.
Even
from a distance out of the corner of the eye the young man's oddity was
apparent, his gait unbalanced in some unusual way. Standing beside the first
table he seemed to sway somehow. First one arm, then the other became visible.
Standing side-on at the tables it took a few moments to receive the full
impression. The diners seemed to take a long time fishing out the coins,
keeping the man awkwardly waiting. A long time he stood at each table, one
table after another the same. No one turned this beggar away, and little
wonder.
One arm was severed
half-way along the forearm, the skin bundled together and stitched somehow
invisibly, perhaps behind. A kind of scalding texture was apparent around the
crook of the elbow and lower down, with the stump left protruding outward. The
other arm, the left, was contorted below the elbow. It too had taken a twist
that couldn't be righted, leaving the hand turned inward in what seemed an
unusable claw. In this case the stitching was prominent along the wrist and
extended out around the thumb in bold, jagged line.
The man would have been
still in his twenties, thin, dark-haired, a little handsome. There was a
suppleness and elasticity in his body that had survived what had befallen him.
Moving along the row he paced quickly, lurching a little with a leading
shoulder. When he stopped and made his petition he stood more or less straight,
feet firmly planted, swaying slightly. Waiting for the coin he held his stance
without shifting from foot to foot. Rather, something like the equivalent
movement passed like a current through his upper torso, producing an odd
twisting and rolling of the shoulders, a little lolling of the head. One might
have concluded impatience or restlessness; medication or illicit drugs. A large
travel bag that hung around his neck and sat longways on his chest added to his
troubles. It was in the unzipped front pouch of the bag that he collected his
alms.
The lame, hobbling and
legless, the wheel-chair confined, are common sights in Geylang, casualties of
the motorcycles in most cases. It couldn't be anything else. This man was the
right age for it, and coming from the relevant class. But in his case a
motorcycle accident was unlikely. There was catastrophic speed involved here
too, but some other kind of machine. A motorcycle crash would not have left the
man so nimble on his feet for one thing. The rest of his body seemed completely
untouched. These injuries could only have come about through some kind of
industrial accident. The man had got his hands caught in some kind of factory
machine at one of the industrial estates on the island, or at one of the
building sites.
The first couple of
tables had presented their offerings, before the man moved to the Batam girls
next in line. These Batam women come over to Singapore on the ferry on seven
day visas. Many have friends or relatives settled or working in Singapore.
Often the gals do a little scamming of various kinds, earn a few dollars to
take back home. Less than an hour from Singapore, average monthly income on
Batam is something like $100. Still, with the sight of this man before them,
both the women were digging into their bags. They no doubt needed to dig deep
to fetch up their coins. No words had been exchanged. The man might have
mumbled something at the outset. Certainly these lasses would not have
understood anything other than the most basic Mandarin. There was no need for
words. Again the man seemed to be listing oddly, his shoulders working
spasmodically like an oarsman's might. When some coins were finally produced,
the man spoke again, but his thanks came most clearly in the depth of his bow,
a crooked kind of vigorous jerk from the waist that made his hair flop and must
have produced an internal shudder in every recipient.
It was not possible to
observe the man too closely, the sight was too gruesome. Somehow the Batam
women managed better. There seemed to be no reeling shock or horror in their
faces.
At Mr. Teh Tarik
it is usually a Malay crowd at the tables. Kampung Malay, a cluster of
buildings from the sixties in faux traditional Malay style, stands directly
opposite. The food all along this upper end of Geylang is halal Muslim. The
local Chinese patronize the eateries too, but the majority is clearly Malay.
The occasional beggars pass here in the usual way, quietly enquiring. Often
they get short shrift from the diners. Perhaps they do a little better at Mr.
T. T. than elsewhere. They do not come too frequently and never press or
pester. This man was altogether different. For one thing he was clearly not
Malay. All the others before him here, women in every case, had been Malay. One
older woman who might be blind has done the rounds more than once, escorted
through the tables by a younger, middle-aged woman. Even this elderly woman in
her scarf and long covering does not get coin at every table.
Something of a surprise
in the begging here in Singapore is the by-passing of the ang moh by the
beggars. In every single case, when beggars have worked a particular room or
gathering, this ang moh can report he has invariably been given a wide
berth, each and every single time. The old tissue-pack sellers, sometimes
crippled and bent themselves—one is deaf and mute—give it a try. Not the
beggars. The Indian lads selling wallets, belts and socks table to table at the
eateries are likewise anything but shy. For the beggars it is a different
matter. The half-blind old lady with the chaperone, the others too, go from one
table to the other. Always with the ang moh omitted. On Cup Day last
night the terribly maimed young Chinaman the same.
No doubt one can only
hope for compassion from those of one's own kind. Otherwise it can be a
stretch. Yet here the Chinaman was among the Malays. And it seemed unlikely in
fact that the man was Singaporean. Almost certainly he had not a word of
English, rare in a man of his generation. A Mainlander, a foreign worker, come
to grief on these shores, you would have bet. The words of thanks that came
with his unnerving bowing carried a strange note, as if the man might have
suffered other damage too. Possibly that impression was mistaken.
Earlier that afternoon at
Bugis Laverne had been chanced upon. She had not been seen for a couple of
months, during which time there had been a short holiday in Thailand with her
mother. Thailand's poverty had been a shock for Laverne. There had been an
attendance at some kind of half-comic, half-sad show put on by a troupe of
lady-boys that left little to the imagination. Laverne had not expected
anything so confronting, and certainly would not have subjected her mother to
anything of the sort had she known. The poverty, the sex-trade, the begging—for
Lav the whole experience had been more than a little unsettling.
— Even I am Chinese, I
feel guilty.... Laverne said, endeavouring to explain her reaction.
Days and days later her
words continued to ring in the brain.
Ang moh is
literally "red-haired" in Hokkien, the language of south-west China,
from where the largest portion of the Chinese had emigrated to the Straits
region. The Dutch had been the earliest colonizers of that area of China.
Subsequently the English who came fitted the same tag sufficiently well. Now we
blameless others are indiscriminately tarred by the same brush.
"The Ang Moh" was published in the Hong Kong based Asian Cha Literary Journal, Dec 2013, under
the title “Ancient China: Post- (Almost) LKY Singapore”
.
