All Bases Covered

Unending steel birds one after another coming down at the Paya Lebar military airport, twenty soon after breakfast. Population of 5.5m in the latest figures, which includes all the foreigners (nearly one and a half mil.) and the PR holders. Yet seemingly a larger air-force than the one that carried out the Allied bombing of the German cities in the last year of the war. The Saudis might not be better equipped. Even with the US and Britain included - assuming Regional HQ for their operations - remarkable. On Taiwan the Chinese would kick up a stink; Downunder a land too far, even for speed-of-sound breakers. Singapore perfectly positioned. The new hotel sits directly beneath the flight path. Walking back from the bus an enthusiast can count the riveting on the under-carriages. The newscasts of the Vietnam War recalled sipping your morning teh — large B52-type big-bellied craft; troop transports with the propellers front and rear; the migs are from a later time: Panama, Gulf War, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan & Iraq. Numerous benefits to the local economy of course; better that Singapore gets it than someone else. Even the Vietnamese are trying to lure US bases back to their territory for the cash injection as much as insurance against the Chinese. Pity the forests are gone for those historic camouflage colours.

Kopi

Coffee (from the Portuguese); then on top lime (not the fruit, the paste) and gambir (a medicinal plant, in processed form used for tanning & dyeing).

         There you have standard, pre-prepared kopi that looks like cough syrup, served at Kopitiam outlets.

         This newcomer has only recently been informed of the full ingredients by a reliable source. In Geylang there are Kopitiams without number. (Tiam is not a corruption of "time": Malay for shop.)

         To muddy the picture further, Kopitiams are mostly misnomers for beer joints, at least at the Chinese end of Geylang. Almost twenty months in, never passed these lips.

         Varieties as everywhere else:


         kopi O - no milk


         kopi C - condensed milk added


         kopi kurang manis—easy on the sugar. (You better not forget this if you wanna get up off the floor. A standard kopi or teh gets about two and one-half tablespoons. The sugar buckets stand a metre high on the counter; sweet-tooths abound. Kurang manis. Even better: kosong. None thanks.


         Don't imagine the waiter or waitress goes up to the work-station to hit the menu screen for the order. That takes place at Bugis and Orchard. Yes, Sir. Of course, Sir. Our pleasure…. Here in Geylang more often than not the bent and arthritic  old Auntie has the voice of a garroted canary: — Copy OooH!

         Rarely does one ever lay eyes on the maker in the corner. If they're peeing in your beverage in revenge at the gross inequity–you sitting high in your chair like a Lord while they slave in back–the froth over the evidence covers and best not dwell on the matter.


         Milo does a big trade. (Somehow ignorance led one to believe this was an Australian product.) Comes in regular and dinosaur. Hokkien and Bahasa speakers without a word of English to save themselves know dinosaur. The latter treat carries scoops added on top.

         The Kopitiams do teh of course too, in all the above forms for kopi, with two more added: teh lemun and teh halia (ginger). 
         A Melbourne sophisticate pays $4.50 for good Euro-style cafe at Geisha in the Burlington tower. For a bigger, quieter table with fewer Arts' students brainstorming at your elbow—Arts administrators worse still!—(Geisha is located opposite Lasalle College of Arts, an adjunct of the famous Goldsmiths, London operation), Dome at the other end of the Arts' precinct trades tall glasses for $5.20 (add 52 cents Service Charge and 40c GST brings it to $6.12. Well over five dollars Australian.) The Shanghai lads at Geisha offer a range of exotica $10 and upwards. Fukushima Miho chose top-of-the-range Panama Finca Esmeralda at $15 a pop at Geisha on the weekend without blinking an eye. (On freelance Translator wages).


         "Coffee-shop talk" is a common pejorative used by the Chinese business-class. (Naturally. Well, they are often not wrong!)

         Malays are famous for lepak (soft "k"): hanging out at the Kopitiams doin' nuthin'. Lazy. Not rats enough for the race. Wouldn't work in an iron lung &etc &etc. Soul-cousins of our blackfellas.

Love and Madness (The Boyanese) Jan25

 

 

How does a marriage break down? Indescribable no doubt, ultimately. 

Why would someone volunteer an account to a complete stranger? A foreigner at that? Stranger on the train phenomenon perhaps. The instinct to relate.

For some odd reason the Boyanese had long been confused with the Sulawesi here. In fact the two islands were very different. One of the problems was the variant terminology over the course of a long history. The Indonesian archipelago has had a Hindu past; a strong Arab infusion of course. Chinese. Thai seemingly. Dutch of course and Portuguese. Anglo-American in more recent history.

