‘John,’ I said.
‘I’m Nick. Pleased to meet you,’ he says and assumes a schoolmasterish tone. ‘Singapore, dear John is surrounded by Indonesia and Malaysia, both Islamic countries. If you want to forge a distinct identity from your neighbours, you try to highlight your differences. And, if necessary, you create some.’
‘You mean –’
‘Nothing happens by chance in Singapore. Everything is the result of serious high-level debate. In the past they liked being the leader of the Asian tiger economies. In this post-9/11 world, they decided to differentiate. They want to attract creative people but creative people don’t like living in straitjackets. They like living in a tolerant, gay-friendly, open environment.’
We’re almost at the door.
I was expecting – well, I don’t know what I was expecting, but whatever it was, it wasn’t this.
Taboo is spread over two storeys. On the ground floor the DJ is spinning his funky techno, acoustically not a million miles from London’s own DTPM. A long bar on one side is staffed by more peroxide orientals. One wall by the dance floor slopes down with makeshift wooden poles and seats. It is brimming with ladyboys: effeminate, ethereal and very, very young. Well-dressed, in designer gear and thankfully low on the oxygenated follicle front, they dance suggestively or sit cross-legged femme-fatalishly. As soon as I come within their line of sight, they all smile in unison as if I were snapping at them with an imaginary camera and their pimp closes in on me. I assume he is the pimp because he is dressed in a cheap Madonna T-shirt. All the firm’s money must have gone to those embroidered D&G tops for his employees immediately behind.
‘Alone, lah?’ the pimp asks without wasting much time.
I smile, as I do when I don’t want to talk back.
‘You like boy?’ he asks me straight away and points at his flock like a shepherd at his cattle.
‘No, thanks,’ I whisper and try to move – in vain, as I have reached the most crowded section.
‘No like boy?’ he exclaims in mock surprise.
I refuse the glass of beer he offers me. I like my drink but I also like my internal organs, thank you, and I don’t want to wake up in a Kallang bathtub with one kidney missing – and when I say ‘one’ I am being optimistic.
‘No like drink?’ I hear him say but by then I have escaped to the centre of the dance floor.
Maybe it is the shock of dancing in a decent club in Singapore, maybe it is the pre-club drinks at Backstage, or maybe it is the overtures of the pimp, but I feel uneasy. Don’t get me wrong: the music is good – better than good – but I think that everyone is watching this new face in hell with his lame left arm in his pocket. I last ten minutes before I decide to take a walk. The first floor is a chillout, abuzz with polite conversation, awash with boys looking longingly into each other’s eyes, and almost aflame because the air con is busted. I attempt to open a window but they seem to have been welded shut to keep the noise in: don’t offer the police a stick with which to beat you.
This does not compute, I keep thinking as I walk downstairs: nightlife, dance music, aggressive pimps – what next? Will someone offer me drugs? But no, the death penalty hanging over a pusher’s neck like an open noose is deterrent enough for at least one decadent Western practice not to have found its way into this most upright of states.
When I buy my next drink at the long bar, I feel someone’s gaze at my neck. Scientists who question paranormal experiences should explain how people can sense within seconds when someone in the same room is staring at them. I can describe the symptoms: a warm tickle starts on the neck below the hairline, the ears itch and the Adam’s apple jumps inadvertently as a stare is transformed into an invisible caress. I wish Glaxo or Pfizer put some money into researching the subject, because then we might be able to solve the other conundrum: how to spot who it is, without looking around. In most cases we’re disappointed, anyway – why, sometimes we can be positively insulted.
I certainly am not. My man is on the small side (well, if you want to pick up Vikings, go to Sweden) but sweet. Our eyes lock and he smiles first. I smile back and, losing no time, hewalks towards me.
‘Hello,’ he says to me.
‘Hi.’
‘You sexy, sexy, SEXY man,’ he says, and I knew then he was more drunk than me.
I weigh him with a glance. He is short, thirty-ish and slightly stocky with broad shoulders and a pale, round face. His eyes are small and drooping at the outer edges – just like, just like…
‘Are you Japanese?’ I ask.
