“Those Big Macs where? Hey, that’s near the McDonald’s. Come on, I haven’t eaten for four minutes.”
“But what about my money? I don’t have any money.”
“Now look, don’t worry about that, madam. As it’s Chinese New Year, we’ll treat you this time. But you’re only getting a Happy Meal. Is that alright?”
They would be utterly useless. In stark contrast, Singapore’s public services have been in fine form over the festive period. Aside from police officers catching thieves in record time, the Singapore Civil Defence Force had a raging fire at the Thomson Road flower nurseries under control within 20 minutes on the second day of Chinese New Year. They had to fight through not only leaping flames, but also kaypoh drivers who stopped their cars to watch the blaze. I know many Singaporeans enjoy the odd firecracker or two to bring in the Lunar New Year, but this was ridiculous. And yet, despite these hazards, the SCDF tamed Thomson’s towering inferno without suffering a single casualty or injury. Having lived with a younger sister who enjoyed setting fire to our kitchen periodically, I can only salute the Force’s achievement. To be fair, they were never greeted by the sight of a seven-year-old girl standing in the middle of a sizeable fire and saying: “Well, what do you think? It’s much bigger than the last one, isn’t it?”
But their effort was impressive nonetheless. While most of the country has spent the weekend counting hongbaos and mahjong tiles, those guys have been out there salvaging hongbaos and half of Thomson Road. It’s been a stirring start to the Year of the Goat so remember this ancient Chinese proverb: “When a thief steals your money in an HDB estate, let him run around the block first — and then kick the little shit in the balls when he comes back.”
THE CYCLISTS
THE Singapore Police Force has publicly put its foot down. In response to a number of shocking stories and letters in national newspapers recently, the Force has boldly declared that selfish cyclists found cycling on pavements can be fined $20. Now the governing powers of Singapore have often been criticised for their rather eccentric laws, but this really is a Draconian bridge too far. A $20 fine just for riding on the pavement? What kind of law is that? Cyclists who harass law-abiding pedestrians should be strung up by their dangly bits, preferably with piano wire, and summarily executed. That’s the only way Singapore is going to rid itself of the scourge of humanity. As far as I’m concerned, pavement-riding cyclists rank just below serial killers, but just above Romancing Singapore campaigners.
Incidentally, if one more TV commercial tells me I must find a partner, buy her flowers, kiss her passionately and produce lots of Singaporean babies then I will end up in court charged with ‘killer TV litter’. But it’s these kiasu riders that are currently proving to be the bigger menace.
There was a story recently that a poor woman was flagging down a bus at a bus stop and was knocked down by a speeding cyclist. She ended up with a cracked leg bone, a year-long limp and $10,000 in medical bills.
In Bukit Batok, a heavily pregnant woman tripped and fell after making a desperate attempt to avoid a cyclist who was riding like a deranged maniac behind her, according to an eyewitness.
I have the deepest sympathy for these victims. The lift doors have often opened at my HDB block and I’ve had to jump back to allow Evel Knievel to whiz past. There’s never a plank of wood, or a blunderbuss, around when you want one is there?
The lazy cyclist, and motorcyclist for that matter, exemplifies the kiasu traveller in every sense, cutting corners both literally and metaphorically.
Behind my block in Toa Payoh is a narrow pedestrian crossing beneath the Pan Island Expressway that allows people to get to the bus stops in Thomson Road. Concrete bollards have been erected to deter cyclists. But that’s not enough to deter these gormless erections, is it? Consequently, kiasu cyclists and motorcyclists, eager to bypass the pillars, have created four paths on the adjacent grass patch, so they now have a ready shortcut instead of having to go all the way around Lorong 1 to reach Thomson Road.
Morons on magnificent motorbikes have tooted the horn at me several times to get out of the way. But I’ve usually relied on my horn to remind the bugger who has the right of way. In extreme cases of persistent overtaking, I’ve tried to pursue the rider to kick him in his horn but alas, I’ve yet to hit the target.
