Art and Lawn

The driveway at the entry to SAM—Singapore Art Museum—is split by two irregular circles of lawn, on the larger of which the blow-up beach Bunny was reintroduced about four months ago after some kind of Presidential scholar-artists' graduation show. This afternoon on the adjacent smaller patch three young Tamil men were found on their hands and knees, searching or fossicking it seemed. For a moment or two the thought crossed the mind that there was something going on here, some kind of sly artistic challenge. A few years ago in Singapore one of the bright advertising sparks had pulled off a stunt that is still talked about in the newspapers, where body-builder boys had been employed as dummies in a store-front for the launch of a new line. Here white over-sized blow-up beach-Bunny beside black foreign workers foraging for their supper? There was no sign. Were they going to brew up some of their harvest for a cheap meal while the ice-cream boys and girls snapped?... In Singapore?... How did this get past the government regulators and the construction tzars? The latter were on the Arts and Heritage Boards; they bought the art, built the galleries. Some bleeding-heart Art-fucks blowing off without having filled in all of the paperwork??.... All in a few short moments.    

The Bunny has been magnified something like thirty times, a sleek slightly off-white with ears disproportionately enlarged, pointy and long in rather phallic form. A good dozen or more art lover/urban explorers were arranging themselves left, right and centre, some choosing the cut-out stainless steel of the sign that could be caught on one side of the shot and head of Bunny the other by minor fiddling of the zoom. Smiling young women in their early twenties mainly, with a few soft boys in company. The Victory/Rabbit-ears sign seemed not in favour this afternoon; clouds were closing too. (Incidentally, not once during this extended stay have the clouds raced here on the equator. Question for a good meteorologist when one happens along.)
         Busy with their work, the three lads on the lawn took no notice of the photographers opposite. In fact their task was to pluck out the Cow grass that was spoiling the more fine Carpet grass here at SAM's entryway. The Carpet grass had thin string roots close under the surface; the other not exactly Cow, but of similar form, the lead Tamil gardener explained. This intrusive grass grew taller than the Carpet and in diffuse single clumps deeply rooted. A bugger of a job. Here a machine was utterly useless. On the paving near-by sat the idle lawn-mower and whipper-snipper. This work could only be performed laboriously by hand. The lads worked quietly bent at their task. The Carpet grass gave a smooth, even and delicate surface, almost an appetizing alfalfa in appearance. For a new-comer it was difficult to differentiate the two. Steadily the lads worked on like patient artists themselves, the front man with a small pile ready should the Super make an appearance.

Relating the leaf-polishing of the potted plants at the entry to the National Library a short distance off was no news to the front-man Tamil gardener. This man had not personally been assigned that task, but, Yes, word of that job had come down.

Late model Saabs, Hondas and Mazdas sat in the car-park at SAM. Top-class motors no doubt patronize the Singapore National Museum across the way a short distance. Real bunnies within some kind of gossamer-thin, barely visible enclosure on this SAM grass had never occurred to the curators here. Albino and pink-eyed perhaps; real one side and the Beach blow-up opposite before strewn carrots maybe. More minor imaginative play.

For men of a certain age caning is no longer part of the judicial discipline in Singapore, discontinued in the general softening of the culture that has included an encouragement of the Arts industry. Still, for public nuisance—the jab of a judiciously placed pin say, or rude marker penmanship—a chap would be liable for a fair stretch behind bars. CCTV cameras are ubiquitous on the island, let alone before iconic buildings and artwork.

Not long ago a young stencil artist was hauled before the courts for defacing public property, footpaths, traffic signals poles and the like without a permit. Many days the saga ran in the newspapers with photographs of the handiwork, then pictures of the pretty girl herself, of her accomplice, debate over free expression, rights and responsibilities, estimates of the cost of clean-up. More and more for over a week. Unlike the sex fiends pictured on the steps of the courts, this young woman eschewed newspapers and ski-masks to hide herself. And as always the dear old Straits Times in reporting particulars of judgment ended with mention of the penalties that might have been imposed had Sing’ not been an enlightened, gracious, considerate polis, loving of all its citizens, unthinking miscreants included.

Thieves Like No Other (More Cheap Internal SG Tourism)

This morning Zainuddin with a bamboo pith-helmet present from his sister that he attempted to bestow as a gift; followed in the afternoon by a chap with a heavy, highly decorated felt sombrero going cheap. The salesman was struck by the panama and wanted a closer inspection.

         Stretching credulity perhaps, a day in the colorful, lively Tropics.

         Short, punchy chap latter needing to stretch on tippy toes in order to reach the article that had caught his eye.

         Where did you get it? How much?... Made like he wanted to buy at any price.

         On his own head man wore an olive green beret with large escutcheon pinned. The extra padding made the panama a fairly good fit; this way it wouldn't blow off in the first gust.

         The Sungei Cowboy. Ask anybody they will tell you. Look in the Straits Times files you will find pictures.

