Durians Are Not the Only Fruit

by Wong Yoon Wah

  The hotel’s main entrance was on Bras Basah Road until the Japanese Occupation between 1942 and 1945, when high-ranking Japanese officers seized it for their lodgings, in the process moving the entrance to Beach Road so that it faced the sea.

  As Singapore has commenced an ambitious programme of reclaiming land and building skyscrapers, it seems that Singaporeans’ idea of their country expands and increases daily, losing sight of both the Raffles Hotel and colonialism. The seascape before the hotel that Maugham admired, the ocean breezes that Conrad enjoyed, have all vanished. In their place are the noise and pollution of busy traffic, making one want to retreat back into the building.

  • • •

  For some time, Dan Ying and I had been wanting to go to the Raffles for tea, but deep down we felt that such a setting would only be suitable if we were entertaining a foreign literary guest.

  At the start of September 1981, our good friends Shen De’en, Jiang Yun, and Qi Yuanxin flew into Singapore one after another, all on holiday, and so in the span of two days, Dan Ying and I ended up accompanying them to the Raffles three times.

  The first occasion was on the afternoon of 6 September. As soon as our car entered the gates of the hotel, I had the sensation of returning to the colonial era of my childhood. It seemed uncanny that a hotel with so many rooms would have only a few parking spaces, which they didn’t charge for the use of. An Indian security guard in a khaki uniform and wooden pith helmet very politely guided us into a parking spot, after which we strode into the Renaissance-style building.

  After pacing before the entrance hall pillars for a while, we settled on a covered balcony outside the Writers Bar to have our tea. Below us was the famous Palm Garden, with its waving traveller’s palms. As I sipped my tea, I admired their giant green hands. Everyone else on the balcony or in the garden was a white person in their forties or fifties, mostly sunk in thought or reading. You wouldn’t find the chattering Japanese here, nor sultry Western women. I’d heard that almost everyone who chose to stay at the Raffles was white, and that they were here out of nostalgia, or in order to trace the histories of their ancestors who’d been here during the colonial period.

  Maugham visited Singapore frequently between 1919 and 1959, usually staying in the suite that now bears his name, on an upper floor facing the palm garden. It’s rumoured that this is where he wrote The Moon and Sixpence and Of Human Bondage. At the time, the hotel’s guests were still all white people, largely on holiday from the Malay peninsula or Borneo—colonial officers, planters or business managers, seeking respite from the backward, lonely existence of the interior. Maugham enjoyed chatting with them, opening his sympathetic bosom to their sad stories. Many of the tales in his Malaysian Stories and Borneo Stories were drawn from these conversations.

  Standing amongst the traveller’s palms and looking straight up, you’ll see the Coward Suite, where Noël Coward stayed during his 1968 trip to Singapore. He first visited in 1927 and frequently thereafter; his song ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ was written here. Whenever I see a white man walking beneath the hot sun, I can’t help remembering the song’s lyrics:

  At twelve noon

  The natives swoon,

  And no further work is done,

  But mad dogs and Englishmen

  Go out in the midday sun!

  • • •

  The following afternoon, after a night of tropical rain, we decided to return to Raffles Hotel, once again for a drink. This time we picked the Long Bar. In 1911, a couple called Mr and Mrs Proudlock invented a drink there, naming it ‘the million-dollar cocktail’. This drink grew popular, attracting a great many customers. Subsequently the Singapore Sling came along, composed of tropical fruit, juice and gin—a refreshing, sweet beverage with quite a kick to it, swiftly intoxicating the unwary. Maugham enjoyed many cocktails in this bar, and it was here that he read a report in The Straits Times about a British rubber plantation manager in Malaysia who had been shot dead by his lover. This was the basis of his story The Letter, which was later made into a play and a film. The million-dollar cocktail makes an appearance in this story too, where only the name of the woman has been changed to Mrs Joyce: “The trial was over by half-past twelve and when they reached the Joyces’ house a grand luncheon was awaiting them. Cocktails were ready, Mrs Joyce’s million-dollar cocktail was celebrated through all the Malay States…”

