I have absolutely no problem with being hanged if I import heroin or being fined S$1,000 for dropping an ATM receipt. However, I do have a major problem with being told what I can and cannot watch at the cinema, on stage or even in the privacy of my own home. In our so-called New Economy, any form of censorship is going to be pretty much redundant. It was no secret that when the movie Titanic was released, Singaporeans were watching it over the Net to see the uncensored scenes of the actress lying naked on a couch.
The technological age is progressing so rapidly that the laws on censorship seem like an anachronism of the previous century when, perhaps, they had more validity. I can understand how ultra left-wing movies might have caused problems in the 1960s or films criticising neighbouring countries and trading partners might not have gone down well in the 1980s but what is there to fear now? If I am missing the point somewhere, it really does not matter because Singaporeans can access those ‘fearful’ things on the Net anyway.
Now do not assume that I escaped censorship just because I grew up in a Western society. I was raised during the Thatcher years; a time when former British agents had their books about spycatching banned in their own country and the national tabloid, the Sun, selected our government for us. Therefore, I am no stranger to a little censorship and manipulation but that does not mean that I will condone it.
Ironically, the funniest part about censorship is that as soon as something is banned, everybody wants it. It is basic human nature. Watching Singaporean friends distribute chewing gum excitedly after a trip to Malaysia is painfully embarrassing to watch. In my last job, colleagues would leave messages on the staff noticeboard informing us that they had a box of chewing gum. Before you could say ‘It’s just a stick of gum that cannot be swallowed and looks like a small brain when you’ve finished chewing it’, everyone was diving into the box.
Just recently, I watched the movie Me, Myself and Irene, which was a gross bodily-function affair. What was really irritating about the film was that the local censors allowed all of the gross scenes to stay but omitted some of the funniest dialogues in the movie. That is, the fast-talking jive between three young black actors because, I assume, of the word ‘motherfucker’. I am not saying that it is not an unpleasant word but is it any worse than watching a man (and a dog) defecating on a lawn?
This highlights the fundamental problem I have with any form of censorship. It is determined by the opinions of a small group of strangers. Just because they are upstanding and usually wealthy and successful members of the community, what right do they have to tell me what I can watch and hear? Whether it is Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s ‘Relax’, which was not allowed radio play in Britain at one time, or Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, which was banned in Singapore, if I am not allowed to hear or see either of them, then I am left with one radical course of action – to switch on my computer and click my mouse. The ability to disseminate information has progressed so rapidly that continuing to censor artistic performances seems about as ridiculous as me paying a man to open up and cut a gift that was addressed to me. Therefore, I suspect that the laws on censorship will change over the next decade or so before they become redundant.
But I do not suspect that views on homosexuality will change. I have a close friend, a Singaporean accountant, who is gay. He shares a wonderful relationship with his mother but he can never tell her that he is gay. He fears it would break her heart and she would never speak to him again. He suspects the same reaction from his father. When he told me, I was disgusted and shocked because he bore no resentment to either parent. ‘That is just the way it is,’ he said. Due to these deep-rooted values, my friend has to spend the rest of his life living a lie not only to his society but also to his own parents. What does that have to do with the PAP?
Well, it is true that conservatism breeds conservatism. But which came first? A politically-apathetic, traditional society of Singaporeans or a repressive government? I do not know the answer and I do not care. All I know is that I do not see people on the streets demanding freedom of expression or equality for gays. Can a people be that easily afraid or, more depressingly, that easily bought off? Whatever the reason, many Singaporeans give the impression of being conservative. As I write this, a number of letters appeared in the Straits Times Forum pages demanding the Harry Potter series of children’s books be banned on the grounds that they dabble with the occult. If any of those letter writers read this, highly unlikely as they are probably attending a neo-Nazi book burning rally, can I please say ‘Get a life’. As one sensible Singaporean retorted, The Wizard of Oz deals with witches and wizards as does The Chronicles of Narnia so should we ban them as well? While we are at it, Enid Blyton wrote about elves and shoemakers while Roald Dahl wrote a book about some witches and it was a comedy. How dare he, the bastard. Now with Singaporeans like these, who needs soft authoritarianism?
It does not stop there. In a quite tragic incident, a girl was killed in 2000 when a plant pot fell from an HDB block and hit her on the head as she walked beneath the block. It was a sad, million-to-one tragedy. Nevertheless, it happened and the government was right to take action. Residents in my block do leave objects, such as pots and prayer objects, hanging precariously over the edges of window sills and ledges and these objects are undoubtedly dangerous. After the incident, the HDB and Town Councils stipulated that a written warning would be issued to any resident storing ‘killer litter’ and if the resident did not take heed of the warning, further steps would be taken. That seemed the rational approach to take. For some, however, it was not enough. There were public demands for residents to be evicted or to have their flats confiscated if found guilty. I found myself laughing at the insanity of it all. By all means, fine residents but to take away their S$400,000 property and leave them homeless for hanging a plant pot on a window ledge seems a trifle excessive. Once again, the demand had come from below and not from above.