Now, my girlfriend and I have created a little dance that we do as we walk along the footpath. Whenever a motorcyclist revs up behind us, we continually move in the same direction as the bike to prevent any overtaking, singing: “To the left. And to the right. Keep it going, keep it going. It’s all right.”
I’ve warned my girlfriend not to do this when she is alone for fear of antagonising the impatient cyclist. The joke could turn quite nasty. And, alas, it did — for the motorcyclist.
One morning, an annoying little bastard kept his hand on his horn, one that emitted high-pitched sounds, all the way down the path, forcing irritated pedestrians to throw themselves against the fence to allow the bugger to pass. Reluctantly, my girlfriend also let him pass, otherwise, knowing her, he could still be there with her jumping in the same direction as the bike and refusing to let him pass.
Just a couple of seconds after riding around my missus, though, the prick attempted to overtake two schoolgirls, but his handlebars clipped the fence and he fell over the top of his motorbike. According to biased reports from my girlfriend, it was marvellous.
Clearly unruffled by the incident, she approached the fallen rider, stepped over him and continued to the bus stop as if nothing had happened. Priceless. But where did these people come from? What kind of sphincter is so impatient that he must overtake two schoolchildren on a motorbike on a public footpath?
When I was a kid all we had to worry about as junior pedestrians was being knocked over by shortsighted old ladies driving motorised vehicles. Without their mini cars, these people were passive, adorable old aged pensioners. Behind the wheel, they became geriatric Michael Schumachers shouting things like: “Take that, you little bastard. That’s the last time you kick your ball into my front garden.”
At a supermarket one Saturday morning, I swear I heard one pensioner saying to another: “I only got two this morning, Rose. I got that little bastard at number 21 who keeps stealing my pints of milk. And I got that Humphreys boy at number 15 who giggles at my blue-rinse hairdo.”
Generally speaking, though, we tolerated the elderly’s motorised deathtraps because they suffered a World War and Cliff Richard records for us. But I would watch Summer Holiday endlessly before I’d move aside for some impatient, tooting motorcyclist behind me. So the only solution is this — shoot the bastards. And I’m sure those crow killers would dutifully oblige. I once saw them gleefully massacre a family of crows in Toa Payoh Central, so they seem the trigger-happy type. They could hide under the tree to shoot crows and then they could hide in the tree to take aim at reckless cyclists. Proudly wearing those luminous, government-issued sashes, they could be Singapore’s first official crow/cyclist shooters — licensed to kill parasites.
Any crow found stealing a chicken wing from a table at a hawker centre: the death penalty. Any motorcyclist found overtaking schoolgirls on a pedestrian footpath: the death penalty. Alternatively, the Singapore Police Force could pay me $20 and I will gladly hide at the Thomson Road pedestrian crossing and shove a branch into the spokes of every passing motorcycle.
NOTE: It is nigh on impossible to predict which topic or subject will evoke public reaction. But I can honestly say that the seemingly harmless topic of selfish, impatient cyclists would not have been at the top of my list. Not for the first time, I was proved to be utterly incorrect. Dedicated cyclists were rather miffed by my criticisms. One particular writer said I should experience the sufferings of the leisure cyclist over at the East Coast Park, before I make such accusations. I have, many times, and he is right. Roads designated for cyclists are constantly being swamped by joggers, dog-walkers and skateboarders. And, when you think about it, in
the interest of fairness, there’s only one solution to that problem, isn’t there? They should be shot, too. In Singapore, god knows it’s difficult enough for anyone to find a bit of space to themselves. In an island so desperately scarce in land, anyone who invades the personal space of another, whatever the circumstances or vehicle, is a bit of a selfish bastard when you think about it. Now, where’s my bloody gun?
THE FAMILY
MY mother just called to tell me she’s back safely from the hospital. She was there for a pre-op checkup. She’s having a trapped nerve in her hand fixed. As always, there was a story to tell. When she went into the nurse’s room, she was shocked to learn that she had to strip for a number of routine tests. This caused a bit of apprehension. Firstly, my mother is rather self-conscious. Like most people, she’s not one for prancing around in a nurse’s room with exposed genitalia. Secondly, she hadn’t shaved her legs that day and had, in her words, “legs like a fucking Italian footballer.” To top it off, she wore a pair of my stepdad’s white, toweling sports socks. According to her, she looked “fucking awful”.