         This lad—pointing to the Chinaman wearing the grievous bubbling blue and green birth-mark over one half of his face—was a boy so high when this place started. Minister So-and-so tries to move us off I fuck him—some kind of big bazooka barrels to be employed for the task. (Government was once more moving the Thieves into some back corner, or so they thought.)

         Cowboy took from his bum-bag a photograph of a younger self in another beret during his time in a military unit with an acronym provided. The riots, he said. (Likely the locally famous race riots of the sixties.) 

         Seventy years old didn't you know. Used to like to dress like a cowboy.

         The darker Bedok Malay a few spots down who occasionally pops in to Labu Labi said Bullshit. Talking crap. Thirty-five years he himself had been there at the Market. All the faces now, never seen them before.

         Thirty-five years ago monkeys in cages. Top of the head comes off like a coconut, there you had your repast.

         No pause for breath. (An old, well-known story, one Beechoo had heard in childhood, spooning up the hot brains.)

         Mice babies, the dark Bedok Malay went on, garbling his first telling. Baby mice; tikus, small ones. Down the hatch smooth and neat.

         Bedok Malay drew his fingers down along his neck to show the swallow. (Young new-born mice were hairless, Beechoo explained with only minor grimace. One gulp. Reputed health and virility.)

         Before there were fights here for spots. In the old days, the Africa-dark Bedok Malay continued.

         Things he had seen. Newcomers knew shit.

         The Indian Malay with the terraced razor-cut one side of his ears that lasted a week wanted five dollars for an old speckled Coca-Cola note-book with a gal from the 20s Speakeasies lounging on the cover. A5 hard, spine firm and supple. Couldn't be shifted. Evenings this fellow could usually be seen at the Guillemard/Nicol corner boozer where the bad-boy Malays hung.

         How was one supposed to haggle with these demons?

                                                                                         Sungei Road Thieves Market, Singapore

The Unutterable and the Previously Impossible

Something brought us to the name-game this morning over our teh. Kuching initially. What was this strange name—Cat—for a major city, albeit a regional one? Fast approaching half a million population, the largest city on the largest island in the Malay archipelago: Borneo. There are statues of cats now in Kuching, but these came later apparently, the usual civic sculpture seeking to develop the tourist potential.

         Hayruddin had no answer for it. Instead he quickly upped the ante: there was Pontianak, also on Borneo, but on the Indonesian side in West Kalimantan. There you were dealing with blood-sucking devils. Vampires literally, in short. 

         Ah yes, the Dayaks. The famous head-hunters from the school-books. The proverbial wild men from Borneo, who must have presented nuisance to British & Dutch ambitions. Hayruddin found it hard to believe that Montenegrin fighters took heads too a few generations ago. 

         What, Europeans?!... 

         Of a kind dear Hayruddin. Yes indeed.

         But cat and vampire cities were nothing. There was much worse. Oohh! 

         H. dare not pronounce the word... Sorry he had mentioned; modesty forbade. 

         No back-tracking now man, out with it! A thrice married man and father of two strapping boys. 

         Noooo! This was no jest. 

         The cat was out of the bag, so to speak. Yet still Hayruddin held firm.

         The pen lay on the table as usual, newspaper spread and already carrying the names of the other cities.

         Nonok, Hayruddin wrote and blushed... "Pudenda" in English. Colouring some more. 

         Not the vulgar Malay; that would not issue from his mouth. (...In former times did these Anglo-Indian well-to-do families wash their kids' tongues with tar-soap, really?)

         — Don't say it! Hayruddin warned when he could see the much-used, ugly and abused term rising to the tip of the tongue. 

         Here was no ordinary pudenda either. This was specifically that of a ripe young girl. Maidenhead presumably, though it did seem to be less refined. 

         The Dayak again, inevitably. They went around bare-chested, both men and women.

         H. needed to be reminded of widespread phallic worship throughout the ages. Even in Europe. Greece, the cradle of civilization. (Shortly before, during the course of something else, Hayruddin had again reiterated that Muslims gave highest esteem to Socrates and Aristotle as teachers—from which we soon veered to Avicenna and away from the theme here.)

         We had started with a proposition for a visit to India, Chennai and Pondicherry, H.'s ancestral lands. There were hundreds of relatives there, Hayruddin had revealed on earlier occasions. Ties over-stretched now; in fact snapped. Not of any interest to Hayruddin. Not when there was Borneo unexplored on our door-step. Kuching, Pontianak, even perhaps somehow the Unmentionable by some ruse or other when H's guard was down...

         Hayruddin needed to leave for the afternoon shift at the Rehab, sixty boys waiting, a number of them in their sixties and one or two tipping seventy. Recently a younger lad had run off from the place, wanting to be near his family it seemed. That would invariably mean a return to jail. Failing a urine test when out on parole meant jail in Singapore. In the 80s Hayruddin had been one of the first counsellors to bring the DayTop program back from the States. There was some enlightened policy in Singapore in dealing with the drug problem, though still a good deal of darkness remaining. The death penalty of course was still on the statutes for anything over 15 grams; more threat than actuality nowadays—there had not been any judicial killing in the Republic for a number of years. Change was afoot; even a kind of political change. The older of Hayruddin's boys at Rehab. went back to the infamous Opium dens here, only finally closed down in the late sixties.

