Coming onto the river a few nights ago on Guillemard Road and passing a young woman with her male companion provided a reminder. The time on the bakery clock on the previous corner showed a quart past ten. A late start for the Long March meant a late return. Around one hundred ten-fifteen minutes was ordinarily required for the 12 odd kilometre circuit out to the National Library and back. Sims Avenue, Kallang Road over the bridge, left at Crawford and right at North-Bridge into the old Arab quarter. Once upon a time Sultan Mosque's great brass spheres and pointing fingers must have occupied a wide expanse of land. (Current imam there does not suit all worshipers: a suggestion of co-option by the government.) The last segment to Middle Road usually involved running a couple of red lights (as the cars surprisingly do at pedestrian crossings in Singapore). Swing round to Victoria at the wicker-chair bar below the Intercontinental opposite the library and straight back, taking Guillemard at upper Geylang for some variety.
At the numberless Lorong turn-off to Guillemard plenty of swift and snappy action that night at the little illegal operation the lads have got going there. Fine coordination and team-work, lithe movements in a long chain that stretches thirty and more metres down the street. The old hands sit back within the shadows beside the treasure-chest, young runners, look-outs and scouts all along the street. Post-war community work-brigades come to mind (deployed even in Singapura for road-building and the like in the early phase of PAP Democratic Socialism—the imagination needing good quality elastic in order to stretch that far, of course); facets of circus troupes too that had worked their routine to death. Almost Globe-trotters artistry. An ang moh loitering around that segment of the lorong and looking too hard liable to receive a cuff over the scone. WTF you think yer doing here Buster?... No doubt the POU-lice do not read this Blog; nevertheless better safe than sorry. Some things need to be kept under wraps.
Odd for a Tuesday, the Daoists in the shop-house prior to reaching Guillemard were up and about that night too. All legal and above board there, no question. A new-comer has had cause to wonder these many months passing that shop at the end of the row what all the people around the ornate chair had going. When the lights were on and an event was taking place within the youth in the chair was clearly the centre of attention, all the others milling around busy-bees serving and fetching. Strange, curious, something odd and unusual afoot.
The high-backed, ornate metal chair is a kind of throne. With its back curved half-round and facing the altar on the inner wall, the figure ensconced is only partly visible from the street. Perhaps the impression was false, but it often seemed the occupant there was a child, an infant regent of some kind. An inspired guess was a circumcision ceremony. As well as the Muslims of course, in recent times someone at one of the coffee-shop tables revealed the Chinese followed the same practice of circumcision. Not the Indians, but the Chinese. (The local Chinese at least.) All the reason for it in the world in the tropics no doubt, as much as the desert.
A provisional conclusion that was penciled until proved otherwise. It did not quite fit in fact. There was no sign of either chalice to catch the blood, knife or cover-sheet. Nor was there any particular chief official leading, no music or incantation. In short, insufficient grounds. The seeming concentration on the groin perhaps mistaken.
The altar was formed by a series of shelves that held numerous red and gold figurines in the scale of the Fortune Cat. From a distance the expressions on the faces of the gods or devils seemed a little malevolent. Long red sticks of incense were invariably burning, without the scent penetrating to the footpath. Lights show-room-bright. Once or twice a week a table appeared before the throne. Scalpels and tongs it had been assumed. That solemnity hung over the scene was abundantly clear; all the participants displayed the fact. The concentration was carefully focused on the chair and what was taking place there. Seated in the centre of the room with all animate and inanimate forms pointing in his direction, the diminutive figure appeared a kind of captive or hostage. For their weddings the Malays had their young couples seated on thrones raised on a colourful dais. Royalty for a day, it was termed. This occasion carried something of the same ceremonial overtones, though here devoid of any gaiety.
Well, finally the question found a place on the daily agenda at the Coffee-shop table one afternoon. Immediately the mystery was solved. Apparently the Daoists have something like savants or mediums that are installed for communication with the spirits on the other side. Petitioning for comfort, healing, mediation and fortune required aid and particular channels. It was not easy getting a hearing. A vast need of course as everywhere else, Singapore is no different. All highly understandable. The form, arrangement and iconography here was different, that was all. If a suspicion of mockery arises here dear Reader, please erase. None had been intended. Human frailty will always be acknowledged and respected by this author.