  As we took our seats, we noticed that the Long Bar’s menu really did feature a ‘million-dollar cocktail’, but while the windows looking out on Beach Road were still open, the soothing sea sounds had been replaced by the cacophony of traffic. An older waiter, perhaps noticing our discomfort and realising we were probably in search of tranquillity, suggested that we visit the Tiffin Room instead, right in the centre of the building, in the oldest part of the structure. The restaurant’s food was reputedly very famous in the early years, enrapturing all the Western guests. In 1889, Nobel Prize-winning English writer Rudyard Kipling visited Singapore, and apparently was enamoured of the Tiffin Room’s curries and other tropical dishes. He stayed at the Europa Hotel, which was demolished in 1936 to make way for the Supreme Court building, and like the Raffles, faced the beach, only 500 yards apart.

  The Tiffin Room’s curries are a variation on Indian curry. Because the original’s sharp smell and fierce heat were unsuitable for the Caucasian palate, the chef Malayanised this dish, mellowing the spices while making it more suited to Western tastes. This meal gives one the sensation of eating a Malay-influenced Western meal, with many raw vegetables, a Nanyang-style dessert, and Chinese cooking methods. This multi-cultural cuisine was a speciality of the house that swept many famous writers of the British Empire off their feet. As colonialism spread and the Union Jack seemed destined to fly over the globe forever, the British naturally wanted to see the world represented on their dinner plates too. It took me several tastes of the Tiffin Room’s curry to work out why this hotel was such a darling of the colonial-era literary set.

  In From Sea to Sea, Kipling writes: “Providence conducted me along a beach, in full view of five miles of shipping,—five solid miles of masts and funnels,—to a place called Raffles Hotel”, but then adds: “At the Raffles Hotel, the food is as excellent as the rooms are bad. Let the traveller take note. Feed at the Raffles and sleep at the Hotel de l’Europe.” Our friends burst into laughter when they heard this—they’d unwittingly taken Kipling’s advice, and were staying in a hotel about a kilometre away, on the same road, but were coming to the Raffles for their meals.

  • • •

  That evening, we were back at the Raffles again. There were more trishaws at the entrance than motorcars. Trishaws had long died out in Singapore, but were resuscitated here for nostalgic purposes, and after dark would ferry white visitors through the streets and alleys of Singapore, where they’d hopefully find the old Singapore they were seeking. The Indian trishaw drivers and security guard, seeing a gaggle of Chinese people approaching the entrance, looked at us with curiosity. Apart from the original group, we now had with us Mr and Mrs Du Nanfa, and Mr Li Xiang. I thought to myself: is it possible that we’ll spoil this little colonial idyll?

  We chose the teahouse on the lawn of the Palm Garden. The Raffles by night exuded even more of an atmosphere of the mysterious East. The long, wide corridors, with the occasional person passing by in the dusk, filled you with dread. The guests at the teahouse, apart from us, were all white, and all were utterly silent. When we remembered that we were in a historical garden, it was like the century-old palm trees were lowering their heads to stare at us, and we fell silent too, listening to insects chirping on the lawn.

  Amongst the Western guests, someone began talking about Joseph Conrad. Conrad, on his first visit to Singapore, was reading The Straits Times when he saw a story that inspired him to write Lord Jim. The people we were eavesdropping on hypothesised that this passage in Lord Jim must have been inspired by the view of the sea from the balcony above the palm garden: “Jim looked
every day over the thickets of gardens, beyond the roofs of the town, over the fronds of palms growing on the shore, at that roadstead which is a thoroughfare to the East.” But then in The Mirror of the Sea, he records that this paragraph was inspired by his 1883 stay at Far East Hospital, which was on a high hill.

  • • •

  The marvels of writers and the Raffles don’t end with the past, but continue even today, and will for as long as authors and artists continue to live in the world. In the last decade, many Western films have included some Asian content, and many of these segments seem to be shot at the Raffles. In 1978, both Hawaii Five-O’s ‘Year of the Horse’ episode and Saint Jack included quite a few scenes filmed here. The science-fiction writer Brian Aldiss visited Singapore in 1980, staying at the Raffles as well. The following year, he published Foreign Bodies, a short story collection, in which the Raffles Hotel was, once again, featured.

