Scribbles from the Same Island

by Neil Humphreys

  This condescending fluff reminds me of a letter I received recently from an irate reader who criticised me for making fun of that poor, much maligned dictator Saddam Hussein. She challenged me on this and felt the need to point out that — now get ready for this — “War costs lives”.

  Do you ever wonder who these Singaporeans are? I do. They must pore over the newspapers every day, shouting: “Filth! Outrageous! Smut! How dare he try to be funny in this deadly serious world we live in? Filth! He’s left me with no choice. I must point out that war costs lives. He can’t possibly know that. And then, when I’m through with that insensitive cretin, I’m going to remind all Singaporeans that spitting is just, well, bad. Filth! Baa.”

  Of course, I can’t deny that there are still some pockets of resistance among the saliva gang in Singapore. There are some spitting gold medal contenders in my Toa Payoh estate, but then there are Dagenham teenagers who smash beer bottles in the High Street of my own hometown when they’re pissed. These parasites do exist. It doesn’t mean we should waste oxygen or ink advising others not to follow suit.

  Yet, the National Environment Agency obviously disagrees. As I write this, I’m looking at a marvellous advisory that the Agency published in a newspaper recently. The letter reminded Singaporeans that it is an offence to “spit or expel mucous”. I didn’t even know what “expel mucous” meant. I thought it was the stage name of a nightclub DJ, as in “Fat Boy Slim and Expel Mucous”. That could work.

  My own regret was that the letter wasn’t longer, otherwise I would have framed it and hung it in the living room. But at least, it saved the best for last. The last sentence included the suggestion that “those who find that they have to spit or blow their nose should do so with a piece of tissue paper”. Because you weren’t sure, were you? But if the Agency is capable of giving out such sound advice, it shouldn’t stop there. The advisory could have continued: “We’d also like to remind Singaporeans that walking can be achieved by putting one foot in front of the other. Where possible, try to perform the act in a straight line to avoid bumping into your fellow walkers. Thus considerably reducing the chances of you spitting in their faces.”

  The theme of self-protection is everywhere. Fortunately, not all of it is gloomy. My news editor recently handed me a press release and said: “This one’s for you, pervert.”

  Indeed it was. The press release was proud to announce that a reputable condom manufacturer had introduced a bigger condom to cater to the well-endowed man.

  At a time when cynical, ruthless companies are exploiting the nation’s fears by promoting everything from hand cream to anti-bacterial toilet paper, the big condom campaign stands out as the work of a marketing genius. The new, enlarged product is supposed to be 2 mm thicker than existing condoms. But whether or not you actually need the extra space is utterly irrelevant, isn’t it? Men will be queuing up in supermarkets and convenience stores to ask, in very loud voices: “Excuse me. Do you happen to have the new condom that caters for the well-endowed? You know, the one for men who are hung like horses?”

  Apparently, the condom company held in-house tests and 97% of users preferred the bigger product. How were these tests conducted? More importantly, how does one participate?

  The National Environment Agency has emphasised the importance of improving one’s personal protection in Singapore. So I am more than willing to take part in the next in-house condom test. In times of trouble, I must be prepared to go the extra 2 mm for the nation.

  THE CHARACTERS

  AMONG my family and friends, I was fortunate enough to be surrounded by a number of imbalanced individuals while I was growing up in England. Spending time with some serious cuckoos builds character, according to my mother. But then, I think she just used that as an excuse. When she was sweeping the kitchen floor once, she suddenly had a schizophrenic seizure and thought she was legendary batter Babe Ruth. At least, I think that’s why she chased me around the living room, trying to hit my head with the broom handle for a home run. But, rather deftly, I deflected the blow with my right ear and she only made first base.

  But dealing with slightly left-of-centre characters became a regular occurrence during my childhood. On the corner of my street was Maltese Tony. A wonderfully considerate and kind bloke who had emigrated from Malta to Dagenham when he was a young man. If you’ve ever seen both the stunning landscapes of Malta and the council housing estates of Dagenham, you would immediately gain a basic understanding of Maltese Tony. He had screws loose.