The island of Bawean, Pulau Bawean, home of the Boyanese, lies off the North-east coast of Java. (Sulawesi is the third largest island in the archipelago, after Java and Sumatra.) 

A number of Boyanese had been encountered in Singapore. Travel between the islands went back many, many years. During the English colonial period good numbers of Boyanese set sail for the opportunities in Singapura.

One local Boyanese identity strongly recalled the old Montenegrins from the leading hill clans. How the pride pulsed in that breast! No-one in Singapore possessed a more extensive collection of kris. (A kind of samurai sword.) Numerous photographs with dignitaries and royals in Malaysia. Dr. Mahathir had made an offer for some prize possession. A certain community standing had been obtained by the fellow because of his interest in ancient Islamic manuscripts. If you wanted to see precious books, give him a ring some time. Sentosa address.

Watch out for the Boyanese, you were told. You wouldn't want to mess with a Boyanese girl for example, one would never get away with it.

The fixation on the ceremonial kris was an aid to memory.

A mild-mannered, avuncular and uncomplaining man on the road, as he called himself, Mr Yousef. Not a Boyanese himself, nor remotely connected to one.

Under no circumstances would Mr Yousef have anything to do with any Boyanese, even before the trouble with his wife.

It was the Boyanese who had brought Mr Yousef to grief, to this predicament of his on the road.

On all sides at lower Geylang Mr Yousef was greeted. Elderly upright old men and the younger generation too clearly held him in the same esteem. The respect accorded immediately apparent.

More often than not Mr Yousef sat alone; ate alone. The lot of a retired policeman, perhaps, even one esteemed.

Smoked his cigarettes legally off away from the tables.

Rough-sleepers in Singapore could be Mr Yousef's age and older. Many of the homeless chose that course rather than return to estranged family. The situation was common. 

Three adult children from the first marriage; eldest daughter forty-four. Twenty-three years Mr Yousef had been out of the family home at Woodlands, over by the Causeway that separated Malaysia.

The girl was in her early twenties at the time of the blow-up. Every year Mr Yousef tracked the ages of the children from his first marriage.

At sixty-eight Mr Yousef had two younger children with his second wife in Medan, Sumatra, sixteen & five. The second wife called Mr Yousef Papi.

A house and land bought in Medan where the young wife had declared she would bury Papi within the family compound.

Don't, Mr Yousef told her. The respect and honour was good and well. But what about the future when the property might be sold, who would want some stranger's bones into the bargain?

As a Singaporean, Mr Yousef received only a thirty day visa for Indonesia, the same as an Australian. Even after nearly twenty years of living in the country.

More importantly, the Singaporean pension called Mr Yousef back to his homeland. One could transfer to an overseas pension, but that depended on all going well with the authorities and all the channels. Better return in person.

This also refreshed the second marriage; provided a release-valve.

At the same time relations with extended family could be maintained; births, weddings & deaths observed. There over the water there was a divide; even at the close proximity.

Twenty-three years to-and-fro between Medan and Singapore. A homeless rough-sleeper flying in an aeroplane a dozen times a year. The irony was far from lost on Mr. Yousef.

People chattered about it no doubt. Sleeps rough. Takes to the air. Got a stash.

The family home in Woodlands was sold some years ago. Mr Yousef signed the papers. His fifth share of nearly eighty thousand dollars at the time never came through. The daughter had probably seen to that. When he went out to her house to enquire she closed the door in his face.

The daughter would doubtless have her own story to tell. This is Mr. Yousef's side of it.

Three kids, twenty and down back in the early ‘80s. A cop's wage moderate; enough for getting by. Five-room flat in Woodlands could be bought outright before the boom.

A good Muslim does not drink, does not gamble. Back then Mr Yousef did not even smoke.

The sense was that Mr. Yousef never played around. Twenty three years later it might be difficult to tell, a man in his late-sixties. You would guess there were no additional darlings on the side even in those earlier years.

One day out of the blue Mr. Yousef finds his wife of more than twenty years in tears. Head down on the kitchen table, wailing.

What's wrong?

Wailing. Grief and guilt.

What's wrong?

— I passed you dirty water, Mrs Yousef confesses.
Did what?

She had passed her husband dirty water.
Mr. Yousef stood aghast.

After work chasing crooks and keeping the city safe, out of the blue confronting something like this at home.