  Banishing Homesickness with Nanyang Curry

  AS A YOUNG man, I translated Camus’ L’Étranger into Chinese. For half a lifetime after that, I lived in countries other than my own, truly becoming an étranger, a foreigner. I love the atmosphere of unknown places, but am always afflicted with homesickness, missing the country where I was born and grew up—Malaya, which encompasses Malaysia and Singapore. Only food from Nanyang has the power to alleviate this yearning.

  So, back to the kitchen. My greatest pleasure is making dishes from my home country, a cuisine that mashes together Malay, Indian and Western influences. Chicken or fish curries are my favourite. This has additional health benefits—public sentiment about food safety has been pessimistic recently, worrying not just housewives but everyone in society, especially those of us professionals who have to eat three meals outside the home. Studies have shown that of all the elements of daily life, food is perceived as the most risky, with up to 70 per cent of people feeling at risk. Some fear eating diseased pigs, others pesticide residue. Unseen preservatives and chemicals are everywhere these days, contaminating everything from fish to cut flowers.

  Singapore and Malaysia are both multi-cultural and post-colonial societies where a variety of ethnicities of different origins intermingle. Food forms part of this complex tapestry, a place we see incoming Chinese traditions colliding with the native culture.

  The Nanyang cuisine I love cooking has gone through an acclimatisation process of its own. When I was in America and discovered that tinned sardines were extremely cheap, I’d mix them with the Malay curry powder I’d brought with me from Singapore, creating my own version of curried fish. Later on, in Taiwan, while trying to adjust to the local cuisine, I used the same curry powder to make Malay-style mapo tofu, which everyone enjoyed.

  This version of mapo tofu is practically a convenience food, ready to eat in just 15 minutes. The ingredients are simple, consisting of just two squares of ordinary tofu chopped into pieces, and half a bowl of lean minced pork, plus three tablespoons of chopped onions or shallots. My personal innovation of using Malay curry powder renders this dish milder and more fragrant than Thai or Indian curries, with their forbiddingly fierce, pungent spice.

  The recipe is simple too: dribble a little oil into a hot pan, then add the onions, curry powder, pork and tofu in that order, stirring for a couple of minutes between each addition. If it looks too dry, a little water should help everything come together. The skill here is to mix it well without breaking up the tofu too much, and not to add too much water, as the tofu will release liquid whilst cooking.

  When the pork and tofu are an even golden colour, add in some full-fat milk and mix some more. In Singapore or Malaysia, we’d normally use coconut milk at this juncture, but I’ve made this substitution for health reasons—coconut contains too much cholesterol. And in truth, it doesn’t seem to harm the taste much. A little more stirring and the dish is ready to eat. Don’t leave it on the heat for too long at this stage, or the milk will curdle.

  The finished dish is a success if you can see fragments of snow-white tofu peeping through the golden curry gravy. If not cooking for a special occasion, simply serve with some green vegetables and plain rice for a true taste of Nanyang.

  Curry powder is made up of a great number of aromatics, including cloves, cinnamon, fennel, cumin, coriander seeds, cardamom, mustard seeds, fenugreek, black pepper, ginger and chillies. Medical studies suggest that these spices are good for the heart, and my family tries to eat them at least once a week. Spicy food has antiseptic properties, and it was noticeable that at the time of the SARS outbreak, curry-eating countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand were barely affected. Recently, I saw a newspaper report that foods containing ginger can delay the onset of dementia.

  In order to dispel my homesickness for Nanyang and get rid of my étranger melancholy, I often cook this modified mapo tofu, or else curried chicken, fish curry, vegetables with curry, or Singapore fried bee hoon. In the winter, their fragrant spiciness keeps me warm, the comforting scent of curry dismissing my fears of food contamination, bringing me back to the tropical rainforests, full of those Nanyang legends that once nurtured me.

  And so I frequently leave my study to return to the kitchen, and cook up another pot of curry.

  SECTION THREE

  The Quiet Rubber Trees

  Daily-Bleeding Rubber Trees

  LIKE A RUBBER tree, my grandfather was brought to Singapore by the British, and at around the same time too. He then discovered he was extremely suited to life amongst the hills of the tropics and not only set down roots, but began to bear fruit too. My father, in his turn, was more like a second-generation rubber tree, one born and raised here who’d made his peace with the climate, a native of the land rather than a transplant.