Understandably, she got a little worked up, which forced her blood pressure to go through the roof, which in turn made her more worked up and so on. As a result, the wonderfully patient nurse couldn’t get an accurate reading from her stressed patient. So the nurse said: “I know what’s wrong here, Sue, you’re a bit nervous aren’t you love?”
“Well, yeah, I am a bit,” replied my poor mother. “I don’t do this sort of thing very often.”
“Is it the nakedness that’s making you nervous, dear?”
“Well, yeah, it is a bit uncomfortable.”
“Don’t worry, love, we’ll soon fix that.” And with that, she whipped off the top half of her nurses’ uniform. Please, allow me to say that again. She whipped off the top half of her bloody nurses’ uniform. The middle-aged woman stood there in a bra that could have housed a small family in each cup. Don’t think sexy soft pornography here. Think Carry On Middle-Aged Matron Who Should Know Better. Suddenly, the Italian footballer’s legs and Andre Agassi socks didn’t seem to concern my poleaxed mother. Headlines like “Teaching Assistant Suffers Deranged Lesbian Attack In Hospital” occupied her thoughts instead.
“Does that make you feel a bit better now, Sue? A little less awkward perhaps?” The kind, but semi-naked, nurse asked.
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.” My mother lied. Speaking on the phone shortly after the visit, my mother told me: “The next time I go back, I’m going to make sure my pulse and blood pressure are so low, they’ll think I’m dead. I can’t have that bloody nurse getting her tits out again.”
I really miss my mother. That was my way of telling you that. I came off the phone with tears in my eyes and a stomachache. No one can make me laugh like my loopy family. Telephone calls like that always give me a slight pang of homesickness. Not for the country, you understand. I don’t get homesick for any country. Flag-waving patriotism is best left behind in Hitler’s bunker. But I miss my family terribly. And despite what anybody living overseas may tell you, it never gets easier.
In late 1996, when I was 21, my mother kicked me up the arse, threw my suitcase at me and said: “Right, now fuck off. And don’t come back until you’ve seen a bit of the world.” One of her regrets when she was younger was that her poor, working-class upbringing had denied her the chance to travel, so she was delighted when I informed her that I was off to Singapore for a long working holiday.
She gave me three months, which was the usual stay for social visit pass holders. I gave myself three weeks. The eternal optimist. Seven years later, I’m still here and my dear old nan living in east London is still asking her neighbours: “Is it common for people to have seven-year holidays? It never was in my day. We either got a day out at the seaside or we went to the countryside to do a bit of scrumping at the local orchard. Do they have seaside places in Singapore? I still don’t know why he wanted to go to China in the first place.”
But that’s my batty grandmother. Let me give you an idea, if I may, of what a truly unique woman my mother is. Though she rarely says anything positive about me (until I was 15, I thought there was a linguistic rule which stipulated that the words “Neil”, “fuck” and “off” always had to go in the same sentence), I know living 10,000 km away is difficult for her. Yet she doesn’t want me to leave Singapore, despite never having visited the city-state.
She knows I have economic and personal security and live in a completely safe environment that is now only guaranteed in small pockets of England. Just recently she said on the phone: “I know you could get a decent job here and earn better money, but did I tell you about the bloke who was stabbed down at the harbour last week?... No?... Well, he died on Tuesday.” She’s full of chirpy vignettes like that.
But I have to concede that my time away from England has given me a greater respect for Singapore’s emphasis on filial piety. When I discovered what it meant, I was initially skeptical. Teachers, parents and politicians are constantly being urged to inculcate positive family values in the nation’s children. I thought it was a governmental cop-out. We don’t have a welfare state or pensions for the citizens who gave us fifty years of their working lives so you’ll just have to take care of your own parents or they will starve, seemed to be the government’s line of thought. Moreover I still read about greedy children fighting over the estate of their dead parents like incorrigible vultures squabbling over carrion.
