Singapore Swing

by John Malathronas

  While Raffles was learning Malay and, no doubt, entertaining himself with the Annals, Lord Minto in Calcutta was agonising with a specific brief. The Low Countries had just been annexed by Napoleon: the French could not be allowed to outflank India through the colonies of Holland. Britain captured the Dutch colony of Cape Town, an important shelter-and-provisions point on the way to the subcontinent. Malacca in Malaya capitulated not long afterwards. By 1810, the only threat to the subcontinent’s trade were the Dutch outposts in Java. But before Minto could act, he needed intelligence: how would Holland’s colonial subjects react? What would the independent sultanates do? It was there that Leyden’s friendship proved crucial: on a trip to Calcutta he told Minto of that man Raffles, who had learned Malay and was on personal terms with various Malay sultans. Minto sent for the ambitious under-secretary, and Raffles grabbed the opportunity with both hands. He arrived in Calcutta in June 1810 – wisely leaving his wife behind.

  Minto and Raffles got on like a kampong on fire and planned the invasion of Java together. The naval convoy was assembled in the summer of 1811. On the way to Java, the fleet passed by an island bemired by swamps, populated by fishermen and belonging to Mahmud Shah III, Sultan of Johore-Riau.

  Raffles knew it from Leyden’s legends: it was called Singapura.

  My sling has been attracting looks making me nervous, sheepish, diffident. It’s been two days already and I haven’t yet ventured far; I’ve been reading a Raffles biography in bed. I have discovered some licensed brothels at the other end of Keong Saik Road, but I’ve not been accosted. Prostitutes in Singapore are subject to continuous health tests – I wouldn’t be surprised if they had their vaginas barcoded – and are forbidden to walk the streets. On top of that, the ladies of the night are, let’s say, mature and their clients visibly of the Viagra generation, so any activity stops around 10 p.m. Out of curiosity, I peek into one of the open doors; from a poster the sitting, smiling, silent women are holding, I deduce that oral sex is on offer with a condom only. This is highly risqué; Singapore’s puritan penal code criminalises ‘carnal intercourse against the order of nature’ – which includes oral and anal sex even between husband and wife.

  True to type there is an Indian corner shop nearby, where I make friends with several members of the Tamil family who own it (and keep it open long after the sex action in the area has dwindled). I get slowly addicted to aloe vera juice with pulp bits; conceived in Japan and manufactured in Malaysia, this is like nothing I’ve drunk before as the aloe chunks seem to retain the coolness of the fridge long after I have opened the can. During my forays there, Rita, one of the owners, conveys to me her knowledge of the neighbourhood, some of which I’ve already passed on to you.

  At her recommendation, I sit down for lunch at the seafood restaurant opposite and ask for king prawns. ‘Are they shelled?’ I ask repeatedly, as I don’t want to wipe my hands in heaps of wafer-thin napkins. ‘O’ course, shell,’ comes the reply, but I should know better for in Singapore the final ‘d’ has long been swallowed out of existence; as the poster above my head reminds me, the Japanese miracle drink Amachazuru offers a ‘Balance Blood Pressure’. Even when that tricky ‘d’ is used, it’s used incorrectly: signs inform me that shops are ‘opened’ or ‘close’. So my giant king prawns come in their shells and, since I am a messy eater, my T-shirt gets speckled with blackbean sauce. But all is forgiven, because the waitress provides me with a bowl with lemons to wash my hands in; it is so large I could use it for my laundry. For that thoughtful gesture, I forget any missing, ingested consonants and tuck in.

  The furthest I’ve been so far has been to the Pearl Centre, a working-class shopping mall on the way to Outram Park metro station (or MRT as they call it here). Half of the shops sell mobile phones or accessories and the other half are a mixed bunch. There are food stalls outside offering dim sum or curry puffs, barbecued pork slices or exotic fruit. There is a Western-style bakery where every individual sandwich is wrapped and rewrapped in cellophane. If you follow the sign, ‘More Shop Inside’, you can find an Internet Café where everyone is playing Doom, a ‘New Million Years Hairdressing Salon’ (a mistranslation of ‘millennium’ if ever I’ve seen one) and an ‘Erotica Adult Toys Store’. Huh? This is a country where even Playboy is banned. I come closer and read the warning: ‘We do not sell medications, porno VCD, DVD or magazines’. Phew! My world is the right way up again.

