Singapore Swing

by John Malathronas

  Lee Kuan Yew was disturbed at the course these attacks were taking, so he called a conference with Malay groups on 19 July to discuss any grievances including any perceived slights from the government’s slum clearance and tower block building operations – to be fair, this was a policy common in the sixties worldwide. A fiery demagogue and UMNO member, Syed Jaafar called his own conference a week earlier than Lee’s. On 12 July he delivered an acerbic speech at the New Star cinema in Pasir Panjang in front of huge crowds that included representatives and observers from Malay bodies, and fifteen Alliance members from Kuala Lumpur. Syed Jaafar started by claming that Malays had been oppressed subtly or blatantly in Singapore and, like Mark Antony at Caesar’s funeral, he spread doubt by refutation: ‘I do not want to accuse Lee Kuan Yew of being a communist, but I feel suspicious.’ By the time he’d finished, cries to kill Lee were being heard.

  It is hard to think of Lee Kuan Yew as a model of restraint given his latter-day defamation writs against dissenting voices, but during that period he was as patient and composed as a Vestal Virgin. This, in spite of headlines in the Malay press that ranged from overt threats ‘If some undesirable incidents should happen… Lee Kuan Yew should not blame the Malays, but he himself should take full responsibility,’ to Mohammed-cartoonsstyle agitation: ‘Teacher forced student to smell pork!’ Despite all this the government-sponsored conference went well with most of the invited organisations attending. Lee himself was subjected to a grilling which he handled skilfully and everything appeared to be on track again.

  Two days later, on 21 July, a celebration of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed was due to be held at the Padang. It was to prove the match that was thrown into the tinderbox.

  The Nadezhda Russian Restaurant is the only incongruity on Arab Street where the live-above-the shop terraced houses are distinguished only by the dividers between their sloping roofs and their deep mauve, pink and peach colours: there is Makkah Trading, Aladdin’s World of Silk, Haj Textiles and Batik Exchange (Authorised Money Changer). This is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Singapore, demarcated to a community of Bugis that had already established themselves by the Kallang river and later settled by Arab merchants. The Bugis were seafaring folk from Sulawesi who regularly traded in the Indonesian archipelago. The cry ‘The Bugis are coming!’ created a frenzy of anticipatory mayhem in the Singapore docks among peddlers, provisioners and prostitutes. But in other places of the archipelago the reputation of the Bugis was one of bloodthirsty cut-throat pirates: the sight of their slender, pointed praus on the horizon was enough to lead a whole kampong into flight. I like the plausible but unproven theory that their name has been forever immortalised in the expression ‘the boogie man is coming’.

  Today’s eponymous MRT station at Victoria Road is where the fearsome-looking Bugis used to make merry until the early hours of the morning. It has replaced what some have called ‘the best-known tourist attraction in Singapore until the late 1970s’: a grid of narrow streets full of food and drink stalls through which transvestites and transsexuals openly paraded their wares. It is not widely known that in the 1970s and 1980s Singapore was a centre of excellence for gender reassignment surgery. Professor Shan Ratnam, Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the National University Hospital of Singapore, pioneered the first Asian sex change back in July 1971 and, until his retirement 25 years later, he performed something like 500 such operations. In 1973 – astonishingly for such a homophobic society – the Singapore government allowed transgendered individuals to marry with their new identities and the change of sex to be denoted in their ID cards, a normalisation that would wait for another thirty years to be effected in the UK.

  With such, let’s say, infrastructure behind it, Bugis Street and its mak nyah became the porn centre of the town for decades. It is Saint Jack territory, a novel where the ‘Sin’ in Singapore is vividly described by Paul Theroux. A viewer of the 1978 Peter Bogdanovich film, based on the book and shot on location for six months, can catch a glimpse of a seedy underside – less Padang and more Pat Pong – that has ceased to exist. The film was made under false pretences and when it came out The Straits Times reported that the authorities ‘were aghast at its portrayal of Singapore as a fleshpot of a country, rife with gangsters, pimps and prostitutes’. Needless to say, the resulting movie has been banned since.