Nevertheless, I have Singaporean friends who look after their ageing parents and relatives simply because it is the right thing to do. There’s no ulterior motive. And with every act of filial piety I come across, the more aware I become of the distance between my family and myself. My youngest brother was three years old when I left for university and six when I settled in Singapore. Aside from missing most of his childhood, I’m also completely out of sync with his interests and understanding of popular culture. First, it was Thomas the Tank Engine, and then it was Star Wars. When I last visited, I asked: “So what do you think of Darth Maul then?”
“Shut up you sad twat,” he replied, kicking me in the balls and flipping me onto my back like a rag doll. “I’m The Rock.”
“You’re a rock?”
“No, stupid. I’m The Rock.”
“Oh, are you?”
“Yeah. Can you smell what The Rock’s cooking?”
“You’ve learnt how to cook? That’s great.”
“No, stupid. God, don’t you know anything? That’s what the wrestler, The Rock, says.”
“Does he? That’s marvellous, Gary. Do you think you could stop sitting on my head now?”
I missed almost 10 years of that brotherly banter. I also wasn’t around when my grandparents died. They passed away within two months of each other. Now, this may sound cold and heartless, but when you live abroad, a certain detachment inevitably results. Distant relatives pass away and you’re sad, but the sense of loss can never be the same because they are names spoken over the telephone. You didn’t visit them in the hospital. You didn’t watch them deteriorate. And you didn’t attend their funerals.
To some degree, it was the same with my grandparents. They were in tremendous pain for several months before they died. And of course the illness of one only further exacerbated the suffering of the other. But I never saw any of that. The last time I saw them was at their house, when my grandmother told me I had a deformed neck and looked like the giraffe on the cover of my previous book. I wasn’t there for my own mother as she watched her stepfather and then her mother slowly waste away in a hospital bed. I didn’t even go to my grandparents’ funerals. I offered to come back, but my mother said there really was no point. Remember them how they were, before they got sick, she said. She’s right, of course, but her pragmatism did nothing for the guilt I felt when I returned at Christmas and my grandparents were not there anymore. Then it hits you just how detached you’ve become. Then you realise that not being able to do anything was not an excuse for no
t coming back. I should’ve been there with my family.
Fortunately, I had an emotional crutch to lean on, didn’t I? Because in Singapore, I am part of a much larger ‘family’, aren’t I? A ‘family’ that could have appreciated my confused state of detachment and loss, because these guys are all in the same boat as me. There are always my ang moh brothers and sisters ready and willing to embrace me in a foreign land, aren’t there? Those Singaporean expatriates all ready to muck in together, get pissed together, console each other, recreate their western ways of life together and generally overlook the fact that they are no longer in a western country. Being so far away from their loved ones, it’s understandable that they should seek to be part of a bigger ‘family’ in Singapore. It just shouldn’t be predominately white.
When my grandparents were ailing, my mood in the office was, naturally, not the best so a Singaporean colleague tried to cheer me up. “What you worried about?” he said. “Go to that British pub in Boat Quay. Find a few ang mohs. Can talk, reminisce about English weather and then go out and bang a few local women. What’s the problem?”
Call me naive, but I’ve never done that in my life. I was never good-looking enough for a start. But in Singapore, there are plenty who have. They really are one big happy family in an Asian land. You’ve met them, right? In the various jobs that I’ve had here, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting dozens of my so-called fellow family members. Some have a resume that’s so shady, you’ll need a torchlight to read its 15 pages. They’ve either been a principal at some obscure language school in Made-up Street, Swansea, Wales, where the register contained four students, two sheep and a shepherd called Taffy Williams, who’d only ever conversed with four-legged mammals. Or you get the journalist who was night editor at the Liechtenstein Times and has written award-winning columns, apparently, for the Cockroach Collectors Journal and the Sheep Dip Recipe Guide (old Taffy Williams was a subscriber).
Scribbles from the Same Island Page 15