  Too many people are staring at my arm. Ill at ease, I start making my way back to my hotel. At Duxton Park, I sit on a bench and chase away a flock of mynah birds. South East Asia is colonised by those feathered punks with chocolatey bodies, white underwings, distinctive orange beaks and a lot of attitude. Mynahs are one of the great survivors of our planet: they are intelligent enough to walk on the edge of the tarmac waiting for insect roadkill, sufficiently ferocious to drive away kingfishers and small animals from their nests, and so massively hungry that they can devastate miles of vineyards and acres of fruit orchards. I bet they’d be proud to learn that they have been assigned to the Extreme Threat Category for exotic species in Australia and thrilled that they’ve been nominated among the World’s Top 100 invaders by the World Conservation Union. Frankly, if we left it all to Darwin, there would only be three animal species left in the long run to keep us company: cats, rats and mynah birds. Thankfully, they prefer hot climates, like British lager louts. Unsurprisingly, they are a nuisance in Singapore, nesting as they do in their hundreds on houses and high-rise flats.

  Look, the mynahs are coming back already; they have classified me under ‘harmless’. I stand up ready to chase them away again but then I take a big breath and clench my teeth. Is this what I am going to do all day? Have I used the sling as an excuse to shy away from this Sphinx of a city?

  The Java campaign was a success; Lord Minto thanked the young Raffles by appointing him lieutenant governor. He was to preside over the island for the next five years and, although it was Singapore that has provided him with posthumous claims of greatness, it was his governship in Java that provided him with esteem during his lifetime. It is a mark of Raffles’ inquisitiveness that, even though the Dutch had been in Java for decades, it was he who made the discovery of the great Buddhist temple of Borobudur. He also wrote a book, The History of Java, and, this being the age of Elgin and his marbles, he compulsively stockpiled specimens to send back to England: archaeological, botanical, anthropological. His discoveries provided tremendous novelty value for London’s high society, and he became a celebrity in absentia among London’s learned circles.

  But not in the offices of the Honourable Company.

  Raffles’ careerism did not endear him to his colleagues or, indeed, his superiors. The governor of Penang was miffed because his ex-secretary had jumped over his head and reported directly to Calcutta; Raffles’ military attaché in Java fell out with him and accused him of profiteering in a land auction (he was cleared after an enquiry); Minto retired and the new head in Calcutta – the later Marquess of Hastings – looked upon Raffles as a maverick, which, of course, he was. On a personal level, life bit hard as it is bound to do in the tropics: Leyden died and Olivia followed suit; Raffles buried them side by side in Batavia. The world also changed: Napoleon was defeated and the now liberated Dutch demanded their possessions back.

  Global politics is a grandmaster chess tournament: having decided to hold on to strategic Cape Town, the British government wasn’t going to start a further quarrel with the Dutch. Despite what its name loudly declared, the East India Company appeared not be interested in possessions, well, east of India. In March 1816, Raffles left Java with 200 packed cases of artefacts, specimens and manuscripts. His successor had the specific task of ensuring that Dutch rule

  – and its ensuing monopolistic trade power – was restored. Back in London, Raffles became the darling of the salon set, being an expert in all things Malay and Javanese. He became a close friend of Princess Charlotte and Queen Caroline and was knighted by the Prince Rege
nt. There is a portrait of him by George Joseph in the National Portrait Gallery dating from this period: it’s a study in scarlet with black, brown and pink shadings – only Raffles’ eyes, tinted in sapphire blue, pierce through the broad-brush crimson haze. He is wearing a black, high-collared Regency shirt with a white tie, as dandyish as Beau Brummell on a first date and as foppish as Lord Byron at high table. He is sitting down, a document in his hand, his right elbow resting on a desk with a red file rushed-shut on a bunch of papers. Leaning on the table at the back, half unseen, is a bevelled illustration of a Buddha in the style of the Borobudur original. Raffles stares at us rather clumsily, much like many people appear on their passport photos: awkward, self-conscious, rather clueless. What strikes you most about the man is how handsome he is, despite his solemnity: fashionably wigless, with a full head of black unruly hair, sparkling eyes and features sprightly and symmetric, he looks not unlike Roger Daltrey of the Who in their sixties incarnation.

