by You Jin
A new policy was issued by the Ministry of Education, so I called several school principals to hear their views. Of the eight different principals, two refused to be interviewed, five were enthusiastic about the new policy, and only one principal (who will remain anonymous) objected to it. This was very rare. Usually those who were not behind new policies would remain silent, and definitely not voice their disagreement, but now there was someone going against the grain and revealing her cards. From the news reporting perspective, the opposing views would naturally increase readership, but just to be safe, I called the woman and carefully read each word of the report to her, confirming that I had not missed her meaning. She answered firmly: “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
It was a lengthy report in the next day’s paper, featured prominently. I never imagined that this principal would send a letter to my editor that day, claiming that I had misrepresented what she said. I was furious.
Looking back on it, I think the woman must have received some unexpected pressure after the article came out and so, in order to protect herself, she recanted. This principal, who was a senior officer in education, was bold enough to speak up about her own thoughts, but lacked the courage to face the consequences for that decision, choosing instead to back down and leave others to pay the price. What was regrettable was that I did not record the interview, so I became the scapegoat. Fortunately, my boss trusted me and accepted my explanation, and so did not utter one word of censure to me. But we all must live and learn. From that time on, my recorder became my constant companion when I interviewed anyone.
After I became a reporter, I thought back to what Mr Goh had told me that first day. It was true that one really could not arrange one’s time when working as a reporter. Sometimes, friends wanted to meet up. They asked, “What time do you get off tomorrow?”
My answer was always, “I’m not sure.”
It wasn’t that I wanted to put them off. The truth was, I never knew when I would be off.
Each day, it was late at night before I found out from the chief editor what the next day’s assignment was, and the work hours were determined by whatever the assignment required. Sometimes I worked in the morning, sometimes at midday, and sometimes at night. I sometimes had three different assignments in one day. On the other hand, on slow news days, a reporter had to practically beg for news, digging around until she could come up with something to write about.
In one way, every reporter has to always be prepared—whenever she comes across a potential news piece, no matter how many hours she has already worked that day, and no matter what may be going on in her own life, she has to muster all her energy, cancel her own appointments and rush to the site to conduct interviews.
For instance, my editor once gave me two assignments. I had to be at the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association at nine in the morning to interview Dr Baey Lian Peck, to discuss new measures the department was implementing. At three that afternoon, I had to be at a hotel to interview the Los Angeles “Miss Chinatown”, Huang Hanqi.
I thought I could finish work before seven, keeping the evening free. I called five of my long-time friends, asking them to meet me at a restaurant so we could eat together. They were all very pleased to hear from me and promised to be there.
After my interview with Dr Baey that morning, I hurried back to the newsroom, wrote up the article, and handed it in. After lunch in the canteen, I rushed to interview Huang Hanqi, then wrote the article, and handed it in. When I looked at my watch, it was six twenty. I had timed it perfectly! I rubbed my face, transferring my fatigue to my palms, and thought happily about how pleasant it would be to meet these five old friends. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. But before the smile had faded from my lips, I saw the chief editor walking toward me. He said, “I just got word that an Indonesian woman was prescribed inappropriate contact lenses, causing her to lose her sight completely. She’s in a hospital here now, preparing for corneal transplant surgery tomorrow. This is the first such surgery in Singapore. I want you to go to the hospital now and do an interview.”
As a result, I had to call the restaurant to inform my friends, then rush to the hospital to do the interview. Fortunately, my friends were very understanding, so nobody blamed me for what had happened, but from then on, I did not dare call anyone up to arrange for dinner.
Though a reporter’s hours are extremely unpredictable, no one can deny that it is fascinating work. What makes it so is the constant changes it brings. When I worked at the National Library, it was a typical nine-to-five life. Every day when I went to work, I did whatever I needed to do until it was time to stop work. It was very routine, with unchanging rules. This sort of life is stable and safe. Once you’ve been there a month, it’s like you’ve been there all your life. It is like a stream, always flowing in one direction, no matter how much water flows through the channel. Whether it is stormy or still, it makes no difference. It just flows on forever.
As a newspaper reporter, I was a stream, a river, a lake and a sea, all in turn, with constantly changing shape, mass and direction. Every day was different, and each week brought changes. There were little pleasures and little pains each month, and great delights and great sufferings each year. The work was never the same from one day to the next, and I never knew what tomorrow would bring. Absolutely everything came with some uncertainty, and every step felt unstable. At any moment, it was impossible to predict the next surprise.
Because the work was so changeable, it was important to make oneself a pool of energy, constantly recharging oneself. If not, one might be faced with an interviewee in some unfamiliar occupation or background and run the risk of becoming a laughingstock.
For instance, the novelist Yu Lihua, who is renowned in literary circles, once told me that a reporter had interviewed her and asked the question, “What country are you from?” The next question was “What are the works you’ve written?” The third was, “Do you write poetry?” She tried to control herself, but when the third question came, she could not stand it any more. She replied, “Go back and do your homework before you interview me.”
