Hot Seat

The woman on the bus this morning. Despite the usual crowd on the Number 2, when she boarded there was a double seat vacant immediately beside the exit doors. You don't get the jeweled and buffed women on the buses. These are jetting past in cars, or at worst on the MRT. The buses are dowdyville, sleepy workers and service personnel, housewife shoppers and retirees hanging tough. Woman of the usual kind.

         After patting and brushing at the seat a little more than usual, parks her bottom. There. Yeah. She had patted a bit more than ordinary. A smear of some kind only apparent close-up? The denting of the seat showed the springs underneath had collapsed. Hundreds and hundreds of bums all day every day over the years. Not all the Chinese and Malays are snug fits on the seats either; a great number of Buddhas and dervishes gone to seed. Many of the buses are over twenty years old. Not everything in Singapore glitters and shines. Even some of the cars on the street are a bit drab and lack-lustre. You could imagine some of the ladies passing over the older Toyota cabs that ply the trade: boxy non-descript greys with suspension and cushioning shot.

         This woman wasn't a fussy sort. Neat dress. Not a lot of money in the coiffure. Medium sized grannie starting off in the role.

         Not two minutes had she sat there before she was up again. Not two stops. At first it seemed she had remembered she was getting off this morning sooner. She hadn't recalled. Holding onto the rail beside the seat. The seat was a double with no other occupant. There had been no fatty beside her giving squeeze. That can be uncomfortable even for blokes. Litter on the floor there was none. A seat to set off a keen scramble at rush hour, believe-you-me.

         The woman had got on the bus immediately after the previous occupants of the place alighted. Nothing grotesque about the pair. They might not have been a couple, merely sharing the same seat and coincidentally the stop after that. Very unlikely the woman had laid eyes on them. As one must here, she had entered through the front door, while the others exited through the rear. The door there beside their seat: the woman could not have seen them in the interchange.

         Standing perhaps 500 metres beside her seat. A minute and half at the outside. Nothing to indicate anything untoward. Really she ought to be standing at her age. No good getting lazy.

         Another pat and brush at the vinyl, given a little feelingly. Searchingly. Coins that may have slipped? Notes even? But she wasn't digging deep, slipping her fingers between the cushions. Nevertheless here was reassurance; that was all right now. That was better. Right to resume now. Into the saddle she goes.

         ....Taking that kind of heat in the core, someone else's hot-bodied fever, always feels a little uncomfortable, true. Even a pretty honey who has just vacated doesn't leave an altogether pleasant impression. You never can tell with some of the diseases nowadays. In the papers last few days blown-up pics of nasty bed bugs. One can only imagine what the TV has done with exposes. In tidy town critters and grime do not go down well. Poor old dear. More than likely safe. She had only sat a minute.

150 / 200 (Marina Bay Sands)

.


The Sunday Times here yesterday. The usual bum-wipe. One can be sure, despite all the money in Singapore, many here would use the rag for its proper purpose.
Colour pics on page one telling the regular lazy Sunday stories. In this case the chief item the F1 that was run here last night. An unusual pic in the daily Straits Times during the lead up a few days ago had age-splotched F1 supremo Bernie caught dead on his feet in an unfortunate slant of light, meeting 88 year old living-god Lee Kwan Yew. Confronting mortuary pics like that one non-existent in our own smoothly streamlined newspapers. Here the saviour-founder-proto-type Asian tiger gets a go no matter what.... Yesterday's front page shared by a teary bank chief taking the blame for staggering losses. And the story that gets the whole of pages two and three within:
NO MORE OGLING
Marina Bay Sands closes off
iconic skypool to public view

Page 2:
No more
gawking at
Marina Bay
Sands pool

Resort to curtail public viewing access of
SkyPark pool after hotel guests complain