Night falls quickly on his face as if someone had closed shut a skylight above his head. ‘Japanese?’ he repeats with his voice raised. Call the orientals impenetrable if you like, but you do know when they are upset, for they bark like pit-bulls.
I realise I have some explaining to do.
‘Erm, I just said what came to my head,’ I grovel. ‘I am not a great observer of characteristics where Asians are concerned.’
‘Nobody says this to me befo’,’ he shouts.
‘I am sorry, I thought…’
‘My grandmotha’ Japanese. But I no Japanese! I, Chinese!’
‘You do look Chinese,’ I correct myself. ‘It’s me. To me everyone looks Japanese in Asia. What’s your name?’
‘My name is Dan,’ he says.
‘Hardly a Japanese name, is it?’ I laugh nervously. ‘It’s very, ermm, Chinese. Like, like –’ I stop. Dan Dare? Dan Brown? Dan Ackroyd?
‘I’m John,’ I belatedly introduce myself. ‘Glad to meet you Dan.’
And I am. Sometimes you can’t make out a genuine person in the hydra-headed pick-up falseness that permeates clubland from Soho to Singapore, but Dan’s eyes still glow with that guileless innocence that comes from within rather than without. The gallivanting of the ladyboys further down only serve to emphasise Dan’s affectionate stare as he leans at the bar; he gives my belly a warm feeling that, for now at least, only I matter in his world.
This is someone I can wear my sling in front of and not feel awkward.
‘First time in Singapore?’
‘I was here a long time ago. Long, long time.’
‘You like Singapore?’
‘I do,’ I reply. ‘There are some scenes that are difficult to forget.’
Like the songbirds.
I am the nightmare of maids everywhere and with good reason: it’s only some really major catastrophe like global thermonuclear war or a Richter scale nine earthquake that can wake me up early on a weekday, let alone on a weekend, so my room is the last one to be made. I have found that different nationalities react differently to lie-ins. In South America the maid and her friends and her friends’ friends start gossiping in a loud voice outside the door until you emerge beaten and hung over. In France and Italy they bang on the door – if you are lucky – or just barge in and feign surprise that you are still in bed and not up with the chickens to admire the Duomo/Hôtel de Ville/magnificent coastline. In Asia they leave you alone, but at a cost: they never replace items like soap or toilet paper ever again.
But that Sunday the maids were happy and pleasantly puzzled to see the hotel’s sleep demon emerge from his room before they had even started to lay down the breakfast table. See, I have grown up with tales such as that of the Emperor and his Nightingale that personify the passion of the Far East for songbirds and the bird-singing competition at Tiong Bahru was unmissable. Malays also cherish their melodies, especially those of the merbok, a zebra-striped dove that is supposed to trill verses of the Qur’an if you but hear closely. The Chinese prefer the mata puteh, the white-eyed zosterops, a tiny olive-green songster with a powerful soundbox and a distinctive white circle around the eye; the shama, a beautiful and bossy member of the thrush family with a glossy ink-black head, back and wings contrasting with an orange chest; and the sparrow-sized red-whiskered bulbul, called jambul, whose voice is as close to human whistling as can be.
I knew that bird singing contests are common
in South East Asia, but nothing had prepared me for the scale of the spectacle in the Bird Arena Café: a roof of railings with hooks on which dozens of identical 20-inch round bamboo cages were hanging, one bird per cage; competitors, almost exclusively male, sitting in a row of chairs parallel to the line of cages above, sipping a mug of coffee; waiters bringing drinks, collecting dishes and taking orders; judges walking around making notes; and spectators sitting at tables, eating– whenever Singaporeans sit down, they get pangs of hunger – or walking with necks stretched, because the cages are hung high to leave the birds undisturbed and minimise interference from man-made obstructions.