  On arriving, it seems that the first English expression he heard was “mind you”, but he never fully grasped its meaning, so he never said it in context. He said things like, “I have to go to the mind you shop to buy some cigarettes.” The fact that he also had an incurable stutter never helped matters. I’m not making this up. When he stuttered, he became the only human being to experience rapid eye movement while he was awake. Blinking furiously, he would say: “I was stuck in a bastard m-m-m-mind you traffic jam for 20 m-m-m-mind you minutes yesterday.” To make matters worse, he was a taxi driver. And taxi drivers were expected to engage in a little small talk. The only problem was his small talk could take an hour.

  But his piéce de résistance was his complete lack of awareness behind a steering wheel. The world never existed when he was driving the car. The fact that he was a taxi driver only made it all the more fun, or terrifying if you were the passenger. His favourite trick was the ‘homemade cigarette’. Stopping at a traffic light, he would pull out his tobacco tin, take out a pinch of tobacco, spread it out across a small, square piece of cigarette paper and then carefully roll it into a cigarette. Making these nicotine-filled burritos used to be quite popular in Britain. But the process was time-consuming. It could take up to five minutes. He would do it at a busy road junction, where the traffic lights changed every 30 seconds. And, frankly speaking, he didn’t give a shit. Frustrated car drivers would scream abuse, bang on their horns and screech around him and he’d be completely oblivious. Eventually he would get annoyed and shout: “Why are you making all this bastard mind you n-n-n-noise? You bastards.”

  He was fond of the word ‘bastard’. If he still hadn’t finished and the complaints around him intensified, he would really lose it. “I can’t even make a m-m-m mind you bastard cigarette in peace, without you making all this n-n-n-noise. You mind you bastards!”

  “Er, excuse me,” his startled passenger would finally pipe up. “I think they are shouting at you. The traffic lights keep changing and you still haven’t moved.”

  “Who was mind you talking to you? This is none of your business. Get out of my taxi, you mind you bastard!” He would throw so-called mind you dangerous passengers out of his vehicle every week and then complain that the job paid meagre wages.

  To be honest, I thought I’d never be fortunate enough to meet anyone as quirky as Maltese Tony again. In England, he’s one in a million. But in Toa Payoh, he’d just be one of the residents living in my estate. There was a fine collection of entertainers in my old block in Lorong 1 and, having moved in recent months to Lorong 2, I miss them dearly. My favourite was Rock DJ Auntie. In truth, she was once the infamous ‘bra lady’, whom I’ve mentioned before. But in the last year or so, the mad old bat went through a stunning metamorphosis that would’ve made Kafka proud.

  ‘Bra lady’ was famous, in my old HDB block at least, for travelling up and down in lifts all day, stopping at every floor. She performed this civic duty while wearing a pink bra on the OUTSIDE of her clothes. The cups were so large, they wouldn’t have looked out of place on an ageing elephant. But, alas, that’s all in the past. Now, she’s Rock DJ auntie. My girlfriend reported the transformation one evening. Out of breath, she ran into the flat and said: “I’ve just seen bra lady coming back from the shops!”

  “So what? We see her nearly every day. Pink bloody bra and everything.”

  “No, but she’s not wearing the bra today.”

  “Well, you don’t expect her to
wear it every day, do you? I’m sure even she must take it off occasionally, otherwise the stench would knock her out.”

  “Shut up and come and see. She’s wearing something else.”

  And she most certainly was. When I was growing up in the late ’70s, my parents had a pair of those, enormous leather-padded headphones to plug into the hi-fi. Do you remember them? They had a plug the size of a screwdriver and when you put them on you looked like Princess Leia in Star Wars. Well, old ‘bra lady’ was wearing the biggest pair of those old leather-padded headphones that I’d ever seen. Think Princess Leia some 30 years after menopause and you’ll get a rough picture of what I saw across the void deck. ‘Bra lady’ was dead. Long live Rock DJ Auntie.

