Grace on Geylang (Singapore)

Cab hailing has a style all its own here. Whether working girls, the slave workers from the sub-continent, the local elderly, all follow the established form. One suspects in the city centre, the business class, the technocrats, the finance jockeys and the rest will have a different manner, something more fitting their status. Less pleading or artfulness; more command. Arm fully extended, at a slight downward angle, fingers butterfly wings beating gently. The roadway tenderly caressed; fluttering and rippling in the way of running water elsewhere than these tropics. Not easy to get a taxi here even for young beautifully leggy and operatically dressed lasses. They too have to hang the hand out and tinkle feelingly, pleading.