Once the information was given and the observation was more carefully directed one saw quills provided to the figure hidden on the throne. A suggestion of a somehow touched individual. The busy-bee helpers in a kind of Company livery like in the Coffee-shops and food places: white polo tops with lavender trim over the breast pocket and collar; middle-aged men and women alike. There seemed to be an excess of numbers for requirements, which the focus and attention to the throne masked somewhat. Busy-bees captured the scene quite well. Darting quick movements, a common purpose, perfectly orchestrated cohesion. A new-comer is always guessing and prone to error. One wears it. Not to worry. In some cases it is preferable to blunder and not resort to the authorities too soon.
One night after the main event perhaps, while the others looked on just as they did when there was an occupant of the adjacent throne, one of the polo-shirted men was the beneficiary of a decent old massage. On this occasion there may have been a faint whiff of liniment escaping onto the street. The chap was half laid out somehow on a couple of red plastic chairs brought out to the front of the shop close-by the window and pummeled there by a thin and slight woman who showed what an unassuming type could do. Lifting the polo onto the man's shoulders was all that was needed—the common lower back complaint. Physiotherapist or chiropractor would milk a situation like that for all it was worth. Under the rabbit-chops and hammering of this home-ground practitioner, her base-of-hand thrusts and her pinches, the poor man’s flesh quivered and reddened. Should you dirty the kitchen at home where this housewife reigned, better watch-out if you know what’s good for you! Around the whirlwind the woman’s gathered colleagues seemed to be learning from her style. The Chinese were famously practical people. A chap of their number complaining of back-ache. RightO! We'll fix that. It could not have been anything else. The comforts of belonging to a fellowship: you never walk alone.
It was always disappointing on the approach seeing the lights out at that shop at the end of the row fetching up to Guillemard. One or two other of these shop-houses seemed to be similarly outfitted with altar, lanterns, central chair, ancient scrolls and the like. These establishments never hosted any particular occasion. Sometimes one found an old man reading a Chinese newspaper at the side-table of one of these shops. These were different sects perhaps. Daoists could be assumed to come in various shapes and sizes like all the other faiths. In densely populated Singapore you had here too what one often found in this city: worship and religious concentration adjacent to Knock-shops and the like. Along Geylang Road for example, tyre and funerary shops sat cheek by jowl, lighting retailers, coffee a few doors down, dentist, karaoke bar and optician, any of which on the upper storey might house foreign worker dorms or some other enterprise. This same night one of the Indian working-girls was coming out of one the shops a few doors down from the Daoists, smoothing out her sari and brushing stray hair from her face. At the other end of the street a dozen dark sari girls worked the first back lane behind Geylang Road. The whole of the human drama out on display here in this dense little bunching on the equator. One of the chief draws of the place. High-end modernity and rabid turbo-capitalism like a runaway train one end; old, ancient China and kampung Malayu at the other. Sandwiched higgledy-piggledy between in land-scarce Singapore the aspirants herded toward the Malls and Condos, and the bottom fifty-sixty percent flogging themselves for the sake of their children, all under the pretense of meritocratic fair-dealing and equal chances. A spectacle. The entire human drama from A to Zee. Not the usual tourist draw, at least not the advertised one. Size on the one hand meant there was no place to hide in Singapore. Cramped living conditions and the heat brought more or less the entire spectrum onto the street in the evenings. Even the Ferrari and Maserati drivers sometimes pulled up a red plastic chair on Geylang Road in particular.
Obtaining an invitation to one of these Daoist ceremonies might be an idea. Zainuddin thought it would be a cinch. Needs consideration. These worshipers could not help but be suspicious with an intruder rubber-necking from the street.
We have left far behind a young woman sauntering late at night toward the Geylang River on Guillemard Road. Her mother might be getting concerned (even in famously safe and secure Singapore). Whether the old lady would be assuaged or alarmed by the lass's young male escort was a question beyond our scope. First view it all seemed perfectly above board. Certainly nothing post-coital you wouldn't have thought. A dollar No. Hopping it then, stepping out briskly. This was supposed to be a proper work-out.