But my overwhelming memory is of the aural tapestry woven by the birds themselves – seemingly shamas on my Sunday – caressing my eardrums and imprinting their love songs into my unconscious. Yes, love songs they were, as only the male shamas sing, competing to find a mate who appreciates their musicality. And theirs was no twitter or squeak, no chirp nor chip: occasionally they sang as if with themselves as a duet, a strange a cappella tune arising from their lungs; sometimes the melodic air went on for minutes on end, its resonance lingering on for longer. I’d have liked to know what they were on about, but my even greater wish was to hear them in the wild where a mate could and would fly to them to make them content. How would a happy, satisfied shama sing as opposed to the ungratified avian choir above me laden with perpetual longing?
I am not sure if Dan has heard me recount all this, because, fortified by several beers, he has been leaning on me for the past quarter of an hour.
‘Go to yo’ place?’ he finally proposes.
I think of the signs at reception: Absolutely no guest in room after midnight.
‘I live in a hotel. They don’t allow guests after midnight.’
Dan isn’t so sure. ‘Can, lah,’ he says, which in Singlish means ‘Of course they can and will.’
The lights come on and force a decision. I could at least try to sneak him in.
Well, the native Singaporean was right: he walked into the lift while I went straight to reception to ask for my key. But no, Mr Censor, you can pass this chapter with a PG certificate: as soon as Dan lay on my bed, clothes and all, he fell asleep. This is more than I can say about me, since he turned out to be a nightmare of a sleepmate. He tossed and turned every five minutes like a crackhead in rehab; he kneed my spleen with panache; and he spread himself upon the bed as if posing for the Crucifixion.
I jump. Now he is scratching himself all over.
I push him away and look carefully. There are no marks on him, no spots, no rashes.
Except–
On his back I can see a soft, mother-of-pearl scar where an incision appears to have been made. Now that I pay attention, his body has many such scars, as if he’s suffered the death by a thousand cuts. I do not understand, and I’m uneasy with what I don’t understand.
I wake Dan up. He sits up fuzzily.
‘You were scratching – badly,’ I say to him.
‘No worry,’ he says timidly.
‘What’s going on?’
He looks dejected.
‘Before, when I was little, I had eczema,’ he says, though the pronunciation of his affliction was such that he has to write it down (‘exma’) for me to understand. ‘I am fine now but when I sleep, I scratch. No worries.’
‘Only when you sleep?’
‘Only,’ he repeats.
‘How odd,’ I murmur.
‘Odd,’ he whispers – affirmation by repetition.
‘I mean, you might bleed. Your scratching is so vigorous.’
He shows me his nails. Well trimmed.
‘I take medicine to make my skin soft. But can no’ stand in sun. Danger,’ he replies.
I sigh. ‘Can anyone sleep in the same bed as you?’
He nods.
‘Can. My bo’friend. Only he can.’
‘Your boyfriend? Where is he now?’
Dan rolls back into the sheets.
‘No mo’ boyfriend,’ he says and almost immediately falls asleep. I don’t. I can’t – not a wink.
As soon as the sun comes up, I ask him politely to leave.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE DUTIFUL SON
Unlike his nickname, Wang ‘Lucky’ Xiang, was not fortunate; for a start, he lost his mother to illness at the tender age of five. His father, toiling in the fields from sunrise to sunset, could not bring up his son alone. So, six months after his dear wife had gone to meet the Jade Emperor in His Celestial Palace, he chose to marry beautiful but wicked Zhu. In the beginning all was well, and Zhu was kind to little Lucky Wang, for she was young and healthy and would have kids of her own. But a thousand days passed and then another thousand and, like a slowly uncoiling snake, the truth crept upon Zhu: she would never become pregnant. Her husband had a child, but she would have none to call her own.
Her heart poisoned with bitterness and envy, she turned against her stepson.
She punished him for the most trivial things. When he played with other children and returned home spattered with mud, she would not serve him his bowl of rice. When he had a nightmare and his screams woke her up, he got a beating. When one day he came back from the woods with hardly any mushrooms in his basket, she locked him outside in the howling wind. And every time she whispered calumnies in his father’s ear: Wang gets into fights with other boys; Wang can’t sleep at night because he’s lazy and nods off during the day; Wang is disrespectful and doesn’t do his share of household chores. Eventually, his father, too, turned against him and the poor boy was abused and beaten by both.
