Sarong Party Girls

by Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

chapter 7

  I was still thinking about Big Tongue when I woke up the next morning.

  After Charlie chased us out, all of us were so depressed we decided to just go home. We didn’t even have the heart for supper. Charlie was our hero, you know. And she’s secretly screwing a Malay guy? We never would have imagined it. She’s so pretty—­she has her pick of all these ang moh guys. Good quality ones some more! So wasted. What would her parents think?

  But when I woke up, I understood. Needs are needs. As long as Charlie is not so open about it, fooling around with Big Tongue maybe won’t affect her chances so much. But if it was me, I really don’t know if I could somehow bring myself to do it. Even if no one knows, you yourself will always know. So, somehow you must always maintain standards.

  I still remember when we were teenagers and Marina Square was just built—­my god, the air-­con was so powerful, the cinema was so big, the Isetan there had so many floors and one whole section was filled with all the best makeup counters (Dior, you know—­don’t play play!). Sher and all of us just started going there every weekend. At first, it was still quite high-­class—­mostly families (Singaporeans lah, but at the time we were not so focused on ang mohs yet so it didn’t matter) and teenagers like us. Sometimes the American schoolkids would pop up also, but at that age, they always stuck to themselves and were not so interested in making friends. In fact, if we even said hallo to them they always looked at us a bit shocked, probably wondering how come we don’t understand that we’re too LC to be trying to talk to them. Only the Ozzie international schoolkids might be a bit friendly. But that’s usually because the boys thought we might be an easy snog or something. (Which Fann more than once proved to be true lah. But that’s another story.)

  After a while though, all these Ah Bengs started taking over Marina Square! These gangs of guys with their spastic gelled hair and baggy pleated pants and their Ah Lian girlfriends who, even though they’re already sixteen or seventeen years old they’re somehow still choosing to wear Hello Kitty hairclips, just started showing up everywhere. If you go and see a film there, you confirm will find Ah Bengs in the last row talking loudly in Hokkien throughout the show. Sometimes in the food court there were even fights for tables and all—­especially near the famous chicken rice stall. So low-­class!

  We were already considering not hanging out there anymore, especially since the New Paper started doing reports on “Marina Square Kids” after not only Ah Bengs but even their Ah Lian girlfriends started having quarrels and fights all over the place there. When Ah Lians fight, it’s not as happening lah—­mostly a lot of shouting about wanting to “whack your face” and then pulling each other’s spiro-­perm hair until the Hello Kitty hair clips fly. But some of the Ah Beng fights were actually quite serious—­one time, according to the New Paper, one of the guys even pulled out a Swiss Army knife.

  But still, habit is habit. So on a Saturday afternoon, if we had nothing to do, then we didn’t mind meeting at Marina Square. One Saturday, Sher and I were sitting outside McDonald’s waiting for Fann. I think we were maybe seventeen years old at the time? Sher was looking chio as usual; me, not so much—­I still had a few pimples back then (must carry paper to blot my skin, type). At the time, none of us had handphones, so when Fann didn’t show up after one hour, we panicked a bit. Call her house also got no answer. So we tried calling her pager, which meant that we ended up having to sit next to one of those old orange coin phones to wait for her to call us back. Normally, we didn’t really mind waiting like this. Fann was very often late and Sher and I always could find nonsense to talk cock about for hours. But this time because we had to sit next to the coin phone outside McDonald’s, we were right in the middle of foot traffic. Not only that, it was Ah Beng foot traffic! Normally when we see them we just try to stay out of their way. But McDonald’s is like a giant Ah Beng magnet, man. And if you have two nice-­looking girls sitting outside McDonald’s—­walao, Ah Bengs confirm will suddenly damn steam. After the fourth oily Ah Beng asked Sher, “Xiao jie, yao bu yao zuo peng you?” I finally couldn’t keep quiet anymore. I know he and his friends and his parents all probably speak Mandarin or Hokkien to each other all the time lah but hallo, doesn’t he have eyes to see that Sher and I were more atas than that? Yah, I mean, my parents still speak Hokkien to each other at home when they don’t want me to understand what they’re saying, but even they know that English is the future. That’s why we always try to speak proper English!