  Before I go inside Outram Park metro station, I check the prohibition signs. ‘No Smoking: Fine $1000’; ‘No Eating and Drinking: Fine $500’; ‘No Flammable Goods: Fine $5000’. And finally, a red circle with an oblique stroke over what looks like a thorny hand-grenade: ‘No Durians’ without a penalty proclaimed; this is a sign to put on the frighteners by association.

  Durians are fruit, in case you are wondering, and be thankful we don’t have them in Europe – they don’t travel well. (They don’t travel, full stop: airlines have banned them). They are the ultimate in olfactory abominations – had Moses been born in the vicinity, he would certainly have appended another prohibition in Leviticus. Like all horrible comestibles, they are an ‘acquired taste’ which means they smell and taste like shit. No, really. So why do people eat them? Because their yellow, custard-like flesh tastes like sweet shit. Yes, durians have extreme cult appeal. Some fans keep them until maggots rush out from within; only then do they cut them open, certain that their sugar is concentrated, and proceed to eat the overripe sweet flesh, picking out the creepy crawlies in the process. Other devotees gather below the tall durian trees every year waiting for their cherished fruit to fall. As durians are shaped like large, heavy melons with spikes, several deaths occur annually after the odd plunging fruit slices open the head of an impatient aficionado. I wonder if they can carry dead bodies in the metro. It’s certainly not prohibited, and they’ll smell better than the durians.

  The MRT station may be shiny and glistening like Tom Cruise’s dentition, but the transactions leave a lot to be desired: this is the only transport system in the world where you queue at the ticket machines on the way out as well. Unless you pay good money for a permanent plastic ticket, you have to use a disposable one every time and, in the interests of recycling, you pay one dollar deposit which you reclaim by returning the ticket in the exit station. Then there is the pricing itself which is a function of distance. You choose the destinations, you pay accordingly, and you get your plastic ticket. If you make a mistake, tough: your ticket is only valid for the selected destination. I presume there is some fine to be inflicted for changing your mind while on transit.

  The lines (red, green and purple) are imaginatively named North-South, East-West and North-East, and each station is given not just a name but – this being the twenty-first century

  – an alphanumeric code, too. Outram Park is on the North-East Line so it’s given a code of NE3. NE-three?

  I approach the information window.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say pointing at my map. ‘Look. First station: Harbour Front, NE1. Second station: Outram Park, NE3. What happened to NE2?’

  The officer looks at me as if I’m carrying a durian.

  ‘No NE2,’ he said. ‘No exist.’

  ‘Is it a secret station?’ I ask.

  The officer makes a face like a cat that chewed a wasp. I look at my map again. There were other missing stations.

  ‘Look here!’ I persist. ‘There are missing stations everywhere! NE10 Potong Pasir, next station NE12 Serangoon. What happened to NE11’?

  ‘No NE11,’ answers the official, plainly annoyed.

  ‘I know there is no NE11,’ I retort. ‘What I’m asking is what happened to it.’ ‘

  Nothing happen,’ he repeats. ‘No exist.’

  Ah, the mysteries of the East.

  - 4 -

  I get off the metro at Raffles Place and immediately lose my bearings. It is like being parachuted into the middle of Broadgate with office blocks, hotels and shopping arcades as far as the eye can see – which isn’t far at all since the surrounding skyscrapers have elevated the horizon to neck-stretching heights. The only architectural anomaly in the pedestrianised plaza is the MRT station itself, a chalky fusion of a sultan’s palace and an English cenotaph surrounded by a so-very-Home-Counties lawn. I try to guess where north might be, but the sun isn’t helping: when Singapore gets overcast – which is almost every day – shadows disappear and everything is bathed in a dull, carceral grey. I seek a map inside the station, but the only guidance comes in the form of more prohibition signs (‘No Skateboarding’). I glance at my city plan: useless – no glimpse of sun, no shadow, no street to guide me by. Which way was the train headed to? It’s lost among the zigzag of escalators to reach the top.