The lass was a typical slow-coach. The heat after a long day more than likely. Every reason for it. Trim and supple biz shirts and fuck-me-after high heels can certainly skip along the streets here away from the aircon no trouble. Often though it's the contrary, a lot of arse-dragging, if you'll excuse the French. Of course one needs to understand and appreciate the heat and humidity. Goes without saying. Over-powering and unrelenting. The heat too could be photographed in Singapore along with everything else were there a photographer in the place with wit enough to comprehend it is the chief factor, the prime and single most important element, the sine qua non of life on the equator. Almost entirely ignored and unmentioned; a willful pretense, State policy and project indeed. (Even here in the middle rounds of revision, going out for the morning teh before the larger heat of the day clamped down, a double-decker bus splashed with high-tone red featuring a young Eurasian if not European holding a scooter conjured us on the footpath: SUNPLAY.) Only the aircon makes possible all the much bruited achievement and transformation on this formerly densely forested wilderness of roaming lions. (Tigers properly. Singapura, Lion City in Bahasa Malay.) Heavenly, paradisiacal aircon. A life-saver. Servants flapping fans during the reign of the white raja Sir Stam Raffles; the humble windy ice-box since. Therefore the Malls. The Malls and the indoor fountains they contain. A drug. In Singapore. You read it here dear Reader, no-where else. During the war people never talked about the war. Not likely. They hurried and scrabbled and got on with it, ducking the bullets when they were flying. Procreating, partying whenever they could. The price of stockings and perfume in wartime: the gold standard. Thus the heat in Singapore. Doesn't exist basically. What are you talking about? Condos, malls, gold watches, refrigerated exotic alpine plants from temperate climes, golf courses, food of course, endless variety. All that existed. All of it photographed from every angle. What albums of the passing days there must exist under beds in the Condos and flats of Sin'pore. (Space a problem for storage.) Truth to tell too, the eighty-five percent living in the HDB's cannot afford aircon in the first place, or if they scrimped and saved to buy the unit, they cannot afford to run it with the ever-rising price of utilities. Not to mention the compounding effect of pumping hot air into high humidity pressing down on concrete and bitumen. Again, the point has been made before: there are photographers reading these pages, the author knows that for a fact: aim those electronic eyes at all the slumped and weary corpse-like figures throughout the island, capture that humanity sprawled on the street benches and parapets, the trains and buses, at the library (between Security sweeps—the practice is disallowed in the great sixteen storey repository of knowledge and culture), in the back of parked lorries while the foreman is fetching something, on a pile of cheap Mainland fabric you're supposed to be spruiking and dusting between customers. Capture those images with your trigger-happy fingers you legion of urban snipers and project them back to the populace while there is still time! Red alert! Frightening cadavers spring on an unwitting newcomer from all corners of this Adventure-land. All over the world people know the joke about the long-serving PM, the living national treasure and icon, the master statesman of the age, who thought the greatest invention of human ingenuity was the deceptively simple aircon unit. That was back in the day when an endless future seemed assured.
No exaggeration, the lass on Guillemard the other night was seriously pulling her tail along behind her on the pavement like the coolies on the riverbank of an earlier time a boat. By no means the worst example of its kind, not at all. Nevertheless. Medium-slow you would term it. A chap having somewhere he needed to get could not help noticing. There were some road-works taking place just in front of those shops there that had narrowed the footpath with their barriers and stanchions. It was not a love waltz the young pair had joined. More than likely the fellow was the lass's brother or neighbour. No electricity of any kind, not even low voltage. An experienced observer can discern such things from fifty paces in utter darkness, let alone pressing up against a pair endeavouring to pass.
Both boy and girl carried bags and packs. Not great weights, but certainly freighted. Lugging three oranges and an apple in your carry-bag was like a labour of Hercules in the tropics, trust me. Even night-time with free and easy conversation provided by a peer. No doubt there was little relish returning to their pigeon holes, whether they were from the Condos or HDB's ahead. That segment of Guillemard—the name harkens back to a government administrator (ruling PAP policy to retain all the old British era street names, otherwise a can of worms opening with the three ethnic groups to satisfy. Thereby Petain, the old general and fascist leader, keeps his place of honour out in Little India), Guillemard there either side of the river, dirty as was the water, was money. Condo-land dream-time. To continue the French motif briefly, Versailles we had left back a short stretch. (White powder-coated aluminum French windows and tight boxy balconies seemed to be the reference.) Otherwise Waterina, Cassia View, the Heights Something-something further on. The poor punters trying to get a look-in drool over the pictures in the weekend advertising in particular. In the Straits Times (English language) these domiciles invariably feature pretty, slim white Babes and their consorts. Nothing to do with the 3-4% ex-pat population: all to do with cultural supremacy and ingrained sense of inferiority; inverted racism. Sophistication and true class comes in white, not yellow, black or brown. Like the white goods with which one fills the places. Three-four bed Condos can easily fetch $800k plus even in grubby Geylang where the karung guni and the foreign workers blow their noses on your front gardens without the need of tissue or handkerchief. The construction industry here in Singapore is one of the largest factors in the domestic economy. Therefore concocted global architecture awards, relentless porn in the newspapers, water-cooler talk in the offices morning, noon and night. (They work late here of course.)
