“That’s the best unfinished sentence I’ve ever heard,” mutters Dr Sindoo who gets more irreverent as he gets more impatient. He says, “It’s up to you, Mr Sai Koh Phan. There is no other cure for this malady.”
Mr Sai Koh Phan leaves the doctor’s clinic in a daze. He walks into the bright sunshine outside, and he looks at the many campaign posters around, and the pride and gratitude once more surge into his heart, in recollection of years of total fidelity to their admonitions:
Don’t litter
Don’t spit
Don’t stop at two
Don’t dirty public toilets
Don’t sniff glue
Don’t waste water
Be courteous
Eat more wheat
Eat frozen meat
Don’t breed mosquitoes
Don’t change lanes while driving
Say ‘Good morning’ and ‘Thank you’ in Mandarin
Don’t fill your plates to overflowing at buffet lunches
Don’t be ‘kia su’
Plant a tree
Don’t grow long hair
Don’t grow
Don’t
But the pleasurable sensation is short-lived. A furious knot of pain explodes in the left side of his chest and races up his throat to emerge through his open mouth as strangulated gasps and grunts.
Mr Sai Koh Phan, clutching his throat, is back at Dr Sindoo’s clinic. He pleads again and again, “Help me, Doctor. I want to be well again, I want to win the Ideal Civil Servant of the Year Award. But I can’t do all these things that you told me to. As I told you, I am a son of the soil and will die before I desecrate it. Please help me by finding me another cure, Doctor, I beg you!”
And that’s when Dr Sindoo has an idea for a cure. But it is an idea for whose implementation the assistance of the Member of Parliament has first to be sought, and then the Singapore Government’s and finally the Malaysian Government’s. The Member of Parliament listens very carefully and then swings into action. In a series of highly secretive meetings, he is able to convince the Government that the proposed measures, elaborate though they are, are worthwhile taking for a much valued civil servant, and when later, it is learnt that many other civil servants suffer from the same malady and are therefore in need of the same cure, the decision is unanimously taken, at Cabinet level, to approach the Malaysian Government at once for their co-operation. The approach is made with the greatest tact and caution, and the request with utmost grace and humility, for the well-being of the civil service is at stake. Owing to the extreme urgency in Mr Sai Koh Phan’s particular case, the Malaysian government is gracious enough to allow for the immediate implementation of the plan, even before the necessary formalities have been gone through. Mr Sai Koh Phan and family move to a house situated near the Causeway, and as soon as he is on Malaysian soil, is able to carry out the rest of the prescription, that is, he shouts, curses, swears, all in dialect, then litters. He does all these with a degree of enthusiasm and abandon that surprises even Dr Sindoo, and after all these ablutions, returns to Singapore thoroughly cleansed, ready to begin the day’s work. He says he feels very much better, and actually looks forward to each day’s preparation of litter (put very neatly in a plastic bag by his wife) for scattering on other people’s soil.
His Member of Parliament is happy to see this prized civil servant on the road to recovery, and he prides himself on being instrumental in the setting up of a most unusual scheme by which thousands of Singaporean civil servants become cured of their malady. A special plot of ground has been procured from the Malaysian Government, one which the Malaysian Government had originally intended to use as a dumping site for industrial effluents. (Some believe that the plot is being rented out for an undisclosed sum, whereas others believe it is a gift, a token of friendly co-operation.) Here Singaporeans come by the hundreds daily to do on other soil what they have been forbidden to do on their own, and from which they return, quite refreshed and ready to be ideal civil servants all over again. It is a strange sight: usually grave-faced, bespectacled civil servants in conservative white shirts and dark trousers wildly shouting, stomping, spitting, laughing, littering, hurling rambutan rinds in the air, tossing peanut shells over their shoulders, swearing in the dialect of their ancestors, quarrelling, fighting. Sometimes a playful competition is held, to see whose spit lands furthest, whose peanut shells, ‘kana’ seeds or melon-seed husks pile up most quickly. There is even a very good-natured contest to see whose Hokkien or Cantonese ditty is the coarsest. The method is unfailingly effective, for the constrictions and knots and tightnesses disappear.
