Singapore Swing

by John Malathronas

  It stands for retail culture.

  Nowhere is this more true than in Singapore where consumerism is a marker of identity. Hong Kong may be the cultural hub of the Far East; Thailand its pleasure beach; Japan its locomotive; mother China the giant political spring – but Singapore is its marketplace. This lozenge-shaped island has been described as ‘a shopping mall with UN representation’ and sometimes the sarcasm almost rings true. As Prime Minister Goh admitted during his National Day rally speech in 1996, ‘Life for Singaporeans is not complete without shopping’. What truly seems to unite the kaleidoscope of its communities is their love of the iPod and there’s no better place to buy one than Orchard Road.

  This stretch used to be an area with gambier and pepper plantations, Singapore’s soil not being conducive for the cultivation of much else. When Raffles arrived, there were already such holdings on the island belonging to a Chinese family. It was their estate that Captain James Pearl bought in May 1822 – on today’s Pearl’s Hill – and started cultivating pepper; gambier vines lead a symbiotic existence with pepper trees entwining themselves around them and providing natural fertiliser. Gambier is not a shrub that gets a name-check in Gardeners’ World but as a component of a well-known regional upper it is quite valuable; chewing a combination of betel seeds, gambier paste and tobacco wrapped in leaves soaked in lime brings a euphoric rush. There is a rather awkward side-effect: the betel nut turns the tongue and gums crimson red so an addict looks at best Ebola-diseased and at worst an extra out of a John Carpenter zombie spectacular as many a hapless rickshaw driver, who’s driven his tourist clients away just by smiling, has found.

  The desirability of gambier was high in the tanning industries – and no, I don’t mean a beauty product to make you bronze under the sunbed: it was used to dye fabric what we now call the colour khaki. Singapore was the major world producer of gambier until its poor soil was depleted and the growers moved to Johore where by the 1890s there were reportedly 4,000 such plantations. Gambier continued to be one of Singapore’s main exports until the explosion of the tin and rubber trade in the Malay peninsula took over and eclipsed everything else. The name of the street today originates after the move of the plantations out of Singapore and the emergence of fruit tree cultivation in the area.

  As Orchard Road was close enough but out of town, it was an ideal place to bury the dead. Stephen King cognoscenti might relish the factoid that an old Chinese graveyard stood where the Mandarin Hotel is situated; that Indonesians from Bencoolen were buried in the premises of the Grand Central Hotel; or that a Jewish burial ground was demolished in the mid-1980s to make way for Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. The only reminder of the Orchard Road of old is the Thai Embassy at number 370, still housed in the premises acquired in the 1890s by His Majesty Rama V, King of Siam, immortalised in the musical The King and I. Hats off to their defiance, given that Thailand’s balance of payments would skyrocket should they ever decide to let the developers get their hands on the 18,000-plus square metre estate. Because, as anyone who has been dwarfed among the back-to-back hotels and shopping centres can attest, there is nothing left on Orchard Road of fruit or gambier any more.

  I walk around aimlessly, mentally groping the shadowy image of Singapore as I remember it, but it is not the opaqueness of my imperfect memories that frustrates me. It was not far from here, on Bencoolen Street, that I stayed in a cheap hostel seventeen years ago. Nothing remains of it or the Chinese family hotels around it. I splashed out for dinner at the Omar Khayyam on Hill Street, dubbed as ‘the best Indian restaurant in the world’ by more than one travel guide. I feel righteous indignation when I can’t find any trace of it among the hotels and malls that have jumped up in its place.

  The face of modern Singapore bears the stamp of a single man more than any other country in Asia outside Mao’s China. It has been moulded in the image of Lee Kuan Yew –‘Harry’ to his friends – one of Time magazine’s 20 most important Asian leaders of the twentieth century. (Twenty? He easily slips into the top five). Singapore may owe its genesis to Raffles but its present character, appearance and constitution is the work of Lee Kuan Yew who led the city through decolonisation, union with Malaysia and, ultimately, independence to its current status as a global financial centre.

