Return to a Sexy Island

by Neil Humphreys

  So I gave them three trees.

  In 2007, NParks launched its Plant-A-Tree Programme. I heard about the scheme through my Uncle Leslie who had planted some trees in memory of deceased loved ones. This is a smart move by new Singapore. Green up the place, absorb carbon dioxide emissions, raise environmental awareness and get residents to pay for it. Singapore will no longer allow you to bury your relatives, so buy them a tree instead.

  But I had bought three trees for the living. On a previous visit to Singapore, my wife, daughter and I were handed shovels and three saplings, directed towards some pre-dug holes in Toa Payoh Town Park and told to get to work. Watching our daughter fill the hole around her tree using her little plastic shovel remains one of our happiest memories. The trees were deliberately placed beneath the Toa Payoh Viewing Tower, which I once called a bulbous green penis in a previous book. This pleased me tremendously (the location of the trees, not the green penis). And as long as our three trees are in Toa Payoh Town Park, dogs will always be able to cock a leg.

  Like a fool, I ignored the increasing rainfall and reminisced beside the trees. I thought about my first night in Toa Payoh and the void deck funeral, and how that story somehow travelled around the world and back. I remembered hanging out with Scott, my old travelling partner, in the town garden, feeding the turtles ikan bilis, or dried anchovies, and plotting our career paths. I suddenly felt overwhelmingly grateful to both Toa Payoh and Singapore. These places have given me more than I can say. I felt privileged to be here. I was elated to be back. I had come home.

  And then, I fell off my bike.

  Twenty-five

  THE tour was not supposed to end this way; a ticker tape parade around Marina Bay perhaps, but not like this. My whimsical recollections around the family trees had distracted me from the stubborn storm and the rising water levels along the Toa Payoh Town Park path. When I finally accepted that I still had a convoluted journey of park connectors and pedestrian crossings back to East Coast Park ahead of me, I left the trees and headed for home. I decided to take an abrupt right to avoid a puddle. My temperamental tyre decided to veer left along the greasy surface. My sopping wet brakes screeched in horror, but to no avail, as my back tyre defied its front counterpart by skidding to the right. I was thrown from the bike quite spectacularly. There was that fleeting moment in mid-air when I realised that this was probably not going to end well. Pain was coming. When my left shoulder decided it was a pneumatic drill and tried to spear itself through the pavement, I decided to lie down for a bit. There is street cred to be gained from this sort of thing happening along Nicoll Highway or on the Tampines Mountain Biking Trail, but not in a small public park filled with domestic helpers and aunties.

  I felt like a right tit.

  I stretched out on the pavement and watched the rain dance hypnotically on my face. I had no intention of getting up, even when I heard concerned voices.

  “We saw you fall, it looked so serious,” said a seductive female voice. “What can we do to help?”

  I peered through the drizzle and made out two Filipino aunties standing over me, cowering beneath umbrellas. Angels. The heavens had opened and sent down two angels.

  “I’m so sorry. I can’t move my left arm,” I replied. “This is so embarrassing. Could you pick up my rucksack, please? It’s got my notepad in it and I can’t get it wet, so sorry.”

  “But what about you?” the other woman enquired.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m fine, really. It’s just my notepad.”

  “But you’re lying in a puddle.”

  “Ah, that’s all right.”

  Lying in the puddle had distracted me from the searing pain in my shoulder. Had my two angels not persisted in trying to coax me to my feet, I might still be lying there.

  “You should really get up,” one of the aunties insisted.

  She had a point. I was blocking the footpath. I tried to lift my left arm and chuckled incredulously at the insane stabbing sensation in my shoulder.

  “So sorry about this, I’m such an idiot, but I can’t lift my arm. Maybe I’ll just stay here for a bit, if that’s OK with you, sorry. You can go, I’ll be fine.”

  I really did say that. Fortunately, my angels had no time for melodramatic martyrdom. Almost telepathically, they both reached out for me.