Dr Sindoo will deliver a paper at the coming Geneva Convention and no doubt the unique malady and its equally unique cure will create much interest in the medical world. Mr Sai Koh Phan, to his great joy, has been nominated for the Ideal Civil Servant Award, and if he wins that much coveted award, will give due credit to his doctor, and his Member of Parliament; indeed, Mr Sai Koh Phan has already prepared the acceptance speech in which the names of Dr Sindoo and his Member of Parliament come up for grateful, honourable mention at least four times.
Sorry ... Temporary Aberrations
Now what has come over the Vice-Consul, quintessence of moral uprightness, the ideal Confucian product, that he says such unseemly things in his speeches? Not only unseemly, but downright filthy. And in front of the most distinguished audience that could ever be found in Singapore, including, on one occasion, the First Lady, who looks down in pained silence at the dirty joke about the Cardinal, and on another occasion, the Ambassador of Italy who looks up unbelievingly when
the Vice-Consul, just before he declares open the Convention, makes the equally dirty joke about the aging Dato and Datin.
People begin to ask each other privately, “What’s come over the Vice-Consul? He’s behaving very strangely, to say the least.” They are puzzled because it is so obvious that the dirty joke is not intended by the Vice-Consul to be part of his speech; he, like everyone else, seems surprised by its intrusion, like a muddy current in an otherwise crystal clear stream. But he seems to be in its power while it lasts, for his features, when he tells the joke, are no longer the calm benign features of the pure of heart, but the vitiated contortions of the hungering lecher. The transformation is remarkable, and is as compelling as the joke itself. At the end of it, a dead hush falls upon the whole assembly, the Vice-Consul realizes what is happening, struggles to be his old self, and resumes his speech, usually with greater moral fervour as if to make amends for what he apologetically calls ‘a temporary aberration’.
The Vice-Consul’s aides are worried. They get together in urgent, secret consultation. What are they to do? Should they report the matter to the President? Or should they directly confront the Vice-Consul and ask him why he is making such a fool of himself in public? Perhaps they should warn him that the media, who have up to now been very co-operative in leaving out the jokes in their reporting, are not likely to continue to do so much longer. Already there is a reporter from The Straits Times, a very brisk, no-nonsense young lady who is giving hints that here is a possible scoop.
The aides recount the occasions of these temporary aberrations of the Vice-Consul. There are three separate occasions, and all three are big public events, involving the diplomatic corps, the elite of the civil service and the leaders of the business community.
There is the occasion when the Vice-Consul, in his capacity as Patron of the Society for the Promotion of Confucian Values, stands at the podium, addressing a gathering including the world’s most distinguished Confucian scholars. The Vice-Consul, in order to correct the wrongful impression that Confucius was prejudiced against women and that the adoption of Confucian values will mean pushing Singapore’s women back to where their mothers and grandmothers were, begins to defend the sage against possible feminists in the audience. Indeed, according to Confucius, the Vice-Consul says, with a benign smile at the row of serious-faced women in the front row, women are the f
oundation of society. At this point, the benign smile suddenly changes into a lascivious leer, and the Vice-Consul, looking straight at an amply endowed female in a cheongsam in the front row, adds, “But men lay the foundation, you know,” and then bursts into raucous laughter, “Yes, we lay the foundation don’t we, Ha! Ha! Ha! Hee! Hee! ” There is stunned silence; the female in the cheongsam uncrosses her legs and glares at the Vice-Consul. The Confucian scholar from Taiwan, a very imperturbable elderly gentleman with heavy hooded eyes and bushy eyebrows, nevertheless lifts both in a questioning frown.
A week later, the Vice-Consul opens the new wing of a hospital for children. The wing is a donation from Her Ladyship, a formidable dame whose millions have benefited homes and orphanages. The Vice-Consul is a personal friend of Her Ladyship, mainly through his friendship with her late husband, and apart from a small squeamishness each time Her Ladyship brings her lacquered head to rest on his shoulder, or lays a hand on his, he has really nothing against her. In the privacy of his pure thoughts, he cannot bring himself to surmise about the behaviour of the apparently love-starved, long-widowed lady. But on this occasion, the sight of Her Ladyship’s heaving bosom, this time laden with rubies as she stands beside him, nodding with approval, as he makes his speech, seems to trigger something in him, so that the advent of the Filthy Joke is much earlier than usual. The seriousness of his mien dissipating in a hundred crinkles of merriment, the Vice-Consul says, in a booming voice, “Now I suggest that the excellent X-ray facilities in the New Wing be made use of, by Her Ladyship herself. I can imagine her after each X-ray, running out and exclaiming, ‘I’ve been ultra-violated!’”