This however is not getting our gal home any sooner is it? Not once has her phone either rung or beeped within three dozen paces. Hard to believe most certainly. Battery low perhaps. Mummy was tired, asleep in front of the screen. As a walker in the city, one knew past nine at night ninety-five percent of those screens illuminating the windows in the towers that stretched skyward would have shut-eyed viewers before them. Highly unlikely this good gal's mother would be any different.
The pair could not be easily overtaken. The opening at the river ahead still lay some way off. Nothing for it but to dog the footsteps, observing the pair, seeking a sudden opportunity. No need to explain, in these situations and in the case of this author, it is the female form that attracts all the scrutiny. A female human form is a landscape in miniature of course. Many a painter has helped us understand the elemental lines involved. We become students from earliest days. Curves, hollows, sudden rises, flat-land, smooth, prickly, wooded. Endless fascination that claims the whole heart and mind. Our first sense of beauty and desire. Pity the poor Muslims in the region who are trained to the discipline of lowering the eyes and averting the gaze. They encourage the female members of their community of course—famous—to aid their counterparts by covering up. The author learned just the other day that the kerudong, or tudong, in fact ought properly to fall from the woman's head down onto her chest below the curvature of the breast. This of course in addition to the long loose outer garments over the torso. The male gaze. Rarely will you observe it in Geylang Serai. Take the author's challenge and see for yourselves.
Sauntering along. Reluctantly the author forced to follow in-step. Students. Passed their O levels. With the extra private tuition paid by mum and dad working late, the girl enrolled at one of the universities by now, hopefully NUS. Employers eyes pop at the National university. The fact the universities have turned into factories has not trickled down to the coal-face as yet. Never-mind about that. The books no doubt waiting open on her table upstairs. Really there is no time for sauntering. Do you think in such manner the lass's coolie grandpa and hard-scrabble grandma had time for waltzing down the street so casually? Poor kid. Why wouldn't she take her time about it? Lad the same. A good position in a company with advancement prospects—finance, oil, genetic engineering, military manufacture—out of reach without good grades at a reputable university. How buy his own Condo when he marries? (The polar ice-cap problem has not filtered down to Condo-land no more than the other matter to employers. Thus far the Sing' government's chief measure in regard to the increasingly wild weather is to plant species of trees that grow less tall. That way when the branches come down in the ever increasing storms they won't kill pedestrians, and worse still car drivers, who pay a lot for the privilege. In recent times more incidence of that than dengue fever.)
A kind of flat, sliding stride. No wonder the girl wasn't getting anywhere. She was barely lifting her feet. As if she were on skis almost; kind of kicking her legs out somehow at the same time. The occupation has shifted from shape and form to movement, the young woman's process along the pavement.
As here, more than a few moments were needed to recognise that particular gait. Flat stride. Often you hear the drag of the thong or slipper. No swivel of hips, certainly not the classic cat-walk, hot-baby procession. Rather it was a kind of fling of the legs; hips didn't come into it; shoulders retracted. In the caricature version the feet are splayed, exaggeratedly so. Highly particular; something entirely of its own kind. Has a sufficient picture been presented?
Back in Australia you have seen it often enough. Particularly Chinese; not Indian, or Malay, or Japanese. The gait can be observed in the younger generation as well as the middle-aged. (Elderly cloud the picture for obvious reasons.) An interesting little quirk, like a native accent, a tic or mannerism. Deriving from the Mainland, therefore the heat of the tropics not the factor. A Malay girl or woman has never been seen going along like that. A pregnant woman comes close. If a woman was to carry a water barrel in her arms she would proceed in something like that manner. The paddy field then, or cartage of a particular kind, passed on through the generations. Flat plains it has to be, not alpine country. Clear ground, water-logged possibly—there is a hint of ploughing. More than enough eroticism in it don't you worry about that. All that is cultural conditioning.
