Annabelle Thong

by Imran Hashim

  For the Politics of Southeast Asia class today, M. Butty gives his one and only lecture on Singapore and, true to his name, makes a bunch of lame ass comments about Singapore and our political system. He goes on and on about how Singapore is an “authoritarian state” and “not a real democracy” and has “a long track record of human rights abuses” etc. It would have been acceptable if he made at least some effort to paint a balanced picture—I mean, we vote every five years, our ballot boxes are not stuffed like they are in some countries, we have a nascent online media, our government is practically corruption-free (which is more than I can say for the Frenchies), we have a budding civil society. I’m no government lackey, but when some foreigner who has probably never stayed in Singapore more than six days in his life—possibly as a stopover on the way to Brisbane or Bali—insists on demonising the country that gave me my breaks and made me who I am, well, it just makes me want to stand up and tell him to shove it up his butty.

  So I raise my hand a few times to counter Butty’s points and inform the class that Singaporeans are not as oppressed, materialistic and apathetic as he’s making us out to be. For example, I tell them about the time I bought a fur coat, and how many of my friends sent me angry emails in protest, forcing me to confess in the end that it was actually faux fur. I think this shows just how civic-minded we are, especially since we don’t even have foxes in Singapore, but the class doesn’t seem impressed by this.

  The worst part is that towards the end of the lecture, my classmates raise their hands to ask Butty about Singapore, like they’re really curious, and dutifully note down his answers as if transcribing John the Apostle. But when class is over, nobody seems interested to know what I think about the country where I have spent my entire life; everybody just disperses as if their curiosity about Singapore has been sated. At first I wonder why, and then it dawns upon me that my thoughts on Singapore are false gospel—after all, I’m not the one marking their exam scripts.

  Singaporeans suffer from a big image problem here in France, alternately portrayed as heartless hardcore-capitalist vultures or subservient automatons (look everyone, no chewing gum!), and I won’t be surprised if it’s the same all over Europe. Articles like this one don’t help:

  Singapore Keeps Sex Exhibition Tame1

  No nudity. No whips and handcuffs. No penis rings. No inflatable sex dolls.

  Those were just some of the sex toys barred from display as strait-laced Singapore opened its first sex exhibition under the watchful eyes of the police.

  Instead the three-day Sexpo offered pole dancers, condoms, vibrators, sexy lingerie and sexual health seminars to titillate crowds and excite the libido of a country consistently ranked bottom in a global survey of sexually active nations…

  This idea of Singapore as the sexless police-state is very entrenched and deep-rooted here; some people, when I say where I’m from, take their voice down a notch and sympathetically say, “Life must be quite hard there...” as if I were some North Korean defector, savoring the taste of freedom fries for the first time. Unfortunately, I don’t think our government cares much what Europeans think, especially since we can now get tourists from other sexless police states who care more about gambling and taking photos in front of the Merlion (I say this without any value judgement whatsoever). Which leaves me to fight my own battles against Western cultural imperialism.

  And while Singapore politics is placid (or comatose if you are of the Bernard Butty school of thought), French politics is anything but. Paris has been suffering from a week of debilitating strikes now, and just as the transport unions are about to go back to the negotiating table, other disaffected groups have started to take up arms against the government. Yesterday evening, the news reported that the farmers were threatening to dump 10 tonnes of very good tomatoes on the Champs-Élysées and that nurses were staging a walkout at public hospitals.

  Student unions have also started to get in on the action—it appears that “the students” are unhappy about a proposal by the Education Ministry to raise tuition fees for the universities. The raise being proposed is something like 40 per cent, which translates into the princely total of €420 per year. Personally, I think it’s a good idea. As it is, university education here is practically free when you compare it with that in Singapore and what the French snidely refer to as the “Anglo-Saxon countries”. Tight public finances have resulted in the universities being underfunded, which probably explains why Bony Face still rides a bicycle at his age and carries an Eastpak haversack to work (I can think of no other reason). If my €420 can help the servers churn faster and give Bony Face a small raise, why not?

  But it looks like I might be the only one in favour because, here at the Sorbonne, the movement against the university fee hike is gathering momentum and all the different unions and political associations are abuzz with activity, distributing flyers, putting up posters, organising petitions and holding rallies. You can’t turn a corner these days and not see a rude poster targeting Sarkozy or overhear heated debates on how to “stop the madness”.

  What is interesting to me though is how uniform the student response has been—all the groups in school agree on the basic premise that the government must back down, the only point of disagreement being what line of resistance to take. So where are all those students who think it’s a good idea to pay €120 more for better university services? Where are the students who believe that courses at universities shouldn’t be treated like municipal cooking classes, where taxpayers subsidise “students” who come and go as they please, or use their student cards to pick up chicks? And where are the students from the French political right? Surely I’m not the only one?

  Seeing the student activists at work, I must say though that I envy them their passion, their camaraderie—if only they weren’t so misled, goddammit! It makes me feel like I should start my own association, to provide an alternative voice to this alternative student community, but we all know I won’t because:

  a) I don’t have the time.

  b) I can’t really be bothered.

  c) I like having friends.