A loud guffaw, from someone at the back, is the only sound to break the shocked silence; moving eyes in unmoving heads are directed at Her Ladyship to see how she has taken this public assault on her honour. Her Ladyship, whose very limited knowledge of English precludes understanding of any joke above the purely basic and demonstrable, looks around sharply, sensing something not to her advantage. As quickly as the bout of irreverence has descended on the Vice-Consul, it disappears, and now he is covered all over with confusion, as he murmurs, “Sorry, that was a temporary aberration,” and resumes his speech on what a wonderful thing it is for Singapore to have magnanimous people like Her Ladyship.
The worst temporary aberration is yet to come.
The Vice-Consul is the Guest-Of-Honour at a grand cultural event, at which all the glitterati of Singapore are present. It is a play, in which Singapore’s leading actress is the heroine. She is a most beautiful woman, but the Vice-Consul’s pure morals will allow him to look only at her face and neck, below which all her luscious beauties are laid out, right down to her dimpled toes. This most beautiful lady compels all attention when she is on stage; now clad in a long, strapless, black velvet gown and reclining on a couch in a way as to provide a glimpse of very fair legs, the lady tries to dampen the ardour of a wooer, because she is already betrothed to another.
“Oh, my heart is already taken!” she says mournfully, bringing up a graceful arm to touch the left side of her bosom, and it is at this point that the Vice-Consul leaps up from his seat among the most distinguished guests in the front row and exclaims in a voice vibrant with eagerness as he catches yet another glimpse of those smooth white legs, “Your heart may be taken, lady, but he isn’t aspiring that high, you see. Ho! Ho! Ho! Hee! Hee! Hee! ” Then he sits down quickly, suddenly looking very confused, as he sees a hundred incredulous faces turned towards him. He mutters, “So sorry ... a temporary aberration,” but knows that this explanation is no longer convincing, least of all to himself.
The Vice-Consul, to his aides’ great relief, is ready to talk to them about his problem.
“You have been noticing some very strange things happening to me,” he says, with some degree of embarrassment. “I myself cannot account for them. It is as if each time I make a speech, something suddenly happens to my mind and I say something unrelated to my character, to say the least. It is as if I am temporarily possessed by some evil demon, for, as will be obvious to you by now, those things are obscene in the extreme, and totally alien to the moral rectitude and propriety that I have always been proud to be associated with.”
The aides nod in agreement. They are tremendously relieved that the Vice-Consul has chosen to confide in them, because they fear the eventual downfall of the Vice-Consul through this increasingly bizarre behaviour. They had earlier surmised that the behaviour was due to temporary possession by evil spirits. There had been cases before of perfectly innocent men, women and children whose minds were temporarily taken over by these obscene spirits and who accordingly uttered obscenities, often in coarse, guttural tones. Was the Vice-Consul being followed by these mischievous spirits who waited for him to make his speeches and then swooped down to disgrace him? One of the aides had said excitedly, “It is the evil spirits! Do you notice that all this is happening in the month of the Hungry Ghosts? There are ghosts all over the place!”
“But they are hungry ghosts, not obscene ghosts,” said the second of the aides, “And anyway, even if they were obscene ghosts, they would be making obscene dialect jokes. They would not be capable of those high-class puns in English of the Vice-Consul.”
So having failed in their surmises, the aides are only too happy that the Vice-Consul has decided to enlist their help for a solution to the very unusual problem.
“Don’t make any more speeches,” suggests the third aide.
“That will not be possible in my position,” says the Vice-Consul coldly.
“But, Sir, it’s just for a while. Perhaps that will cause this strange whatever-it-is to go away, and then you can resume making your speeches,” says the first aide.
