Judgment

One judges and is judged. Submission always required. Presiding over an upcoming occasion will be an Australian multi award-winning immigrant writer whose range could pretty much be guessed from the author photographs and a sighting some years ago in the street—Camberwell Market; not the most auspicious locale for what is wanted. Still, for confirmation it was best to have a look at her work and size up the tendencies and prospects. In the Singapore branch of Kinokuniya there is a policy of no seating within the bookshop. If you want to sample anything go find yourself a leaning-post and be their guest. At the entrance to the café a sign warns no items from the store can be brought indoors without being purchased. One can bluster-barrel past the waiting staff as this author has done, but it is not recommended. High-handedness of this kind inflicted on those juniors always leaves a bad taste.

         Five pages or a tad more sufficient in order to size up the case. One blurb writer (New Statesman) didn’t know whether to race ahead to find out what happened next in the novel, or else dwell with the jewels. Female glitter in short. Light gleamed in various facets from a number of surfaces in different places within the first 6 – 7 paragraphs. Already on page 3 there appeared a cockatoo, flying up from a sapling and dislodging “a rhinestone spray”.
         Nothing wrong with a female writer-judge of course, though this author would choose Hilary Mantel over A. S. Byatt. The latter added another blurb for this particular volume that had been sampled of the soon-to-be-judge: she had not read anything as good for ages; and further, the author “writes quickly and lightly of wonderful and terrible things.”
         “Tea-coloured puddles” and a white “rust-spotted dog”.
         As a consequence, the footy story that was recently long-listed by Australian Book Review for their Elizabeth Jolley Prize will be held over for an old village tale that received an Honourable Mention at the Glimmer Train desk in the U. S. Ready for dispatch; no entry fee in this case. (Some of these literary competitions are simple cash-cows for shrewd operators.)
         In the supermarket this morning the pretty cashier played the Guess My Nationality game with some fine artfulness. Not Chinese; nor Myanmar or Thai.... The author was found a trifle stupefied early morning, still no teh, unfixed mind…. Where else was it again they sourced cheap slave-labour here for their menial jobs?... Not Mainland China. No to the new frontier bottomless pit of Myanmar. The hungry ranks of the Thais No. Light skin ruled out India and the sub-continent.
         ‘Same Chinese”, the poor dear finally admitted apologetically: Vietnam.
         For a Westerner in a fine hat with his Cornflakes underarm, Same Same. What would he know? What could you expect.
         Oh, of course by jingoes! Of course. So silly!... It was not just the Karaoke bars and Nail joints where they recruited the young Viet women. How daft.
         Back on the street returning for a buzz-cut and hoping the nice Mainland girl was free, the cowering figure of a small child in Kinder uniform (yes, no surprise here), holding tight to a trouser leg like a tree trunk outside the Cheers store. Wary. Shielding herself carefully, no mucking around. Hiding and looking, but very careful to be out of danger, the line of fire.
         ....Oh. Oh. Mr. Mohammed the shipwright’s grand-daughter.... Yes, of course. The old cheeky Grizzle attached to the blue trousers, showing his big choppers even in relaxed mode. Moderate-sized bear of a fellow, still powerful in his mid-seventies. A made-to-order protector. Without a skill and trade Mr. M. might have made a good gangster, tough-guy, loan shark. Mean son-of-a-B when he put it on.
         A year now the same shrinking and wariness from this particular sweet little mite. No way to win her, always cringing and shrinking away. Unusual for a fellow who can normally win a child effortlessly. A few weeks ago the author was chosen outright as handsomer than a young child’s doting father after two minutes acquaintance. Not this girl.
         — Mat salleh eat children. Careful!
         The old hound. Great oaf. No need further guess. The historical "red-haired" devils retained their foul reputation still in certain quarters in these parts, a wide net encompassing.