  I don’t know whether it was the book or the film or the feeling that they’d been had that led the government to sanitise the area, but they have succeeded. The bulldozers and cranes arrived in October 1985 and produced a pedestrianised, covered bazaar with narrow lanes and an endless two-way flow of people where it is difficult to walk with a daypack, let alone sashay in high heels, hair extensions and a 36D bra. Two-dollar cheap watches killed the transgender trade.

  Or rather, pushed it elsewhere.

  The origin of the July riots of 1964 was much debated at the time, but now that the non-partisan diaries of the western high commissioners in Singapore have been published, a general consensus has emerged. On 21 July 1964, 20,000 Muslims gathered at the Padang for the Mohammed Day celebrations. Inflammatory leaflets were distributed (‘Before the blood of Malays flows on Singapore soil, it would be better to see the blood of the Chinese flooding the country.’) and provocative speeches were made by UMNO officials conflating ethnicity and religion: ‘It is clear that Allah does not stop Muslims to be friendly with non-Muslims as long as they do not drive them out of their homes and disturb their religion.’

  At 4 p.m. a parade started with the Malaysian head of state and other personages leading the way to Lorong 12 in Geylang. As the marchers moved on, they became rowdier and rowdier. Shops started closing their shutters in advance of the procession. Just before 5 p.m., a Chinese federal constable saw two Malay youths throw an ice cream at a Chinese cyclist but did not interfere; he kept an eye on them, instead. Soon after, half a dozen of their friends broke off from the march. He told them to join up. One of them refused and pushed him away. Twenty-odd Malays ran over and surrounded the constable shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’. A second, Chinese, policeman rushed to his colleague’s aid.

  The group of protesters swelled to fifty. A third constable, a Malay, tried to calm down the demonstrators but failed. At 5.15 he ran into a coffee-shop to call for reinforcements.

  It was then that the two Chinese policemen were set upon. The first one was jostled and kicked until he disappeared under the legs of the crowd. The second one, bleeding from a gash in his head, ran into a bicycle shop on Kallang Road. Before the – Chinese – proprietor could close the door, the mob had smashed their way in and started beating him up, too. He eventually broke free and escaped through a door at the back.

  By 5.30 p.m. there were scuffles all along Geylang Road. Police cordons formed and the crowd broke through. By 7.30 p.m. clashes were occurring on Queen Street, Victoria Road, North Bridge Road, Jalan Besar and Palmer Road. Military assistance was sought: the British put the Gurkhas on alert, but wisely stayed out of the melee. At 8.15 p.m. an American diplomatic car had its windscreen smashed by a hail of stones. At 9.30 p.m. a curfew was imposed. By then 178 persons had been injured and four had been killed. At 10.45 p.m. Lee Kuan Yew spoke on the radio in Malay, Mandarin and English and appealed for calm.

  The lifting of the curfew at 6 a.m. next morning was like a green light to a wave of new inter-ethnic clashes. Federal ministers flew in for a show of solidarity but turned down the offer of a joint broadcast with Lee. The curfew was re-imposed at 11.30 a.m. but widely ignored. The Chinese were hitting back: Geylang was ablaze. The police went on a pre-emptive strike and started arresting Triad members, suspected of being behind the retaliatory attacks. The second day of rioting was worse than the first: 179 injured, 11 killed.

  On the third day there were reports that 4,000 Chinese were being organised for battle at Kampong Chai Chee. A call for jihad was made by an imam to avenge the alleged massacre of a certain Sheikh Osman and his family. The sheikh – shaken– appeared on tele
vision to dispel the rumours. Moderate community leaders scoured the streets to calm down their brethren. They slowly succeeded: clashes were down but continued sporadically, fed by the rumour mill, until 7 August. The final toll was 23 dead, 454 wounded and 2,568 arrested. More was to come: at 8.50 p.m. on 2 September, a Chinese was hit by a stone thrown by two Malays while travelling on his scooter at Kampong Amber and sparked off the September Riots. Eleven days later, 13 more people were dead, 106 injured and 1,439 arrested.

  The political fallout was volcanic. The PAP wanted an enquiry, certain of the UMNO’s guilt in precipitating the riots by exporting their racial politics to Singapore. The Alliance, on the other hand, mocked the PAP’s non-sectarian claims: it was on its turf that the riots had started. Relations between Abdul Rahman and Lee Kuan Yew turned from frosty to downright polar.