  Oh dear. I just caught myself. Maybe Singaporeans are apathetic after all.

  It’s been two weeks since Thierry and I met for the Film Fest, and I thought it was safe to put the little spat behind us and resume our easy friendship, so I called him out for a conversation exchange yesterday evening. But from the moment we sat down, my feminine intuition sensed that he was in a belligerent mood, so I steered clear of politics and religion—the perennial hot-button topics.

  “How’s your dog doing these days?” I asked hopefully. This usually mollifies him, but yesterday, even the state of Fifi’s kidneys couldn’t hold his attention for five minutes. We moved on to other subjects, like what was happening in school, Thierry always trying to pull me into a political debate while I responded with banal platitudes worthy of Miss Universe.

  But he kept goading me, and it reached a breaking point when he said, “Your country killed another one yesterday.”

  He was referring to the hanging of Mark White, the Australian who had been given the death sentence for drug trafficking. I knew because Le Figaro had run that story with the eye-catching headline: “Singapore denies man on death row last chewing gum.”

  “Yes, I know,” I responded levelly.

  “Don’t you think that’s despicable? Don’t you think it’s barbaric that a developed country like Singapore has killed a young man just because he was carrying a kilo of cannabis?”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Listen, I know how much you French people love to argue and all that, but the death penalty in Singapore is not my fault, so please don’t take it out on me.”

  “I’m not saying it’s your fault. I’m just asking you what you think of your government’s practice.”

  “Well, I don’t think anything of it. It’s none of my business. I don’t sell drugs and I don’t murder people, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t spend my
time worrying about these things.”

  “So you don’t care that your government is murdering people?” He made it sound like a rhetorical question, so I just kept quiet and stared back at him with burning eyes. There was no point in responding if he had already made up his mind.

  He held my stare and said, “Why don’t you implicate yourself for once? How can you be so selfish?”

  His words had an unexpectedly violent sting. Wounded by his disdain, I lashed back.

  “Excuse me? Who are you to be giving me advice on what to think about how my country’s run? Have you looked around you lately? For a humane society, you sure have a lot of deprived, angry people!” I was almost shouting, even though the table separating us was the size of a very large plate. “You may think I’m selfish, but at least I’m not an arrogant, neo-imperialist snob who always thinks his point of view is the universal truth!”

  There was the briefest of pauses, and suddenly, he got up and put on his coat. I asked him what he was doing.

  “I’m leaving. I don’t want to talk to you any more.” He then dropped a couple of coins onto the table for his coffee, and walked out.

  At first I panicked, watching his back disappear and wondering if I had gone too far. But now that I’ve slept on it, I’m thinking, no. If Thierry doesn’t value this friendship the way I do, then he can go to hell.

  “He can go to hell,” I say under my breath as I give my sofa cushions an extra hard smack with the nylon duster. I pull my thoughts away from Thierry to focus on the task at hand. You see, in a bid to win Patrick’s heart via his stomach, I’ve invited him over for dinner tonight, which explains why I’ve been spending the whole afternoon in a frenzied state of homemaking—I love Simone de Beauvoir and Carrie Bradshaw and Ellen Degeneres, but when cooking dinner for a potential boyfriend, I’m afraid the only woman worth channelling is Martha Stewart.

  And so I slice, simmer, steam and sauté my heart out, so much so that by the time Patrick arrives, dinner is coming along nicely while I almost die from physical and nervous exhaustion.

  “Nice pasta,” Patrick says later, which is to be the lonely bone he throws my way. I’m disappointed he doesn’t show more appreciation, but he soon makes it obvious that he’s not here for the food. Before the decaf can even cool, Patrick is all over me, which gives me a much needed energy boost. Things heat up really fast—my T-shirt comes off, then his T-shirt comes off, then my bra slips away under his dexterous fingers. But then I freak out because the lights are still on and we’ve forgotten to pull the curtains. Topless, I leap towards the window, which is a new and not unpleasant physical sensation all by itself, draw the curtains and turn around, only to be trapped by Patrick’s hard naked chest. We kiss some more, and I feel his hand move slowly, tantalisingly downwards into the front of my jeans.

  “I want to make love to you,” he whispers into my hair.

  That’s when I freeze.

  Patrick still doesn’t know that I don’t eat meat on Fridays (when I can remember not to), so I’m not quite sure how to tell him that the Pope won’t think it’s a good idea for us to get it on.

  “I can’t,” I say, pulling his hand out of my pants. I don’t know where to put it without making it seem like a rejection so I bring it up to my left breast, which feels like a good compromise.

  “Why not?” he whispers as he looks down at his busy hands.

  “Because…because…” I’m a wreck, torn asunder by alternating waves of desire and guilt, but fortunately, I still have half my wits about me. “Because I’ve got several assignments due next week, and I’m under a lot of stress right now.”

  “Exactly, so this is just what you need to relax…” he says teasingly, sliding his hand down my belly again.