  “Be your friend?” I said to the Ah Beng, blinking at him and then quickly looking away sideways before looking back, like you see those bitchy girls do in all those Cantonese TV serials. “Who wants to be your friend? You think we what? Desperate, is it?”

  Wah, Ah Beng became damn angry. After his face turned color a bit, he turned around and used his finger to signal his friends to come over from their McDonald’s booth. And once they all stood up, even without hearing the sudden rumble of many many chairs, I realized they were quite a big group. I was a bit scared but I knew that there is one golden rule—­unless it’s your own girlfriend, Ah Bengs don’t hit girls. (If this guy had an Ah Lian girlfriend there, then I would really be scared. Girls can always whack other girls, even if it’s not their fight. That’s fair game.) Even though this Ah Beng was angry, I could see that he suddenly remembered that, so he knew he had to back off. Sher stepped in to do what she always does. “Um, sorry ah,” she said, smiling very sweetly at the Ah Beng. “My friend today a bit moody lah. You know, the usual girl stuff.”

  Ah Beng was quiet for a bit—­his friends were all surrounding him now like idiots, not knowing what to do because they weren’t quite sure what was going on. (I tell you ah, the brainless group mentality of Ah Bengs is always amazing to watch. If I ever meet a professor at Harvard I confirm will tell him to come to Singapore and do a study.) Then Sher extended her right hand and said, “Come, OK, let’s be friends.” Ah Beng’s sour face suddenly disappeared. Now, happy lah—­even though it had to come to this, he finally got what he wanted. The fucker smiled and quickly shook Sher’s hand, asking, “What’s your name ah?” Sher just said, “Oh, we are waiting for our boyfriends.” Then, like that Ah Beng lost interest—­he just said “Orh” and then walked away, his friends all following behind.

  When we discussed it later, Sher actually said, “You know, that Ah Beng was not bad-­looking for an Ah Beng.” It’s true lah—­when I thought about it, he was tall, skinny, had a Cantopop nose and his hair wasn’t so stiff and poufed up, like all his friends’.

  “Aiyoh, Sher—­come on lah,” I said. “Ah Beng is still Ah Beng. Once you go with one, you are nothing better than an Ah Lian.”

  Which is why, even if it’s a secret, I don’t know if I can ever sleep with a Malay guy. Must always maintain standards.

  And this was clearly something Sher never understood, considering the Ah Beng she ended up marrying.

  Not that I had a lot of time to sit around thinking about big tongues and Ah Bengs that Sunday morning. Kin Meng this week was on holiday so, feeling super free, he decided to organize a brunch. At first, I was not so interested—­his friends are all quite snobby. And they are all Singaporean! If some of them are ang moh, then they at least have some reason to be snobby. But when he told me where they were brunching, I said, OK—­set.

  By the time I arrived at Relish, the place was already damn happening. I had only been here for dinner once before, on a weeknight some more, but even then I already knew that this one was a potentially good place to meet guys. Bukit Timah neighborhood is where all the expats live, after all—­so if you want to meet an ang moh, must sometimes come and just casually hang out where they go and makan, pretend like you always hang out there. No pressure, just smile sweetly, act like you belong, then maybe you can make some friends. And Relish is one of those places—­casual restaurant with good pastas and burgers. Both of those things are what ang mohs like to eat, so confirm Relish
is a good place to go. The one time I went, Sher and I decided to just go and have girls’ night dinner by ourselves—­the scene was quite slow; some more it was mostly filled with families or ­couples. “Maybe lunch or brunch better,” she whispered to me, after we spent all night looking at cute guys who, if we met them at Harry’s or Clarke Quay maybe would buy us a drink, but with their girlfriends or wives around? Forget it—­please, they confirm don’t even dare look at us.

  Kin Meng and his friends all live in Bukit Timah—­all born rich, Anglo-­Chinese School boys lah—­so they were all regulars at Relish, usually for dinner with their wives. When I got there, they were all at their usual table all the way in the back—­good spot for ­people watching. From that back center table you can see everyone who walks into the restaurant—­and then you can quickly decide whether you want to make eye contact and say “Hi” or not. The restaurant is on the second floor of this old colonial townhouse so the windows are quite big, got a lot of light type—­very easy to spot anyone you want to talk to. Some more in the center usually there’s a display of cakes or some shit so you can use that as an excuse to get a closer look at ­people at the restaurant—­and I guess, the cakes also lah.