  “Come on, we’ll lift you up,” they declared, with more confidence than their petite, slender frames warranted.

  The angels grabbed my right arm and hoisted me towards them. There was a weight imbalance. They struggled to pass the tipping point. Suddenly, they were falling towards the puddle. How would that look, in a park of canoodling foreign workers, if I buried myself under two Filipino women?

  “Let go, let go,” I cried.

  They released their grip. I slumped back into the puddle and splashed their ankles. They resisted the temptation, I’m sure, to give me a sly kick in the ribs.

  “Come on, one more time,” they insisted.

  We counted to three, rocking backwards and forwards, before a final heave pulled me to my feet. I thanked them profusely. I wanted to hug them but the pair quickly vanished, skipping towards the HDB Hub with nary a backward glance. Good Toa Payoh people had saved me again. I thought about my arm and my inability to raise it above elbow level. I thought about the daunting prospect of getting myself and my bike back to the East Coast. And I thought about taking an axe to those bloody trees.

  Two days later, I learnt from a doctor that I had cycled one-handed a further 15 to 20 kilometres from Toa Payoh Town Park to East Coast Park, via the much more agreeable Whampoa Park Connector and then the Kallang Park Connector, with a torn rotator cuff in my left shoulder. I had no idea what a rotator cuff was either, but it sounded macho enough to me. I thought I was well hard. My wife thought I was well stupid.

  So my returning tour of a sexier island had begun with an Australian neighbour threatening to smash my face in and ended with my first Singapore sling.

  Have you ever tried to pee with an arm sling? I will never again take for granted the responsibility the non-peeing hand performs in pinning down the underpants. Without the hand that plays that holding role, the waistband acts like a guillotine. As I shook myself in front of a urinal, the waistband on my underpants pinged up, cut into my instrument, pushed it northwards and turned me into a sprinkler system. I deliberately soaked myself at the basin to cover the damage from the sprinkler system, opened the door and craned my head to take in the remarkable scale of the Singapore Flyer.

  I had always planned to come full circle and finish where I had started at Marina Bay, and what better place to do so than the attraction that continues to bear witness to new Singapore’s evolution. Opened in 2008, the Singapore Flyer reaches 42 storeys and is the tallest Ferris wheel in the world. With its air-conditioned capsules, the Flyer is not much different to the London Eye, only 30 metres taller. Singapore has always been borderline obsessed with records: “Let’s break the world text messaging record”, “Let’s make the world’s longest table”, “Let’s hold the most pointless world records because kiasuism won’t allow our kids to pursue sporting excellence” and so on. The highest wheel title is a dubious achievement. I’m not exactly sure how an extra 30 metres improves the view of Keppel Harbour and the world’s busiest container port (there’s another one) but I was keen to find out.

  First, I took my daughter around the Singapore Food Trail beside the Flyer. Like a retro 1950s diner in New York, the Singapore Food Trail was a “ye olde hawker centre” for tourists. Filled with replica food carts, old F&N metallic posters, black-and-white photos and menus promising original culinary delights from Bugis Street back in the days when transvestites hawked their sex toys to American servicemen (strangely, this side of old Singapore was not replicated), the tourist trap was kitschy, tacky, clichéd and thoroughly over the top. I thought it was marvellous. I shoved my bemused daughter in front of old jukeboxes, Chinese vinyl record covers and food carts for photographs but she
was too distracted by the glass Fanta bottles. She walked and burped her way to the Singapore Flyer, swigging from a Fanta bottle like an ah pek.

  As we had gone on a school holiday, the Flyer queue was longish so we were entertained (if that is the right word, “confused” might be more apt) by the Journey of Dreams attraction. I presumed the multimedia showcase was there to divert those waiting in line. As it came with the price of admission, I had no grounds for complaint. But it also needed to come with a tab of acid. There were lights, psychedelic images, rotating and revolving patterns, vibrantly-coloured circular shapes and confounding cut-outs that were somehow loosely connected to Singapore’s dream. I have no idea what Singapore’s dream is but it must have something to do with wearing a smiley T-shirt, blowing a whistle, dancing on a podium, waving your hands in the air like you just don’t care and shouting “acid”. I’d queue to watch that at the National Day Parade.