         The author had work waiting likewise, mountains as always and no help from any quarter. Back to the room to reload for the library, pisang en route from Mr. Lim's stall at the rear of the Haig market. No more delay, no malingering. 

         There the little man, the greengrocer, was found to the side of his counter, busy with what looked a big-buying customer. A tall basket sat more than half-filled with durians. Lifting them out one at a time, Mr. Lim was giving each a tap, tap with the flat of his knife, followed by a slice of the blade at the base to reveal to the customer rich custard-yellow pods within, precisely where they ought be. See, here, here, one after the other.

         Four or five to a bunch for the nanas. Any more could not last at room temperature. One needed to select carefully. Twenty six and more months had provided a certain expertise on the Equator. Down in the south of the great continent one had learned next to nothing about bananas. Even on the racks in Singapore there were near a dozen varieties, some good for frying only; others stretched well over a half metre in length. (Sounds like Swift, or Bunyan, the author full-well knows.) Palm tree varieties there were near ten dozen was it? Pineapples, coconuts. Papaya grew all year round. Mr. Lim had provided a sample of a Sarawak pineapple a few days before. Without sampling that particular variety one remained an ignoramus on the subject of that fruit.

         Into the plastic bags meanwhile the durians, double bags each time. This fruit here weighed over three kilograms a head, as the buyer would shortly demonstrate.

         But what was this, six or seven large bags already, and Buyer indicating all the remaining were his too? How long could a durian keep after being opened like this?

         As expected, only a day, they cried.

         What then do we have afoot? A restaurateur? A large family durian party just for the heck of it?

         No; the added were for friends, Buyer informed. Come, come.

         To the side of the stall Buyer's wife sat before a crate holding a segment of the fruit with only one enlarged slug-like yellow piece remaining in its pod. 

         Instantly, like tiger-in-jungle-clearing, a frightening scenario.

         Come, come, encouraged Mr Buyer warmly.

         Earnest protests, thank yous kindly, excuses, wouldn't be heard.

         Never mind. Come, come.

         This was getting truly scarey.

         It was utterly impossible Reader. Resistance  was futile. Generosity of this kind could not be declined, however one sought to turn it. 

        The man, the Buyer, had the author by the elbow.

         It needs to be understood, when a durian devotee offers his favourite fruit, in the man's mind he is presenting sumptuous fare beyond all compare. This was the essence here.

         Never mind, never mind. (Signature Singlish.)

         Buyer in his late sixties - early seventies, certain minor signs of wealth despite the gap-tooth. Glad to meet an Australian. Indeed Mr Buyer himself was half-Australian, having a house, a "bungalow,” on Bribie Island in Queensland. Positively overflowing with warmest good-will and cheer.

         Perhaps it does take suchlike circumstances in order for a chap to plunge into heretofore forbidding waters. Two years ago the merest itsy-bitsy morsel of durian was unable to be taken down into the gullet proper.

        This one, this durian here at the Haig Road stall, was a mau shan wong variety that went down a treat. (Almost.)

         Excellent durian. First rate. ‘Twas the season too. 

        Kindly Mr Buyer revealed over in Upper Geylang the same sold for $18 per kilo. Last split on the bench here when weighed came in at 3.5kg. In Geylang you could pay a round hundred dollars for the largest one in the basket.

        (Repeating still three hours later, and not entirely unpleasant.)

 

 

NB. For the first account of the durian fruit see the post 10 July 2011.