Almost every Singaporean over thirty that I know, in some cases younger, has no great desire to see censorship abolished or homosexuality legalised. If they do, they are certainly not going to risk their status and financial security to bring it about. I know of gay doctors who are not happy with the status quo but do not want to risk their standard of living to change it. Maybe Singaporeans have been bought after all and Lee Kuan Yew, after looking at the political and economic turmoil in the region over the last couple of years, really does understand his voters. If you had grown up in a kampung but now had a home, a car, a steady income, an annual holiday and could provide a decent education for your children, what is a little censorship and homophobia?
Of course, not every Singaporean in the twenty-first century grew up in a kampung. Younger Singaporeans are becoming more aware of societies that have greater artistic and sexual freedom. This, I feel, is the greatest threat to the future of the Singaporean government. Cleanliness, safety, efficiency and strong moral values may be able to retain the likes of me, simply because I have already had a bellyful of the alternative, but these guys have experienced nothing else. And it is going to take more than a Speaker’s Corner, which could end up just attracting tourists like the one in London’s Hyde Park, to keep them here. An increasingly intelligent, knowledge-based population, which is what the government wants, may feel restricted and somewhat insulted if they can make big bucks during the day but cannot cuddle up with the partner of their choice and watch uncensored films by night. It is a compromising situation that will be enough to retain the greedy, kiasu brigade but it will not be enough to keep those few talents who view life as something more than just accumulating dollars.
So let’s remove the shackles on the arts scene and have a few laughs. Allow actors to speak Singlish, crack a few jokes, be homosexual, play football or do whatever they like if it is all in the name of realistic performance. If a young couple is madly in love, let them walk down the street hand in hand, whether they be two men, two women or even a pair of American tourists. None of these changes can
be considered particularly radical today and I am positive that it will not lead to the government being toppled.
Aside from my old secondary school’s sixth form committee, over which I happened to be the chairman, there is no such thing as a perfect government. However, for my money, the PAP does okay. It guarantees a standard of living that few countries in the world can match. It has no welfare, which keeps taxes low, yet its educational and medical facilities are heavily subsidised and affordable to almost everyone. And unlike many British governments, its members do not have the habit of being found in uncompromising positions with hookers and independent auditors. No government can ever be completely secure in its position but the PAP comes fairly close. So if it could just open up on issues pertaining to sex, freedom of speech and artistic expression, something that the Net is doing anyway, then it might plug that brain drain.
While it is at it, perhaps the government could introduce a law that stipulates all public servants must smile and answer their telephones or risk imprisonment. And if the government could also deport on sight any tourist found wearing white, knee-high socks with sandals, then Singaporeans could truly say that they have never had it so good.
Chapter Fourteen
I suppose it was a Caucasian dressed as a banana and giving away cocktails that drew us to the place. We needed a bar to celebrate one of our colleagues leaving and this particular one looked ideal. Tucked away in a little side street off Orchard Road, it was directly opposite where we worked. The majority of its clientele were Caucasians, or ang mohs. This is hardly surprising as the banana at the door was giving away delicious banana cocktails to anyone who entered. Most of the ang mohs I know (myself included) will walk barefoot over broken glass to get at cheap drinks. Our party that night all agreed with banana man that this was the place to be.
It was almost a classic night. Scott and I drank so many banana cocktails that we could have been peeled by the end of the evening. Everything was going along swimmingly and we all promised to be the best of friends until the end of time. Then everything went pear-shaped. There was a group of obnoxious blokes in their forties who began to make some lewd comments to some of the ladies in our group. It culminated with one guy leaning over to my missus and saying he liked her so much he intended to ‘put his hand up her skirt’. Things became a little hysterical after that and an excellent evening was thoroughly spoilt.
So allow me to ask you a question. Bearing in mind that both Singaporeans and Caucasians were in the bar, who were the cavemen that night? I must have been in dozens of Singaporean bars and nightclubs and things have only ever got heated twice. On both occasions, they involved ang mohs. On that particular night, the trouble was caused by a group of Australian tourists who were determined to intimidate as many people as possible. When informed that my partner was not only seeing someone but that he was standing opposite her in the bar, the Aussie Neanderthal replied, ‘Good.’ It just warms the heart, doesn’t it?
Apart from skin colour, I have nothing in common with these Caucasians. To be honest, I have very little in common with the expatriates who live in Singapore either. For a start, most of the ang mohs that live here, particularly the ones from Britain, tend to come from the upper-middle classes. Singaporean employers are not going to search the far reaches of London, New York and Paris to find road sweepers and table attendants when there are plenty of poor souls from India and the Philippines that they can offer crap wages to instead. Second, ang mohs here are highly-skilled in line with Singapore’s ‘foreign talent’ policy. Sorry, I mean ‘global talent’ policy.