There are far more profitable past-times than being employed on such questions of course. Others are forging a proper path ahead, climbing promotional ladders. It falls to some to look and wonder, day-dream endlessly. Children passing this author's evening table out front of Labu Labi produce searching, quizzical looks. (Tortured woefully at school all the poor dear mites.) Walking along the broken KL pavement in Chow Kit the comment of the Japanese abstract painter often returns to mind: — You looked at every single person we passed along the way. Astonished the poor girl. Japanese from top to toe. (Incidentally, at present the author is reading a marvelous old Korean poet whose project was to mark in some way every person he had ever encountered in life. Ko Un, Ten Thousand Lives. Highly recommended for those wanting to penetrate beyond the Psy phenomenon.)
At the numberless Lorong turn-off to Guillemard plenty of swift and snappy action that night at the little illegal operation the lads have got going there. Fine coordination and team-work, lithe movements in a long chain that stretches thirty and more metres down the street. The old hands sit back within the shadows beside the treasure-chest, young runners, look-outs and scouts all along the street. Post-war community work-brigades come to mind (deployed even in Singapura for road-building and the like in the early phase of PAP Democratic Socialism—the imagination needing good quality elastic in order to stretch that far, of course); facets of circus troupes too that had worked their routine to death. Almost Globe-trotters artistry. An ang moh loitering around that segment of the lorong and looking too hard liable to receive a cuff over the scone. WTF you think yer doing here Buster?... No doubt the POU-lice do not read this Blog; nevertheless better safe than sorry. Some things need to be kept under wraps.
Odd for a Tuesday, the Daoists in the shop-house prior to reaching Guillemard were up and about that night too. All legal and above board there, no question. A new-comer has had cause to wonder these many months passing that shop at the end of the row what all the people around the ornate chair had going. When the lights were on and an event was taking place within the youth in the chair was clearly the centre of attention, all the others milling around busy-bees serving and fetching. Strange, curious, something odd and unusual afoot.
The high-backed, ornate metal chair is a kind of throne. With its back curved half-round and facing the altar on the inner wall, the figure ensconced is only partly visible from the street. Perhaps the impression was false, but it often seemed the occupant there was a child, an infant regent of some kind. An inspired guess was a circumcision ceremony. As well as the Muslims of course, in recent times someone at one of the coffee-shop tables revealed the Chinese followed the same practice of circumcision. Not the Indians, but the Chinese. (The local Chinese at least.) All the reason for it in the world in the tropics no doubt, as much as the desert.
A provisional conclusion that was penciled until proved otherwise. It did not quite fit in fact. There was no sign of either chalice to catch the blood, knife or cover-sheet. Nor was there any particular chief official leading, no music or incantation. In short, insufficient grounds. The seeming concentration on the groin perhaps mistaken.
The altar was formed by a series of shelves that held numerous red and gold figurines in the scale of the Fortune Cat. From a distance the expressions on the faces of the gods or devils seemed a little malevolent. Long red sticks of incense were invariably burning, without the scent penetrating to the footpath. Lights show-room-bright. Once or twice a week a table appeared before the throne. Scalpels and tongs it had been assumed. That solemnity hung over the scene was abundantly clear; all the participants displayed the fact. The concentration was carefully focused on the chair and what was taking place there. Seated in the centre of the room with all animate and inanimate forms pointing in his direction, the diminutive figure appeared a kind of captive or hostage. For their weddings the Malays had their young couples seated on thrones raised on a colourful dais. Royalty for a day, it was termed. This occasion carried something of the same ceremonial overtones, though here devoid of any gaiety.
Well, finally the question found a place on the daily agenda at the Coffee-shop table one afternoon. Immediately the mystery was solved. Apparently the Daoists have something like savants or mediums that are installed for communication with the spirits on the other side. Petitioning for comfort, healing, mediation and fortune required aid and particular channels. It was not easy getting a hearing. A vast need of course as everywhere else, Singapore is no different. All highly understandable. The form, arrangement and iconography here was different, that was all. If a suspicion of mockery arises here dear Reader, please erase. None had been intended. Human frailty will always be acknowledged and respected by this author.
Once the information was given and the observation was more carefully directed one saw quills provided to the figure hidden on the throne. A suggestion of a somehow touched individual. The busy-bee helpers in a kind of Company livery like in the Coffee-shops and food places: white polo tops with lavender trim over the breast pocket and collar; middle-aged men and women alike. There seemed to be an excess of numbers for requirements, which the focus and attention to the throne masked somewhat. Busy-bees captured the scene quite well. Darting quick movements, a common purpose, perfectly orchestrated cohesion. A new-comer is always guessing and prone to error. One wears it. Not to worry. In some cases it is preferable to blunder and not resort to the authorities too soon.