Internal Tourism in Singapore

An unexpected visit from Rina put the trip to Woodlands back until early afternoon. Usually Rina and her friends head out to the Indonesian Embassy for Hari Raya. At the last minute this year the decision was made for City Plaza, a picnic on the grass beside the river, or if that was crowded by the Paya Lebar MRT, where there was tenting. We had little time either side, but still enough for Rina's racy story of her pretty sister Rani's first weeks in Singapore. A delay in her work visa and crowding at the Maid Hostel meant Rani, the sister, was in store for a fortnight's sleeping rough. Instead a rescue by a white guy met at a midnight bus-stop where she had planned to bed-down had Rani at the Marriott Hotel, five star luxury, food, gifts and money laid on. Just like Sis, landing on her feet, Rina laughed.
         Zainuddin had provided precise details for the trip: up/down escalators at the two MRTs, left/right, the particular Roads and Drives. Before the first bus-stop however a halt was made in the progress. The matching bright azure-blue outfits of the approaching pair had somehow passed without notice. Here was another chance meeting with young Raden and his recent bride. Early in Ramadan Raden and his wife were met at the Arab Community iftar—break-of-fast—put on for the poor and needy. On that occasion Raden and his bank colleagues had hosted two large tables of boy-orphans; as well as the feast and the enveloped hangpao from the Arab Community, the bank employees’ union provided gifts for each of the lads. Some years before Raden and his group had been out to Sri Lanka aiding the relief effort after the tsunami. Here for the festive occasion the young pair was found in fine new tailored cloth, truly radiant. In this instance it was the peacock outshining the hen with a cummerbund in glittering earth tones that hung like an apron below the knees. Such high operatic costuming for the streets was not uncommon in Geylang even for lesser occasions. What was remarkable here was for an outsider to be drawn so closely into the procession—something like stepping into an exotic and fabulous historical epic of the screen. Warm greetings, best wishes and promises to catch-up soon. Raden's mother lived in one of the Haig Road towers, where the celebratory feast awaited the pair. On entry the son and daughter-in-law would go down on their knees before the old woman to ask for forgiveness for any sin or error they may have committed over the previous twelvemonth. (According to Zainuddin the elder ought thereafter respond in similar kind, as he himself did with his two boys on this day—another instance of Zainuddin's idiosyncratic standpoint following something of the Prophet's practice in his personal household a millennium and half ago that he had read about.)
        Woodlands stands on the opposite side of the island from Geylang Serai, in the north-west corner immediately before the Causeway to Malaysia. Someone had said recently that the highest cab charge in Singapore could not exceed $35. One could walk across the island in under three hours. Cabs would have been difficult to catch on such a day, when, as would be proved at Zainuddin's, many Chinese had invitations to the festival of their compatriots.  
         The train on the Circle Line had not been taken previously; the prospect of some sight-seeing from the window was in store. The line taken a few months ago to Jurong in the middle-west had shown a slightly shabby Singapore, housing towers in need of a lick of paint, schools that would have stood low in the rankings and passengers on the bus likewise in the meritocratic stakes. That was the bad-lands of Jurong, where large industrial estates were sited, including, whispers suggested, military production that made up a fair proportion of Singapore's manufacturing. This Circle Line, and then the second from Bishan, put on show the more eerie, commonly lampooned, picture-postcard display of Singapore's perfect order and cleanliness. Not a hair or blade of grass out of place, award winning pavement beautification, air-brushed litterlessness. A command urban planning order executed that had descended like a Papal bull, no objections countenanced. A chap could only sit and stare through the glass. Cream and pastel-blue blocks stretching into the clouds in Zainuddin's particular quarter; tree and bush plantings under the regime of the most severe and meticulous gardening supervision; kerbside plantings again like Toy-land. Up over the Causeway a short distance the Malaysians had built a Lego-land tourist feature that would draw these people from Woodlands and Singapore generally. The newspapers commonly carried photographs of new housing estate launches in model form on a table, around which politicians and developers smiled and peered. Here was the realization on the ground—infamous model-Switzerland and Germany on the equator minus Moo-cows and Alsatians.
         Wherever one looked the same looming voids pasted over by design touches. A couple of parcels of forested land had been passed prior to the Admiralty stop, one cut by a bicycle track; a reservoir holding a great deal of water too. Even these more or less natural features seemed neutered. Included in Zainuddin's careful directions was notice of what he called a handsome foyer for his particular block, Number such-and-such. Each Block carried giant numbers that would have been visible from jet-liners.  Entering at Zainuddin's the immediate reference was the antiseptic interior of a hospital. The reflective steel in the lifts high-lighted skin-pores and blemishes. Inserting  Zainuddin and his food-spotted shirts, his sockless shoe-wear, concentrated seer's visage into this environment was difficult. Zainuddin had told the story of his recourse a few years ago when he needed to dispose of some books from his shelves for which he had no further use. The lift. Stacked in the corner; press Ground. We had laughed appreciatively at the table; here in the actual setting the mirth turned sour.
         One recalled the old dyed lairs in their cowboy shirts and cow-horn belt-buckles, their out-sized and multiple rings and flat-caps; their gold-dripping made-up dames that congregated in Geylang Serai; the scrounging Batam gals, the homeless, the shiftless, the beggars and cripples—how vital and indispensable they all were to a healthy, sane community. Little wonder Zainuddin and the other suits and starched shirts needed to take flight from their pigeon-holes and linger at Geylang, even the tame lower end. 