Regulations and Safeguards

 

Reviewing the classifieds here for Jogja Sumiyatie this morning brought a small, minor surprise. After earlier having worked twelve years as a maid and lost a substantial part of her savings back home in some kind of shonky investment, Sumiyatie is considering a return to Singapore. The thought had been to try to obviate the rapacious Maid Agencies, save some money and take firmer control of her placement. A personal advertisement in the paper, starting with the English language Straits Times; an expatriate employer sometimes a better possibility for less slave-driven assumptions. Let the employers come to you, inverting the power equation: the maid interviewing the employer. Singaporeans are crying out for maids. There has been trouble with abuse and competition from other countries of the region offering better pay and conditions. Consequently, no-one to cook, clean, care for children & parents. In this heat. The classifieds full of agencies advertising their ready and willing workers, of all language groups, experienced, biometric data prepared, willing to bend over backwards for a crust/bowl of rice. $500 and up many lured existing maids for transfer opportunities. One of them brazenly enticed employers with NO OFF DAY... From January 1 this year the minimum wage for domestic helpers was set at $450 monthly. On top of that employers pay a surcharge to government, something around 20-25%. And there is now a mandated free day every week. Legislated. L. A. W law. If the maid is required to work on her free day this is a matter of negotiation and payment required — $20 minimum. This particular agency too busy to read the newspaper or keep up with newfangled laws changing every five minutes.

         Another problem of enforcing new regulations likewise reported today. A new-comer to Singapore takes time to become accustomed to the sight of dark-skinned or Chinese foreign workers carted in the rear of trucks and lorries like sticks of wood; like slaves to the cotton/paddy fields; prisoners to the execution yard, morning, noon and deepest night. Sleeping many of them slumped over, bunched tight, jumping promptly at their stop chop-chop no time to lose. Company tees often, dirty and ragged, beat and drained. A good while it takes to leave off blinking and head-shaking at this common sight. In Geylang the witnessing is unavoidable because that is where the dorms are located, twenty or thirty bunked in a room. There might be new regs now seeking to limit the congestion. Just as there is for the transport of workers in the lorries: so many square feet per worker strictly mandated (as for the chickens in the coops); such and such height clearance, shelter and protective railings. No worker must be transported otherwise &etc. Nevertheless, “187 passengers were injured or killed while travelling in the rear of open lorries and in cargo decks last year, up by 45 percent from 129 in 2011." (Saturday 26 October 2013, S. T. Home section, B1)

Blind Terror

A screaming girl directly across the way wouldn't let up, yesterday early afternoon in continual fits and starts rising and falling; then in the morning renewed again. There was no end to it over more than two hours. Child kept on without wearying herself. A four storey three or four million dollar corner house where some weeks ago a gathering in the front courtyard showed traditional conservative, Malay or Indian-Malay. Neighbours on the other side and across the street must have heard. Was it up to an outsider to go over to investigate? The girl was not being beaten; the screeching unvaried, all in steady, even rhythm on and on. There was no-one tormenting the child; but then neither was anyone pacifying. Six or seven year old perhaps; unlikely younger or much older. Had it been some kind of abuse the prolongation was unlikely so long; the uniformity suggested otherwise. Somewhere in the front part of the house she kept, unmoving and trapped in her misery. The windows on the south side of the room gave directly onto the street and the wall of the weeping house rose fifteen metres away on the other side of a narrow roadway. How could there be no help for the young girl and no end to her trouble? Going out for the morning teh cars and motor-cycles parked in front; an odd white cloth the size of a tea-towel was hanging from a stick tied to the lamp-post. Beyond and only visible on the turn amongst the other vehicles, the polished black van with raised hatch and gold lettering like a purring beast devouring its prey.