  - 22 -

  Those who think Singapore is not Asia but a precocious corner of the First World, should come to Geylang on a Saturday night. Here, at last, you can find the hustle and bustle of the Far East and catch a glimpse of a non-airconditioned Singapore. Amusingly, it doesn’t feel hot any more; a welcome breeze cools me down. Maybe it is the multitude of fans or maybe the stifling heat elsewhere is actually generated from the scores of air conditioners. After all, what do they do but take the heat from the inside and pile it on the outside? With all its air conditioners at full blast, the carbon footprint of tiny Singapore must look like Australia.

  In Geylang people travel pillion on scooters Bangkok-style in the main drag – which, unlike Chinatown or the CBD, is choc-a-bloc at midnight – or lean timidly on railings next to the numerous karaoke hostess clubs. Over at the New Shanghai, a girl sits bored on a stool by the door. The prices outside prepare you for what to expect: Martell VSOP $148, vodka $98, Black Label $128. At every corner a big TV is blasting the Kop’s noise with snippets of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. Men almost invariably men – are watching a Liverpool–Chelsea game with half-litre Carlsberg bottles at a hand’s reach. There are people everywhere: squatting, sitting on steps, talking on their mobiles, drinking beer, hustling. I see one Chinese guy with a pigtail and my shock is such – pigtails having gone out of fashion ever since the Manchu dynasty went to pot that I stare at him so intensely, he feels my gaze on his neck and turns around. He is a mean motherfucker with a devil’s tattoo on his shoulder, so I split.

  For the first time I see dogs in the streets. They are lying down, plainly unafraid of the dogcatcher. I wonder if they have been licensed after careful vetting of their pedigree. I take a look at them: nah – they wouldn’t even be allowed in the toilets at Crufts. They are – goodness me – strays! How come the first three days of each month have not yet been set aside for their extirpation?

  It’s on the sidestreets, the lorongs, that it gets really exciting. In front of Hotel Fragrance Emerald on Lorong 6, the girls are at the lobby with their hot pants, high heels and handbags, the standard uniform of the prostitute from Southampton to Shanghai. Hotel 6 opposite advertises its rates: $12 transit, $40 overnight. The girls there are bold enough to parade outside – or perhaps the air con is full blast and they are certainly not dressed for arctic conditions. Over at the New Darlene Hotel at Lorong 8 they are undercutting the prices: $10 transit and $37 overnight. I’m surprised that this lorong faces a mosque; the locals must not give a damn. Look, a family of three is heading for Hotel Fragrance Emerald. The mother covers her little girl’s face with her palm when they reach the parading female flesh by the elevator. The prostitutes, unruffled, separate to let them pass.

  On Lorong 10 by Hotel Fragrance Sapphire – there is a Hotel Fragrance Pearl further on, in what seems like Starbucks-style saturation market coverage – someone talks to me: ‘Hello John,’ he says. He can’t know my name; does he understand the connotations of the epithet? A man opposite winks at me. Is he a pimp or rent? I decide he is a pimp; not long after, I see him being followed by a Western gentleman of some age to the elevator of Hotel Fragrance Sapphire where the girls are waiting.

  There is a whiff of danger in the air. As I try to cut through the lorongs by the back alleys, a Chinese guy with a fully-tattooed torso stops me with a hand signal. There is a makeshift pile of tyres and large green bin containers placed on the street to form something looking remarkably like a barricade. I try to look through by squinting. The alley is seeped in total darkness, but it attracts far too big a crowd for my liking. I walk back up to Geylang Road and look up to the first floor of a shophouse. The light is on and the windows are wide open, their frames set against a rickety building that wears its mould like a badge of courage. I can make out three sets of twin bunk beds. Washing lines hang inside the room; a drying pair of trousers dangles deeper inside. Topless, sweaty males look down onto the street. I stumble against a beer bottle.

  On Lorong 22, the streetwalkers are distinctly more corpulent and less fragrant than the sweet, soft souls I saw earlier. I wonder whether the further out you go, the older and uglier the prostitutes become. I look at my map: Geylang Road reaches all the way to Lorong 44; there must lie the sight of Medusa. Although extremely curious, I decide not to tempt fate and risk turning into stone. I turn back instead and browse the window of an adult shop which takes the usual pains to state that no porn is available. What is in stock instead are various dildos, creams, natural aphrodisiacs and female hygiene products, though I doubt whether the claims of one particular feminine cream (lightens vaginal pigmentation using French nano-technology) would pass EU advertising standards.