Yet Lucky Wang knew that the greatest virtue in this world is xiao, filial piety. How could he complain to his father who laboured and sweated everyday so that he, Wang, could have a roof over his head and a shirt – however worn out – over his shoulders? How could he bear a grudge against his stepmother who cooked him his meals – however meagre – and warmed his father’s bed at night? So Wang kept his head down, and he patiently and uncomplainingly bore his cross.
One thousand more days passed and an unusually harsh winter set in. Deep snow covered the farm. The lakes were frozen and the small river that cut the forest in two became icily firm. It was as if life itself had gone into hibernation like the bears and the squirrels. Worse, Zhu fell ill with a fever, like Wang’s mother. To lose one wife is a tragedy, to lose two is a catastrophe. Wang’s father became a shadow of himself: he turned paler as Zhu turned more ashen in her bed and lost more and more weight as she became slowly emaciated. The family had slaughtered their last chicken weeks ago and had been on a diet of rice and water ever since. Nothing to hunt, nothing to rear, everything killed by the unrelenting frost.
Zhu was drifting in and out of a coma, while Wang and his father stood praying by her side. One morning, she opened her eyes: ‘Only eating fresh fish will cure me,’ she whispered with difficulty. ‘I saw it in my dreams.’
Her husband started weeping, for he knew then she was doomed. How could anyone go fishing in these inimical conditions? He cried so hard that he didn’t notice Wang who got up, stuffed his clothes with paper and straw to keep the cold away, and walked out silently.
Wang marched to the Emerald Lake, where, only a few months ago, he’d caught the plump carp that swam in its waters. At first he tried to dig a hole in the ice with his hands, but didn’t get far before his nails broke and his blood turned the snow red. He tried to beat through a hole with an oak branch, but the glacial hiss of the air numbed his fingers and his grip. Defeated, he lay prostate weeping and tried to melt the ice with his body heat.
As his tears fell down his cheeks, he thought he heard a distant voice: ‘Your stepmother beat you and turned your father against you and yet you are endangering your life on her behalf. Why?’
Through the mist of his tears, Wang tried to see who had been talking but in vain. ‘Who’s there?’ he shouted.
Nothing. No one.
Ever obedient, he replied: ‘Because she is a compani
on to my father. It is my duty to try and save her.’
He raised his chin and his eyes darted around trying to detect the slightest stir.
‘Who’s there?’ he shouted again.
This time, the remote voice replied.
‘Look down,’ it said.
Wang lowered his eyes and they were immediately engulfed in vapour, for his tears had driven through the ice like molten lead. They created an inch-long opening that was steaming larger by the minute, as if a coal brazier had been suspended in the middle.
And lo and behold, two large golden carp flung themselves through the hole and landed next to him flapping their gills and gasping for air. An astonished Wang stunned them with the oak branch and carried them home running at full speed to take them to his stepmother.
We don’t know what became of Zhu. The story doesn’t tell us whether she survived the winter after eating the fresh carp or whether she appreciated her stepson’s selflessness, felt ashamed and changed her ways.
That’s not the point of the story, anyway.
- 11 -
The Orient might start east of Vienna and Asia east of Istanbul, but the real Far East starts in Singapore. Once upon a time, the Orient stood for sensual mystique and untamed wilderness: impenetrable mountains, subservient females and fearless warriors surfaced during your uncharted voyage. The Orient was for the adventurous, the defiant, the slightly insane. Its appeal was its cruel unpredictability: British emissaries could be thrown down a scorpion-infested cellar at the whim of a ruler; pirates could surface and ‘rommage’ your calicoes, your camphor or even your crew; sailors and ships might disappear in the eye of a typhoon and never be heard of ever after. Then again, guests would also be defended by a clan to the last teenage boy’s breath; women respected and treated like precious jewels; and friendships forged would last a lifetime. Nowadays the Orient is mapped, its languages have been studied and its religious writings translated. It has become predictable as globalisation transports values to and fro and national values are forced to gauge their stock in the global mindplace of ideas. We now know what the Orient is about – and we should have noticed earlier, when we crossed the first bazaar.
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