A Rose By Any Other Name

Old uncle pulling up a pew at Har Yassin more of a Granddad in fact; more than a passing resemblance to Little Boy Lost too. White knitted songkok, walking stick and colostomy bag protruding from beneath his colourfully printed shirt. Reached his mid eighties, the slight build holding him in good stead. The size of the hands fails to surprise now: a life-time’s work and strain can distend tendons and sinews like that even in hands that might have started out cherubic. Light skin colour, though strong Malay features; moist purple lips as if from cooler climates. A preoccupation of some kind has the mouth open and lips moving, a tooth in the bottom row emerging occasionally. Handsome neat fellow in his time, still observant, looking all round and even turning in his chair at movement behind. Unclear how he might get himself home under his own steam; perhaps a child or grandchild coming from the market across the way.
         Not much hesitation accepting the offer of a drink, kopi and glass specified. A twenty minute pit-stop all that was needed, off tap-tapping along up Changi Road, leaving only an inch in the bottom of his cup. For farewell and thanks in one the hand was offered across the table, expression and nodding more than sufficing.
         The Croat woman Ruza, Rose, in the hospital ward with Bab produced a great surprise during the course of the final week. Even in her greatly diminished state, withdrawn and quiet, Bab had managed to charm her last new friend. Disturbing the ward at night with her calls failed to irritate Ruza. Childless and without family herself, the younger old lady had no visitors of her own and so inserted herself into Bab’s gatherings. From her calling all night Ruza had assumed Bab’s son’s name was Mako. Mako, Mako, Mako all night. At some point we learned Bab had in fact inherited the endearment from her own mother Ruza, Rose. Through some kind of superstition, some kind of fretfulness common to the region, Grandma Ruza had never called her son George by his given name, not once in his hearing. Another of Bab’s inheritances, from her mother in this case.
         After three or four days in the ward together the old Croat Ruza made an observation that over fifty years had escaped the notice of those nearest to dear Babi. A complete stranger able to startle with a sudden revelation like that. In all her life Croat Ruza had never seen a woman, small framed at that, with hands of such enormous size. Giant strapping men back in the hills at home might not have had the like. There was small opportunity remaining then to look with the stranger Ruza’s fresh, appreciative eyes.

Void Deck

The term is used for the base of housing towers here that have been left empty for one reason or another—dangers of flooding perhaps in early phase construction. Occasionally the spaces are put to recreational use: children play ball on the concrete, elderly gather for mahjong at tables provided, young pre-schoolers brought for games and activities within the caverns. More often they live up to their name.

         Eighteen months ago the first wedding happened upon in a Void Deck surprised. 

         Passing from a distance through the Haig blocks a large assembly drewn attention. Something very particular was underway. Tables and chairs were arranged, a large camp kitchen, bunting and carpeting that totally transformed the space. Within the innermost recess a young couple were enthroned on a raised dias covered in colourful fabric, the pair bejeweled and crowned. “Kings and queens for a day,” the Malays said.

         An old bachelor found most striking of all their youth, sitting obediently as they had been told for the audience before them. In ancient days sacrificial victims awaiting their fate could not have appeared much different. As for many traditional cultures, Malay weddings extended over a number of days and drew three or four hundred guests, who were accommodated in shifts within the Voids.

         Had there been a carpet of money strewn before the couple? Hours later some of the impressions seemed questionable.

         Never failing to produce a jolt for a casual passerby are the wakes that are commonly held on the Void Decks. For a newcomer the occasion failed to reveal itself at once. A smaller gathering, tables and chairs, yellow cloth decoration and a strange cricketing-like assembly for the bereaved. Strange for Balkan eyes, the traditional Chinese Buddhist colour of mourning turns out to be white. The curtained inner recess with altar at the head was the last element noticed.

         On the final day of the wake the young Buddhist monk officiates in what appears an informal service—smoking, chattering and eating continue behind the chanting out front. In the case of the first of these Void Deck wakes at the Haig blocks and well before moving to room in the immediate neighbourhood, it was only the wet cheek of one of the young girls standing in line before the screened casket that suggested the nature of the event.

         Again this morning pacing the covered walkway through the towers soon after breakfast, a sudden shock again at the stretched tarpaulin.

         Caskets Fairprice.

         The large supermarket chain had diversified.

Left - Right - Left

Just a thought; cheeky, naughty; trifle indecorous. An after-thought in fact.