  The verdict of the future historian will be tough, for Lee has been a ruthless, highly intelligent autocrat but one with the right ideas. Incorruptible, sharp-witted and abrasive, he is, like his city, a mass of contradictions. British-educated, his brand of dirigiste policies would not be out of place in centralised France. Hakka Chinese by descent, he abhorred the tribal politics of his neighbours. Democratic-minded, he didn’t desist from making a deal with the communists in the early life of the PAP party he founded. He offered statutory seats to the opposition when there was a danger that his party would monopolise parliament using the first-past-the-post system, but he also sued persistent critics to bankruptcy and political oblivion. He created a powerful executive apparatus and imposed draconian laws – such as detention without trial– but he then used these powers judiciously and sparingly. He has created a state where capitalism reigns supreme, tempered with a programme of income redistribution unique in Asia. And in the true spirit of someone who does his job well, he has not made himself indispensable: in 1990 he stepped down to oversee his legacy as ‘senior minister’ under the primeministership of Goh Chok Tong.

  If there’s been a constant in Singapore’s PAP governments, it is that nothing stands still and everything is mutable. A slip road is required for a new highway? The bulldozers come to flatten any houses standing in the way (Woodsville Road for the Pan Island Expressway). A new metro line is extended? Demolish hospitals and schools if need be (Youngberg Hospital and St Andrew’s school for the North-East MRT Line). To us it may appear heavy-handed; to Asians, used to paternalistic rule, it comes as naturally as haggling. At least Singapore is keeping some nature reserves and colonial structures; if you want to witness some good old wholesale destruction of the past, let alone the environment, go to Hong Kong.

  And so it is with Orchard Road: it has become a triumphal avenue to Mammon with monuments to the deity erected along its path; from the Forum to Plaza Singapura, I have never attempted to walk all the way in between in one go. Expats flock to the Tanglin Mall for the clothing and large sizes on offer, the bookworms to Borders in the seven-storey glass cone of Wheelock Place, the lower-income workers to the Lucky Plaza where they can bargain to their heart’s desire, the music-lovers to the Heeren that boasts the largest HMV shop in Asia and the trendy to the designer boutiques of the Paragon: everybody has their own favourite mall on Orchard Road.

  Maybe it’s the name, maybe it’s the convenient location next to the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station, maybe it’s the fact that it was there that I bought my first-ever SLR and started a love affair that has lasted for two decades now, but for me, the greatest and the best shopping mall is Plaza Singapura. At least its gigantism has ensured it still exists after so many years. Once inside, you live in a parallel universe populated by the weird (Thai Bysr fashions), the mildly scary (Trumpet Praise Christian bookshop) and the sublime (Italian Gelare Café). From the digital world of Motorola gadgetry to New Age B-Hive honey, the Plaza exists in a warped space time continuum and even getting back to ground control – sorry, level – is laborious as the basements seem to grow as deeply as the upper floors.

  By Bas Brasah Road, I notice the clocktower of an ivory-white, well-proportioned simple church with a tiled roof over a double-scalloped Roman moulding. It belongs to the Presbyterians and its history can be traced to 1829 when the Reverend Keasbury of the London Missionary Society arrived in Singapore. Originally built in 1878 but extended and remodelled half-a-dozen times, it is thankfully still coherent as an architectural whole despite the demolition of its manse in 1936. Unlike St Andrew’s, the Anglican cathedral, or the Catholic Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, its simplicity is dwarfed by the developments around it and is almost blotted out by
the loud, brassy colours of the adjoining YMCA building.

  It’s locked. A church that’s locked?

  My curiosity aroused, I walk across to the administration office expecting to meet a dour Scot and meet instead a dour Chinese who barks at me ‘Yes?’ When I tell him I would like to see the inside of the church, he gives me a quizzical look, throws a bunch of keys to an attendant and growls: ‘Show him in!’

  I really don’t know why I went to so much trouble, because I kind of knew what to expect. This is a part of Singapore that will be forever Scotland: pews, pews and more pews, not even made comfortable by the presence of a cushion. They’re all facing a giant organ which dominates the interior like a giant squid in an aquarium. There is nothing of artistic merit inside which is how Presbyterians want it, I suppose.