  As a child, I too was like a rubber tree, a third-generation native of Perak’s Kinta district. If you passed over this region in an aeroplane, apart from the areas dug up for tin mining, you’d see beneath you an ocean of lapping emerald-green waves. Kinta is an important area in the great rubber nation, a borderless sea of rubber trees. Some people claim that birds flying back from the South China Sea or Malacca Strait often forget they’re travelling over land, so much does the endless expanse of rubber trees resemble the water they’ve just left behind.

  Less than three months after I was born, the entire British Straits Settlements, weakly defended, fell easily to the Japanese invaders. My entire family fled deep into the rubber jungle. My father had been English-educated from childhood and worked for the British, so he would naturally have been a target of the cruel Japanese. If not for the protection of the rubber groves, sheltered within the primeval forest of the peninsula’s central mountain range, the nine of us would have found it hard to survive those three years and eight months of occupation.

  After the war, we returned to our old home on the outskirts of a small town. A river flowed by our front door, and not far from the opposite shore, where the ground was flat, the wide rubber forest stood, a tall and silent green fortress beneath the scorching sun. Us children looked up at it daily. Before a storm, the sound of a thousand hoofbeats would come from the direction of the trees before crossing over the river. When the adults heard the rain stalking the rubber trees, they’d hurry to bring the drying laundry indoors.

  As far back as I can remember, the rubber plantations have been filled with mysteries: tigers attacking people, Japanese soldiers torturing farmers, women hanging themselves, all kinds of ghostly rumours circulating from amongst the rubber trees.

  In my third year of primary school, the rubber forest on the far shore suddenly grew cacophonous with the sound of chainsaws and trees falling to earth. A week later, the sky across the river seemed even wider, so we could actually see black smoke puffing from a distant train.

  Not long after that, I learnt through eavesdropping on the grown-ups that we’d received an order from the colonial government: all residents of the district were being moved to where the trees across the river had stood. Because the ‘mountain rats’—our nicknam
e for the Communist insurgents hidden deep in the jungle—were making use of rural folk, receiving food and donations by day and wreaking havoc at night, the British had declared a state of emergency in order to cut them off from their supplies. Everywhere outside the cities was declared a ‘black area’, and those who lived there were being moved into government-protected zones. These were called New Villages, surrounded by metal fencing and guarded by troops 24 hours a day. Everyone going in and out had to undergo a strict inspection.

  Our new home was surrounded by empty land, littered with the surviving rubber trees. There were two outside my bedroom window, and while doing my homework I often looked out at their scarred trunks. On Sundays, I’d be around to witness labourers arrive and slash their bodies with a shaa-shaa noise, after which white liquid gushed from the new wounds.

  This was when I discovered that rubber trees have to endure the knife each day, and must bleed.

  • • •

  The rubber tree contains within it a white liquid, and when the bark is broken or cut anywhere, milky sap flows out, which when allowed to dry becomes natural latex, a substance with a great many commercial uses. The utility of rubber was first discovered in Brazil, where plantation workers used apparently unscientific methods, slashing tree trunks at random, as a result of which many of the trees, unable to withstand this treatment, withered and died.

  In the early years, Singaporean and Malaysian rubber workers used the fish-bone method: with a special implement, curved like a wood-carving tool, they would reach as high up the trunk as they could and make two incisions, left and right, in the shape of a V, attaching a metal funnel like a duck’s beak at the base of the incisions. The latex oozed from the new wounds and trickled into the funnel, from where it was gathered in a ceramic cup. Each tree produced a cupful of liquid every day. Nowadays it’s more common to use just one slash, probably because the amount of latex that comes out is about the same whether from one cut or two. This is a highly skilled job, because the tree can only be slashed once a day, and the incision can’t be too deep or too shallow. In the rubber tapper’s unscientific parlance, the tree is divided into four layers: the bark, the pink flesh, the paper-thin pale green water tissue, and finally the tree’s core. The cutting tool must stop before the third layer, because latex is only contained in the second layer, the meat of the tree.