         A surprise inside the flat was the perfect order achieved within too. One had under-estimated the influence of Zaiton—Olive, Zainuddin's wife. Every writer ought to have a fit and meet help-mate of the calibre of Zaiton. Were she able to perform reliable secretarial services, perfect heaven! An independent-minded rebel author who has spoken truth-to-power in Singapore on numerous occasions—whose autobiography is titled The Singaporean Fundamentalist—found here in feather-bed luxury such as the early Sultans would have jealously envied. Where were the books? Zainuddin was never without a book in his voluminous lady's handbag, either to promote to a friend, or else for the long train journeys. The matter could not be pursued on such an occasion.
         A fine collection of people gathered. One old Hokkien neighbour who had recently foisted a broken-winged bird on Zainuddin. This chap too was an independent-minded Free-thinker, more than half-inclined to Mao and very much anti-PAP (the long-serving Sing' government—the day following would mark both National Day and forty-eight years of unbroken single party rule in the Republic of Singapore). Don't mention Lee Kwan Yue, Zainuddin mock-warned during the course. Another jack-in-the-box was a Trinidadian lawyer settled almost twenty years, who on free days liked to ride the buses to far-flung corners of the island where she documented discoveries with a camera. The woman's home island was five, or eight times larger than her adopted, she revealed; but with a third of the population. Even after many years the woman seemed to be searching in her new home for something she could not find. That was how it appeared. A pleasant woman, with a husband committed to the locally famous church in Novena. (The locale out there had been named after the popular church.) Here at the table too for the Hari Raya feast were other Chinese neighbours of Zainuddin and Zaiton's. Each Chinese New Year this pair came down to the sixth floor to cook the celebratory meal for sharing with their neighbours (thereby knocking on the head any question of pork). Woodlands clearly contained better and richer prospects than one would guess from its exterior.
         The large table for eight meant shifts for lunch, perhaps more than a dozen over the course of the day. Once Zaiton's extended family left the non-Muslims were very much in the majority—a testament to Zainuddin's ecumenicalism. Doubtful anywhere else in Singapore one would find such a weighting on this particular calendar event.
          A highlight on the return journey bookended the day. The holiday had the trains especially crowded. It was a real holiday, even the construction sites had closed. Many of the sites ran 24 hours under flood-lighting, with perhaps no more than three or four complete shut-downs a year. (Even on Hari Raya not all had in fact taken the holiday. An outfit on Orchard Road beside Dhoby Ghaut MRT laboured on in the tea-brown mud behind improvised high screens.)
         In middle Geylang later on the return the China boys were prominent; on the trains the Bangla and Indian. During the first brief visit to Singapore five years ago a local, Nancy Ong, had suggested Little India on a Sunday evening in order to observe the recreation of the Indian construction workers. Singaporeans were known to come out to Little India on a Sunday as tourists on their own patch for the spectacle on display among these foreign workers. Nance and her friends had been out to Little India on a Sunday a number of times for no other reason than to take in the sights on the streets, in the gutters and across the grassy waste-ground that awaited development. A good many Singaporeans made the same trip out for the same reason, Nance assured.
         On the train from Admiralty—the nearest station to Zainuddin's digs at Woodlands—not all the passengers could reach a handle or rail, let alone find a seat. Quite a number clung to friends and family in order to keep their feet. What the young Indian spivs in their bright, clean and colourful attire arranged in this circumstance was something above and beyond the usual recourse. Within the entryway of the carriage two or three found access to some kind of fixture. The remaining seven or eight in the group created a chain of links in three separate clusters around the central post. Lads took their fellows over the shoulder, others stood with fingers entwined, waists girdled, affectionate head-locks that produced whispers and almost lovers' nibbles of ears. Commuters averted their eyes, pretending not to notice. The locals were easy to differentiate by posture alone. None looked in the direction of the chain, at the elephant in the carriage. A nattering drunk peeing in a corner might have attracted such pointed disregard in a Western city. The lads rocked lightly against each other riding the turns and jolts comfortably. Boy and girl pairings ought to have felt deepest shame by comparison. Beyond the pretense, all within the carriages certainly understood their own poverty of feeling by comparison. It was unavoidable. The homo-erotic element was undeniable; if there was some it was underlying, not the substantial element. In corners of the globe, far flung dirty patches without sewerage or running water, humanity lived another life. Clean, modern, orderly Singapore presented the extreme counter-case. Therefore the local internal tourism of Nancy Ong, her friends and all the others on a tiny pin-prick island forty-five kilometres in breadth.
        At Bras Basah—Wet Rice (in Bahasa) once upon a time—the No. 7 bus happened along first. An early supper was in order after the light lunch. From Guillemard on the No. 7 one could cut through to middle Geylang Road and Tasvee for a first teh; from there onto an Aljunied vegetarian supper. All the Eateries at Geylang Serai had closed for the holiday; the favourites would not re-open for more than a week. The fortunate Muslim foreign workers had returned to their families for the great event, Sarawak, Sumatra, Java, Johor Bahru, Chennai and Dhakka.

