Notes From an Even Smaller Island

by Neil Humphreys

  ‘Yes, dad. He could do it all, couldn’t he, dad?’

  ‘He could do it all, boy. He could shoot, head, dribble, cross, pass and he could get stuck in and tackle with the best of them.’

  ‘Better than Pelé, dad?’

  ‘Better than Pelé, boy. He could do it in all weathers: rain, sleet, snow, sun and gale force winds.’

  ‘Strange weather in Manchester, dad?’

  ‘That’s right. And I’ll tell you another thing. Never, ever, wear white towelling socks with trousers. That is bad dress sense. Never do it.’

  ‘You’re right, dad.’ I would be fighting sleep by this stage. But when he paused to smile lovingly at his pint glass, I knew my night was over.

  ‘But best of all, there’s nothing in the world like a pint of beer. You could travel the world and never get a decent, cold pint like you can in Britain. British beer is something to be proud of. No one can make beer like we can.’ He would then go and order a pint of Heineken beer, which is about as British as tulips and windmills.

  Singaporeans, by and large, are the same with food. Food is considered to be superior so it must be eaten. This is in stark contrast to the British, largely because the British know, subconsciously, that they cannot cook. To get around this failing, they will beg you not to eat their food. My mother was brilliant at this. I would bring a friend to dinner and my mum would cook a meat pie and plenty of gravy to soothe our hard palates, which would be cut to ribbons by her potatoes with the razor-sharp edges. She would place the food on the table, which I knew had taken her an hour to prepare, and order my guest not to eat it.

  She would say, ‘There you go, Ross. Now if there’s anything you don’t like, just leave it on the side of your plate. Don’t be shy.’

  ‘Okay, thanks, Sue,’ my friend Ross would reply, raising his cutlery eagerly, blissfully ignorant of the bloody massacre that awaited the roof of his mouth. Then my dear mother would start again.

  ‘I mean it, Ross. If there’s anything you don’t want, just leave it on your plate. Don’t think that I’ll say anything, I won’t mind. Please Ross, don’t eat my dinner, I know you won’t like it. Come on, I’ll throw it away and we’ll order a pizza.’

  Of course, I would go over to Ross’s house for dinner and his mother would similarly beg me to do the same. Mothers up and down the British Isles are right now ordering their guests not to eat their food. Meanwhile, your fathers and uncles are dragging you over to the local pub and forcing you to drink beer for the first time, even though it tastes like liquefied ashtrays. It is most ironic.

  That is the price you pay for growing up in a country that has a thriving pub culture. Just as having an auntie zealously cajoling you into drinking peanut soup is the price you pay for living in a society where its people pride themselves on their cuisines. I know that there are Singaporeans who will only consider the Asian dishes on a restaurant menu, no matter where they are. And these are, inevitably, the same morons who will raise an eyebrow should I have the audacity to turn down a bowl of peanut soup.

  Thankfully, though, this dogmatic attitude is evolving and giving way to a more cosmopolitan outlook. Younger Singaporeans now go to pubs to sample traditional Western fare such as bangers and mash or shepherd’s pie. They are just as comfortable with a plate of spaghetti bolognaise as they are with a bowl of tom yam soup. This is the only way to go.

  To be fair, not every Singaporean force-feeds you something you do not like and not every British drinker ends up fighting with a snooker cue. At this point in time, however, I know which culture I prefer. Where else in the world can you find such variety, such choice and at such low cost? Singaporeans should take pride in their food because, unlike Heineken ‘British’ beer, it really does belong to them. I am forever hearing about Singaporeans trying to build their own identity. Well, if their national cuisine is not a valid starting point, then frankly, I do not know what is. It does not matter where the dishes originated from, the likes of chicken rice, satay and fish head curry are now as Singaporean as the Merlion. And the best thing about local food is that whenever I sit down to eat in a hawker centre, I do not have to suffer my dad’s drunken ramblings about George Best, white socks and the merits of British-Dutch beer. Now that is a cause for genuine gratitude, wouldn’t you agree?