  I’ve only known Kin Meng a few years—­he’s an old friend of ­Louis’s. Once Kin Meng got promoted to managing director of his shipping company then he started having to travel and entertain clients a lot and go to KTV lounges all the time. After going to a KTV lounge, he said, regular clubs at Clarke Quay were boring lah! It’s so much easier after all to be able to pay a chio girl to sit with you for a few hours, listen to you talk cock and laugh at all your jokes. No strings attached. So we stopped seeing him so much after that. But he and I always got along quite well so I don’t mind keeping in touch, even though he’s married (and Singaporean).

  Kin Meng stood up when I got to the table so he could give me a hug and a kiss. “Hi babes, how are you?” he said. Wah, this uncle today was damn stylo—­wearing loose, tailored white cotton cargo pants, brown Gucci sandals (got logo all) and a tight white V-­neck T-­shirt. His hair, as usual, was only slightly gelled and combed all the way back like Chow Yun-­Fat in The God of Gamblers.

  “Eh, where’s your wife?” I asked.

  “Mah-­jongg,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I don’t know how much she’s going to lose today, man. Fuck.”

  Kin Meng’s wife ah, is really mah-­jongg queen. She started playing when he got promoted and had to travel a lot—­everyone needs a way to pass the time, that’s what she said. So even though Kin Meng told her that hallo, there are other ways to pass time—­for example, maybe she can be like other bored tai-­tais and take a flower-­arranging course or volunteer at some bullshit charity? Or maybe she can get pregnant? But his wife doesn’t want to lose her figure—­or freedom—­yet. So even though they talk about having a kid nonstop also in the end, it’s all lumpah pah lan. Balls bang your cock until both stop motion—­no matter what you do, there’s no movement anywhere, the outcome also the same. In the end, nothing happens. Just frustration. So, like that lah. No kids, but got lots of mah-­jongg. And from the way Kin Meng talks about it, also got lots of money exiting his bank account.

  Kin Meng sat back down at the table, in the center of everything as usual. I said hi to Ramesh and his wife, Heidi, some American-­born Chinese that Ramesh met at uni in California and somehow managed to persuade to come back to Singapore with him. George, this guy who’s the fucking snobbiest one of them all, was there also. He works for some theater company or some shit—­and he even has a power British accent all, calling it “theea-­TAH” instead of “tear-­TERR.” His wife, Susan, was there also—­not that it mattered. I think in all the years that I’ve known her, I’ve only heard her voice three times. Each time for some stupid cock reason like, asking me if I can pass the chili sauce or something.

  I got there so late that everybody had ordered already—­Kin Meng even ordered for me, said he remembered that I like eggs Benedict or some shit. I don’t really care lah. Unless it’s at a hawker center, food is just food. All ang moh food is quite the same to me. No matter what it is, put chili sauce on top, then everything will be shiok.

  At least that is my strategy now. The first time I went to an ang moh restaurant I still didn’t know this because I was quite young. It was Imo’s birthday and we were all in Primary Two. Her mum had this idea to bring us all out for a nice lunch at the Dynasty Hotel on Orchard Road after school—­at the time I didn’t know anything about such places. Imo had been to places like that before lah—­not often but at least once or twice with her parents. But the rest of us were still quite toot. (Come to think of it, I’m not sure whether my parents have still ever been to a Western restaurant in an atas hotel—­got cold air-­con, use fork and knife to eat type of place.) From the moment we walked in though, I wanted to walk out. The restaurant was so beautiful! Everything smelled like air freshener—­and not the cheapo metallic kind that really hits your nose if you get too close to the dangling Christmas tree in taxicabs, but like actual roses or something. In fact, the restaurant had vases of flowers all around so after a while I wondered, eh, maybe it wasn’t even air freshener. Until that moment, I hadn’t even considered that there are some flowers that actually can smell like perfume.

  I remember it being really hot that day, so hot that my school pinafore and white blouse had that thick, sour smell from morning sweat drying then mixing with early afternoon sweat. Even my ponytail was greasy. So greasy that I could taste it when I chewed on the tip of it—­something I only did when I was nervous. But that day I was damn fucking nervous.