The Marina Bay Sands is a AAA hotel of at least four and a half stars. (Sand here in Singapore is shipped mainly from Vietnam, an importer who does very well out of the trade revealed over a cuppa in Geylang a couple of weeks ago.) Prime city location for the MBS. The harbour a stone's throw off. Hotel patrons have no need to take a ride on the giant ferris-wheel / Eye next door, but it's there if the impulse proves overwhelming. Orchard Road boutiques on a par with London, Paris, NY downstairs. The Marina Bay Sands has got everything going for it. And not least the roof-top pool open to the sky on the fifty-seventh storey. The Infinity is a 150 metre length pool straddling the top of the three towers of the hotel. Fifty-seven stories measures 200 metres. One tower beside the other in a slightly ascending line seen from one angle creates a spectacular launch pad for a rocket; from others a surfboard, raft or javelin spanning the free-standing structures. The MBS adds yet another iconic building to the waterfront precinct. Regular readers and those familiar with Singapore are aware of the Arts-Science Museum housed in the distinctive Durian building here (think spiky cantaloupe). The Durian is twinned across the river by the likewise half-nature, half-sci-fi inspired Lotus Flower opposite (theatre/concert hall). In that quarter the Marina Bay Sands Hotel is the icing on the cake—the strut on top specifically. The Infinity is the highest open-air pool in the world. If Caesar’s Palace has one, the MBS sits higher still. The sight breath-taking and gob-smacking upstairs and down.
Pool-side there are potted palms, individual beach stretchers, waiters and cocktails, as shown on page one. It doesn't get better than that. One can only imagine swimmers up there catching fireworks during night-time spectaculars along the Singapore river.
A TV commercial featuring a Jap boy-band all in white up poolside deftly snaking through the smartly dressed guests has further rocketed the MBS to even headier heights. Nothing like it exists anywhere anyone can think of. Since the Japanese earthquake and tsunami the Japanese contingent of visitors has sky-rocketed. A get-away and a half for the Japs at the MBS.
Small wonder gawking from the public has become a problem at the Marina Bay Sands.
2,560 rooms, daily handling 4,200 guests, presents a problem in itself no doubt. Especially within the confines of 150 metres, even without gawkers. Of course to get a dip in the Infinity you have to be a guest of the hotel. Otherwise you pay $20 per adult to go up to the observation deck, where from a landing at the top of a staircase you can view the pool, the swimmers and also a piece of the spectacular sky-line.
A typical package for a two-to-three night stay at the MBS is about 120, 000 yen — $Aust2, 000 — during peak season. Guests paying that sorta money don't want rubberneckers lingering, ogling, taking pics. Not the current 2,750 trooping up daily.
Patrons have been complaining, criticizing the loss of exclusivity, calling the facility a public swimming pool. Complaints have been registered at the desk in the lobby, on various prominent web sites. You can just imagine the ruckus. A student who had stayed there a couple of nights to celebrate his girlfriend's birthday compared the experience at the pool to Orchard Road on Christmas Eve. Beside "grouses" about the SkyPark, guests have also complained about the bustle at the hotel lobby. Two thousand seven hundred and fifty divided by 24 hours does not make a pretty picture down around the lifts. Weekends one can only imagine. A doc from the Philippines likened his check-in experience at the hotel to purchasing a train ticket.
Something needed to be done.
The solution is three guided tours daily of 15 minutes duration for the pool viewing, no more than fifty at a time. No lingering. In a further sweetener, to overcome any check-in delays, guests in the lobby are now to be offered champagne, green apples and cold towels.
Geylang and Joo Chiat is only one side of Singapura — Lion City in Malay, after the wild beasts that roamed the island early on. (Tigers the truth of it apparently.) River Valley. Orchard Road. Marina Bay. Sentosa. The shopping malls. No need to say more. That side of SG is well reported.

Late word received: seems the unique, iconic design of the MBS was originally intended for a site in Utah in the States. That fits.