The Vice-Consul ponders about this for a while, and decides that he will give it a try. He is becoming tired of these weird lapses in his behaviour, and he dreads the prospect of going down in history as the most dirty-minded Vice-Consul. So at the next function which he will grace with his presence, that is, the opening of Community Sharing week, he will not make a speech. He will merely express his pleasure to be there, and then sit down. There will be no risk of any ‘temporary aberration’.
The aides watch him closely, as he rises to the sound of applause, amid the popping of flash-bulbs, and says serenely, “It is my greatest pleasure ...” A sudden impish leer crosses his features at this point, the aides gasp, “It’s got him again!” he continues, “and it has been my greatest pleasure since I was 15! Ho! Ho! Ho! And,” waggling a finger at the Chairperson of the Organising Committee, a grey-haired lady in her 50s, he continues, “And I’m sure it has been yours too, my dear! Hee! Hee! Hee! You look it! Hee! Hee! ” There is mild pandemonium, for the lady, quite unused to such blatant public questioning of her morals, faints and collapses upon the pots of orchids and chrysanthemums.
The Vice-Consul withdraws temporarily from public life, pleading poor health. “Oh, what shall I do?” he wails. “At this rate, I shall lose all my moral rectitude, and all those admirers of my moral rectitude! I should die if Singaporeans stopped looking up to me as the ideal Confucian model!”
The aides discuss the problem with great earnestness. A solution must be found to prevent all these temporary aberrations from ever occurring again, to allow the Vice-Consul to return to his public life. But what?
It is at this point that the very reporter who the aides suspect may be the first to exploit the situation for a scoop, comes forward and offers the first real hope for a solution. The reporter, excitedly taking out a stack of photographs, and pointing to them, asks, “Who is this man in the photographs?”
“Which man?” ask the perplexed aides.
The excited reporter points to a serious-faced, bespectacled young man in shirt and tie who appears in every one of the photographs which shows the Vice-Consul making a speech. This young man sits in the back row, and his piercing eyes never leave the Vice-Consul’s face.
“We don’t know who he is,” says the f
irst aide. “We’ve never seen him before.”
“He was present at every one of those functions when the Vice-Consul suffered the lapses,” says the reporter. “There must be a connection between his presence and the lapses, don’t you see? We must find this young man!” Her mind is filled with exciting possibilities for Story of the Year.
The aides, with mounting excitement, go to tell the Vice-Consul, and he tells them, “I order you to find the young man and bring him to me at once!”
The young man is tracked down without difficulty. He is an engineer in the Public Utilities Service, and he is a very bright young man marked out for rapid promotion. But he is a sorry sight when he is brought before the Vice-Consul, for he immediately falls on his knees, buries his face in his hands and sobs uncontrollably. And this is his tale:
“I was born into a poor family but through sheer hard work, I managed to excel in school, to win scholarship after scholarship right up to postgraduate studies in Cambridge, after which I was put into this much coveted position in the Public Utilities Service. But even more than poverty, there was something that I was struggling to be free from. This was a propensity shown by the male members in my family, from my father right back to the male ancestors in China, a propensity which I must describe in the harshest of terms since it has brought me so much misery. It is the tendency of libidinousness – I blush to use the dialectal name of ‘hum sub’ with all its associations of crudity. This tendency is manifested even in very elderly Chinese gentlemen who must have a young maiden or two about them in their dotage. It would appear, alas, that the male members of my family had a greater share of the propensity than any other family. My great-grandfather had 16 concubines, and died at the age of 78, while engaged in the throes of lust with the newest, a girl of only 17. Fifth Granduncle was called ‘One-Eyed Uncle’ because he had only one eye, having lost the other when he applied it to a peep-hole in a lady’s private room, and had it poked out by the irate lady. The incident, however, did not deter him from using the remaining good eye for similar nefarious purposes: he used to spend a great deal of his time peeping at village maidens bathing or disrobing. My own father had, I am sad to say, inherited the trait in large measure. As a child, I had often observed him leering at the maidservant behind my mother’s back, and once he gave me some money to go out and buy some sweets, but I returned very shortly and peeped through a hole in the bedroom door, and true enough, there was my father indulging his lust with the maidservant and cackling in most lascivious merriment.
The Catherine Lim Collection Page 26