Àodàlìyǎ

The girl—young woman in fact—was a Mainlander. Easy to tell straight off. Frilly dress, hair-band with the pink ribbon, keenness most of all. Stringing out an impossible conversation she recalled one of the show-girls in the Saloons from the old Westerns, attempting to cadge something from an unlikely looking, weather-beaten old Cow-hand.
         Australie was simple in Bahasa. Anywhere in Jakarta and even the far flung islands you would be instantly understood. Anywhere in Singapore you would have thought, where a local Chinese was concerned. The girl was one thing; but how could a Hokkien, born and raised in Singapore, even one in his early-mid sixties, not have a clue about "Australia"? Remarkable. 
         The Drinks-waiter had been enlisted for help, called over simultaneously more or less by both of us. 
         Nada. 
         You gotta be kidding man!... 
         Many of the Chinese could sing-along with the old anthem: God Save our Gracious Queen, Long live our.... no problem at all. Old McDonald and the other school-room favourites they often knew pat. Most of them adored all things British on this outpost of the former Empire. Pictures of Big Ben, old red double-decker buses and Westminster sold tea-towels, t-shirts, shopping bags, condos, you name it. Will and Kate were out a few months ago, the pair loved probably more dearly than saintly LKY himself. 
         This guy, attempting to help out the Mainland China lass with her difficulty, blinking behind his glasses. Zero. 
         Australia. Australie. Au-Stra-Lia. ORS-tralia 
         Shook his head. Shook again. Reminded of slow school-kids in class bullied by dragon-breathing monsters at the blackboard back in the day. Back in the day of morning assembly, flag monitors, anthems. Oddly shared memories in Singapore. But not this fellow. Missed out somehow. Didn't think to draw him an outline; doubtful it would have helped. 
         The girl one could completely understand. Sydney. Melbourne. An upright hand bounding over the table-top Hop-Hop-Hop. 
         Nothing, sorry. 
         What was left? Kevin Rudd? Not bloody likely.
         Where she was from impossible to get either. Not Shandong, no. (Many of the Mainland gals were from the back-woods of course) Wuhan no. Beijing? Xi'an? (This was desperation. First rank cities is not where these girls hailed from.) Flustered, Shanghai was forgotten. Not that any of the Mainland girls encountered were Shanghaiese either.
         We had to give it away, reluctantly. Couldn't be helped. The girl herself admitting defeat. It was not even that she wanted to score really. Perhaps she hooked; not an F&B gal this one. Some of her compatriots, the majority, put up with the slave-rates and long hours rather than turning to the game. A little afternoon exchange here was all.
         The China girls were a separate operation in Singapore. Like the foreign construction workers, the working girls were part of a large industry. Quite likely the two industries were closely allied in a carefully planned polis like this, same syndicates involved. The China girls were older, into their thirties; not so easily manipulated. All angled differently in their unfortunate cases. Plenty of misery and desperation in the region available to mine for entrepreneurs without any scruple. In the back Lorongs at night at this Chinese end of Geylang the young girls stood together in their native groups: dark Thais, short Indons, pencil-thin Viets. There were laws now, regulations, raids every so often. Innumerable girls in their middle if not early teens all the same, as the regular newsreports of prosecutions demonstrated. The day-time Mainland girls were another matter.
         Near the end the old fella raised blushes when he used the intro to fetch the lass a drink and began zeroing in with too much attention. Poor darling used her phone to ward him off.
         Audio on Google Translate later indicated the gulf. Close, yet so far. A mouthful of pins possibly the best recourse.

Neem

The last Sunday before Hari Raya—Eid, Idul Fitri—Thursday coming. At the Geylang Serai Market in the morning a number of men armed like old-style archers with long, thin coconut leaves bundled and slung over shoulders. All through the market one came upon them, a kind of scattered platoon making their way to a rallying point.

Busy Muslim housewives island-wide. One of the traditional foods for the great feast was ketupat—hard k—a rice preparation held within a folded sachet of coconut leaves about three inches square. Dates, spicy beef rendang, vegetable curries and a good deal of ketupat expected on the festive tables.

Carpet and mat traders a feature of the stalls every year; pillows, bedding and curtains likewise doing good trade. Last few days it has been confirmed Sumatran Era's large stall before the NTUC supermarket at Joo Chiat Complex was stocked only with plastic flowers. Real flowers had been found at a couple of tables here and there; more usually high colour plastic that mimicked the wild abundance of the Tropical flora. Brightening and refreshing the house for the high point of the Muslim calendar. Those who can afford donned new clothes and shoes. The lucky Indo maids placed with appreciative employers received a month's bonus for Hari Raya, which many spent on colourful full-length mermaid costumes brought in at the waist, saucy ones the pantie-line showing. The third Ramadan now in Singapore

Many housewives bought food from "outside" rather than prepare everything themselves. Who had time or patience for cooking nowadays? Numerous food-stalls throughout the quarter. Within hours of dawn Thursday the tents and annexes will have been taken down by Indian crews—Hindus mainly. From memory Mr. Teh Tarik and Labu Labi closed for an entire week. The foreign workers who were fortunate enough would return at least for a few days to the towns and kampungs of the Peninsular, Sumatra, Java and Borneo, even India. Some like Gani at Mr. Teh Tarik would travel overnight after their work-shifts in order to be with their families for the dawn of Hari Raya.

A new pop-up stall early Sunday out front of Labu Labi was manned by another of those folkloric figures from the annals that one encountered regularly in these parts. Men and women of faith and conviction who can make a casual passerby stop dead in their tracks. The figure of the man in his long robe, thick springy beard and cap was one thing, but when one passed to his make-shift stall, the intrigue was doubled. 

