by B.M. Hodges
Germaphobia Singapura
by
B.M. Hodges
Copyright 2012 B.M. Hodges
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Glossary
Ang Moh – a racial epithet that refers to Caucasians in Singapore.
Esplanade – Singapore’s premier performing arts venue.
handphone – term for mobile phone in Singapore
kiasu – a term referring to Singaporean’s ‘afraid of losing out’ mentality.
MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) – Singapore’s subway system.
Singlish – the English language as it is spoken in Singapore.
ulu – a Malay term used to denote the remoteness of a place.
Roy awoke to the buzz of his handphone tucked under his pillow, the alarm vibrating to half past seven in the morning. There was a dry taste in his mouth from the constant air-conditioning meant to keep the tropical Singapore heat out of his tiny rented room.
Ms. Cheung had been up early that morning crushing chili and spices in her little stone pot, the constant pounding of stone upon stone making those precious last bits of sleep somewhat chaotic.
Roy rolled out of bed and put on a pair of shorts, grabbing his shaving kit before sneaking out of his room, carefully shutting the door.
The bathroom was in the rear of the kitchen, so whenever he needed to visit the lavatory he had to face the other tenants, including Ms. Cheung, occupying the general living area.
He crept through the living room past Jilu, who was sitting on the canary yellow two-seater sofa smoking a spiff of tobacco and watching a Taiwanese variety show on the tube. Roy glanced into the open door to his right and caught of glimpse of Sylvia Tan’s slender thigh as she sat on her bed chatting to distant friends in Guangzhou from her laptop station in that tiny Singapore flat.
As Roy crept along the white tile floor, he tried to minimize his movements and keep to a straight line. As the only ‘Ang Moh’ living there, he felt as if the eyes of the other tenants were constantly on him, curious as to what he would do next. So he played the straight man, trying to keep himself as inconspicuous as possible, erasing his tracks as he crept through the dense urban wilderness.
He managed to sidle past Ms. Cheung without the irritating ritual of the morning greeting that so grated on his nerves before his first cup of coffee and quietly shut the bathroom door.
The bathroom was in the usual sparse Singapore style with a lavender sink jutting out of the wall, a mirror, a matching toilet and shower head poking out from above, all crammed into a closet-sized space. Roy stood on his tip-toes trying to limit his exposure to the slime of soap, used shower water and whatever missed the toilet that was coating the floor. The morning ritual used to be a joy back home. But here, it was near torture as he attempted to clean himself in the filth. He quickly shampooed his hair, rinsing with the shower head above the encrusted toilet and put on a slap-dash shave, forgetting to brush his teeth in his haste as he felt the contaminants surrounding him, penetrating into his tip-toes.
Roy had always had a bit of trouble shaking hands, touching doorknobs and overusing cans of bug spray. And here in Singapore with so many people living so close together, his proclivity to give in to his phobic tendencies had, shall we say, increased.
After toweling off and pulling on his shorts, he opened the bathroom door and jerked back. Ms. Cheung was standing there, not a hair’s breadth away with a big toothless grin on her craggily face.
“Good Morning, Roy!” She greeted him cheerily in her amusing accent.
He could smell her breath.
Roy didn’t mind Ms. Cheung, but he was a bit put-off when he had to make conversation with her. He taught English all day, every day, except for Sundays and when he was off work he tried to avoid tutoring freeloaders as much as possible.
“Morning, Auntie.” Roy mumbled.
He squeezed passed her and hurried to his room, dressed in his uniform of short-sleeve business shirt and knit tie and, glancing one more time at Sylvia’s perfectly smooth legs, left the flat towards the MRT station. Luckily, the station was only about ten meters away. It was the one selling point Roy had seized on when he agreed to the two-year sublease.
It was just past eight. He was in a good mood and had a few minutes to spare that morning, so the sight of the multitude rushing and cramming onto the escalators in order to make it to their desks before their bosses arrived was only mildly irritating. Sweat was beading on his forehead and dripping down his back as the thick humidity assaulted his freshly-washed body. And there was no respite from the heat as he sunk down into the depths of the station, careful to avoid touching the germ-ridden handrail. He plugged in his earphones and turned up his player. Life was so much easier here on this cramped island if you could drown out the rat-a-tat-tat of Singlish and avoid all unnecessary eye contact.
Roy topped up his MRT card and made his way through the turnstile of the litter-free station and then to the platform. He stood on the yellow arrows that showed where the door would open when the train stopped, facing the glass door and looking at his translucent reflection.
Do you know that uncomfortable feeling when someone is staring at you? At that moment, Roy felt someone furiously staring at him. Normally, the feeling doesn’t register until you’ve glanced around and locked eyes with the space invader. He quickly looked to his left at the leathery old man in his silk shirt waiting at another yellow arrow a few meters distant, convinced he was the culprit. But the old man wasn’t staring at him, he was just picking his nose, and fiercely picking his nose at that, digging and digging away with his index finger buried to the first knuckle.
Roy retched at the sight and quickly looked forward again, the imprint of the probing finger at the forefront of his mind.
He could feel the rush of stale underground air through the crack between the doors as the train arrived.
By now Singaporeans were crowding around and already a few had squeezed into the few centimeters between Roy and the door, pushing towards the closed entrances to the approaching train. The doors opened and before anyone could step off, the crowd rushed inside, Roy carried by the momentum. It was the same log-jam every morning, the pushing, the refusal to give way, pure kiasu. Eventually, the chaos subsided, all had disembarked and boarded and the train sped off.
Roy lived at the end of the purple MRT line far from the city center, so he had a good twenty-five minutes to relax and listen to the music he imported illegally through Sylvia’s computer when she was being nice to him. He grimaced at the unnecessary touching; one guy ruffled a Chinese newspaper against his back, an older Malay woman elbowed his ribs as she wrote a text message on her phone, an Indian girl poked her shopping back against his shin.
Roy shut his eyes for a few moments.
He had that feeling of someone intensely staring at him.
He cracked open his right eye and saw a little girl with red ribbons in her hair plunging her pinky into her nostril and then her mouth, back and forth, back and forth, again and again.
He clamped his eyes shut for the rest of the trip, carefully balancing like a surfer to avoid touching any handhold or railing.
The train reached his stop and he quickly walked to the small private school where he spent the majority of his time.
Roy taught three English classes for a total of a nine-hour teaching day. The morning commute was soon forgotten in the repetition of the past perfect simple
and formation of conditional sentences.
That evening, on his way back to his ulu flat Roy was too exhausted to pay attention to that nagging feeling, which was trying to draw his attention to a middle-aged civil servant wiping his nasal secretions on an empty seat beside him.
Roy arrived home at about half past eight and stepped into the living area with a polystyrene container of chicken rice to be smuggled into his bedroom for dinner. He found to his frustration that Ms. Chueng and the neighborhood aunties were beginning a mahjong session that was sure to last until the early hours of the morning. She had a terrible habit of gambling away the incoming rent money to those avaricious housewives who were much better players than her.
So it will be a night full of Hokkien curse words and intermittent tile shuffling, Roy thought with an exasperating sigh. He reminisced for a brief moment on his tranquil days before his life here, of university classes and waiting tables in a familiar and comfortable environment. He still had eighteen months of a two-year teaching contract left before he could return home with enough cash to again support himself on part-time work while attending graduate school.
Roy unlocked his bedroom door, stepped inside and secured the lock. His room was no cleaner than the rest of the flat, but for Roy it was spotless because