Hello all
Rambutan Literary is a free online S-E Asian journal which in its 5th issue has included three of my pieces under the collective title, "Singapore 3":
Jungle Thicket
Mary Poppins on the Equator
and A Conversion Story
See how you fancy them ladies & gents.
Best
Pavle Radonić
P. S. After a decent interval I'll re-post them here.
SINGAPORE 3 (Jungle Thicket)
Mary Poppins on the Equator
The dutiful Filipina maid who sits with Madame mornings at the Haig Road stalls comes by round eleven usually, as she did today. Cloud cover and a nice breeze made it an easy passage right the way along. The pair, Ma’am and maid, are bound for either one of the HDBs above Joo Chiat Complex, or else a house in the streets off Changi. (In Singapore rarely do people walk more than two or three hundred meters.)
Despite relatively mild conditions evidently gaps in the cloud, the maid having unfurled the large red umbrella and raised it on high.
Ma’am being an unusually tall Chinese fetching close on 180cm, the Maid needs to lift the shield skyward. A flag, standard or banner was given this kind of elevation.
As a Filipina the maid herself is tall—possibly chosen particularly. Nevertheless the young woman stands at least six inches shorter than her employer.
Sitting at the morning table at the stalls the maid turns a soft, indulgent face one way and another as the conversation of the old gathered women flows. Every morning on every pass the same as the day before. The maid can offer nothing here; she sits patiently, attentively, phone bulging in her rear pocket. How much Hokkien or Cantonese does she have in any case?
Three, four or more Chinese women each morning, sometimes the adjoining table taking the overflow. The Filipina is the only maid present. All the other women look as if they are more in need of maid than lucky Ma’am. But Ma’am alone is the one who can afford the expense, having more dutiful children perhaps.
Unmistakable indulgent softening of features one way and the other as required through the teas and cookies. Possibly the maid fetches the drinks for the table, relieving the Auntie at the stall. That is common. Serving when there is a maid present is contradictory.
The young woman in her mid-thirties dressed in cheap, featureless apparel, self-cut hair likely and bad skin. Coming past the author’s table Ma’am must not catch the quick-fire smile. Care always taken and sometimes the risk is too great. The game is a subtle one, adding another additional pain to the circumstance.
Holding the umbrella on the return home the maid's elbow stands raised above the horizontal plane; an effort and strain to keep it at that height.
When there was not a whisper before, suddenly a strong gust of wind has been released as if from a bag. Soundlessly the Filipina maid lifted from her feet without a moment even for shriek, up above the pavement she is taken across the roadway and high into the sky above Geylang and Changi Roads, over the roof of the market and out toward the prison and the sea. In the water the tankers wait their turn at dock.
Oh dear! a leaf picked from the ground taken away never to return.
Bye-bye to the good dutiful creature. You have served your Madame well, girl, Madame will miss you. Where will she ever find herself another to compare.
Jungle Thicket
The man with the turned right eye was usually found on the Block 2 Void Deck either at one card-table or the other. Observing from the side usually without participating.
The usual striped red, blue & white polo as he cycled through the estate. Sometimes he was seated by the passage with a newspaper, legs up on the railing.
Good mornings, Ni haos, Zhao uns and how are yous?
This morning on the return from the teh and newspaper the same. Going out earlier there had been the same.
After the second pass this morning a short wait was needed at the lift, where unexpectedly from around the corner the man suddenly appeared.
He did not live in D Block. He had never been encountered there.
— I give you mango. Abruptly thrusting a red plastic bag at the shnozz and pulling back the cover either side.
— Verrrry nice! As if afraid he might be disbelieved and his offering rejected.
After a momentary start it was clear the chap wasn't kidding. The man knew his fruit.
A hard, green specimen on the small size, yet the perfume emanating was difficult to credit. More than substantiating the man's claim. An exploding grenade of richest heady aroma.
Easy to tell this was not supermarket product and far from it. The fellow had access to a tree somewhere in deepest jungle thicket where trunks crowded each other and the foliage shredded the light. He knew where, as the old Montenegrin storytellers would have said.
Like everyone else, the man had observed the fruit carried in hand day after day up to Doreen’s flat. Naked oranges, apples, bananas and the yellow Thai mangoes usually that gave only the most trifling scent. Sometimes it was a juggle without the bag.
In his keeping this man had an appropriate gift for the stranger.
Even late night from the entryway returning housemates at Doreen’s remarked upon the powerful fragrance.
How to return something fitting then became the question.
A couple of days later when the man was thanked again for his gift and the fabulous bouquet underlined, chap was surprised it had not yet been tasted. The hardness made no never mind; the fruit was ripe, the man reassured. It was in fact fallen fruit, not picked. After two days it would be "spoiled ready."
In season a fig they used to give as an offering to children, friends and passers-by on the Montenegrin coast between the wars. (And proverbially of course, one would not give the same for anything less than worthy). An apple, orange or almonds and walnuts too from the fortunate ones in possession.
Kampung folk were easily identifiable here over the void decks, sitting on the steel benches, under the care of the dark-skinned maids and pacing the aisles under the supermarket fluro, the old ways clearly retained in their open manner, in their gestures and greetings.
