Carsick 2

Blue uniform shirt tucked and slightly unbalanced, bellied older Mediterrano cabbies stopped kerbside with their boots up taking stored refreshment. Family men avoiding take-away prices in order to present their wives the whole of the earnings. Out beside the car the unstable focus noticeable even on a drive-by, the lopsided posture against the traffic. At their station the masterful taming of the daily frenzy: from the crotch lightest feather-touch on the wheel, under-grip lane-changing and cornering without discernible rotation. (In conversation the same delicacy of measure negotiating all-comers.)

Under the relentless observation, the head-turning, gawping, hooting and honking, the rigid, pointy fixity of young girls transfixed at the wheel. Turned to stone. Flickered monitoring of mirrors, wary of capture even there.

            Graduated and secure, the successful older young woman as polished and gleaming as her wheels, high in the seat, back pressed into plush cushions. Ringed and bangled hands stretched full length and locked on the wheel 10 to 2. Set and immoveable as her young sister. 

Foxes and hounds, country estate, vineyards and alpine retreats out of reach a couple of generations now.

Bent at the wrong angle, the white line slipping under the wheels, unreeling from its spool in the side-view and confirming the passage the bigger picture fails to convey.

Chinese Marriage Market

A proper Chairman Mao great-niece this morning Miss YuB. Short queue, hand-knitted vest over shirt, ruddy cheeks and bright eyes.

             Twice weekly she volunteers at the Sunshine school, helping the Mandarin teacher with her difficult task. Alternate weekends YuB joins the soup van delivering to the homeless around town.

             A picture from another place and time sitting upright and firm, unheeding of the traffic, the churning trucks and darting cars. Formidable revolutionary Red Guard in her civvies, not long turned twenty-three.

            It had to out. She had to be told….

            Months past YuB had been joshed once or twice before in this same way, without much reaction. It seemed inconsequential for her, water off an imperturbable Chinese duck’s back. Only now on the morning ride to Sunshine did the surprise on her side emerge.

            In fact, as it turned out, back home only a few short years ago, Miss YuB had been commonly mocked in precisely these same terms—either as Mao’s granddaughter, or great niece.

            The settled poise, the unsophisticated dress and sober behaviour was a throw-back to a remote past even for her own countrymen—her schoolmates in this case.

            By the early nineties Yuan’s kind of firm uprightness, her all-weather calm, had become an anachronism even in the land of her birth.

            The schoolmates’ revenge back then on their prim and proper Class Monitor was one thing; that the same barb would follow her out to Australia quite another. There was cause for some concern.

            There had been a simple, straightforward pride evident when Yuan first revealed her former position of Class Monitor.  Not any kind of Class Monitor either. Twelve years YuB had been the chosen one; through each year of her school-life.

            Evidently there had not been another candidate to compare for dependability, serious mindedness, the no nonsense rallying of the classroom. In early grades one of her teachers had wanted to adopt Yuan. When family turmoil disrupted her schooling the teacher had stepped forward.

            Yuanbin tells tales that stretch much further into the past than a 10 hour flight would suggest. Something of the fine, reliable Class Monitor still hung close.

             The kids in the class, the back-rowers and others, must have been gentle and circumspect in their ragging. Some of these former classmates still texted her in Australia, addressing YuB as Monitor, or Sis.

            The family upheaval in early years had delayed her schooling; as a consequence Yuan had been a year older than most of her classmates. The seniority another cause for respect.

In the Sunshine Mandarin classes there were a couple of intractable students. Miss YuB suggests strategies to the class teacher, only a few years older than herself. Back home in Fuzhou YuB had tutored youngsters in a variety of subjects, Mandarin included. No doubt she had an aptitude; for teaching and much else. With trains and buses taking over an hour to get to Sunshine, a quick lift was the least one could do.

In the new country three or four years later YuB was a little uneasy at the echo of the old taunt. Concerned now she was at what appeared a bad look.

            Certainly neither Yuan nor her family had ever been Maoist. All his life her father has practiced his Buddhism. Now too with the future looming, this kind of prim and proper look might impede prospects. It was unlikely to win favour with the boys perhaps.

            At fully twenty-three, the pressure was on at home from YuB’s mother and aunts. Only a year older, her eldest sister had a child already; the younger a solid boyfriend. For a number of months now the matchmakers had been at work.