  Finally, I chased my daughter up the slope towards the Flyer and a dramatic flight countdown commenced along the walls, the numbers lighting up as we got closer. She loved that part.

  “Quick, Daddy, it’s time to fly,” she cried. “Five, four, three, two, one ... Blast off!”

  And then we hurled ourselves into a capsule that moved at speeds of half a millimetre a minute.

  The anticlimax almost overwhelmed my daughter.

  “When do we blast off? When do we start moving?” she wondered.

  “We’re already moving,” I replied enthusiastically. “Look, we’re going to see all of Singapore from high in the sky.”

  “Oh! Can I have your pen, Daddy? I want to colour this leaflet.”

  For first-time visitors to the country, the Singapore Flyer offers an air-conditioned summary of the most obvious landmarks. Merlion Park, the Southern Islands, the Singapore River and Raffles Place are all easy to spot, a tourism starter pack for the short-term guest. A commentary might have further enhanced the experience. The tourists sharing our capsule would probably have preferred a voice other than my daughter’s saying, “Merlion? I’ve seen it. The Helix Bridge? It’s got lots of colours. Marina Barrage? Daddy took me to the water park there. I like the fountains.”

  She was mentally taking down her own notes on Singapore. I was so proud.

  I was also aware that her ticket had cost me almost $20 and she was sitting cross-legged on the capsule floor, hunched over her latest artwork.

  “Come and look out of the window,” I whispered. “I’ll show you the Indonesian islands.”

  “I can’t. I’m colouring the leaflet.”

  “But I’d like you to see the great views.”

  “I like colouring this leaflet.”

  “I know you do but that leaflet didn’t cost me $20. It was free.”

  “Then I can colour it, Daddy.”

  I pulled her over to the window. We crouched down together and admired the bay. The sun was slowly setting. I pointed out Sisters Islands and explained how they got their name. We watched the hippo and duck boats meander around Marina Reservoir. Joggers ran along the promenade. Kites soared above the curved, grassy roof of Marina Barrage. Human specks peered across at us from the viewing deck atop Marina Bay Sands. In the distance, a Resorts World Sentosa hotel peeked out through the island’s surprisingly dense foliage. Over our shoulders, I made out the sky garden connecting the formidable towers of Pinnacle@Duxton. New Singapore surrounded us at every turn. Memories of my six-month journey enveloped us. Engineers constructing the undersea expressway behind Marina Barrage were a visual reminder that new Singapore’s journey had barely begun. It will probably never end. To our right, a lake had been filled and the landscaping transformed since I had previously surveyed Gardens by the Bay from Marina Bay Sands. New Singapore was dating this book before it was even finished.

  Is new Singapore a sexier island? Of course it is. But the question is too simplistic. Who is the sexier island for? That is the question that politicians and residents alike will obsess over until the next general election. The high-end boutiques, restaurants and private gaming tables of Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands belong in a chapter of Casino Royale, but they do not belong to the average Singaporean. They are priced out of their own country’s progress. Visit the depressingly deserted Shoppes mall at the Sands on any evening for proof of that. But the high rollers, both local and foreign, have their uses. If an Indonesian towkay is willing to drop half a million on a hand of blackjack so my daughter can spend her birthday posing for photographs with Woody Woodpecker at Universal Studios Singapore, then please, Mr Degenerate Gambler, do it more often.

  The Singapore FreePort is a ready-made location for a Hollywood heist caper but most locals will never afford the price of admission. Sentosa Cove certainly isn’t for the majority of Singaporeans (two weeks before writing this, a seafront property sold for a vulgar $39 million to an Indian national) but Pinnacle@Duxton and Treelodge@Punggol most certainly are. They represent new Singapore’s public housing (and every apartment block should have a recycling chute from now on, guys). So do the Southern Ridges, Bishan Park, the park connectors, Tampines Mountain Biking Trail, the Railway Corridor, Sengkang Riverside Park and the ABC Waters Programme. They are all forward-thinking positive steps for all Singaporean residents. Open up the waterways and the green lungs and let’s have some bloody fun.