Nowadays, information technology has really developed. Everyone has a computer, and with just a light tap of the fingers, a host of information can appear before the eyes. But, back in the 1970s, things were very different, not nearly as convenient. The newspaper office had information rooms, and workers gathered the daily newspaper reports for the whole year, and arranged them according to their nature, cutting, pasting and archiving them under appropriate categories. If we needed information outside of newspaper reports, we would have to crack our heads to look for other sources. I often went to the National Library’s resource centre, which had a fairly complete collection.
Once, the newspaper was sending me to interview an agriculture scholar from New Zealand. As soon as I heard this, I was struck by how difficult it would be, because I knew nothing about agriculture. So I had to dip into someone else’s well for information. That day after work, I went to the National Library and searched for all the material on agriculture I could find. I found it and read it, making notes on several relevant questions. Only then did I have a little peace of mind. Of course, this was nothing more than superficial knowledge, hardly scratching the surface, but I was able to go through the interview the next day without any hiccups. When I was still green on the job, I did not grasp the concept of pruning, so I thought everything should be written. I ended up writing a 2000-word essay about agriculture after that interview, but half of it was cut by my editor. From this experience, I learned that writing essays and writing news articles are two totally different things. The former can explore things in detail, but the latter is meant to be concise, accurate, and to the point.
Social Fragments
During my early years working as a reporter, one of my seniors once told me something that made a big impression on me: “Being a reporter will ruin your writing.”
At the time, I was puzzled. Reporters write e
very single day, year after year. They never take a break from writing. Isn’t that the perfect way to improve their writing? How could that ruin one’s writing?
Before long, I discovered the meaning of what he had said. Sometimes, I saw my article in the paper and, as I reread it, I was startled, asking myself, Did I write that? Really?
The writing can be coarse and poorly organised, but as long as it gets to the heart of the news, it works. When you are in a hurry, you can’t afford to think about the beauty of the piece. Often, when I sent the article to the editor, I had not even had a chance to read it over.
Fortunately, I often had a chance to write feature articles. Feature stories were like a whetting stone, allowing me to sharpen and beautify my writing.
There are two types of features. One is timely reporting, when we write about developing news or situations, providing deeper analysis outside of news reports. These sort of feature articles are usually tied to sudden developments, like the unexpected passing of a famous person, a shocking new policy issued by the government, or the outbreak of some strange disease. The stories usually are written by the reporter, but sometimes specialists are invited to do an analysis.
The second sort of feature article is not restricted by time. The reporter chooses the topic, then researches all the relevant material, gaining a deeper understanding of the subject, before writing the story. This sort of article does not have a set range, giving the reporter the freedom to write in a more ornate style. Since there are no tight deadlines, such a feature can be beautifully written.
The chief editor at Nanyang Siang Pau, Mr Mo Li Guang, often encouraged me: “You Jin, you need to write more features. You can write about many interesting topics. You should work hard on this.”
I started looking for interesting topics outside of the typical newsworthy events and wrote about those things. The first topic I pursued was Singapore’s old industries, such as hair combers, cobblers, trishaw operators, Chinese pastry and cake makers, launderers, rattan weavers and rosewood carvers. The first feature I had published in Nanyang Siang Pau was about hair combers.
Most hair combers came from Guangzhou, women who had taken an oath not to marry. They spent their entire lives combing other people’s hair. They worked under the arcades in Chinatown, setting up simple stalls containing only a small wooden stool and a small bamboo basket, in which was a mirror, a comb, and wood shavings. These shavings had come from a piece of wood as it was planed, tiny threads of yellowy beige rolled up like miniature scrolls. When they were dropped into water, after just ten minutes the water would turn milky, creating an oil, which was neither greasy nor sticky, for use in the hair. Although it is called “combing hair”, it really was “styling a bun”. The hair combers had deft hands, able to meet the rigid demands of customers in just 30 or 40 minutes, creating elaborate buns out of long, straight hair.
Hair combing used to be a popular trade. Many rich elderly ladies liked inviting hair combers to their homes to do their hair, with some reserving their services for a month. When business was good, the hair combers could make two or three hundred dollars a month, which was considered quite a good income in the 1950s and 60s. But by the 1970s, this entire industry had completely disappeared, because many of the elderly people found it too troublesome to continue to wear long hair, and instead permed their hair or cut it short. Without long hair, who needed a hair comber? And for those who continued to keep long hair, they generally preferred to care for it at home, not wishing to have it styled by outsiders. I believed that, once these few old hair combers were gone, the entire practice would be a thing of the past.
On a sultry, windless afternoon, I walked into a crowded, sweat filled alley in Chinatown. In an old, dirty arcade, I came across a hair comber of sixty or so. She perched brightly on a stool, waiting for customers.