  I try asking some people for directions but they are not interested in my plight. Unshaven, in shorts and sandals, I am under-dressed and look peculiar. Appearance is all in oriental cultures: as late as the early 1990s, long hair was not tolerated and some backpackers entering South East Asia were in danger of being given a forced haircut, even in laid-back Thailand. Long hair meant hippies; hippies meant drugs; they, as every traveller knows, lead to the death penalty in this part of the world.

  Singapore has a policy of zero tolerance for drugs, which adds to its reputation as a draconian, disciplinarian dystopia: for instance, the Misuse of Drugs Act carries a mandatory death sentence for anyone found guilty of trafficking in more than 15 grams of heroin. Yet arguing against such statutes would be tantamount to trying to persuade Germans that Holocaust denial should not be a crime: this is a city where hundreds of thousands suffered in the opium dens of Chinatown. I visited one of them, at 26 Pagoda Street. It dates from the 1840s and offered a two-in-one: you paid for and got to enjoy both your pipe and your girl at the same time. The British authorities didn’t just tolerate opium distribution; they had a monopoly on the drug whose Chinese characters signify longevity and happiness. It was anything but: 80 per cent of all rickshaw pullers were addicted and emaciated their bodies to an early death. Opium dens were abolished after World War Two, but in one of those twists so common in Singapore public life, the addicts weren’t forced to turn cold turkey and obtained their drugs discreetly well into the sixties.

  I look as if I have just emerged from such a den, as I try to approach a European-looking gentleman in a three-piece suit and a laptop case. To my consternation, he doesn’t slow down but shrugs his shoulders gallically and ignores me in his rush: out of all refusals his hurt more. I feel as if I have to relearn to walk in public, for, as befits the Central Business District, it’s busy, busy, busy. Everyone is in a hurry and if you turn unexpectedly, somebody’s bound to charge into you. My sling seem to attract knocks: passers-by stare at it in Darwinian critique, perplexed by the ang moh who should have known better than to go travelling since he’s so demonstrably a cripple. They miss no opportunity to underline the message by colliding against my arm as hard as they can. Only by trial and error and doubling up on my own trail a couple of times do I end up outside the Fullerton, one of the most distinctive city hotels, next to a life-size street sculpture of a huddle of men in formal Western suits and ties holding umbrellas. They are identical to the business clientele which has been frequenting the Fullerton since 1999 when it was converted into a hotel. During my first visit so many years ago, this neoclassical building with its tall Doric columns standing on a thick, rusticated base housed the Central Post Office. I have to admit that hote
lhood becomes it.

  It is here, on the other side of Cavenagh Bridge that lies in front of the Fullerton that the Chinese bumboats used to anchor, side by side with the double-ended Indian tongkangs and the squat, flat-bottomed twakow vessels easily distinguished by the red and green eyes which were superstitiously painted on their bows. The town was truly an entrepôt, an Emporio Rafflesi: goods were brought in, exchanged and then resold. I try to imagine the worn, musty smell of foodstuffs like beef, flour, wheat and wine; the cold inorganic odours of iron, lead and copper; the pungency of spices such as pepper, mace and nutmeg; the blunt aroma of camphor; the stench of hides and gutta-percha; the disorienting fragrance of coffee, tea and opium. I take a big breath, but only petrol fumes scorch my nostrils.

  My eyes focus horizontally in the distance. I can make out the clocktower of the Victoria Theatre.

  There, the Padang…

  The self-anointed ‘Grandest Society of Merchants in the Universe’ didn’t know what to do with Raffles. Punching above his weight in terms of breeding, he was consorting with royalty. Still in his thirties, he was over-promoted and in the directors’ eyes hugely overrated: although his administration in Java had been popular locally, he had cost the company good money.