A couple of the red plastic Labu Labi chairs had been commandeered and turned toward the inner pathway; one of the tables making an added shelf at the end. Small vials of perfume and scent, some kind of plastic wrapped marker pens and a couple of other oddments arranged for display. 

What drew all the attention however was a small cardboard container something like a cigar-box holding lengths of sticks, thin tree branches of some sort all of a size. 

The man was in his late-fifties perhaps. It could be difficult judging ages outside one's own racial/cultural group, especially with costume added.

Five year olds imitating their elders might have produced such a road-side stall. One could not help wondering. 

New almond or walnut sproutings collected here possibly, more or less straight, with knobs showing where pruning had shaped the line. The thin outer bark had not been removed. Possibly each stick had been washed or rubbed clean with a cloth. The like had never been seen before.

A loose piece of cardboard that had been stood over the hoard carried block lettering:

BANGLADESH—such-and-such     SRI LANKA—such-and-such

INDIA—NEEM                                ENGLISH – Olive

Conversation with the journeyman prevented better note-taking. As soon as he commenced speaking the picture of the newspaper Taliban fighter softened with child-like warmth and radiance. The man positively full of ardour. 

Surprisingly too he spoke excellent English. A missionary, he declared himself, attached to the Angulia Mosque. At the Angulia on Serangoon Road he could be found, an open invitation. 

The wooden sticks had come from Arabia. This chap would not knowingly speak an untruth, not for any money, one could be sure.

How many years had one wondered in the organic and health stores down in Melbourne about the native exotica from which all the best soaps in India derived. Roughly equated with our Mediterranean olive, it seemed. 

For a few days the two had been assumed to be one and the same. Or if not entirely the same from the same, the family or genus. 

The missionary was not a botanist, granted. The famous, one could assume locally holy neem. The living tree these sticks in the box approximated could only be tentatively guessed.

The Prophet had highlighted the need for oral hygiene. The best recourse was the antiseptic fibre of the neem. First of all one stripped the bark from the end of the stick and mashed the point a little, producing a kind of brush. Rubbing this over the teeth no doubt protected enamel and removed plaque too. 

 

 

                                                                                                           Geylang Serai, Singapore 2013

 

 

East Pakistan

What better place to pick up a breakfast bowl than Mustafa Centre on Serangoon Road. Difficult to beat for price on any staple item or brand; usually. Afterward one might round from there to Usman for an early supper before the break-of-fast crowd landed. Starting with masala tea for the parade from the corner perch, table nearest the front, followed by single naan, dahl & potato. Perfection. With a fridge in the new digs cereal in Singapore, a French unsweetened soy sourced at the local NTUC supermarket (union run in order to keep prices down for the common folk, supposedly, which in Sing' means a government operation, stemming back to the far distant past when the People's Action Party—bolt of lightning insignia—professed itself Democratic Socialist… The grand old man of the region, approaching a ripe old ninety and publishing yet another book of pearls this week here, blurbs from George Schultz and Henry K.)

         The breakfast bowl. The Thieves had nothing. Mr. Teh Tarik would kindly provide the spoon, unless cheap ceramic could be found.

         Up the lane behind Desker the working grannies were not observing the fast, tucking in while they watched overhead TV. In the low lounge chairs some of them looked as if they would be incapable of rising to their feet without a hoist. Make-up & costume jewellery would be cheap at Mustafa too.

         Second thoughts, the Bangladeshi row on Lembu Road opposite grassless Bangla Park was an idea. Prices there would be cheaper still.

         Some kind of mufti type was blaring from the screen turned onto the street toward the park, where a dozen lads were gathered on the opposite footpath, watching and listening. Nothing like the dramas that gather three or four score men on a Sunday, but decent crowd just the same.

         Lazy late afternoon, thin crowds, the usual clientele still toiling on their construction sites. Very little activity in the middle of Ramadan. How did the chaps, for all the strength of youth, for all their hardiness and conditioning, how did they manage 12-14 hour shifts without food or water?

         A trifle head-buffeted with the memory of the early PAP, those days before the ship of state was turned…Harry Lee. Might there come a belated bedside confession and recanting at the last gasp, even if suppressed afterward, servant or body-guard eavesdropping and getting the story out...The food-taster who had been retained all those years, coughing it up finally! Stranger things come to pass.

         Coming along innocently, yet to arrive at the beginning of the provision row, a little odd pavement scene capturing the attention and finally drawing one to a complete halt, there in the middle of the walkway. What was this here, hey.

         One certainly does not like being a sticky-beak. Luckily no-one paid the observer the slightest attention. (The author has found this matter rather surprising in the Tropics: people going about their business, doing precisely as they please, when a fellow, a complete stranger, can stand off two or three metres looking on completely without regard from the side. Density of living perhaps; one of the little local quirks. The density of Sing', HK, Shanghai, Rio, not without affect.)

         The actors here were unusual for one thing. Almost certainly the women an Indon pair, or otherwise Malay, here at the Bangla row in some kind of particular, close engagement.

         And what, mind you, was a Chinese doing manning a Bangladeshi shop in the quarter? 