Ruby and Maroon

Not possible for the old, heavily bejeweled woman at the next table to sit there with her smiling, courteous greeting without immediately offering something from the plate before her. Meeting the eye, chewing through her smile and immediately motioning and nodding toward the food. Something like shredded coconut with fries on the side that she lifts to her mouth with her fingers. The rings of gold had drawn attention, half a dozen gold bands alone on each wrist and more with stones on her fingers. Hanging directly from the base of her chin too a giant mole that seemed like another adornment in the assembly of her person, an added touch. Early seventies at a pinch. Ruby red nails. Kind of purple-black butterfly brooch on the back of her maroon headscarf. A dowdy old pal the same age sitting opposite, who she casts entirely into the shade with all her finery. One of those fake designer bags, the choc brown, checkered with caramel diamond patterning. Rouged cheeks. A great deal of careful, segmented observation required to take in the full picture. Some kind of green leaf her pal was folding before taking it into her mouth—an echo of the betel leaf was it, that one of the characters in Amitav Ghosh folded into a triangle before presenting to an esteemed friend over a chat? Eye-liner a faint but not ineffective ring of blue-black. This small touch the pal opposite has followed around her own eyes. Safe to assume she had never been a precious beauty. A veritable cascade of necklaces that loop over the whole of her midriff are only revealed when the other rises to go to the bathroom. The chief component of this glorious array is some kind of interconnected gold linkage in three or four bands that lengthen as they fall down from her chest. Another independent chain that might or might not have been of gold—the layers too much to take in without unseemly ogling—carries a large dark stone almost the size of a cigarette packet. During the whole of the sit and the meal the handbag remained looped on her shoulder, half resting on the seat beside her. Other shopping bags on the seat and at her feet, three, four or more; not however the one with her purse and personal belongings. Never in her life has she lost anything of importance, or at least not since girlhood. A generous, keen offer of a morsel not two seconds after the meeting of the eyes. The impulse automatic for her and the others here in the Malay community. One does not sit eating beside another without sharing, certainly not. Yet the beggar passing along past the tables among us was left empty-handed. Rather a sight that one, chin rooted to his chest, staring, nothing to recommend him.

Che, Jimi and Bob

Phil telling last night of a Descartes tee in Thailand somewhere, one of the bars in BK or the resort beaches he and Marko passed through. For him too it prompted an approach and enquiry. Of course the wearer—uncertain whether a Thai or one of the Western back-packers doing the circuit up there—completely ignorant of the old rationalist with the look of a musketeer. The design was the thing; the iconic name somehow instinctively apprehended from the aether. A certain ring to it; another kind of Louis Vuitton or YSL.
         Phil liked the counterpart here of the Husserl. Fewer than ten thousand people on the planet had ever heard the name; the designer flipping a compendium of fonts and tags however likes what he sees. The odd structure, sibilant swirl and unexpected curl.... down along the line to the Malay lad working in one of the manchester outlets at the foot of Joo Chiat Complex. Lad had no English and German forget. Baby-blue Kyoto tees, the Chinese and Thai scripts in tattooing. 
         In a bar in Batam on the final night we had a drink while listening to a kind of glam-punk performance by young Indonesian musicians going for it. Half comprehensible English lyrics shrieked into the microphone by the various vocalists pacing the stage, using the full width and depth. Mike high in the air, arm fully out-stretched; swing back on the beat. Ground level with the singer screaming at the floor, wide left-right. 
         The young male vocalist shared numbers with two heavily made-up vamps in torn denim and stockings, boots, chains and ear-rings the size of leg irons. Under the lights more than a little sweat. When the lead removed his top it wasn't for pure effect. Last number got his all, nothing held back. In the lingo of the footy coaches and commentators, he would take nothing back to the dressing-room. Without losing his step flinging around the stage, flabby and heavy smoker not exactly Olympic acrobatics. At the end the band members applauded along with the rest of us, just over a half dozen. It was the least we could do. Slow Tuesday night, lad turning it on as if before delirious masses. The delirium he and his pals provided all on their own. The keyboard player came over to thank us for our appreciation. We too had done our best.
         The place was one of the usual cave fit-outs. Cigarette smoke enough to fill a football stadium even from a dozen patrons. Most of us lit one cigarette after another. The male vocalist had half a packet in the short hour, the tossing of each integrated into the routine.
         The bar girls concentrated on a table where two or three middle-aged men knocked back stiff shot glasses and took the mike occasionally. There were couches in one corner, high and low tables as well as the bar seats. Somehow we got stuck on the uncomfortable high chairs, Suratmi in heels having to climb like mounting a ladder. The bar girls couldn't devote any attention to us because of our company. At another bar later Suratmi got daggers from the sidelined girls.
         The other men in the audience were Singaporean, Suratmi said, eyeing them obliquely without turning her head. Earlier one of the men had stuffed some notes into one of the singer’s denim pockets. There was no real pawing. The night must have been more of an ordeal for Suratmi and the even younger Rianti than we appreciated at the time.
         Above on opposite pillars a pair of framed portraits were hanging. A pinched male tightly cropped, dark hollow vacant eyes. The brow knotted. Someone had once described particular features appearing like the blade of a knife. This was the face for such dagger looks.
         The painful musical mimicry was sharpened by the portraits hanging over our heads. Dead iconic eyes looking out, but not of the kind the decorator of the bar here in Batam had intended. Someone had sourced the icons for the boss, a tech-savy youngster.
         The Che tee was common in Singapore like everywhere else, almost always worn by the Malay boys around Joo Chiat. The Indian lads around Tasvee up in Geylang sometimes sported him too. In these cases of course the classic handsome face under the beret, black with red lettering. One rarely saw the Chinese carrying Che, not even the ex-offenders. The Chinese had other heroes. Colour came into it too: Che could almost pass as Malay or Indian. The mestizo.
         The portrait on the pillars in the punk den in Batam wasn't the classic Hollywood likeness. Not quite. After months on the run through the mountains of Bolivia, Che's youthful bloom had vanished. Hunger had done its part too.
         The infamous killed quarry photograph of Che was nothing like as well-known. The shot taken of him laid out on the table in the hut where the hunters had carried him has been buried in the historical record. In Cuba they know it of course. In the USSR and China perhaps. Even in Latin America they might be largely ignorant after half a century of military dictatorship across the continent.
         Ned Kelly n Australia. One man's terrorist another's freedom fighter, and all that. The command room for the Navy Seals knew what they were about in Abbottabad. No image. No record of any kind; anonymous burial at sea.
         Che's death mask up on facing pillars in a punk den in Batam, Indonesia.
         Marko wouldn't have it. He knew that face. Che he knew too of course
         —....That American guitarist from the sixties. Electric guitar.
         Yeah, Jimmy Hendrix.
         He wanted a bet. Or a bet was foisted on him.
         After the music the portrait.
         No use asking the girls of course. The bar owner was not in on a Tuesday. Chap at the till said he was the manager, he would have to do.
         — Neither of us is right, Marko came back. It's Bob Marley.
         The hell it was.