  For the first time in my life I feel invisible. Although I am the only Westerner, people are not interested in me. It is Saturday night, they have worked goddess knows how many hours, and they are here to eat, drink and socialise. Everyone is either sitting watching the football or staggers by me looking down, as if ashamed of the state of their neighbourhood. You oughtn’t be, I think. At least you’re real. Look, a car is parked against a sign showing a car being towed away for those who can’t read English: ‘No Parking at All Time’. Someone smokes underneath a ‘No Smoking’ sign. The people seem to be giving two fingers at the rules and regulations that mire this city. I bet some are even chewing gum.

  There, at last, dirt, glorious dirt. Rush to Geylang Lorong 14 to see it before it is pedestrianised over: a muddy field with puddles of water and unkempt trees with rubbish strewn against them.

  Trust me to find the dirt in Singapore once more.

  The cab driver who takes me home is as garrulous as his colleagues the world over.

  ‘There is no special red-light district before,’ he tells me in his beautiful, glorious Singlish. ‘Five year ago, there is bro-tel,’– rhymes with hotel – ‘all over town. In Chinatown where you live, there is bro-tel. Worehouser we call ’em. But government not renew the license, lor. Except in Geylang. So red-light district move to Geylang. But now too much. You have streetwalker walking lai dat. You are talking girl come from all over the world, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam. China girl there is a lot, lah – even Russia. There is girl from Russia in Geylang! They come as tourist, government can’ do anything, ah?’

  I tell him that the locals seem to accept it: ‘I saw a family walk into one of those hotels with the girls standing outside’.

  He is not surprised. ‘I carry a family from Malaysia. I ask ’em why you stay in red-light district? They tell me agent book for them, they don’ know. Those who been to Singapore they know hotels operate short term only. We call them fuckshop.’

  ‘I bet there are many backpackers who wouldn’t mind if they were only paying $40 a night.’

  The taxi driver doesn’t answer, not versed in backpacker psychology. ‘

  I was also surprised about the life in the streets,’ I continue. ‘It’s buzzing.’

  ‘On main road many many different kind of food. Young people go there.’

  ‘But there are a lot of rundown areas. How come they have escaped the clutches of the government?’

  ‘They al
l private-own,’ so government can’ do anything. Up to individual owner, but who upgrade? No value. Red-light district wan’ to buy? Bank don’ lend money. No value.’

  The explosive lifting of the lid of Pandora’s race box scared everyone in equal proportion and some kind of truce was established: inflammatory pronouncements, especially on the position of the Chinese in Malaysia and the Malays in Singapore were voluntarily restrained. But when the time came for the first all-Malaysian budget, all hell broke loose once again. Malaysian Finance Minister, Tan Siew Sin, was a member of the Malay Chinese Party who stood to lose most if the PAP made inroads in Malaysia. So when he needed to raise extra taxes for the defence expenditure – these were the days of the Konfrontasi – he imposed a payroll and turnover tax that hit Singapore’s commerce hard; it was estimated that the island would shoulder forty per cent of the extra financial burden. When Lee complained, Tan retorted that the PAP was a party with a strategy to share the wealth of the haves with the have-nots. He mocked Singapore’s willingness to be a fully-fledged member of Malaysia. Who should the government tax? Rich Singapore merchants or poor Malay tin miners?

  This, of course, is the crucial question that defines the cohesion of a country. Taxation is only acceptable when its distribution is acknowledged as just. Notions of justice are normally confined to a particular group, be it a gang patch (‘hey, only our drug dealers are allowed in this club’), a village (‘those city folk are buying holiday homes and pushing up the prices’) or, more broadly, a nation: when the SNP in Scotland campaigns for independence, references to ‘their’ North Sea oil abound. Under different circumstances, Singaporeans might have accepted the tax burden to raise the standard of the Malay miners, but in riot-fogged times mob passion is never clear-sighted or visionary. When, during his speech at the opening of Parliament, the Malaysian Head of State made a pointed reference to ‘threats from within’, both parties knew it was time for divorce.