  Chapter Five

  I will never understand what it is that draws me to chicken restaurants. The chicken, though undoubtedly tasty, is greasy and runs down the back of your hand and along your forearm, which is the most uncomfortable feeling in the world when you are wearing a long-sleeved shirt on a humid day. Instinctively, you reach for a napkin but, naturally, you have only been given two and they were both used on the first piece of chicken. You then have no choice but to turn to the mashed potato, which resembles baby food and is about as filling. Yet despite these irritants, we still find ourselves drawn to the smell of fried chicken. So there I stood one afternoon at the counter of such a restaurant in Toa Payoh, waiting to place my order. I remember vividly being served by an extremely attractive Malay teenager. ‘She will break a few hearts one day,’ I thought to myself. Five minutes later, I would have happily broken her neck.

  ‘Can I have a two-piece baby food set, please?’ I asked politely.

  ‘One original set. Anything else?’

  ‘No. But can I change my drink to Sprite, please?’

  She started giggling at this apparently hilarious request. ‘I’m sorry. What drink you want again?’

  ‘Sprite, please.’

  More giggles. ‘Wah, your English so funny. You not English, is it?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I am also an English teacher so could you tell me what is so wrong with the way I speak?’

  Now this may seem a trifle aggressive but it is most irritating having someone laugh in your face. Besides, my accent has always been a cause for a little paranoia. Being a working-class lad, my cockney accent was certainly not the most common accent heard along the corridors of Manchester University so a little insecurity is inevitable. Having undergone phonetics training for my job, I knew that my pronunciation of the word ‘sprite’ was correct. I mean, as English words go, it is hardly supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, is it? But the counter girl had not finished.

  ‘The way you say “splat” so funny, loh.’

  ‘What? The way I say it correctly, you mean?’

  ‘But you don’t. You say “sprite” and I say “splat”. It’s really funny.’

  ‘My chicken’s getting cold and my baby food’s melting. Do you think I could get my “splat” now?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ With that, she went over to the drinks machine and filled my cup up with ‘splat’. I thanked her for pointing out the gross imperfections of my English and soaked her with the ‘splat’. That was as far as it went. To this day, it remains the most serious direct run-in I have had with a Singaporean youth. Just a little bit of playful cheek. No aggression, no bad language, no knives being held to my friend’s throat, in fact, nothing more than innocent sauciness.

  This contrasts sharply with the youngsters I grew up with in Dagenham. When I was fifteen, my good friend Ross was walking home from school when two young boys walked towards him and got his attention with the audacious shout of ‘Oi!’ Giggling, the small one piped up. ‘Will you tell your mum to stop changing her lipstick?’

  ‘Why?’ Ross asked innocently.

  ‘Because it’s making my cock multicoloured.’ They both laughed hysterically and walked on.

  Ross merely laughed to himself and he told me all about the episode the next day at school. I laughed as well. Then he told me that both boys could not have been more than six years old so I laughed again. It made the story even funnier.

  These were the kind of youngsters I grew up with. Sitting in a science class in secondary two, I was tapped on the shoulder by David, one of the class bullies. Turning slowly, I was greeted by the sight of an erect penis. David was having a sizing contest with Gary, another school bully, and they
wanted an independent arbitrator to ... well, arbitrate. David gestured towards his exposed anatomy. He held a ruler in the other hand.

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ he asked excitedly.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Look, Gary reckons his is bigger than mine. But have a look, mine is over six inches. His is nowhere near that size. He’s got a tiny knob. Mine’s definitely bigger, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I? I haven’t seen his, have I?’

  ‘Oh yeah. Well, come to the back of the class, he’s got his out. You can measure it. No problem.’

  ‘No! I’m not measuring anybody’s knob, all right?’

  ‘But mine’s definitely bigger than six inches, right?’