There had been no reason. Mr. Yousef had given his wife no reason. Had there been a reason the disaster following could not have taken the form it did, you would think.

Mr. Yousef had no inkling. Stood dumbfounded.

It was done now.

Usually as well as spells and invocations, there was a bit of this & that added to these brews: steeping leaves, dash of urine, stirred by a feather, that kind of thing.

Sometimes the Holy Book was desecrated in the black rites.

You paid for it all of course too; the bomoh didn't provide service gratis. 

A Boyanese had got into Mrs Yousef's head.

If you wanted a bomoh, if you were desperate and sought first-rate, it was best to consult you-know-who. The Boyanese.

Actually the wife, Mrs Yousef, loved her husband. Mr. Yousef, Man on the Road, knew that then the same as he knew it twenty-three years later.

Trouble was he was the wrong man to try that on. 

Just as one does not see the former philanderer in Mr. You, nor the thug-cop, one neither sees a man capable of mountainous rage and soaring anger. Disgust and revulsion did not need such operatic emotion. 

Run-away train. Tearing up the tracks. Brakes failing.

Sometimes these types of disasters might be averted by a deft intercession. Some respected mutual friend or relative. Thought for the children. Deeply regretted error fully and voluntarily explained. A reckless, desperate action arising from only love. 

Mr. Yousef well knew his wife had acted only out of love and nothing else.

The intervention had been meant to keep him from straying; fears and wild premonitions overcoming.

Happy, regular marriage, turned overnight into trash.

A life, a family, undone by the hands of the Boyanese.
         Around one AM as the staff at Labu Labi opposite Geylang Serai lock-up shop, Mr. Yousef and a young Malay family begin arranging the red and orange plastic chairs. The veranda provided shelter. Currently it was monsoon season. Blankets fetched from a cupboard in the adjacent corridor. The Malay couple had a three-year-old; Mr. Yousef surrogate Gramps. In the next few months the Malays expected housing placement. Saturday the man was back on the road to Medan.

 

 

 

Room-Hunting, Singapore

.