            Friends here were well underway meeting prospective husbands, introduced by either their parents or parents’ allies. Facebook and online chat were often the first acquaintance. A few months ago when there was a lad being proposed, YuB had said she preferred if her mother or aunt found her a suitable boy. Their judgment Yuan was willing to trust and follow; explore the possibility at least. Having someone sourced by these wise heads would at the same time relieve the responsibility. Of course the whole thing was daunting. How to bring off a good marriage? Doing it on one’s lonesome, by one’s own devising, presented all kinds of problems, no less so for a clear-minded, sensible and practical young woman.

For our evening walks often the Red Star baseball cap came out. Among the Chinese diaspora the cap had caused YuB some trouble. Many of the older generation particularly were affronted. And of course YuB shared the antipathy, like everyone else now she was a young capitalist-roader now. Another reason why the Chairman ragging was unwelcome.

            For her generation, however, the five-pointed star stood for nation. The proud, strong China moving forward into the new century. YuB’s little moon-face carried the star nicely. (It was not a harvest moon; only a small orb. The weight-gain in Australia was another cause for worry in the marriage market. Ten kilograms YuB had put on here—therefore the evening exercise.)

            With the cap the vigorous swing of arms inevitably suggested a march– of the long variety of course.

            — I’m exercising on my arms, Yuan defended herself, throwing off the imputation.

            Yuan’s friend Nina recently returned to Hong Kong to meet the boy proposed by her stepmother—in fact her aunt. (When her mother abandoned Nina as a baby the responsibility was immediately accepted by the aunt, the mother’s sister. Not the only case of fluid familial relations among YuB’s friendship group. Yu B herself had been raised by her good aunt when her parents’ marriage broke down.)

            We were keen to hear news of Nina. Being so busy over there even Facebook and texting lagged. In the last weeks before she left Nina had spent $2,000 on new clothes and got herself trim for the introduction, losing 8 kg.

            Nina worked as a professional barista in a Box Hill café. Some money she had salted away. The agreement between the brokers was that the prospective groom weighed into the deal with $600k, a figure referenced to the property market in Melbourne. It was enough for a decent entry-level apartment. The fellow did not have tertiary education, but neither did Nina. What Nina had was PR. A sizeable bargaining chip.

Yuan’s own position had been stated over the last few months as more and more of her friends had entered the marriage stakes. Yuan’s first prospect had apparently taken offence at her tardy response to mails. Or at least the lad’s sponsors had taken offence it seemed. Yuan had tried to argue her commitments of schooling, work and volunteering. Without success.

            A recent Sydney trip with another girlfriend for whom a preliminary meeting had been arranged with the son of her father’s friend back in Shanghai proved unsuccessful. The lad had a good IT job, PR; father had some money. Problem was he was both too short and very plain looking. The girl involved, LiLin, couldn’t be swayed.

            YuB on the other hand had different criteria. On the matter of height she was in accord with Shanghaiese LiLin. Not only could the girls not stomach the thought of a shorty, ideally Mr. Right needed to be over 180cm. Decidedly taller than themselves. A podgy fellow was OK, as long as the ranginess was there.

            Everyone liked good looks of course—or so you would have assumed. LiLin certainly did. LiLin was conventionally pretty, chasing the fashion, wearing make-up. At home her wardrobe was overflowing with shoes and handbags. Good looks in the boys was only to be expected.

            Yuan however dissented. Handsome boys raised doubts and distrust for her. Not considering herself attractive might have had something to do with it. The whole outward beauty factor Yuan seemed to consider a trap, a kind of misfortunate by-way. Marriage and the chief direction of life was side-tracked by such elements. This seemed to be YuB’s thinking.

            The matter of height was something else. Health and wellbeing possibly involved; not a superficial aesthetic standard.

            In YuB’s criteria then (a) height and a close second  (b) intelligence. There was definite intolerance for “stupidity”.

            Handsomeness a clear negative: the wariness was as strong as that. Money and education were unnecessary; the latter more important than former.

            That pretty much covered the matter.

            One other qualification was added recently in a particular context, which unexpectedly re-cast the position somewhat.

            Should she be pursued earnestly, with some persistence, by a shorty, Yuan might in fact come around.

            — If he likes me a lot….

            Weeks past that particular factor had seemed fixed and unalterable.

Buccaneers and Pirates (Mar26)

 

 

Earlier in the morning a young Somali was complaining about the parking meters.

What do they think this is?! In Footscray…

Rich people: Sudanese, Somali…

At the coffee machine Abdou Razzak stirring the pot from the side, as usual. Cheeky boyishness etched here. Usually AR’s delivery was more deadpan.