  I notice another locked glass door at the back. I walk straight there and stand in front. The attendant follows me grumbling and opens it. It appears to be shielding a few marble plaques on the wall.

  ‘In Memory of Major Ivan Lyon DSO MBE Temporary Lieutenant Colonel, The Gordon Highlanders, killed whilst leading a raid against Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour October 1944, aged 29 years.’ And then in smaller letters: ‘This tablet is erected by his sorrowing wife and family.’

  Oh, yes, the third definer of this city: Raffles, Lee Kuan Yew and World War Two.

  Back in Plaza Singapura, I find Coffeemania quite easily and very nice it looks too except for a gang of teenage schoolgirls whose gaze is immediately fixated on my sling. I walk to the old lady at the counter to make an order like one would do in Starbucks.

  ‘I’ll have a large cappuccino,’ I say, ever conservative in the face of too much choice.

  The old lady smiles. ‘Please take seat,’ she says.

  ‘Don’t I order now?’

  The Chinese hate saying yes or no; they pummel you into submission through repetition.

  ‘Please take seat and waiter will come for order,’ she smiles again.

  Under the questioning glances of the girls, I walk to a single table in a corner. A waitress appears out of nowhere and writes down my order in a pad. Then she gives it back to me.

  ‘What do I do with this?’ I ask.

  She points at the old lady at the counter where I’ve just been. The girls around me hide their faces in their palms.

  ‘But I’ve just been there and she sat me down,’ I complain. ‘Can’t you give her the order yourself?’

  The waitress looks back at me, not without some fright– complaining is so unConfucian – walks to speak to the old lady and returns. ‘

  You must go there,’ she repeats anxiously and points at the order which says ‘SELF ORDER’.

  I am mildly annoyed but fascinated enough to see the choreography to the end. I go to the counter in the midst of what I perceive to be choked giggling by the teenagers and give the order sheet to the old lady who is to finally brew my coffee. Or so I hope.

  ‘Must have table number,’ she says, after having a good look at it.

  If it wasn’t for Chang, I would have left Coffeemania there and then…

  Chang is the barman’s friend who had flirted with me at Backstage a few nights back. He also has a European name, but somehow he looks more of a Chang than a Reggie which brings back images of East End heavies fighting over a spilled pint. Mind you, as I said back then, Chang’s appearance is atypically Chinese: he is tall, broad-shouldered, with more than a hint of that sensuous Malay mouth where his lower lip protrudes as if he’s forever waiting for the host from a padre. He has that signature divine smile; I haven’t found any people in the world whose faces sparkle more cheerfully than the inhabitants of the Malay peninsula. This is our first date on his time off, and we are treading the first discreet steps in a well-rehearsed opening. If conversations were dances, then ours would be entering the slow adagio in a careful pas de deux. It is clear he has noticed my sling, but he probably thinks it improper to comment at such a delicate stage of our lock step.

  Chang is a student and is working as a waiter to supplement his income.

  ‘Student of what?’

  ‘Marketing,’ he replies with a complete lack of Singlish. ‘I wanted to study film and drama but my parents were dead against it. You Cow-casians,’ – I cringe – ‘are more tolerant than the Chinese.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘For example, allowing your kids to study what they want.’

  ‘Well, it is the Brits who gave you those anti-gay laws,’ I counter.

  ‘But you moved on. Here we are rooted in the past. I must marry. I must have a son. I must not bring shame to my parents. I keep hearing “Your father’s getting sixty when are you going to bring him grandchildren?” Here, you mustmarry by thirty. And you never divorce.’

  ‘Are you going to marry then?’

  Chang shakes his head.

  ‘It’s my life. Why should I do what anybody else wants?’

  ‘But you did study what your father wanted.’

  For the first time I notice a whiff of helplessness about him.

  ‘What was the alternative? Can’t get through my studies on my own. With marketing I can go into advertising which is more creative. I could maybe direct an ad. Or I may get a chance to go abroad – to study further.’

  He takes a short breath.

  ‘But I did tell my girlfriend. I broke up with her last year.’