         All the shops along Lembu were Bangla operations, all without exception. Or at the very least most certainly not Chinese. The Chinese doubtless owned the buildings, the entire row more likely than not. This was little Dhaka in goods and product, sold by the natives of those parts and purchased by the same.

         If the fellow wasn't entirely Han, if he was Burmese or Peranakan (Malay-Chinese), he was certainly not Bangladeshi. Nor Tamil, Arab or Pakistani.

         Safe to say Chinese, sitting in his high chair on the walkway with a cupboard of goods before him looking out onto paved Bangla Park and the collection of lads watching the televisions.

         Two scarved, traditionally garbed Indons about his own height and proportions stopped before him, the first and lead wordlessly extending her hand and giving the briefest rub of thumb to her ring finger. Not the forefinger or middle; the ring.

         Brief. Blink and you missed it. Drug deals in other locales—not Singapore—have been witnessed many a time with less finesse, less panache.

         This was louche, lay-back cool like movies rarely achieve. Where did the gal develop it? One imagined her at a poker table. It was really something.

         The face was averted. A corner of chin, jaw-bone, nothing of the eyes.

         Under the covered walkway a shaft of light from an unseen fissure in the cloud over the park illuminated only the woman's palm and fingers, fabric of skin the kind of effect Caravaggio achieved.

         Phone cards the chap might have had in his front cupboard, like many of the other traders here; or else the betel leafpaan the Banglas favoured.

         Was this a drug deal after all? The betel leaf was a mild intoxicant, as well as hunger suppressant. Women had never been seen in these parts chewing and spitting the juice. These ladies did not look especially poor.

         No need words of any sort. Highly unlikely the pair shared any common language with this fellow. Even the Bahasa these women spoke would not have been their national, administrative language. They were from the sticks somewhere, remote kampungs.

         Clearly the man had comprehended everything regardless. It looked nothing like conventional begging. Fascinating.

         A mismatch of some kind. It was all wrong. Rarely were there beggars of any sort seen around Serangoon Road. True, the Malays in Geylang Serai often remarked on the Chinese beggar or tissue seller making a bee-line for the Muslim quarter, where they would get better regard.

         Nothing like it along Serangoon on two-three dozen prior visits. Four dozen.

         Immediately the man had understood. It was possible his eyes had not even fallen on the hand and fingers. The attunement here was perfect.

         Man rising from his seat, using the cross-bar of the tall chair for leverage; then lifting the glass top of the cupboard. Within the compartment fishing for a moment. Two and three and more moments. One-handed, plucking or pinching with his fingers.

         An rather inordinate stretch. Had the man been fishing on a line by a riverbank there would have arrived a catch in that time.

         It was possible the hand would emerge empty here in frustration, the game given away.

         Finally it looked like something. One strained to catch the miniature.

         Craning forward as discreetly as possible, careful not to lurch too far. Two twenty cent pieces. Approximately the size of tens in the great Southern land at time of departure from those shores.

         A twenty each, pressed onto one palm and then the second.

         On the current exchange rate at time—Friday 26 July 2013—a fraction over seventeen Australian cents.

         No complaints either side. Nods may have been made, more with the eyes than heads proper.

         Fifteen cents effectively, with the discontinuation of twos and ones how many years.

         The author has known beggars to turn their noses up at much more. In Singapore, Changi Road, one cross-eyed importunate Chinaman who wears his tops rolled half-way up his belly, grunting and surly, owed a living he seems to think, has turned over a shiny Singaporean 50 cent piece and left it behind.

         Off the pair of women trotted to the next place a few doors down. A short while later they were seen passing on Serangoon Road. Busy bees, much to do, indefatigable.

         The afternoon was singing now, some kind of order and harmony restored.

         In the end a little fire-engine red doggy bowl was purchased. $1:60-70. The Malay or Indon pair would have bargained and driven the price down. (The pair would have eaten with their fingers, mind, from grease-proof brown paper, cereal and muesli like rice and chicken the same. Easier than plate servings at all the street stalls in Singapore.)

         At the register a couple of chaps engaged in conversation; something of matter. Lembu Road the same.

         The older before the register; younger back turned to the shop facing his friend.

         — ...1947 to ‘71...

         One was made to wonder at all kinds of matters in the human field.

         The stated was an unusual period. 1947-1971.

         This particular time-frame had almost certainly never been heard before.

         …Shortly after the war. On the cusp of the first Whitlam government in Australia, after the unbroken conservative rule.

         But of what relevance was this in Asia?

         1947-1971?....

         A few secs required revolving the red plastic disk. Checking workmanship, as it were.

         From the shelf where the bowls were stacked over to the register in front, another second and one half was needed.

         Ah. Yes! Got it. Of course.

         On Lembu Road opposite Bangla Park only one possible answer, lay you fifty to one.

         — East Pakistan.

         The pair of robed men was more than a little surprised of course. Startled more than a trifle.

         In East Pakistan they had lasted a third of the time of the Yugoslavs.