Still a very green reporter, I barged right in and started talking, “Auntie, I’m a newspaper reporter, I want to write a story about you for the paper…”
Before I had even finished speaking, she turned on me, glaring. She waved me away fiercely, shouting, “Go away! Write a story— what story? I’m a person just like you. Do you think I’ve grown an extra eye or extra foot? Talk about news…what a load of crap!”
I rushed out of there with my tail between my legs.
Keeping in mind that hair combers were conservative, I went in search of another one. When I found her, I did not yet dare reveal my true identity, but just sauntered past, then stopped and started chatting with her. She was quite friendly, answering all my questions. I didn’t take out paper to make notes on our conversation, and instead committed everything to memory. When we had talked for nearly an hour, an elderly woman came looking to have her hair done in a bun, so I ended the conversation there. Just then, from the other side of the arcade, my photographer, who had been looking on the whole time, snapped a photo. The hair comber might have been old, but her eyes were sharp. She picked up her oil-stained wooden comb and, in one swift movement, aimed it at me. What followed was a string of shockingly coarse language. “I took you as a friend, chatting so long with you. But you just see me as a specimen, taking pictures of me as you please! You’re evil!”
Even before her insults ended, she tried to pounce on me and pull my hair out. I ran for my life.
When I returned to the newsroom, I quickly wrote down everything that had just happened. It had made a deep impression on me, and was still fresh in my mind. The words flowed from my pen, as if aided by the spirits. Before long, the page was filled. When I had finished writing, I sat back and turned a problem over in my mind: a news story without pictures was like trying to run without legs.
The next day, I went back to Chinatown with the photographer, hoping to find a good angle from a spot near the hair combers’ stall to shoot with a telephoto lens. But luck was not with us. After waiting half a day, not a single customer had come. We packed up and went back to the office.
Not easily discouraged, I decided to take matters into my own hands. That night, I called a relative of mine, a businessman, and asked him to help me arrange for an elderly person to visit a hair comber in Chinatown. Happy to help, he promised to do it right away. The next day, when the photographer went to the location and waited for the “actress”, I found that I had nearly outsmarted myself. The “actress” had arrived there before us, but she was nearly bald, with only a few strands of hair left—certainly not enough to make a bun!
Helplessly, I dismissed her. We again settled in for a long, arduous wait. By the time anything happened, the sun was low on the horizon and the moon was rising.
The next day, the text and the photos were finally ready. I thought, Only the fish knows how cold the water really is. With performers, the show that takes ten minutes to perform needs ten years to prepare. What everyone sees is the glory on the stage, and no one knows the hard work the performer has put in behind the scenes. It’s the same for writers. We are like farmers, faithfully working the soil every day until the golden grain appears. Each kernel is filled with the sweat of our great labour.
I wrote another feature story about trishaw operators. When I came from Ipoh to Singapore with my parents in the 1950s, there were trishaws all over the streets but, because of Singapore’s rapid economic development, those who operated trishaws for a living quickly saw their livelihoods shattered. The younger generation adapted, but the older generation found itself in a hopeless situation. I often encountered the wrinkled faces of old trishaw drivers and their gnarled hands, and felt that they had really spent every ounce of strength just surviving. Their vehicles crawled through the streaming traffic on the streets like ants, as if they were weeds stuck in a crack, not being able to squeeze into the world of blooming flowers, yet unwilling to give up.
Just when the trishaw business was flickering like a dying flame, new interest in trishaws grew through the tourist industry, breathing life back into the dying occupation. In the mid-1970s, each day when I walked to and from wor
k, I saw trishaw operators gathered around various tourist sites, waiting for customers. The operators were no longer only elderly men who had been doing this all their lives, but also included many younger fellows. They drove stylish, colourful vehicles, whisking tourists about. Their income was no longer calculated by how far they went, but by how long they spent on the road. During the daytime, they could take a customer on an hour-long tour to buy cheap stuff at Rochor Canal, to pray at the Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery, and to enjoy fresh air at the reservoir. At night, the route was completely different. They would take their customers through Chinatown, showing them old Singapore culture, then to Bugis Street to see the transgender shows, which were not banned then. Finally, they would end up at Arab Street for supper. It was just an hour-long tour, and they charged ten or fifteen dollars, though there were some trishaw drivers who would charge as much as thirty.
Of course, at the same time that the holdovers from the cadres of trishaw drivers from the old days were forging a new path through Chinatown, many others of that same generation were eking out a living through sweat and hard work, ferrying equally aged customers from their homes to the market. It was this contrast that captured my interest and that led me to patronise one of the trishaws parked in front of Raffles Place. We hit several tourist highlights, ending up in the Botanic Gardens, where the trishaws gathered and dispersed. I acted like a tourist and picked up a good deal of valuable material for my story.