  Transfixed, we sat at one of those concrete tables that really make your bum itch and watched her approach. Then came the revelation. The giant headphones were plugged in — to nothing. The coiled lead was hanging loosely by the side of her body. Quite clearly, I could see the screwdriver plug brushing against her knee. What the hell was the purpose of those headphones? Earmuffs? In Singapore? This woman was utterly insane.

  Or perhaps she is a genius. Just two days before writing this, I saw her again. Whenever I smile at her, she never reciprocates, her vacant, slightly puzzled expression never changes. Rock DJ Auntie looks right through me as if I’m transparent. Then it occurred to me, perhaps I am. She is on another dimension to the rest of us, mentally speaking. She has reached another level and is communicating on a higher spiritual plane. The signs were always there, weren’t they? Of course, she doesn’t need to plug her headphones into any electrical source because her power source is looking down at us and not the other way around. That’s what the pink bra was – a signal no less. A polyester satellite communicating earthly messages to an outerworldly paymaster. Yes, that’s the answer. Everything is clear now.

  On the other hand, of course, she could be a complete fucking lunatic.

  It would be grossly unfair, however, to categorise Madam Bed Linen as a lunatic. Slightly off kilter perhaps, but she’s so endearing, she’s almost edible. Short and rather plump, she doesn’t quite reach to my chest which makes our brief liaisons all the more memorable. About six months ago, we were in Toa Payoh Central hunting for a new quilt, bedsheets, pillowcases and so on. As a rule, I find this kind of shopping about as entertaining as plugging into headphones without a Walkman. But as I tend to emit the odd comical sound while I’m in bed, I was forced to concede that I was partially responsible for the demise of the old quilt.

  Luckily, Madam Bed Linen introduced herself and I’ve since bought three quilt cover sets. We were in a small department store, one of those that always sticks an employee in the bed linen section, assuming perhaps that if we have a blue-and-yellow bedroom, we would need those colours pointed out to us by a conscientious shop assistant. We can’t take the bedroom with us, right? So it’s better to be safe than sorry. Normally, I have little patience with these shop assistants. I know they are only doing their job, but I get irritated when you tell them your bedroom is indeed blue and yellow and they show you the remains of an explosion in a paint factory and tell you that it will match.

  But Madam Bed Linen in Toa Payoh was different. Firstly, she never stopped giggling and mumbling to herself, which was a little disconcerting initially. She also spoke in a high-pitched voice and agreed with everything you said. We’d say: “We actually want a blue-and-yellow set.”

  “Ha! Blue and yellow. This one okay?”

  “It’s pink.”

  “Yeah, very nice.”

  “We want blue-and-yellow.”

  “Ha! You want blue-and-yellow... How about this one?”

  “It’s a plain, white quilt.”

  “Yeah, it’s a plain quilt. But it’s cheap, got offer one.”

  “But we want a blue-and-yellow one.”

  “Ha ha! You want a blue-and-yellow one?”

  It began to feel like a Jedi mind trick after a while. But the best thing about Madame Bed Linen was actually two-fold. Firstly, she had a slight lisp. And secondly, she pronounced sheet as ‘seat’. After we’d selected a quilt, she asked: “Beth-seat for you, sir?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Ha ha, would you like some beth-seats?” She pointed at the bedsheets and I had to walk away, complaining of a throat irritation. I know this is terrible, and I’m going straight to hell, but I bit my tongue, returned to this lovely lady and formulated as many ways as possible to make her say “bed-sheets”. Picking up a quilt cover, I would say: “Would these fit on a queen-sized bed?”

  “Ha ha! That’s a quilt cover, not beth-seats.”

  “What are these blue ones?”

  “Ah, they are okay. They’re beth-seats.”

  Now, whenever she spots me in the store, she shouts cheerfully: “Hello, ha ha! Beth-seats, I got beth-seats. You wanna see my beth-seats? Ha ha!” Her inexhaustible chirpiness whenever we meet attracts some concerned stares.