One night after the main event perhaps, while the others looked on just as they did when there was an occupant of the adjacent throne, one of the polo-shirted men was the beneficiary of a decent old massage. On this occasion there may have been a faint whiff of liniment escaping onto the street. The chap was half laid out somehow on a couple of red plastic chairs brought out to the front of the shop close-by the window and pummeled there by a thin and slight woman who showed what an unassuming type could do. Lifting the polo onto the man's shoulders was all that was needed—the common lower back complaint. Physiotherapist or chiropractor would milk a situation like that for all it was worth. Under the rabbit-chops and hammering of this home-ground practitioner, her base-of-hand thrusts and her pinches, the poor man’s flesh quivered and reddened. Should you dirty the kitchen at home where this housewife reigned, better watch-out if you know what’s good for you! Around the whirlwind the woman’s gathered colleagues seemed to be learning from her style. The Chinese were famously practical people. A chap of their number complaining of back-ache. RightO! We'll fix that. It could not have been anything else. The comforts of belonging to a fellowship: you never walk alone.
It was always disappointing on the approach seeing the lights out at that shop at the end of the row fetching up to Guillemard. One or two other of these shop-houses seemed to be similarly outfitted with altar, lanterns, central chair, ancient scrolls and the like. These establishments never hosted any particular occasion. Sometimes one found an old man reading a Chinese newspaper at the side-table of one of these shops. These were different sects perhaps. Daoists could be assumed to come in various shapes and sizes like all the other faiths. In densely populated Singapore you had here too what one often found in this city: worship and religious concentration adjacent to Knock-shops and the like. Along Geylang Road for example, tyre and funerary shops sat cheek by jowl, lighting retailers, coffee a few doors down, dentist, karaoke bar and optician, any of which on the upper storey might house foreign worker dorms or some other enterprise. This same night one of the Indian working-girls was coming out of one the shops a few doors down from the Daoists, smoothing out her sari and brushing stray hair from her face. At the other end of the street a dozen dark sari girls worked the first back lane behind Geylang Road. The whole of the human drama out on display here in this dense little bunching on the equator. One of the chief draws of the place. High-end modernity and rabid turbo-capitalism like a runaway train one end; old, ancient China and kampung Malayu at the other. Sandwiched higgledy-piggledy between in land-scarce Singapore the aspirants herded toward the Malls and Condos, and the bottom fifty-sixty percent flogging themselves for the sake of their children, all under the pretense of meritocratic fair-dealing and equal chances. A spectacle. The entire human drama from A to Zee. Not the usual tourist draw, at least not the advertised one. Size on the one hand meant there was no place to hide in Singapore. Cramped living conditions and the heat brought more or less the entire spectrum onto the street in the evenings. Even the Ferrari and Maserati drivers sometimes pulled up a red plastic chair on Geylang Road in particular.
Obtaining an invitation to one of these Daoist ceremonies might be an idea. Zainuddin thought it would be a cinch. Needs consideration. These worshipers could not help but be suspicious with an intruder rubber-necking from the street.
We have left far behind a young woman sauntering late at night toward the Geylang River on Guillemard Road. Her mother might be getting concerned (even in famously safe and secure Singapore). Whether the old lady would be assuaged or alarmed by the lass's young male escort was a question beyond our scope. First view it all seemed perfectly above board. Certainly nothing post-coital you wouldn't have thought. A dollar No. Hopping it then, stepping out briskly. This was supposed to be a proper work-out.