  But Singaporeans still want to belong. Kayaking at Jurong Lake might encourage residents to take ownership of their water supply but the anger over Bukit Brown Cemetery shows a desire to be included in issues beyond public park management. All the flowing rivers, children’s playgrounds, cycling paths and theme parks in the world will not satisfy a disillusioned Singaporean who feels marginalised or taken for granted. A few MRT breakdowns proved that. Singaporeans are rightfully proud of their nation’s progress. Throughout a period of global economic uncertainty, no other country has pulled off such a widespread makeover, with so many nips and tucks across the island, in five years. But residents must share in its pleasures and privileges too or Aljunied will almost certainly not be a one-off. Singapore is much sexier now, but she occasionally dresses only to please rich foreigners. She’s beautiful, much greener and much more fun than I remember, but still a bit of a Sarong Party Girl.

  Still, it’s what’s under the sarong that counts. And I have no idea where this analogy is going. No country is perfect, and I’ve lived in a few, but Singapore does a damn decent impression. So allow me to momentarily lift my arm sling, rip my heart from my chest and unashamedly say that I love this country. Australia is known affectionately as the “lucky country”, but there is nothing lucky about Singapore, nothing at all. Its success derives wholly from human endeavour, resourcefulness, productivity and knowledge with an overwhelming, almost disturbing, emphasis on education and filial piety. They’re not bad values for an impressionable little girl to have, are they?

  We just won’t focus on the SPG bits.

  As the capsule slowly descended, my daughter and I gazed out at the dusky skyline and I noticed that she was playfully tracking the journeys of the duck boats with her forefinger on the window. Our 30-minute flight was ending and I wondered if I might get some preternatural profundity.

  “Hey, your Mummy and Daddy are from England but you were born in Australia,” I muttered.

  “Yes, I know, Daddy,” she sighed, staring down at Marina Reservoir.

  “But we live in Singapore. If you could live in England, Australia or Singapore, where would you live?”

  “Singapore,” she answered without hesitation.

  I beamed broadly. This was the perfect end to my island journey. My race was run. It was time to pass the baton.

  About the Author

  Neil Humphreys arrived in Singapore in 1996 with no job, no prospects and no second language and left a decade later as one of the country’s bestselling authors. His works on Singapore—Notes from an Even Smaller Island (2001), Scribbles from the Same Island (2003) and Final Notes from a Great Island: A Farewe
ll Tour of Singapore (2006) as well as the omnibus Complete Notes from Singapore (2007)—are now considered must-reads by his mother (and much of Singapore). Humphreys then headed for Australia, where he had a daughter and wrote Be My Baby (2008), which chronicled his journey to parenthood and was an international bestseller. Match Fixer, his first novel, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim, fascinating football fans but infuriating loan sharks and illegal bookies. His second novel, Premier Leech, was a dark, satirical take on fame and celebrity in the English Premier League and was chosen as the FourFourTwo Football Novel of the Year in 2011. Missing the smaller island and eager for his daughter to learn conversational Mandarin, Humphreys has since returned to Singapore, where he writes for several magazines and newspapers and pops up regularly on football podcasts and TV shows. His daughter already speaks better Mandarin than he does.

  Other Books by Neil Humphreys

  Notes from an even Smaller Island

  Knowing nothing of Singapore, a young Englishman arrives in the land of “air-conned” shopping centres and Lee Kuan Yew. He explores all aspects of Singaporean life, taking in the sights, dissecting the culture and illuminating each place and person with his perceptive and witty observations.

  Scribbles from the Same Island

  Humphreys is back with yet more observations and ruminations about the oddball aspects of Singapore and its people. Scribbles also contains a selection of his work as a humour columnist.