A Conversion Story
There have been a good number of conversion stories heard here on the broiling equator.
The cabbie Cha's was the classic of a man searching in need of guidance.
Born into a notional Buddhist practice, Cha examined the Bible, then the Koran. Read some of the Vedas; back to the Koran, Bible, the Hadith and more Koran. Eventually the conversion to Islam, which involves a simple declaration of faith before two witnesses.
Being the earnest, studious type, Cha had pounded the books and commentaries, took beginners' classes at the Converts' Association and passed tests on knowledge and prayer with flying colours.
Cha’s Chinese friend with whom he sat at the Mr. Teh Tarik tables mornings converted after a stroke six years ago. Similar to Cha: insufficiency in Buddhism; the Koran and quickly in his case on-board.
A couple of years before Mabel at Joo Chiat reception had told her story of resistance overcome.
Originally from Penang, Christian friends here had long encouraged Mabel. Church visits and reserved judgment. The enthusiasm witnessed at services Mable attended left her cold, until one day approaching the altar herself and feeling the force, the disbeliever fell from her feet in a dead faint. Mable staunch thereafter.
Last night Nancy's friend Doris told her own story. An unlikely story; highly unlikely. The simplicity was striking.
As in previous cases here, little hesitation at intrusive questions from a stranger. None in Doris's case. In these communities what would be considered intrusion and unmannerliness elsewhere was readily received; the interest in the personal story often welcome.
Seven or eight years of age was Doris down at the base of her HDB out in Ang Moh Kio. After school or weekend, mum upstairs in the flat and dad not around.
An auntie suddenly appears before young Doris.
Upon some reflection "Auntie" was quickly revised downward—perhaps the woman in that childhood scene was still in her twenties. Doris now in her mid-thirties was a good deal older than the auntie who had converted her. It struck Doris now that she thought about it.
Traditional communities elders were commonly either “auntie” or “uncle.” Teta so-and-so in Serbo-Croat; Cika or Striko male.
A great deal of correspondence and reminding here on the equator.
A younger Malay or Indonesian woman here will, upon an encounter with an unknown older woman, take the latter's hand and bowing, raise it to her forehead as a mark of respect. After almost four years one blinked no longer at the display. Standard ceremonies at the outdoor tables in the Malay quarter.
Doris's young auntie approached and immediately upon the Hello, good morning little girl, young Doris, aged seven or eight, was asked a question.
— Do you want Jesus to wash your sins away?
Memorable. Doris could hardly have forgotten.
On the edge of the bed Doris delivered her brief little smiling response immediately, just as she must have all those years before.
Beside her Nancy fully out-stretched. Inquisitor in the swivel chair by the desk taking note.
Nance has possibly never heard her best friend's conversion story; not of much interest to Nancy.
Conversions were common on the equator, a rich, fertile ground. Numerous missionaries of one sort or another, as well as converts, encountered. There were a great number of factors at work. The Malays were mostly rock-solid in their belief and their practices. In the colonies the Christians had been their usual busy selves: conquests and conversions. The Hindus mostly held up pretty well; which left the Chinese with a less firm cosmology rather prone. Shopping, holidays, food adventures sometimes insufficient, especially living cheek-by-jowl with believers often inspired.
What to do? in the common expression here.
Raising up at Auntie young Doris answers, Yes, she would like to have her sins washed away by Jesus. Yes.
....Smiling, affable young middle-aged mother of two still with a fine, open face.
A prayer then for little Doris to accept Jesus. Repeat after me.
The next Sunday Auntie came to collect Doris for church; Baptists out in Sembawang. The auntie had gone up to meet the mother briefly.
An impressive service. Doris's mother did not accompany her daughter, either on the first occasion, or for a number of years later.
An only child, Doris attended at Sembawang, being collected in a Sunday-school bus that called into Ang Moh Kio for herself and also a little group of other children her own age that Auntie had likewise converted.
The Sembawang attendance lasted a couple of years; another Baptist for a time following.
During this period Doris's mother was eventually won over by another auntie who came calling.
Doris's mother had been losing her hair and the other aunt offered to pray for her. Some kind of hair treatment followed and soon noticeable improvement.
For a time Doris and mother attended church together.
At present Doris attended the Covenant Evangelical Free Church, her children going occasionally and husband mostly at Christmas and Easter. The children were not baptized; that was a decision for them when they were older, mother Doris decided now.
Doris did no direct converting herself, preferring patient encouragement instead.
A few weeks earlier Doris had taken her children on an outreach mission to the Philippines where slum dwellers were visited and various goods delivered. The eldest boy was appalled by Smoky Mountain in the Manila waste-dump and demanded the first plane out.
— I will live two years less now, the kid declared, turning angrily on his mother.
Heaven and hell were definite elements in Doris's purview. How god decided was of course another matter. Doris refrained from condemnation.
Still, accepting Jesus needed to be taken as decisive. Doris’s own father-in-law had been a confirmed atheist right up until his dying day. On his death-bed he had converted. There was always time.
Geylang Serai, Singapore 2011-25
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