The lass was a typical slow-coach. The heat after a long day more than likely. Every reason for it. Trim and supple biz shirts and fuck-me-after high heels can certainly skip along the streets here away from the aircon no trouble. Often though it's the contrary, a lot of arse-dragging, if you'll excuse the French. Of course one needs to understand and appreciate the heat and humidity. Goes without saying. Over-powering and unrelenting. The heat too could be photographed in Singapore along with everything else were there a photographer in the place with wit enough to comprehend it is the chief factor, the prime and single most important element, the sine qua non of life on the equator. Almost entirely ignored and unmentioned; a willful pretense, State policy and project indeed. (Even here in the middle rounds of revision, going out for the morning teh before the larger heat of the day clamped down, a double-decker bus splashed with high-tone red featuring a young Eurasian if not European holding a scooter conjured us on the footpath: SUNPLAY.) Only the aircon makes possible all the much bruited achievement and transformation on this formerly densely forested wilderness of roaming lions. (Tigers properly. Singapura, Lion City in Bahasa Malay.) Heavenly, paradisiacal aircon. A life-saver. Servants flapping fans during the reign of the white raja Sir Stam Raffles; the humble windy ice-box since. Therefore the Malls. The Malls and the indoor fountains they contain. A drug. In Singapore. You read it here dear Reader, no-where else. During the war people never talked about the war. Not likely. They hurried and scrabbled and got on with it, ducking the bullets when they were flying. Procreating, partying whenever they could. The price of stockings and perfume in wartime: the gold standard. Thus the heat in Singapore. Doesn't exist basically. What are you talking about? Condos, malls, gold watches, refrigerated exotic alpine plants from temperate climes, golf courses, food of course, endless variety. All that existed. All of it photographed from every angle. What albums of the passing days there must exist under beds in the Condos and flats of Sin'pore. (Space a problem for storage.) Truth to tell too, the eighty-five percent living in the HDB's cannot afford aircon in the first place, or if they scrimped and saved to buy the unit, they cannot afford to run it with the ever-rising price of utilities. Not to mention the compounding effect of pumping hot air into high humidity pressing down on concrete and bitumen. Again, the point has been made before: there are photographers reading these pages, the author knows that for a fact: aim those electronic eyes at all the slumped and weary corpse-like figures throughout the island, capture that humanity sprawled on the street benches and parapets, the trains and buses, at the library (between Security sweeps—the practice is disallowed in the great sixteen storey repository of knowledge and culture), in the back of parked lorries while the foreman is fetching something, on a pile of cheap Mainland fabric you're supposed to be spruiking and dusting between customers. Capture those images with your trigger-happy fingers you legion of urban snipers and project them back to the populace while there is still time! Red alert! Frightening cadavers spring on an unwitting newcomer from all corners of this Adventure-land. All over the world people know the joke about the long-serving PM, the living national treasure and icon, the master statesman of the age, who thought the greatest invention of human ingenuity was the deceptively simple aircon unit. That was back in the day when an endless future seemed assured.
No exaggeration, the lass on Guillemard the other night was seriously pulling her tail along behind her on the pavement like the coolies on the riverbank of an earlier time a boat. By no means the worst example of its kind, not at all. Nevertheless. Medium-slow you would term it. A chap having somewhere he needed to get could not help noticing. There were some road-works taking place just in front of those shops there that had narrowed the footpath with their barriers and stanchions. It was not a love waltz the young pair had joined. More than likely the fellow was the lass's brother or neighbour. No electricity of any kind, not even low voltage. An experienced observer can discern such things from fifty paces in utter darkness, let alone pressing up against a pair endeavouring to pass.
Both boy and girl carried bags and packs. Not great weights, but certainly freighted. Lugging three oranges and an apple in your carry-bag was like a labour of Hercules in the tropics, trust me. Even night-time with free and easy conversation provided by a peer. No doubt there was little relish returning to their pigeon holes, whether they were from the Condos or HDB's ahead. That segment of Guillemard—the name harkens back to a government administrator (ruling PAP policy to retain all the old British era street names, otherwise a can of worms opening with the three ethnic groups to satisfy. Thereby Petain, the old general and fascist leader, keeps his place of honour out in Little India), Guillemard there either side of the river, dirty as was the water, was money. Condo-land dream-time. To continue the French motif briefly, Versailles we had left back a short stretch. (White powder-coated aluminum French windows and tight boxy balconies seemed to be the reference.) Otherwise Waterina, Cassia View, the Heights Something-something further on. The poor punters trying to get a look-in drool over the pictures in the weekend advertising in particular. In the Straits Times (English language) these domiciles invariably feature pretty, slim white Babes and their consorts. Nothing to do with the 3-4% ex-pat population: all to do with cultural supremacy and ingrained sense of inferiority; inverted racism. Sophistication and true class comes in white, not yellow, black or brown. Like the white goods with which one fills the places. Three-four bed Condos can easily fetch $800k plus even in grubby Geylang where the karung guni and the foreign workers blow their noses on your front gardens without the need of tissue or handkerchief. The construction industry here in Singapore is one of the largest factors in the domestic economy. Therefore concocted global architecture awards, relentless porn in the newspapers, water-cooler talk in the offices morning, noon and night. (They work late here of course.)