The day swallowed by it. On-line, the newspaper and then some foot-slog tried for posters and informally quizzing the security guards at apartment blocks and the like. (The latter often know the ins and outs of their towers and receive a commission from owners in the event of landing a tenant.) Some urgency over the matter arrived when the reclusive Mr. Tan—the Manager of the hotel still not sighted twenty months later—brought the vacate date at Joo Chiat Hotel forward. Twelve noon on the 30th. The Fuck would wouldn't he!
          In near-by Carpmael Road the week before Mr. Tan—another one presumably —had been contacted. Naturally he remembered the voice. Sorry Mr. Tan I didn't get back to you. Urgent business in Malaysia. Everyone did some business over the Causeway, where labour and produce was cheap. People went over to fill their fuel tanks (now regulated), for lunch and haircuts. Twenty minutes, upped to twenty-five before he hung up, Mr. Tan would be waiting out front of the house. Clearly punctuality required. On the phone Mr. Tan sounded like a substantial businessman: well-to-do, middle-aged, busy with lots on; solid type. A few minutes needed to find the place still left time. There he was getting out of a new big-size Merc.          Knickerbocker jeans, black tee, expensive slip-on athletic shoes. Jewelry not over-done. There were no tattoos on the former gangster. Some while ago now the money had been laundered. Triple storey house, newly renovated. Five rooms per floor each bringing in over a thousand a month. They were all friends at this establishment of Mr. Tan's, you could be assured. A couple of them who were home nodded agreement. Mr. Tan was a Chicken, a year younger. A boxer. No trouble believing that, no need to sight the gloves behind the driver's seat. You could see the hard-body before the chummy pats and squeezes.
         The fella was a player without a shadow of doubt. A swap interested him. Malayu girls your preference? Mr. Tan had just the thing in his stable. Twenty-four, a good Pakistani girl, passionate alright. In exchange a Euro. You got one?....
         Gee, Mr. T. You're putting me on the spot. Have to tell you, you wouldn't be their type. These are girls with brains.... Mr. T. would do tandem if you fancied. Clearly a fancy taken to his prospective tenant. Not a gay thing. Exuberance. Melissa was got on the line in a flash. Poor girl had no warning of course. Sounded like she had just woken, three in the afternoon. English on the phone difficult here at the best of times. When Mr. Tan phoned you perked up. At least Melissa did. Which Lorongs did your girls work buddy? Come on.... Wasn't telling. Where could he be found, where did he drink his kopi? In answer Mr. Tan gave his kitchen supply business up in Joo Chiat Road. How many wives you got Mr. Tan? Come on, come clean! No hesitation there: one wife; three darlings. Lots of latitude would be given by the wife. Kept in fine style, what more did she want?
         The rooms fanned off a central foyer/sitting room where a large TV was mounted on the wall of the prospective room. Filipina on the couch with the sound up. Not a working girl. Lived in the adjacent room with her husband. Not all day did she sit there watching TV with the sound off the dial. In their room they had their own set. Mr. T. sensed the drift. We would be friends regardless of the tenancy. Doesn't matter. Eleven hundred a month was neither here nor there for Mr. T. Friendship was of course more important in any case. Call me. Call me.
         Nice fella. Not many opponents had laid a glove on Mr. Tan. Face unmarked. For a moment it looked as if the tattoos had been removed from the shins. No, he was a clean-skin. Perhaps an athlete. Perhaps there was no trafficking. There were Mercs aplenty even in Geylang. Plenty. The girls could have come with the success; not earned the success. Nice dye job; nice thatch. A Monkey and Chicken: almost brothers. The hint for a bend in the price remained buried in the raucous exchange.
         Max around in Joo Chiat Terrace apologized for being a half hour late. Jam. They were bad that time of afternoon, true enough. Max had talked his business partner into waiving the usual insistence on a twelve month contract. OK, OK, OK. Can. No-one outdid Singaporeans for the Can-do spirit. Even Mainlander Singaporeans who somehow won precious residency in the country. Max and his partner were renovating three adjoining triple storey terraces spitting distance from the hotel. Nothing to recommend them. Basic rooms, shared bathroom, as in the case of Mr. Tan. Twelve hundred here. Add forty, fifty a month utilities. A meter above each door. Mr. Tan in Carpmael wore the utilities. He had reached the top of the mountain; Max and his partner were still climbing from base-camp.
         Another to view in the morning in the immediate neighbourhood. Same again: five rooms, free-standing in this case. Couple hundred cheaper, which means a Common room, tight, bathroom shared with three other rooms possibly. In the interim Four Chain View Hotel on the other side of Guillemard. A kilometre from Joo Chiat Hotel, but in fact a world away. Distinctly Chinese, no two ways about it. Nothing against the Chinese, don't get me wrong. Geylang Chinese are still the original kind. Not the running dogs of the British, as the Mainlanders refer to their uppity HK worshippers of the royal family and all things pale peach and carrot-topped. Nevertheless, it has been the Malays that have been the chief study these twenty months. It will mean a fifteen minute brisk walk to Mr. Teh Tarik and Labu Labi, the gravitational centre.
         Prices at Four Chain View the same as Joo Chiat: sixty Singaporean per diem; about forty-six Australian. Shockingly expensive for an indigent author, even a moderately secure rentier back in Melbourne.
         Perfect security assured at the desk at Four Chain. Belongings left in the room no problem; cameras throughout. Quiet at the back. A side door off Lorong 39 looked suspicious. No problem. Yes, there are working girls. But, rest assured, these are confined to floors one and two. Respectable customers are sequestered on three and four. Queen sized bed in this case (Joo Chiat reprised teenage years with a single), a bar fridge meaning cereal again. Magnifique! The manager still needs to be brought to the negotiating table on price. Like a lot of hotels in Geylang, Thursday - Sunday, play-up days, the rates rise. A hike of ten dollars.
         Something for the interim. Further decisions ahead. Jakarta and Bandung once the floods recede perhaps. Continue the investigation of this Malay archipelago. A preparation for the longer term return to the remnant Montenegrin tribes. Somehow.
         ..... During the typing Mr. Yousef the retired policeman slinking past. Almost half twelve, the thought occurs where is Mr. Yousef putting up nowadays. Last year he was camping on a stretcher out by the Converts' building. That swag has not reappeared. This round it turns out the camp is here at Labu Labi itself. Between twelve and one the place closes. Arrange the plastic orange chairs, back to the traffic and under the veranda some kind of shut-eye available. Twenty-three years it has been like that for Mr. Yousef. Readers may recall, Singaporean policemen colleagues who had been posted to Christmas Island back in the sixties now lived in palatial houses in Perth with full Australian pensions. Mr. Yousef not so lucky, with family likewise. Early Feb he hopes to be back in Medan, Sumatra with his new wife and young children. You can't trust the government to forward the pension to Sumatra. Coming to collect personally you know what you're getting. This fretting about a room from another perspective.