  I am impressed. ‘That must have been very brave. How did she take it?’

  ‘She loves me, she said so. I do, too, in a way. But why should I marry a woman and make her unhappy?’

  ‘That is a very Western thing to say.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  I have to think a bit before I can formulate my ideas coherently. ‘Singapore made its fortune from globalisation. But that doesn’t just mean that I can come here and sell you things or that you can come to the UK to study or buy bonds in the Japanese stock exchange. It also means exposure to other cultures and ideas.’

  Chang’s intelligent face looks puzzled.

  ‘What you just said – “Why should I do what my father wants?” – is against the Confucian ethos. What happened to filial piety and all that? The first and most important tenet is to marry and have offspring.’

  ‘I love and respect my parents, but it’s my life in the end,’ he says.

  Ah, individualism. There goes Singapore’s esprit d’état: when a patriarchal, authoritarian society is sacrificed in the shrine of capitalism then all kinds of doors are open for uninvited guests to come and settle themselves on the sofa. Family ties and connections become less important as the relentless pursuit of personal profit fetishises the quest for individual happiness, come hell and high water.

  I like Chang. I want to latch on to someone for reassurance in this city that keeps challenging my convictions. And I need somebody to cheer me up, because – well, let’s say I haven’t been too candid about this damned sling.

  I touch his knee under the table, and he gives me one of those smiles.

  - 12 -

  A combination of chronic over-reliance on word-of-mouth for news from mainland China, a determined distrust of administrations elected, unelected or colonial and a flair for the bizarre have turned South East Asia, and Singapore in particular, into an urban legend jungle. They range from the barely believable: babies born on a flight will get free air-travel for the rest of their lives (what? even on Virgin?); to the utterly fnarr-fnarr: the worst job in the world belongs to a guy masturbating animals in the Singapore Zoo; or the downright distasteful: don’t eat shellfish after the tsunami because they feasted on the drowned human bodies and can pass on the ‘Zulican’ virus. (You can laugh now, but in Chinatown the price of lobster plummeted in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami tragedy). For the record, expectant mothers: no such IATA regulation exists; bestiality practitioners: solitary animals in the Singapore Zoo need no help with self abuse; and, hey, hypochondriacs: what was the name of that virus again?
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  In this vein, you’d have thought that only those alien abductees in America’s Midwest rectangular states would actually believe that The X Files was a documentary, but, no, you’d be wrong: in Singapore you can join SPI, the Society of Paranormal Investigators. Its members visit abandoned old forts that are said to be haunted (verdict: no ghosts); they check out famous apparitions (verdict: they don’t exist) and they examine the rumours that Haw-Par Villa’s extraordinarily vivacious statues used real body parts. Maybe it is them and not Glaxo who should research how people can sense when someone is staring at them from behind.

  The taxi driver stops. ‘Haw-Par Villa,’ he announces.

  We can’t see it, because there are street scaffolding diversions. There is a sign with the now expected singular, ‘Pedestrian This Way’; except that it has one arrow pointing to the right and another pointing to the left. To be doubly Zen, there is also one arrow pointing at both directions, maybe to paraphrase the Buddhist maxim ‘There are many ways to the villa, all equally valid, and it’s up to you to find your own.’

  Upon first glimpse of those Haw-Par Villa statues, one is forgiven for supposing that the grotesque was an invention of the Chinese imagination. I had to keep reminding myself that no, it was Prince Eugene of Savoy, homosexual aesthete, military genius and scourge of the Ottoman Turks, whose own grotto in Vienna’s Belvedere Palace was decorated with such, well, style, that he ended up coining the term, denoting an over-the-top caricature. It took two hundred years for Gaudí and his creations to top grotesque with ‘gaudy’, but only two decades for the Haw-Par Villa to surpass both – I mean, there’s kitsch and there’s Chinese kitsch. Singapore’s authorities are so embarrassed to share the same soil with one of the prime examples of true bad taste that the site is downplayed in official brochures. As a result, the existence of this pinch-yourself monument to tackiness has remained a cult secret, and its style does not yet have a name. I suggest Haw-Haw.