Highly trained for nothing when I first arrived, the global talent policy was about as useful to me as a pair of sunglasses to a man with one ear. With large broking firms unimpressed by my ability to highlight the differences between Stalinism and Nazism, I began to seriously resent those ang mohs strutting around the business district with their briefcases, handphones and Brylcreamed hair. As I sat on a bench overlooking the Singapore River in a pair of Bermuda shorts and flip-flops and eating Scott’s cheese slice sandwiches, it became obvious that I had more in common with the local guys who drank Tiger beer in my Toa Payoh coffee shop. The snotty-nosed guys called Arthur and Charles, whom I had so despised at university, had arrived in Singapore in their thousands to earn big bucks and live in condos with swimming pools. Call it jealousy or envy, call it whatever you bloody like, but I could not bring myself to like them. Almost immediately, Scott and I began to distinguish ‘us’ from ‘them’. If I was asked to accurately define ‘them’, I probably could not. All I can say is, just hang out at, say, Holland Village, Clarke Quay or any coffee bar around Orchard Road and you will see them and their tourist brothers and sisters everywhere.
The funniest part is that if you happen to be in a lift or a train carriage with one of them, they treat you like a long-lost colonial cousin; a fellow son of Mother England, keeping a stiff upper lip in the face of unknown Asian adversities. They seem to believe that there is a shared British bond, or a subconscious connection, that is somehow going to turn us into instant friends. Now there would be nothing wrong with this if it was not for the fact that these very same people used to walk past me in their thousands as I travelled to work each day in London. When I was a lowly temp working at Britain’s top stockbroking firm, there were colleagues sitting opposite my desk who did not even know my name. Put these people on a train in Singapore and suddenly they want to share their life history with me.
My girlfriend and I were coming home from work together once when we were collared. Both being teachers at that time, we were discussing our classes when a guy resembling Charles Manson came over.
Straight to the point, he asked, ‘So you’re both teachers here then?’
‘Erm, that’s right,’ I replied cautiously, acutely aware that half of the carriage was listening to us as ang mohs, particularly Americans, have a tendency to converse loudly in public places.
‘Oh, I thought so. I overheard you taking about it.’
‘Really? Are you a teacher as well?’ I asked politely. At this point, my partner shot me a filthy look. She has barely enough patience to sustain a conversation with me, let alone one with a complete stranger.
‘I was. Weren’t we all? Ha ha. I taught English as a foreign language in Spain and I did it here for a while too. What else can “we” do here? Ha ha.’
Well, ‘we’ could keep our voices down a little, I thought. But he had no intention of letting up.
‘Then I travelled the world a bit. Well, you’ve got to, haven’t you? While you’ve the chance, that is. How long have you been here then?’
‘On this train? About ten minutes.’
This puzzled Charles. ‘No, I meant how long have you been in Singapore?’
‘Oh, I see. About six months now. Oh, Toa Payoh. This is our stop. It was nice talking to you.’
‘Yes, you too. So you live here do you?’
‘No, we live in an apartment just around the corner.’
‘What? Oh I see. Well, take care. Maybe I’ll see you around. Bye.’ The doors closed and Charles disappeared into the night.
I was twenty-two when I had that conversation and it was the longest I had ever had with a British stranger. Yet I had to come all the way to Singapore for it to happen.
Of course, the conversations are not always as long as that. We were having a barbecue at a friend’s condominium once and I got into the lift to get some charcoal from his flat. An ang moh also got in the lift, spotted the S-League football shirt that I was wearing and got quite excited about it.
‘So you’re a professional footballer over here, are you? That must be exciting. Which team do you play for? I expect the money’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Sorry, I’m not a footballer. I’m a teacher. I just wear this for fun, mate,’ I replied.
‘Oh, sorry. I thought you were a footballer out here.’ He was visibly crestfallen.
‘Are you a footballer?’ I asked cheerily.
‘No, I’m not,’ he replied miserably.
‘Oh well, that’s settled then. I’m off to get some charcoal. Bye.’
It is not only strangers who act in this manner. Even my mother somehow expects the Brits abroad to stick together. When Nick Leeson, the rogue trader who almost destroyed Barings Bank, was imprisoned here at Changi Prison, my mother telephoned me.
‘Hello mate,’ she began innocently, ‘have you heard the news?’
‘Did Gary get that promotion?’
‘No, have you heard about poor old Nick Leeson.’
‘Nick Leeson? No, what’s happening? Are they releasing him?’
‘No. They say he’s dying from cancer. He’s been moved to the prison hospital.’
‘Really? That’s a shame, isn’t it?’
There was a slight pause on the other end of the line before she asked, ‘Well?’
‘Well, what?’
‘Well, can’t you visit him or something? He is British and he probably hasn’t got many friends out there. If you visit him, it might cheer him up a bit.’
Now this sounded ridiculous. I might respect the guy and sympathise with his predicament. After all, any working-class bloke who almost single-handedly brings down an archaic, nepotistic crappy old institution is all right by me. As for me strolling into a prison hospital with a bunch of flowers to chat with him, just because he happened to be born on the same island as me, is taking things a little too far.
I tried to explain this to my mum. ‘But I don’t even know him, do I? I have more in common with my next-door neighbours. They keep an eye on our apartment when we’re on holiday and we give them clothes for their nieces and nephews. What have I got in common with Nick Leeson?’
‘He’s a Brit.’
Notes From an Even Smaller Island Page 19