  “No! Patrick, listen to me. I’m serious. We’re moving too fast, and I need to concentrate on my work. This… It’s just too much for me to handle right now.” I know I’m not being truthful but I don’t know what else to say.

  I hold my breath until Patrick finally nods his head.

  “Okay, I understand… I’d better go.” He turns to put on his T-shirt and jacket, and opens the front door. “Call me when you’re ready,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say and the door clicks shut.

  Oh God, could Didi be right? If I refuse to give in to sex, is this destined to end in heartbreak?

  Urgh! I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. Workwise, I’m a dead dog. Well, okay, I exaggerate—maybe a dog in a coma, sort of like Thierry’s. I’ve done a bit of reading for the thesis, found some interesting stuff, but still no problématique. Bony Face is going to kill me.

  My only consolation is that I’m not the only one struggling with the thesis. Didi and Gula were sharing their own tales of woe over lunch at the cafeteria just now, and it seemed like Yannick was the only one who’s on top of things, the bastard-geek. Once we were done bitching and moaning, talk turned to the renewed vigour of the student campaign against fee hikes, after a week of calm both in school and in the media.

  “I heard they’re planning a huge protest soon. Something about a strike and blockading the Sorbonne,” Yannick said as he crinkled his nose and scraped the bottom of his yoghurt container.

  “Who’s ‘they’?” I asked.

  “The unions and the political associations.”

  “Good! Maybe we can have another holiday,” Gula said, crunching noisily on her apple.

  I exercised some self-control and refrained from making a comment about the Uzbek work ethic. “But I thought this whole thing had died down?”

  “Of course it hasn’t died down; the unions were just regrouping to strategise. Trust me, what we’re seeing now, it’s just the beginning,” Didi said ominously.

  God, I hope this thing with the unions doesn’t get too disruptive, especially since Didi and I are planning to use the library more often. I’m thinking that being around studious people will scare the bejesus out of me, while Didi claims that he just needs peace and quiet away from his new home and the noise of gunshots. He is such a drama queen.

  It turns out that Didi’s right. The student mobilisation against what the media is now calling “la crise de scolarité” has been gathering force with astonishing speed, throwing a dark cloud over the government’s reform agenda. The Sorbonne has been at the centre of these rumblings of student dissent, but now, other universities across the country are starting to echo it, in what seems like a concentric wave emanating from Paris.

  Till now, in typically disorganised French fashion, the different groups in school have been organising protests and demonstrations individually, so it hasn’t affected me that much. We’ve been thrown out of school only once (the administration had to shut it down for “security reasons”). And yesterday, which was my free day, I left the house just to go to the library, but was told upon reaching, Sorry, we’re closing in 10 minutes. It was terribly annoying of course, but when you live in a country like this, you build up a deep reserve of patience and inner calm and take inconveniences as they come, because the alternative is insanity.

  I did get to let off a bit of steam over the sorry state of affairs though. Today, the Students’ Association organised three separate votes to consult with us whether:

  a) We wanted a blockade of the school to protest the “unjust fee hike”.

  b) We wanted classes to be suspended during days of “national mobilisation” against the “unjust fee hike”.

  c) We were in favour of the “unjust fee hike”.

  I queued up for one whole hour, and voted against the blockade, against suspending classes, and in favour of the “unjust fee hike”. It made me very happy, even though I knew that, like the Singapore general elections, the results were a foregone conclusion. Power to the underdogs!

  Tonight’s the big night. I called Patrick a couple of days ago to invite him for dinner so that we can have The Talk. I didn’t tell him that we were going to have The Talk though. No, The Talk will be a post-dinner surprise, like an extr
a course of dessert. I’m sure it’ll go down well. It’ll be fine.

  I’ve planned a lovely dinner of stir-fried chicken and vegetables, albeit without ginger, chilli and oyster sauce, i.e. anything that could possibly fuel our raging hormones. Despite the fact that I really like (love?) him and am horny as hell, I’ve decided that I’m not going to have pre-marital sex. Because I’ve made a list of the pros and cons, like you’re supposed to when faced with any dilemma, and it looks something like this:

  Why I should have sex with Patrick:

  • Sex is fun (from what I’ve been told, and strongly confirmed by personal experience of pre-sex).

  • Sex is sexy (ditto).

  • I’ll finally be able to do this month’s Cosmo sex quiz based on real-life experience (as opposed to concocting torrid answers out of wild fantasies like a schoolgirl).

  • It’ll be an exercise in self-discovery; I might have some hidden talents!

  • This will take my “relationship” with Patrick to the next stage.

  Why I should NOT have sex with Patrick:

  • I may end up in the next stage of the “relationship” all by myself.

  • It’s too early to tell if Patrick is THE ONE. If he isn’t, I will be depriving my future husband of a very valuable gift (on account of its rarity amongst women over 16).

  • Once you give your virginity, you can’t take it back.

  • It’s against my religious principles (i.e. pre-marital sex, not sex with Patrick per se).