Bending the Back

Old Chinaman who gloved a couple of left-over eggs from one of the outdoor tables a month ago sweeping stray leaves out in the garden bed outside Toast Box. Narrow slot in the raised border separating the footpath from the garden required a number of swings of the broom in order to force the leaves through the channel. Exemplary diligence pitching toward his eighties, barefoot in plastic clogs. A life-time of carting or bent over a hoe in a vegetable garden has left its mark—about thirty degrees the man lists as he goes along with broom and shovel. Small refuse bucket attached to trolley; larger items go into the street bins either end of the footpath. The leaves are easily dispatched, though they fall regularly in this city without seasons. Like some contemporary trendsetters in the movies and the music scene, the Chinaman had trained a strand or two of one of his thin eyebrows and let it spring from his forehead, erratic unruly prong thrusting like a needle. Morning and night in the mirror this sharp blade received the man's attention in lieu of hair or moustache. Many of the old Chinese here follow the practice inherited from forefathers likely, usually baldies like this man who eschew dyeing. Easy to underestimate the effect achieved by a single twitching spear arrowing from an ancient's forehead. But that wide eyeing as if match-stick levered, seemingly unfocused? happened upon here not infrequently and recalling caricatures from the movies. Made one think of the Japanese invasion. For both genders severely bent backs in the elderly common on the streets, curvatures of ninety degrees unexceptional. Disquiet at the thought of casket fitting.

