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.