… In Chapel Street they don’t have meters on the street. They should have them there. Not Footscray.

…Sunshine. Braybrook. Too much money. Government know. Somalis pay.

            Which revealed the young lad’s nation.

They think we’re pirates, that’s why.

This produced an outburst of laugher from a number of the tables, regardless of national lines.

The local Liberal candidate, a regular at the café, had highlighted the problem of the parking meters on his advertising material.

The older men at d’Afrique didn’t drive. Some of the younger able-bodied walked from Flemington & Maribyrnong to join their brothers. 10-12kms.

It was a broad church at Abou R.’s place. Christians from the Horn intermingled with the dominant Muslims—Somalis, Sudanese, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Lebanese & Egyptians at adjacent tables. Some Vietnamese Buddhists and Koreans were added to A. R.’s mix too. One of the latter was killed a few years before at an outdoor table by a Sudanese hitting the wrong pedal while backing out of a parking spot across the road.

Recently, Mr Mohammed No. 3 was encountered at the front window table, the prize viewing perch in the house. After being shut away in hospital couple months following a fall, Mr M. enjoyed the show out on the street.

Mohammed was the most popular and common name in Somalia, Mr M. informed.

Unlike many of his generation there, Mr Mohammed No. 3’s English was good and formally correct. Almost certainly he had not been sighted previously; the disability would have been recalled. In childhood Mr M. had contracted polio. Since diabetes had added to his afflictions, and then the fall in the shower had resulted in a break in his good, straight leg.

Because his father was a rich cattle & livestock trader, Mr Mohammed had completed primary, intermediate & high school in Mogadishu.

Hearing that his countryman Mr Mohammed No. 1, the shopkeeper around the corner—three shops now, selling cheap China product—had said that Somalis who declared they came from Mogadishu usually hailed from a goat track 40kms off, Mr M. No. 3 gave a wan smile.

In Mogadishu city this Mr Modh confirmed he had lived, was schooled and treated for his affliction.

Six languages were in his command. In order of accomplishment: Somali, English, Arabic, Italian, Russian… and one other, possibly not a colonial language.

In an exchange of mobile numbers with Allen, a fellow Somali who hadn’t seen Mr M. No. 3 for a long while, English was used.

Asked why the Africans resorted to English instead of Somali or Arabic, Allen replied with pique, Because we are not Arabs.

In a recent news-report one of the Somali pirates had been ridiculed for accepting a ransom of only a few thousand dollars for some particularly rich booty. In reply the man had defended himself by explaining he hadn’t known there existed a number greater than ten thousand.

Ten years the Italians were in Somalia. The first and most accomplished buccaneers, the English, before them and later returning again for a second stint. Mr M. No. 3 was not alone at the café in possession of relevant history; deeply personal history of course.

For a time the Russians had supplanted the English in Somalia.

Many of the men in the café spoke a smattering of the various Euro languages.

Mr Modh’s superior English had been bolstered by fifteen years he spent in Christchurch, before he crossed the Ditch to the continent. Understandably, the weather in Melbourne he found more congenial, he explained.

Late-60s or early-70s, of a sunny, good-natured disposition, with the disability confusing the initial picture.

Mr M. had been too young for Mussolini, but the Italian in the schools had continued for some while after the failure of that new, short-lived Roman dawn.

Club and broken foot could be carefully co-ordinated with the walking frame to get the man out the door here and onto the pavement. At the café Mr Mohammed received much deference and respect from all; in making his slow exit, however, he politely declined helping hands.

Taking up the window chair after him, Faisal, A. Razak.’s elder brother, told of Julian Assange’s recent interview on Al Jazeera he had watched. The strikingly white white man had greatly surprised Faisal.

— They kill him? he wondered.

 Very nearly of course some years later. There was not much the African there didn’t know about international relations and politics.

 

 

 

                                                                                                Café d’Afrique

                                                                                                      Footscray, Melbourne

                                                                                             

 

                                                                                                                                  December 2010

Pieta (April26)

The studied pieta working for the chap against the Myers’ window, by the old GPO. Head bowed, dark hair falling loose and hanging on his forehead. Averted, hidden eyes was taking on now, becoming common among the fraternity. Even many of the harder lads had picked it up. 

            This chap in addition turns his head aside, skewed and twisted, as if in death throes. 