This however is not getting our gal home any sooner is it? Not once has her phone either rung or beeped within three dozen paces. Hard to believe most certainly. Battery low perhaps. Mummy was tired, asleep in front of the screen. As a walker in the city, one knew past nine at night ninety-five percent of those screens illuminating the windows in the towers that stretched skyward would have shut-eyed viewers before them. Highly unlikely this good gal's mother would be any different.
The pair could not be easily overtaken. The opening at the river ahead still lay some way off. Nothing for it but to dog the footsteps, observing the pair, seeking a sudden opportunity. No need to explain, in these situations and in the case of this author, it is the female form that attracts all the scrutiny. A female human form is a landscape in miniature of course. Many a painter has helped us understand the elemental lines involved. We become students from earliest days. Curves, hollows, sudden rises, flat-land, smooth, prickly, wooded. Endless fascination that claims the whole heart and mind. Our first sense of beauty and desire. Pity the poor Muslims in the region who are trained to the discipline of lowering the eyes and averting the gaze. They encourage the female members of their community of course—famous—to aid their counterparts by covering up. The author learned just the other day that the kerudong, or tudong, in fact ought properly to fall from the woman's head down onto her chest below the curvature of the breast. This of course in addition to the long loose outer garments over the torso. The male gaze. Rarely will you observe it in Geylang Serai. Take the author's challenge and see for yourselves.
Sauntering along. Reluctantly the author forced to follow in-step. Students. Passed their O levels. With the extra private tuition paid by mum and dad working late, the girl enrolled at one of the universities by now, hopefully NUS. Employers eyes pop at the National university. The fact the universities have turned into factories has not trickled down to the coal-face as yet. Never-mind about that. The books no doubt waiting open on her table upstairs. Really there is no time for sauntering. Do you think in such manner the lass's coolie grandpa and hard-scrabble grandma had time for waltzing down the street so casually? Poor kid. Why wouldn't she take her time about it? Lad the same. A good position in a company with advancement prospects—finance, oil, genetic engineering, military manufacture—out of reach without good grades at a reputable university. How buy his own Condo when he marries? (The polar ice-cap problem has not filtered down to Condo-land no more than the other matter to employers. Thus far the Sing' government's chief measure in regard to the increasingly wild weather is to plant species of trees that grow less tall. That way when the branches come down in the ever increasing storms they won't kill pedestrians, and worse still car drivers, who pay a lot for the privilege. In recent times more incidence of that than dengue fever.)
A kind of flat, sliding stride. No wonder the girl wasn't getting anywhere. She was barely lifting her feet. As if she were on skis almost; kind of kicking her legs out somehow at the same time. The occupation has shifted from shape and form to movement, the young woman's process along the pavement.
As here, more than a few moments were needed to recognise that particular gait. Flat stride. Often you hear the drag of the thong or slipper. No swivel of hips, certainly not the classic cat-walk, hot-baby procession. Rather it was a kind of fling of the legs; hips didn't come into it; shoulders retracted. In the caricature version the feet are splayed, exaggeratedly so. Highly particular; something entirely of its own kind. Has a sufficient picture been presented?
Back in Australia you have seen it often enough. Particularly Chinese; not Indian, or Malay, or Japanese. The gait can be observed in the younger generation as well as the middle-aged. (Elderly cloud the picture for obvious reasons.) An interesting little quirk, like a native accent, a tic or mannerism. Deriving from the Mainland, therefore the heat of the tropics not the factor. A Malay girl or woman has never been seen going along like that. A pregnant woman comes close. If a woman was to carry a water barrel in her arms she would proceed in something like that manner. The paddy field then, or cartage of a particular kind, passed on through the generations. Flat plains it has to be, not alpine country. Clear ground, water-logged possibly—there is a hint of ploughing. More than enough eroticism in it don't you worry about that. All that is cultural conditioning.
There are far more profitable past-times than being employed on such questions of course. Others are forging a proper path ahead, climbing promotional ladders. It falls to some to look and wonder, day-dream endlessly. Children passing this author's evening table out front of Labu Labi produce searching, quizzical looks. (Tortured woefully at school all the poor dear mites.) Walking along the broken KL pavement in Chow Kit the comment of the Japanese abstract painter often returns to mind: — You looked at every single person we passed along the way. Astonished the poor girl. Japanese from top to toe. (Incidentally, at present the author is reading a marvelous old Korean poet whose project was to mark in some way every person he had ever encountered in life. Ko Un, Ten Thousand Lives. Highly recommended for those wanting to penetrate beyond the Psy phenomenon.)
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