Porshe

Rocky Master opposite Evernew Book Store on North Bridge Road. Evernew sits between Singapore National Library and the Net place up on the veranda beneath the HDB housing block. Textbooks, fiction, bargain boxes, China paraphernalia—Mao and his crew kept behind glass, fetching quite high prices.
Rocky Master on Seah Street corner opposite. Paying rental commensurate for a site immediately adjacent to Raffles Hotel no doubt. It fits for a Raffles neighbour - a kind of French/NY patisserie, where, like the plants in the boxes over in the library forecourt, the leaves here likely to get a good regular wiping by the mobile Indian cleaning teams.
The trade name here is patented. The menu makes that clear. Otherwise there might be such Rockies mushrooming all over the island. Everyone getting into the act, disreputable operators along with the rest of the wannabe crowd. Rocky the classy brawler; and the Buddhist teacher Master joined in a powerful unifying symbol. An inspiration capable of drawing crowds from the pavement like that one doesn't come upon every day of the week.
Biz types lingering at the adjacent Rocky table after a late lunch. Spurts of conversation, contributed to from different points around the table. Enlarged voices rise when an additional venture is offered from a new quarter. Not easy to keep the ball rolling. The people at the gathering see too much of each other at work; or perhaps they don't know one another. They kick it along well enough, passing the ball between themselves, doing their best. The high point arrives after some lesser exchanges, some uninspired footwork and forced giggles. The thigh slapping, raucous laughter when it comes booms under the alcove here and overruns the noise of the buses and other traffic. Ho-Ho-Ho. Boom-Boom-Boom. That was a good one. What a blast.
None of the five—no, six; one woman hidden amongst them—feels able to offer anything further after a choice anecdote like that. A stinging silence following that accomplished hi-jinks. Almost counter-productive. A premature offering after such riotous fun defeats every last one of them.
It was the grey-haired white guy in the striped shirt who delivered it to the table. In his corner seat he sits helplessly with the rest of them afterward, craning his neck up toward the roof, unable to help them extricate themselves. It's not really his role now, but no one else can manage it.
Clearly the eldest in the group. The guest in fact. Was there an element of politeness in the raucous response? He didn't seem to be the boss/manager.
A porsche involved in his gag somehow; pronounced in the German way, although the man himself is English. Other lunches and drinks he has joined at Raffles next door, where an expertly delivered humourous story from his store has enlivened the gatherings. Last weekend the manager of an auto dealership here had taken out a Ferrari late night and smashed it up in the red-light district. All the guys would have seen reports about that, sure.
Excel came up subsequently. Sales of some problematic kind. Certain prevailing conditions make that a tough article to move right now. Something like that.
A middle-aged gathering, the Pom on a steeper slope than the rest. Families at home all of them. Cost of living so high in Singapore, especially given the level of expectation.
A great reservoir of warmth evident in the woman at the farewell not long after the Porsche story. After a series of little lulls, from one quarter of the table had come, Let's go—which instantly provided relief to all. The men much more perfunctory in their farewelling. In the case of the buck-toothed, horse-faced woman, a bright, rich charm flows out from her. The two beneficiaries receive her swelling, lingering adieus stooping a little, gathering her offering to themselves. The shaded corner at the edge of the awning over the pavement charged with her warm outflow. How much she draws up for them from her deep well of feeling.
Everywhere these people provide reminders of the ways of the past, biz. types included sometimes. Hard to believe I know. (Many of them from humble stock; that's the difference. Still new to the caper.)