Bowed, downcast & contorted. With the sparse black beard, the posture highly suggestive.

As it indeed quickly proves, drawing a  young ALPHAVILLE bag, who drops a full to overflowing fistful of coin into the receptacle. 

Not less than $10 clattering, for all the predominance of silver. 

Nothing on the other side. Not a flicker. That would break the spell. 

More than likely the girl adopts them like the rest of us. A fellow this good might score one of these days—like the hobos in Central Park back when.

            Sure enough, 30m on, the Gippslander just turned from a seated shopper, who had denied him. The winter coat made it a hard foot-slog in that weather, and it showed. (The other sported a royal blue shirt; the less scruffy the better in the middle of town.)

            That’s Wayne, Gippslander informs when the news was conveyed. One of the man’s usual chin nods. 

It’s been a few weeks. Gippslander was relieved to have found a regular. 

Nnothing all day and needed $8 for the train to Taralgon to see the kids. 

On earlier meets the Gippslander said he hadn’t seen the kids for nearly a year. Today he’s more vague. 

Sunburnt. Light coloured jacket dirty. An awkward gait after these months of living rough and sleeping in the tram shelter up near the Zoo. 

Not much to recommend the Gippslander. A drunk at a glance.

            In fact Wayne is the one further along the Mall, with the pictures spread round. The pics were a new development for Wayne, his artistic talent absent years past. 

It was Wayne who had been one of the first to adopt the crestfallen, pained bow. In those early days he had used a cowl-like hood, summer & winter. Not a standard hoodie; something more ecclesiastical. 

Bowed at the pavement, penitent par excellence. Passers-by couldn't help themselves. 

Wayne did well. Sometimes late in the afternoon you saw him up near the market, making for one of the half-way houses, presumably.

            The other, the blue shirt, Gippslander doesn’t know. New on the scene. 

Nothing of  peevishness noticeable; the Gippslander doesn't begrudge the takings. 

Chin wagging a number of times. No glass jaw that; no brittleness about the Gippslander. 

Tilt of head, straight gaze, leading with the chin from his corner—the Gippslander's petition stops you in your tracks and stays days after.

                                                 

 Bourke Street Mall, Oct 2010

Singapore Notes: Geylang - The Introduction (2011)

        

Sing-Sing

Thoughts of the drug couriers passing the double barbed wire of Changi Prison; the kind of regime and program that must operate inside. The executions part of the exhortatory civic programming in this city/country—omnipresent billboards, piercing announcements on the trains, newspaper ads.…. Twenty times smaller land area than Montenegro and six/seven times the population: 4 mil./600,000. The Labour Camp Museum was closed, but the eateries nearby had lots of Aussies at the tables, left to draw their own conclusions on Imperial Japan, the Western Alliance, WWII and the Pacific theatre, international trade, cruelty and inhumanity from the movies, Sixty Minutes, magazine and newspaper features.

Flapping washing always a welcome sight. (More so where there are no birds or almost any other animals to be seen, even in Geylang.) Hung out on short bamboo-like poles from housing eight and ten stories high. Ships under an odd, ragged kind of sail the effect. (Better apartment blocks elsewhere disallow the practice.) Part of the nakedness of the poorer, workaday sections of the city.
            Pensioners pay about $S400 per month for these well maintained HDB – Housing Development Board — flats. (Nothing like bleak Housing Commission.)

            Pocket tissues sold by old ladies on the street possibly part of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew’s social program: promoting self-reliance; minimizing serviette litter from the eateries. (Serviettes likely permitted in the better class eateries around City Hall.) Fittingly, younger smiling women sell the hope of lottery tickets at the footpath tables. (The resistance against a casino collapsed under the new political guard: currently under construction.)

From school books of 40 years ago near relative of Java man walking the street here nightly, a wonderful, captivating architecture of cranium and features. (In the city in expensive Western dress and manner the relationship far less apparent.) Jaws prominent, loose slack mouths (dentistry as expensive here as elsewhere), heads lolling a little, width across the cheekbones. Striking the relaxation and complete ease of expression, the loose limbs, the unmistakable laxity and collectedness. Out of the ordinary on any city street. Recognition and exchange in looks and glances, gestures and spoken greetings: the unknown stranger not the frightful mystery that he is ordinarily…. Far more than colour or occasional native dress, these the signs of the foreign labourer’s foreignness, otherness. The marks of origin in entirely different homelands, different communities and structures.