  ‘If you say so. But don’t expect me to put a ruler against it.’

  ‘I knew it was bigger than six inches. Cheers, Neil. Oi Gary! I told you mine was bigger than yours. Your knob’s tiny.’

  I could fill a whole book with childhood stories like that. I have told a few to some Singaporean friends and it is interesting to watch their stunned expressions. Instinctively, they assume I am lying. They want me to tell them I am lying to reassure them. Partly because the London they know is the one that has the Queen, fish and chips, famous castles and quaint little bookshops in places like Notting Hill that are owned and run by gentlemen like Hugh Grant. They want to believe this so that they can cling to the ridiculous notion that Britain is a green and pleasant land, a positive place of democracy and free speech. In short, a society fit for the disillusioned Singaporean. Surely, they assume, such incidents do not occur in Britain? They are not allowed to. Surely, the teacher, the parent, the policeman or the politician would step in to check this antisocial behaviour as they do in Singapore?

  The fact remains, though, that these incidents do occur among the youth in the West from time to time. Whereas I am fairly certain, having taught in Singapore for over two years, that they do not here. Call me old-fashioned but I have never seen a penis in a Singaporean classroom. Although I have been called a penis.

  Teaching speech and drama to a nursery class a couple of years ago, I would line the children up at the end of every lesson and say goodbye. As each child went out, he or she would say, ‘Bye Mr Bean’ and giggle. I was a bit of a clown and it was a harmless nickname. One day, Malvin, a cheeky little chap, sprang a new term on me that left the rest of the class in stitches. He shouted, ‘Bye-bye Mr Cuckoo Bird.’

  Initially, I thought ‘cuckoo bird’ was a bizarre name to bestow upon a teacher but I did not give it much thought. However, when it reached the point where the whole class would cry ‘Bye Mr Cuckoo Bird’ in chorus and then leave the room with tears rolling down their cheeks, I knew something was seriously amiss. I found myself in one of those uncomfortable situations that are abhorred universally. I did not know something. How could I approach a colleague, a fellow teacher I might add, and ask him what a seemingly common noun meant? In my experience, teachers will remove their genitalia with a blunt instrument before admitting that they do not know something.

  In the end, though, it bordered on the ridiculous. As the pupils left the class one by one, I started to notice that the parents were also giggling. I had no choice but to seek the truth and my attempts to do so can only be described as pathetic. Sidling up to the administrative staff after lessons one evening, I adopted my puzzled look.

  ‘You know,’ I started, ‘you get a lot of birds in Singapore, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ replied Chris, one of the admin girls, in a tone that suggested she had never heard such a dull question in her entire life.

  ‘But you don’t get cuckoos, right?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Erm, cuckoo bird, cuckoo bird. It’s strange.’ I muttered aloud.

  ‘Why are you saying those words?’ Chris asked, giggling.

  ‘Oh, for no reason. I saw this Singaporean documentary about wildlife last night and they kept referring to this “cuckoo bird” and it was a bit confusing.’

  ‘Did they? Which programme was it?’

  ‘Oh, it was that one on wildlife. I can’t remember what time it was on.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t see it in the paper. What channel was it on?’ She knew I was lying through my teeth.

  ‘Okay, my children keep calling me Mr Cuckoo Bird and it makes them laugh hysterically. I have no idea what it means but it’s got to the stage where I’ve caught their parents sniggering too. Quite frankly, it’s beginning to irritate me. So if you know what it means, please put me out of my misery. If you don’t, stop giggling.’

  ‘It’s a penis,’ said Chris, like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

  ‘It’s a what?’

  ‘It’s a man’s penis. You know?’

  ‘Yes, I know what a man’s penis is. Are you telling me that my nursery children have been calling me Mr Penis every week?’

  ‘Well, yes. Cuckoo bird sounds like the word for “penis” in one of the dialects.’ Inevitably, Chris found this a reason for much merriment and I became the penis man in the office for quite some time thanks to those adoring little bastards.