Company Owner

Two dollar fifty pratas, teh tariks at a dollar and carrot juices—no ice, no sugar—ranging from $2.50 - $3 depending on who was serving—still seem to have presented the wrong kind of impression. The white-man counteracts it all. The only white-man who regularly frequents the place, that's for sure. Western tourists are rare in Geylang, certainly at Tasvee. The occasional one comes by. Occasionally one stops at Tasvee. More often they appear up the road beyond Aljuneid in the brothel quarter. Young men in the main, footballer types, Australian, British and American. This afternoon a German family of five stopped for lunch, perhaps encouraged by the presence of a fellow Westerner. Otherwise the clientele at Tasvee is comprised of Indians and Sri Lankans, with the older Chinese men the secondary contingent.
Seventy cents for illegal single cigarettes fails to give indication of indigence. The white-man counteracts all that. And this is without the powerful symbol of the panama. Patronizing the place almost entirely at night, the panama is left back at the hotel. After one or two late returns from town it might have been paraded.
The fellow usually manning the cigarette stand unusually smiley tonight. Wants to introduce a couple of new faces, friends of his visiting it seems. Over from India possibly, or Malaysia. (Once or twice the association with India disclaimed here. Malaysia is altogether different.)
A handshake with the first, a young fella in his late twenties. The intro inaudible against the traffic. A second coming up behind. This one gets a clearer fanfare. A man in his mid-late thirties. Less of open smiling. Signs of affluence. Gold. Open-necked biz shirt, tell-tale striped. Handshake somewhat limp.
— Company owner, no less.
It was easy to believe. The cigarette-stand man was doing the smiling for his friend. Broad. Wide enough to reveal the gap in the back of his upper row. You had to feel sorry for him. He was the poor cousin. Selling single cigarettes and two dollar fifty pratas to old Chinese pensioners and the construction slave gangs. A half dozen of them dependent on the business.
Earlier in the evening a strongly built young Chinese man, tall, in a clean white polo, with a look about him, hailed two cabs, one after another. Neat looking, capable, focused fellow. Knowing his business. No messing with him if you knew what was good for you. A busy man. There were no tattoos. On the side of his knee an old, minor scar. Many of the young men carry them. There are many young men limping on the street, a disproportionate number of lame, crippled and amputees. The motor-bikes without a doubt. Today another minor accident further up the road. Bike and bicycle in this case. The front wheel of the latter deformed irreparably, but no other obvious signs of damage.
This young fellow nimble on his feet. Near six feet tall. Thick-set. A kind of good-looker without that particular note of steeliness. A fellow best avoided.
When the first cab eventually stopped—the fellow had become a little impatient; the way he contained himself added to the impression of unnerving steeliness—he motioned into the back of Tasvee a couple of times and with his other hand opened first the passenger door and after it the rear.
Quickly out the back of Tasvee came four very lovely, very young Viet girls dressed to kill. Flouncy dresses, hair perfect, legs more perfect still. They knew to move quickly, promptly making room for each other. The middle one in back raised up a small, meaningful smile to their escort as she quickly clambered into the cab. Both doors were closed by the man. The driver seemed to know to get off without further ado.
Not a minute and a half later the second cab had stopped. The hand gesture was not needed this time. A look in back at Tasvee was sufficient. The second lot of girls had been alert. They came out the same as the first group, three Indians the same age as the Viets, again very lovely, one of them film-star quality in the role of the steadfast good girl of the town, patiently awaiting the return of her childhood sweetheart from the war.
Destination the Orchard Road brothels without a doubt. The ones in the back blocks of Geylang seemed far beneath this careful grooming and packaging. These young beauties would command dollars. Three or four hundred a time perhaps. There were girls just as beautiful here in Geylang, but in that particular setting, dressed to kill, with God knows what frills and staging at those places, the price goes through the roof. Three Floors of Whores, one place is called apparently. No doubt there are many more discreet, high-end salon-type get-ups. Valet services. Top shelf booze. Dressing gowns. You-name-it. Big business. By comparison Bangkok must be tawdry.

Uncle Ho

.


Late afternoon with Phuong. The gulf of language could only be bridged slowly and patiently. Nothing came easy. When it came there were smiles, laughter, some mutual relief at the progress. An inept hammer and sickle drawing for example resulted in immediate recognition. Phuong proved the case with the response of her five pointed star, drawn in the schoolgirl way of two long-sided triangles intersecting. A square frame completed the representation. Wikipedia confirmed it later: yellow five-pointed star on a red background — the flag of gallant and honourable Vietnam. A couple of verses of what must be a stirring national anthem followed, prompted again by the title provided by Wikipedia. Phuong perhaps knew the whole, but she couldn't be persuaded.
HoChiMin - SG return was $SG170. A few million dong. Perhaps even tens of millions in the Vietnamese currency. One red Singaporean ten dollar note equaled four or five 100,000 dong notes, a 200,000 note and one or two additional smaller denominations. Phuong's bulging purse was crammed with mainly Vietnamese dong.
Hmm! she nodded decisively. It was so. Difficult for a foreigner to believe perhaps. An Indonesian hundred rupiah note it might have been added up to five twenty cent Singaporean coins. Nothing more. Another weak currency.
A strong jaw and broad forehead accentuated Phuong's resolute replies. Phuong was not one of the delicate young flower girls who hung around the Karaoke place at the base of the hotel. She was thirty-eight. A stout, firm sort. Rambunctious possibly in youth; dependable and reliable now.
Uncle HoChiMin seemed to feature on all the Vietnamese notes, each denomination Phuong brought out of her purse and displayed. It was the well-known portrait of the calm, benign leader who had started his rebellion against the French. Uncle Ho in his late fifties perhaps, from the time of the war, receding hair and goatee. Phuong knew Ho's original name too, the name he had been assigned at birth. Uncle Ho had been a Nguyen.
— Same, same, Phuong explained.
Again Wikipedia the source.
For equivalence Phuong used "Same, same". It was possible she was able to decipher the tee-shirt favoured by the young teenagers here that bore that message. In her case it was an important functional aid.
Some kind of waitressing job it seemed she held somewhere in HoChiMin city. The Malay makan she knew. She had been to Singapore numerous times. She was staying with a friend in the Malay quarter of Joo Chiat. Thirty day visas was the arrangement for the Viet girls. The pattern seemed to be a month here and then two back home." Makan," with the usual gesture of the three fingers brought to the mouth that the old Chinese without English waiting on the tables of the food stalls used for foreigners. Following the fingers to the mouth, Phuong's hand went out roundabout doling out the food on the plates. Waitressing seemed to cover it. Not cooking and certainly not running an eatery of her own. Were that the case no need for the regular resort to Singapore.
Yet Phuong had visited Hanoi. The airfare to Hanoi seemed to be the equivalent of that to Singapore. She had not been to Hanoi for work. No. Pointing to her eyes and taking the sight outward. Touring her own country. Constrained as Phuong's circumstances were, domestic tourism was still within reach.
What she thought of America could not be conveyed. A number of times the attempted question had been put. No doubt she had never been asked that question before. Did the common people truly forgive the American aggression, as has been claimed by reliable sources? After all that devastation? All that unspeakable devastation that still produced victims two generations later? How was that possible? How much credence could one give it? The Montenegrins still retained a powerful abhorrence of the Turks more than ten generations later. No exaggeration. Difficult as it is to comprehend for those unfamiliar with the processes of foreign domination and all it brings. Both Phuong's parents were dead. Death in English she knew. "Died, died". The hand up into the air denoting vanishing corroborated. At thirty-eight herself, the war was an unlikely cause. A young son she had, looked after back home during her absences by someone we couldn't establish. The father it was not, nor siblings seemingly. Five fingers one hand and three the other: the boy was eight. For other, larger order numbering we used pen and paper. Accommodation immediately offered in HoChiMin. On arrival Phuong should be telephoned. No money, no money.