            The procession spills from the narrow pavement under the verandas onto the outside lane of the road, ceaseless, various, marvelous one way and the other along the busy five lane thoroughfare. An array of supple able-bodied young strength, Chinese and Indian, singly or in groups — all in possession of recent health check certificates—returning to their dormitories. (25 – 28 to a room the size of a badminton court; cold-water communal shower block reports the Straits Times). In hand the cheaper take-away plastic sachets of chai and teh tarik. Much of the apparel surprisingly fitting the dominant global street-wear cred (direct from place of manufacture); the English on the t-shirts almost entirely unintelligible on this street (the reason the oversized FUCK YOU can be sported by the rapper fans). While at the cheap pavement tables the older locals a few pegs above in the social order, male mainly, demonstrate the problem of the demographics (identical to the position of any other denatured “Western” country).

            In Geylang more than anywhere else in Singapore the awareness of the geography of the region: the great seething land mass to the north. An entrepot of an entirely different kind now.

                   LOWER CRIME RATE DOESN’T MEAN NO CRIME

                               Protect yourself & your loved ones

                               Practice good personal hygiene

          Value life, act responsibly

Touching ingenuous naivety harkening back to a long-lost optimism. And given the rudimentary English here, discordant in Geylang.

           

No Name Karaoke Pork Ribs Curry Noodle Yen Furnishing Thian Thian Joss Stick 503 Bosch Tolay Electrical Trading Pte Ltd within fifty metres of the chosen MC Eating House ($S3.00 for King-size plate.) Car repair places behind roller shutters immediately off the footpath, one a few doors down from the large mosque.

            Unlit scrap-quality bicycles and scooters up and down with pillions uncomfortably perched (a fantastically illuminated one blazing coloured lights and blaring dance music the exception). All unhelmeted. Dark young men back of flat-bed trucks like convicts or some kind of underground slaves; resting heads on rails, holding on slack-bodied against the motion—more and more in the aspect of war-time coolies, salt mine labour camp prisoners. Medieval transports to execution sites…. Old green part-covered trucks from the Fall of Singapore common—wooden rails, canvas or metal canopy, Bedford-type nose and grill. Early afternoon near Bugis startled by a couple of dark young lads fast asleep on the corrugated tray of a small white truck parked along a line of commuter vehicles standing in their metered spaces. Taking no-one’s notice. Murdered, their postures would have been unaltered. Some-one said Tamils and Bangladeshis largely (house-maids Indonesian and Philippino).

             Lessons in contemporary First World capitalism.

                    SMILE. IT INCREASES YOUR FACE VALUE

Comparative absence of neon, pizzazz, haute chi-chi seduction in these parts. No subliminal advertising whatever. Only this endless civic-mindedness.

Nothing to buy on Geylang. Shopperless shopping strip. The place utterly bereft of consumer goods and novelty shops—a couple of fancy lighting stores almost the sole exception. Fifty cheap eateries in two kilometres, bikes, eye-glasses, fruit, pawnbrokers, car repair, bars, karaoke, massage, a mosque, organic food. Supermarketless the length and breadth. Two Seven-Elevens with the look of recent encroachment. (Within the towers round Raffles and City Hall novel quirky unique fashion-design aesthetics aplenty no doubt.)

            Two-kilometre five-lane traffic thoroughfare ( bus-stop posters warning against jay-walking) hosting each evening a couple of hundred working girls on the beat. Clustering around the bars and karaokes younger pencil-thin Viet girls. Older mainland Chinese work the eateries, accepting invitations at the plastic outdoor tables, joining the beer drinking, adding to the repartee, immediately enlivening the table. Down the eastern end making an odd near neighbour, Muslim Malay Village, where the women cover top to toe and generational oddity at the tables reveals (illegal) multiple wives.

            Worn open faces the like of which disappeared from our city streets twenty and thirty years ago. (Visible still only in Footscray and Blacktown Coles Cafeterias.) Elderly on small motorised scooters, wheelchairs, walking sticks, under arm, adding to the full human gamut. TV a lesser companion for these people. (Outdoor screen in the Malay quarter showing non-stop choreographed violence always drawing a little knot of on-lookers). Likely lack of air con. at home a factor. Cheapness of food too.

                   Casino body aims to strike right balance

                            One aim to keep bad hats out;

                            Another to curb harmful social impact

                                                             Straits Times, 18 April

Twenty four year old Bangladeshi construction site worker 1 ½ yrs in country earnings $S600 – 650 per month. Repatriates $S400 each month. Company accommodation. Sixteen year visa.