         People here eating with their fingers of course. Indians, Malays the same. Takes a while to become accustomed; even twenty-eight months insufficient. Sometimes the odd Chinese patron will ask for cutlery—no sticks at a place like this. The right the hand in play. It is the hand collecting the rice and sops with the chapatti. The left might be used to help break up the chapatti; otherwise all the real work done exclusively right-side. As one would expect the world over: the domination of the right. My right hand &etc.... Which means the left exclusively for the other business. You do not use the right for that. Therefore the hose in the cubicles on the right. You could not hold them in your left hand if you tried. Some months ago in some particular kind of context Omar had made the point of the specifically assigned hand. Not caught properly at the time; perfectly clear now in an eatery. Perfectly clear. Malays are wary of being caught out in a Chinese place. What if there is no hose? Paper. Parents in Malaysia and India would have been worse than the old schoolmasters with their rulers of a couple of generations ago correcting Lefties.
         Komala Vilas Restaurant in Bufallo Street off Serangoon Road opposite Tekka Market; adjacent Kerbau Road (Bahasa for buffalo). One needs to squeeze the eyes tight to evoke the stockmen driving their herds there. Komala Vilas founded by an old Tamil in the late forties, naming the place after his "first daughter", as the chief waiter informed this afternoon. Marvelous largely untouched place. And the Backpackers mostly keep around in Dunlop Street where all the Tapas bars and the rest entice. No need fear.      

Italy - Australia Divide

A Day of Mourning in Italy yesterday after the disaster of the refugee boat off Lampedusa Island recalls the Australian lack of reaction after a number of similar incidents, Christmas Island in mid December 2010 for example. The Italian reaction presents us Australians with the question what might be the reasons for such an outpouring in the Mediterranean and such marked indifference by comparison in our own country. How to account for it? Remnant Catholicism? The disparity in relative distances between Christmas Island and the East coast population centres on the Australian mainland, against Sicily and the major Italian cities? The run-down to the holiday period in the case of the 15 December 2010 event that resulted in fifty deaths? Coarsening of the political - social sphere after the years of the Howard government? Suppressed guilt at the devastation wreaked in those countries where we have gone to war?
         How far short did we fall from a day of mourning in Australia in the week before Christmas in 2010?

NB. Since January 2000 there have been almost 1,500 refugee deaths at sea in the passage between Indonesia and Australia, according to Australian Border Deaths Database.

Pestilence

          

An old traditional Indian grannie, perhaps late sixties, stopping at the table to point at the water jug, the cup beside it.
         Most certainly dear lady. Of course, be my guest.
         Not a customer of Blue Diamond, she had no right really. Just then the boss's wife happened to be away from the register. A bona fide paying customer, albeit mainly confining himself to rasam soup, papadom and masala tea—under four Sing' dollars in total—hardly forming a substantial guarantor. Even so. (The boss's wife moreover refuses to charge for a cup of rasam soup. Soups in little cups or bowls are similarly given gratis in Geylang too when a chap, foreign worker usually, buys a plate of rice, meat and veg.)
         Carefully a full measure poured by the woman from the jug that Prakasam has delivered to table as a special courtesy for a fellow author. (Prakasam—Bright, Effulgent in Tamil—is a poet, an example of his work presented to the white author who toils in the lesser form; a poem of unrequited love, appeal to the beloved to reconsider; presented in the original Tamil where the curlicue forms are as much a delight as the English sense delivered in the translated version from someone's effort in the back-kitchen. Prakasam has been in Singapore only eighteen months, working wholly in Little India.)         Thought had been of an imminent, certain spillage. As usual Prakasam has not brought a half measure, not to a fellow author. Lifting the jug one-handed required care and concentration. A better look at the woman suggested a possible beggar, shaky hands, a fraction unkempt. Perhaps a cardboard and aluminum collector, a Tamil karung guni. Madame would be annoyed if she saw….          
         But no. In fact not a drop. Dangerously full cup poured into the bargain. From the full cup the gleaming liquid successfully cascading down the gullet thirstily without pause, 220 - 230ml, head back-tilted, fixed purpose, swollen bare midriff exposed above table level. 
         In the common fashion too—here is the real heart of the tale—in the usual way, the cup here not touching the lower lip of this woman in any shape or form. 
         Parching thirst in a dry throat in the middle of the day wholly slaked without the merest contact between lips and cup. 
         One sees the same island-wide and up on the peninsular too; down in the Indonesian archipelago, whether drinking from cups or bottles, whether glass, plastic, paper, or as here at the Blue Diamond and the other Indian eateries on Bufallo Street, off Serangoon Road, shiny stainless steel (jugs and cups both). 
         Always and on every side, whether Indian, Malay or Chinese, the stream of liquid free-falling from a steady, cocked position where the receptacle is held, falling into the mouth and from there the gullet and down, down into swelling intestines and onward. How many times has one witnessed? 
         Only twenty-eight months later remarked, here in this place because of the particular circumstances.
         Nothing of the sort down in the great Southern land of course; nothing elsewhere in the wider travels. Fears of cholera or dengue from epidemics of years past the thought had been. Communities wiped from the face of the earth. Pestilence. As a child the woman had heard it at Ah-ma's knee, Patti in Tamil; conveying the same to her own grandchildren in her turn. 
         Evident all over the island.  Tales to chill in the tropics.