China Girls

The hot-spot here used to have the girls milling from early evening, two dozen or more against the walls and pillars within the shadow of the alcoves. A renovation of the vacant corner place has turned it into a Mini-Mart, the covered passage-way barricaded now with racks of product standing two metres high.

         No longer can the girls weave between the pillars playing hide-and-seek with the customers who gather at the junction.

         A wonder the municipal authorities allow it. Presumably the landlord owns the space under the verandas and can use it as he sees fit.

         Entering from Geylang Road now one suddenly finds oneself trapped within the racks, no way out. Singapore can-do enterprise. Pedestrians begone! Out under the sun!

         Budget Value Pte Ltd

         (BC Mart)

         24 hours

         China product, some of which is difficult to get a handle on even after reading the label.

         The sign is an illuminated bright blue, angled for maximum exposure on the corner.

         Music blaring like from most of the store-fronts, American goldies alternating with techno drill.

         The check-out girls in the blue polos and slacks who work there, and the shelf-stackers, have no English. It is their compatriots from the mainland on the other side of the racks dressed up and waiting.

         The Eatery on the other corner too was closed for a couple of weeks, the Indian lads working under lamps to get the job done quick-time. Lavender walls, cream for the ceiling.

         The Indian stall within might not have been there earlier. Good halal vegetarian, seven dollars a serve, slightly above average.

         Now the girls hanging station themselves just off the corner this side, and further around on the other within the cool of the alcove in front of a hotel, or karaoke it might be.

         They saunter across the road from corner to corner and come a little way down the incline into the lorong.

         During the day the old Chinamen provide the custom; the construction workers come nights.

         During the day it's the older girls out, heavier, fleshier, languidly sauntering, some of them making only a token effort with their make-up and wardrobe. They know full well the chaps sitting at the tables over their plates, eating and drinking and casting their eyes over their newspapers, contain a hunger that the rice and noodles won’t satisfy. A number of the men well into their seventies.

         A prettier styled babe who is a bit younger and slimmer—most days she covers the large tattoo on her back—passes by a couple of steps behind a chap who couldn't be under eighty. The nimble, lightweight Chinamen dance on their pins a little as they go, a sign of former energy and perhaps continuing virility.

         Another venerable-type sly old Devil who just had his plastic shopping bag inquisitively inspected by a gal had been craning his neck ever since, wondering where the saucy young thing had got to.