Last year Singapore Coastguard chased off 245 suspicious vessels; four times the number in 2007.

                                                                                              Straits Times 18^th April.

Much Ado About Nothing playing somewhere within spitting distance of Raffles no doubt. (Worn, barely legible pavement cautions against the practice). Advertised on taxis and buses. More down-heartening than the Frank Sinatra t-shirt seen on a labourer trudging along Geylang as if through a rice paddy. Much more down-heartening.

Sunday night in Little India

For the native Singaporeans an unusual entertainment Sunday afternoon and evening going to watch the cheap labour take their leisure in Little India. Little India is the name of the MRT stop in the old Indian quarter where the temples and tea and spice shops—now overtaken by knickknack shops—are centred. Ordinarily in Singapore the dark skinned sub-continentals can only be sighted in the rear of flat-bed trucks or around the stalls in Little India……

A social experiment in a large field laboratory stretching about three square kilometres: Take 40,000 young Indian men between the ages of nineteen and thirty six out from their homelands (between 1.55 – 1.7 metres height); put them to work six or six and a half days a week at fourteen or so hours per diem (some of the foreign workers have one or two Sundays off per month); then on their free afternoon allow them to bathe and dress themselves, iron shirts and trousers and fraternize entirely as they wish into the evening. Observe the result.

            — You have to see this. You will be amazed. You can see them milling everywhere you turn, sitting on the ground and in the street. They hold hands and walk arm in arm. Men together, our Singaporean local reveals in her advance promotion.

            The event become something of a curiosity for the natives, the Singaporean Chinese, who venture out to witness the remarkable spectacle, the extraordinary throng. Young men down in the gutters, scatted across the few grassed areas, under the trees ( the trees first taken). A minority sit at the eateries in front of the large screens showing Bollywood epics and music videos. (Five thousand times the number of tables would be required to seat them all.) The greater proportion walking with their fellows up and down, no-where in particular.

            And true to tell, precisely as forewarned: hand-holding, arms across shoulders, elbows clasped. In conversation an arm or elbow held while the words given. Warm, purposeful, close exchanges. Breathed conversations. Earnest telling. News-information-advice-giving. Smiles, laughter and raucousness less evident. Circumstances dictate another tone and register.

            Fifty or sixty thousand possibly. In neatest Sunday-wear. Intriguing for the local Chinese, and unnerving too with the implied thinness of social order. Ranked buses wait to return them to their dormitories, loud-hailers directing.

            (Otherwise Sago Lane in China Town and the Little India thoroughfares tourist traps only.)

Mainland China and Singapore worlds apart according to the locals. “We are not Chinese,” when the question wrongly put. Sixty-five – seventy per cent Chinese population according to the Chinese. (A quarter of the population non-citizens:1.2 / 4.8 million.)

Sport non-existent here as an element in the social mix. Yonex Tee going by gives the reminder.

                                    SAFETY FIRST

                                    LIFE IS GOOD
(For dark skinned foreign workers?)

Seat-belt law optional in practice; inapplicable for the workers on the flat-bed trucks. (Arrogance in the car driver toward pedestrians a product of the harsh natural law and class system operating?)

The age-bracket for working girls same as the labourers; lower limit in this case more elastic very likely. (No admittance under sixteen years of age. No Soliciting on these premises: in all the bar entryways.) Mornings the younger ones return to Geylang in taxis picking up take-away en route to their dorms. (No doubt twenty to a room likewise).

            The older mainland Chinese gladden the hearts of the local workers, small businessmen and pensioners.  Eighty year olds returning from their morning constitutional are recalled to their youth and made to ponder the possibilities under the verandas.

            No sixteen year visas applicable.

Survival

Bangladeshi worker quoted saying a month in Singapore without work one could not survive. Back home it was a year.

Eighty thousand Indonesian housemaids start on around $S250 per month and progress up to $S500 – 600 when they have proved themselves and won their place in the family. Contracts commonly two years. Yearly flight home included in salary package. First and third Sundays monthly free.

            Sundays Paya Lebar a honey-pot for the boys and adventure playground for the girls. Paya Lebar has two large multi-storey shopping complexes opposite each other at the main intersection and numerous cheap eateries adjacent. Quick “emergency love” (Garcia Marquez) is cheaper and sweeter here than that offered by the working girls down the road. Even so, as the boys say, without the money there is no honey here too.