  Every time she invites me to see her bedsheets, she sounds like a middle-aged hooker with a speech impediment. But she’s wonderful company and I always have a chat with her when I’m in the shop, no matter what I’m doing. She never says she’s too busy and will make time to talk, like the majority of the Singaporeans I meet in and around Toa Payoh. When I was promoting my previous book, a journalist said he’d lived in Singapore all his life and had never encountered half the characters that I claim to have met in a small corner of Toa Payoh. He suggested it was due to the novelty factor. A white man in Toa Payoh evokes reaction and curiosity. People are generally nosy by nature and will seek to find out what the ang moh is doing in their lift, void deck or coffee shop. It’s a possibility, though a touch patronising. Neighbours and strangers are naturally inquisitive, it’s hardly a crime. And call me self-indulgent, but I will actively go out of my way to meet people in my estate and chat with them. That was the reason I decided to travel in the first place.

  Life is so fast-paced now, apparently, that there is no time for small talk. You know, a little bit of harmless nonsense that helps break up the mundane and makes a predictable working day more fun. When interested Singaporeans take a kaypoh interest in my life, I respond. It’s not exactly profound. I don’t give a two-word answer and disappear into a lift, like many of the younger executive types do in my block. These hardworking chaps may not be unhinged, quirky or colourful. They’re just boring.

  Observe the HDB void decks. Invariably, they are filled with old-timers doing nothing except gossip and chat. Occasionally, they have the odd beer to lubricate the old vocal cords. Among the younger generation, conversation (at least conversation that doesn’t involve the economy, gambling or golf) is a dying art in Singapore. It’s no coincidence that most of my favourite eccentrics are amomng the elderly. They like to talk and I like to listen. It’s not a complex relationship.

  Similarly, Singaporean children can’t seem to keep their mouths shut either. It’s fabulous. Not yet tainted by race, religion or politics, they rarely hold back. There’s a gang of primary school kids from my old block who are a sublime mix of innocence, honesty and insanity. Indeed, the cheeky bastards are so open and gregarious that they could have had me arrested.

  For a couple of years now, they’ve been playing football on the void deck. That’s how I met them. A mixture of Chinese and Malay boys aged from six to around 12, they’re more streetwise than Jack Dawkins and audaciously insist the “tall ang moh come play” every time I pass. Our ad hoc five-a-side matches had attracted some curious glances. But that was nothing compared to the reactions I get from strangers now, whenever the boys shout their greetings.

  Almost two years ago, a journalist came to my flat with a photographer to interview me about my first book, Notes from an even Smaller Island. We took some photos in front of the block while my football posse playfully mocked me in the background. The interviewer suggested taking some pictures with my ‘gang’, but they refused. Normally, you can’t get the boys to
shut up. On this occasion, though, they were struck dumb by stage fright. Fair enough.

  However, once the journalist and the photographer had left, the gang’s cockiness quickly returned. About a week after the interview, I was walking home with the missus when the gang waved at me from the children’s playground. One of them shouted: “Hello, ang moh. You remember us, you wanted to take our photograph last time? Do you remember? You wanted to take our photograph!” At that moment, if I’d produced an axe and screamed “Here’s Johnny!”, I don’t think my girlfriend could have expressed greater horror. I tried to explain the boy’s claim.

  “No, it wasn’t me who wanted to take your photograph was it, boys?”

  “Yeah lah, it was you what,” replied the cheeky one. “You wanted to take photographs of all of us, with you also in the photograph, right?” I could have strangled the little bastard.

  But it never stopped. To this day, if I bump into any of the young void deck footballers, they bellow: “Hello, remember us? You wanted to take photographs of us? You want to take now?” And they always say it just as a respectable, middle-aged couple is crossing my path. Their timing is impeccable. My girlfriend is constantly on hand to remind me that I have the unsmiling face of a serial killer, so the kids’ banter is just enough to have people crossing the road to avoid me.

  They surpassed themselves, however, when my girlfriend’s parents came to Singapore for her graduation ceremony. Arriving back at the block after a day of sightseeing, we were discussing our evening plans when the void deck boys spotted me.

  “Hello ang moh. Remember me?”

  “Yes, I remember you. How can I forget you? You’re here every day.”

  “Yeah lah. You remember you wanted to take our photograph last time. You want to take it now?” The boys giggled. My future parents-in-law questioned their daughter’s judgment.