         Not much to recommend her that one on a superficial observation. But that was completely discounting her conversation and winsome manner. Another brief word in passing, before she swings off with her parasol-umbrella. Fair chance of a bite when she doubles back, the old geyser unable to sit still.

         A younger chap, perhaps only just passed sixty, sat quietly through a long lunch without any goggle-eye or craning. Three quarts of an hour over his plate, peering not more than once or twice over the top of his glasses. Nothing to suggest his keenness. The lass behind made a couple of passes before a seat was taken. Beautiful quiet faces from her. Lowering her eyes, shy smiling. More smiles showing her eyelids. Not more than three or four words had the chap out of his chair following her, she on the raised path and he the roadway. No more than two minutes all together. The kinda girl to be rescued from the game by the right fella; she was only nudging mid-thirties.

         The Mainland girls here start at thirty. Quite a few forty and more than a couple fifties and older not unknown. Shameless the oldies. They penetrate pretense instantly, without batting an eye. They'll put the question even to a young chap, one who should be out of their league. No such thing. These lasses know the score. If they don't always get the question out—many have no more than a couple of words of English; some Singapore-born not much more—they get their message across.

         You can't pretend in Geylang, certainly not the top end. They're onto you pitilessly. No gallantry, no airs, forget all that.

         The guy behind draping his arm over the seat you want? No mincing around. In you go, just take it.

         The chap twists his chin at your reticence. Bites off something that he keeps within. He pulls the table toward himself to give you room. You asked to join him. Now you are in his orbit. A quiet middle-aged beer drinker you thought.

         Thanking him with a prayer-like hand-clasp might have worked elsewhere. And following with a preference for chai over beer? You've got to be kidding! Not here pal.

         Soon the waitress, Lisa, has ganged up on you.

         — You write love letter ah? I miss you... Every night I think of you... You...

         A mistake bringing out the journal. Lisa has added reason to join her regular's ridicule. She makes money on the Carlsberg. A beer-girl dressed in the livery in Geylang fills and refills the glass for you and gets you another bottle quicker than you can scratch an itch.

         On top of everything else, when Lisa is told of the Buddhist-bullshit, the bowing and scraping and posturing, there's hell to pay and no holding back.

         — You wanna say a little prayer ah? Every morning and every night? Beer not for you. You good chai boy lah? But you start la-di-da that's different ah? Mix it up then, ah. Then you get down and dirty....

         Not in so many words.

         Lisa's English was fair, but her main point had been conveyed by gesture.

         First the Buddhist votive hand-clasp, chin on chest, Lisa's dyed jet-black flopping on her forehead. Following which came the clear indication of the true seat of the passions: Lisa's forefinger arrowed straight down to immediately adjacent the money belt hanging off her hip. Bending her head down further the second time, Lisa followed the forefinger to its resting place, where had she been a girl, her little brother would have nestled.

         —.... Then you're not so fussy lah? The Buddha doesn't get a look-in there, lah?

         As if the cheeky thing could see into the back corner of the brain, behind all the palaver.     

         How was one supposed to argue against that? At that corner spot too?

         The table-mate had not a word of English, Thank you aside. Egging Lisa on was his role. Mimicking the Namaste and chiding over the choice of drink.

         — This is the real chai. Chuck that in the gutter! This is the shot, let me tell you.

         No problem getting that in Mandarin, or likely in his case Hokkien.

         He didn't rise from his seat to back Lisa's anatomical lesson. The pair however used the same little rhyming ditty for their mockery. The chap might have fed Lisa the line initially, after which they took turns bandying it tirelessly for the duration, a full hour with only short pauses between.

         Keen on a bit of piety and prayer,

         Until the trouser-snake needs some air.

         Something along those lines.

         Shaking head, nodding, swiveling chin. The hand-clasp, head bowing, lowering of the eyes. Chai for God's sake. A pal turning up didn't deflect the fellow. That merely widened his audience. A bottle bought for them brought repeated thanks, but no let-up.

         Neither he nor Lisa needed to point to the gals roundabout. That went without saying.

...piety and prayer, / Until the trouser snake seeks some air.

         Twice at least the rust coloured cab with the advertising on the boot came up the lorong past the tables to the road. Given what it would be worth carrying his message through those streets, the fella wouldn't need fares:

         CatchCheatingSpouse.sg.

         The Straits Times had written about the outfit.