The World’s a Stage (Sing’pore)

One does not get Singapore, not get within a bull's roar—of Singapore and much else beyond Singapore too—unless one gets this:

         Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap

Currently being staged—or presently about to be staged—at some kind of theatre housed in one of the iconic structures on either Marina Bay, or else the Singapore River. One hundred to one not elsewhere. An outside chance perhaps Fort Canning Park, where a gleaming escalator will deliver art-lovers under a canopy of trees shielding a mousetrap within a cluster of ferns and wild orchids.
         Festive white balloons in the shape of traditional Chinese lanterns were visible hanging from Raffles Hotel this afternoon, strung in sequence under the verandas, the famous five foot ways bequeathed by Sir Stamford himself and a much-remarked feature of the architecture island-wide.
         Dame Agatha a name as big as the Beatles and Stones. (Numerous Beatles tees sported on the streets here.) Almost as big as Shakespeare. They do love the English here. Branded English most particularly. A Midsummer-night's Dream was likewise staged a short while ago, almost certainly open-air at Fort Canning, possibly the Botanical Gardens, fans and screens in order to help suspend disbelief.
         And it's not just Singapore of course, recently going whole hog for the arts and culture, no stone left unturned and money splashed all over you just name it. It's everywhere now the high tide: in the bookshops, the theaters, cinemas, galleries, restaurants and fashion houses —all the arts. Nothing possibly to stop it. Not Beckett, Shakespeare, Mozart and all the others working with the brightest and best among us now. It's too far gone. Singapore only exemplifies the position—showing too in the back-blocks still what was before, as the pages of this Blog have long indicated.

Toiling and Death in the Singaporean Workplace

Fifteen deaths in the construction sector this year in Singapore, with some numbers still in serious condition in hospital. On Monday came the first crane-related deaths of the year, killing one Thai worker and one Bangladeshi. Last year there were five crane deaths; six in 2011. Thursday last week a construction worker fell to his death at a condominium site; four days previous a falling tree killed an excavator operator. The Acting Manpower Minister who visited the latest crane fatality yesterday was photographed in his hard-hat wiping sweat from face. One would get hot under the collar in the outdoors. Minister in a lavender shirt with sleeves rolled, tie left on the back seat of the car.

         Certainly one could not complain about the lack of colourful sign-boards around work sites in Singapore: STOP THE ASSUMPTIONS. STOP THE ACCIDENTS out on Kallang Road to cite just one example. (STRIVE FOR LIFE - not a Methodist appeal for sanctity: Jalan Besar construction site.) Above the heads of the dark-skinned workers entering the gates at almost any other site too they can be observed, small puns and word-play revealing the practiced hand of advertising expertise; very little Singlish evident.
         Truc Mie paid the author a visit after her work shift the night before last with better news. The Immigration scam in her case turned out not to be as bad as one originally feared: her five star hotel at the top end of town is indeed paying her during her three month trial. Five day weeks 9 AM - 6:30 PM, food and uniform provided and latter laundered — $SG800 per month. It might have been far worse. Easy work under the cool of air-conditioning serving, clearing, folding napkins. Less than what an MBA might have hoped, but accepted cheerfully by Truc as a broadening experience in famous Singapore. Safe work-site to boot.