  The waiters all wore ties; the waitresses had nice black dresses and deep red lipstick. Everyone had very clean fingernails and everything was quite quiet. We could hear some violins or classical shit playing in the background. When I touched the edges of the white tablecloth before we sat down, the corners made me think of the sharp origami cranes Cikgu Hamidah had just taught us to make in art class. Sher, Fann and I didn’t really know what to do so we just followed everything Imo did and let her mum handle everything.

  “You girls like sausages, right?” Auntie said. “Like hot dogs but without the bun?” We all just nodded. Since Auntie was paying, whatever she wants, of course we will just follow along.

  Auntie had invited one of her girlfriends to come, so once she ordered the sausage plate—­no soft drinks because, as she noted, one lousy Sinalco was four dollars each!—­for all of us, the two of them just sat in a corner and started yapping. The rest of us were just left alone. Usually, the four of us always had a lot to talk about. There were the St. Michael’s boys on the bus, of course—­all of us at the time were wondering whether Simon, the Eurasian boy in Primary Four, would ever notice us—­and our stupid teachers, especially Mrs. Ting, who always made us do extra sit-­ups in PE because she probably knew we stuck out our tongues at her whenever she turned her back. And actually, that year we had just started playing dirty Barbie—­the week after exams were over we always were allowed to bring toys and books to share with each other. At that time, no matter how poor you were, you also got at least one Barbie. It’s the one toy all parents, even if you are working in a longkang shit job, also know that you must buy for your daughter. So when we could bring toys, we all brought our Barbies to school. Since we were still quite young at first, our Barbie games were still decent. Actually, when I think back to that time I also don’t remember what was so fun about it—­we just sat around combing our doll’s hair and exchanging clothes. For fuck? But in Primary Two, Jill Ong’s mum bought her a Ken doll. At first we just had the Barbies all fighting for his attention but then one day Veera Yap brought in a magazine she found under her parents’ bed. Wah—­naked pictures of women all over the place! Some also had men in the photos, rubba-­ing here and there. We weren’t quite sure what was going on but I remember it making us feel very excited, even though we didn’t know why. Set lah! After th
at our Barbie storylines suddenly became damn happening. For some of them we even called Ken “Simon.”

  These kinds of topic, though, how to discuss in such a nice restaurant? So the four of us just sat there—­Imo looking at me, me looking at Sher, Sher looking at Fann, that kind of stupid thing. All of us were also not sure what to do. That’s mainly what I remember about the lunch—­I can’t even recall what the sausages tasted like, whether Imo’s one slice of nine-­dollar black forest birthday cake that we all shared was good or not. I just remember feeling scared.

  All around us, everyone was so proper. And there I was in my lousy pinafore and my moldy school blouse. I bet the waitress could smell me. If I could definitely smell myself—­I forgot about the nice lunch that day and was wearing the one blouse that was starting to get yellow stains at the armpits—­then so could she. Die lah.

  I had never been around so many ang mohs before—­and all were so nicely dressed! Not like those tourists in shorts and slippers that you sometimes see at the botanical gardens. No, these ang mohs were all tall, looked damn smart, wear glasses type. The guys were all good looking—­not say cute like Scott Baio but good-­looking in a normal way. And not too hairy. Or red-­faced and pig-­nosed. The women looked so sweet; each handbag next to them had a shiny logo. Everyone was smiling, quietly chitchatting. Sometimes you could hear a bit of soft laughter—­the refined kind, not like those noisy Ah Cheks in kopitiams who, I tell you, if one of them tells some joke, then the whole gang of them will start shouting and laughing so loud that even if you’re on the tenth floor, you confirm also can hear.

  I guess it was then that I realized. I told myself, Jazzy, if you are going to want anything in life, this is what you should want. All this—­this world.

  Which is why even if I think Kin Meng’s friends are all jokers, if they are meeting in Relish then I don’t mind coming. This is the life, this is the world. Once my eggs Benedict came I decided to try and at least be nice and make some conversation. Not that they really asked me about my job or that I remembered anything that they said lah. But still, it was nice. For an hour, at least I could somewhat pretend that I already belong.