  Penises aside, Singaporean youngsters were a pleasure to teach. I had only been in Singapore for a month when I was thrown in at the deep end and sent to teach at Victoria School. Victoria, or VS as it is more popularly known, is considered one of the best boy schools in Singapore. On my first day, I was standing outside my classroom and generally being nosy when a student passed.

  ‘Good morning sir,’ he said breezily.

  ‘Hello,’ I replied. ‘Do you know me?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Am I teaching you this term?’

  ‘I don’t think so, sir.’

  ‘Then why did you greet me just now?’

  ‘Oh, we greet every teacher we meet, sir. See you.’

  ‘Yes, see you.’ I was stunned. With the exception of some of the better state and private schools in England, this kind of behaviour is not common. Such incidents were not exclusive to VS, though. Each school I have taught at, be it primary or secondary, neighbourhood or independent, I have always encountered extremely polite, conscientious pupils. There were, of course, one or two rare exceptions but they were never difficult to teach.

  Without doubt, I sympathise with schoolchildren here because they are under such tremendous pressure to deliver the academic goods. From the day they can talk until the day they graduate from university, their parents are always just one step behind, prodding them forward. I think it is fair to say that when it comes to a child’s education, the parents want the best that their money can buy. Not an unreasonable supposition, perhaps. However, there is a twist. The investor wants to see an academic return or someone, somewhere down the line, is going to get it.

  When I was teaching, I often took calls from parents who were interested in enrolling their children for speech courses. A parent once asked if she could put her child, who had just won a public speaking competition at school, into one of our oral communication examination classes. These classes involved reciting poetry, drama passages and speeches from memory. I suggested that the child was too young. The classes were mixed in terms of age and ability so it was highly possible that the girl could be in a group with teenagers aged fifteen or sixteen. The mother was adamant that her child would manage because she was ‘a very bright girl’.

  After speaking to my boss, I came back to the phone and told the mother that her child really would not be able to cope with such group dynamics. She then scolded me over the phone, telling me that I had no right to pass judgement on her child without assessing her capabilities. I said that I did not have to. The girl was four years old. She was nearing the end of kindergarten one (K1) and her mother was demanding that she be put in a class with teenagers and entered for oral examinations. Words cannot aptly describe such imbecilic behaviour. The sad fact is that we had parents like that walk into our office almost every week. The neurotic mother eventually r
elented and the girl ended up in one of my classes. She was intelligent and her vocabulary was way ahead of her peers. She lived for the worksheets and the homework but when it came to interactive conversations about Tellytubbies, Sesame Street and Star Wars, she would withdraw and become distant.

  That is the tragic compromise that many Singaporean children are subconsciously forced to make. When you are being shunted from one private lesson to another and from one textbook to another, how much socialising do you actually have time for? The sad fact is that textbook examination-oriented learning from such an early age rarely makes for riveting conversation and it is becoming increasingly difficult to see where these children’s social skills are going to come from.

  I have lost count of the number of times that I have stepped into a secondary school classroom in Singapore and been greeted by twenty academic shells. They are highly efficient robots who have been trained to reproduce information while travelling along the production line of examinations. It was soul destroying. I watched their expressionless faces and I could see that they could not compute the value of speech and drama. After all, it had no examination at the end of the course, no certificate and no promises of a highly paid job so the subject seemed illogical to them.

  Gradually, the students would open up and they began to see the class as a welcome bonus in their timetable rather than a hindrance that stopped them from getting their maths homework done. I am not going to lie and say that I was Robin Williams and by the end of the course, the class resembled a scene from Dead Poet’s Society, with them all vowing to be actors, singers and writers. The majority will still end up in the marketing or electronics sector because they have too many other influences to contend with. Despite watching academic shells blossom into more confident individuals in my class, I was resigned to the fact that they still had to produce results once they left. But at what cost?