essentials like white marble countertops and a 1,500-bottle capacity wine cellar; that’s what I meant by building.”

  Sarah, as she often did when she was with Gina, laughed out loud. “Oh, I see, that sounds amazing!”

  “Yes, it will be,” Gina agreed. “But seriously, you would not believe the kind of stuff he wants to put in, hand-crafted everything, geothermal heating system, a ‘Zen’ room, that’s just the beginning.”

  “Well, I can’t wait to come visit,” Sarah said, loving it all.

  “Do! We’re going to have a guesthouse, obviously,” her friend said, touching Sarah’s shoulder, adding with a wink, “with heated floors, of course.”

  After their walk along the river, they went to a café which Gina frequented often, the waiters greeting her familiarly and seating them at a table by the window.

  “So, finding anything interesting for yourself? How was your volunteer mission?” Gina asked, after they had ordered lunch.

  “Well, it was a little painful,” Sarah said, relaying everything about the disappointing trip to Medan, finishing with, “I mean, they certainly did not need 40 people to paint two classrooms, an outer wall and half a basketball court. We could have hired a local team to do it for pennies.”

  “Yeah, that’s super depressing,” Gina said. “And they’ve been doing this for how many years?”

  “Like almost 10 years! But at different locations,” Sarah said. “I just feel like, if I ran a trip like that, I would do it much differently.”

  “I don’t doubt that for a second,” Gina said. “So why don’t you?”

  “Yeah, maybe I will, next time, maybe,” Sarah said. “I’m a bit tied up with the meals-on-wheels thing now.”

  “Oh yeah, what’s that like?” Gina asked.

  “Well, it’s fine, but not exactly life-changing, you know. A small sense of accomplishment every day, but then I think, ‘there’s probably a better, more efficient way to do this rather than have volunteer deliverers.’ I mean, it’s not like we’re living in a rural area where the next house is a half a mile away,” Sarah said.

  “I see what you mean,” said Gina, the food logistics expert. “Like maybe there could be just one central pick-up place where the meals for a few HDB blocks in the area can be sent? But that wouldn’t work if the person is bedridden or something.”

  “So maybe have volunteers deliver just the meals for the people that aren’t mobile,” Sarah said. “Or maybe the recipients could get two meals delivered in the morning and they can heat up the second one on their own, rather than have two separate deliveries, as we’re doing now? Worth thinking about, but I feel like I don’t have the time to develop a whole plan to first improve it, then propose and execute it.”

  “Why not just work on it, like, a couple hours a day?” Gina suggested.

  “I don’t know; I just feel like there are too many distractions in my life. It’s hard to focus. Maybe when both kids are in full-day school,” Sarah sighed.

  Gina paused for a moment, then said, bluntly, “Well, I think that’s bullshit.”

  Sarah was taken aback. “Geez, OK,” she said, waiting for her friend to elaborate.

  “You keep saying that you don’t have time right now to figure it out,” her always-honest-to-a-fault friend said. “But you do have time now; you don’t need the kids in all-day school, you’re just making up excuses.”

  “Ha!” Sarah laughed, putting her hands up in jest. “You know what I mean, watching Eric in the afternoons, trying to study Chinese, planning birthdays and trips, and now the meal deliveries; I feel like I need a few months of completely nothing,” she tried to explain herself.

  “No, I think that’s a cop-out,” Gina contended. “If you really wanted to do something else, you could start here, right now. Saying that other things are getting in your way is just an excuse. It’s not the trips, it’s not Jason, it’s not the kids, it’s you. You’re the only one who is in your own way. And, I think that it would help things immensely with Jason, too – it’ll give you something else to fill your mind with,” Gina finished.

  Sarah thought for a moment, finally answering her friend.

  “You’re right, of course. Of course,” she said again. “There’s absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t be doing something, right now. No one else is going to do this for me; no one is going to magically appear and hand me a how-to manual. It has to be me. Right?”

  “Right,” Gina said, giving her a “duh” look.

  As they were l
eaving, at the entry way of the restaurant, Sarah hugged her friend, saying, “Thanks, you are seriously the best, you know that, right?”

  “Yes, well, I’m not going to disagree with you there. You know what you need to do. Just go do it,” Gina replied with a wave of her hand.

  chapter 31

  GETTING IT DONE

  AS SOON AS Sarah got home, she pulled up a message that Su Lin, the photographer who was also one of Ruby’s classmate’s mothers, had sent to the mothers’ chat group a few weeks ago. She had asked if anyone was interested in forming a volunteer group to travel to Myanmar to teach the young nuns at the nunnery for a week; after her trip there last year, Su Lin was eager to go back to see the girls again.

  “I’m all over this,” Sarah thought, as she quickly typed out a reply that she and Ruby were very interested in joining.

  Su Lin wrote back almost instantly, “Wonderful! Can you lead it, though? I am terrible at organisation.”

  In the space of a few hours, the two women quickly set a plan in motion – they already had a venue, the nunnery located about 40km outside of Yangon, which housed 200 girls, ranging from age five to 17, who were orphans or from very poor families who could not afford to raise them. After Sarah signed on to lead the project, another mother, Jocelyn, replied to the chat group that she was interested in joining with her two daughters, and would confirm a couple of days later.

  Sarah set up a separate group and the messages started flowing, setting dates and formulating teaching plans. They would be going for two weeks in June, teaching the younger group of girls, who were aged from four to nine. Su Lin also introduced the team to a local Burmese man named Thein, who ran a tour guide company in Yangon that also functioned as an ad hoc community service organisation, and whom Su Lin had met last year. He and his team of young tour guides would assist in translating and coordination while they were in Yangon.