Some Singaporeans are so conditioned to regulate their own thoughts that, in some instances, it has become detrimental. In 2005, the country was shocked by a series of revelations concerning the National Kidney Foundation. One of the most respected and wealthiest charities in Singapore, the NKF has benefitted countless dialysis patients over the years with its vigorous fund-raising programmes. Truly commendable stuff. Until it became apparent that its top executives had helped themselves to first-class travel and luxurious business trips while staff members had received numerous increments in a single year and run up inflated expense accounts. The final straw came when an independent audit revealed that only 10 cents of every donated dollar actually went to the people that mattered—the kidney patients.
But it was what came out afterwards that really struck a chord. Subsequent stories hinted that one or two NKF employees had been concerned for some time that extravagant spending was going on, unchecked, in high places, but had opted to say nothing for fear of the repercussions their allegations might have had on their “rice bowl”. One extremely courageous soul within the NKF had questioned the wasteful spending via an e-mail but was soon slapped into place by a lawsuit in 1999. There is too much deference given to figures of authority here, particularly in the corporate world. It is such a shame. Look through the country’s short history and it is exceedingly difficult to find an Erin Brockovich, the woman who successfully waged war against a national American gas and electric company, or a Dr Jeffrey Wigand, the insider who took on the American tobacco industry.
Always wise after the event, there were repeated calls at every level after the NKF scandal for more Singaporeans to speak up when they suspect any wrongdoing along the corridors of power. Now the island is expected to become a nation of four million whistle blowers. But it is not as simple as that. For over 40 years, most Singaporeans did not even know they had a whistle.
CHAPTER 8
Scott and I had never experienced such domestic bliss. Our dear friend David had moved us into his late grandparents’ five-roomed flat in Toa Payoh just in time for Christmas in 1996. I thought the tiled floors in every room added a touch of opulence. We had never lived in a climate warm enough to accommodate living without carpets. If you sat on a tiled floor in a Manchester flat in the middle of February, you would require the services of a welder to prise your frozen backside off the floor. Our new Toa Payoh abode was palatial in comparison. With its marble tiles and whitewashed walls, the HDB flat resembled a Mediterranean holiday villa. A couple of Grecian urns, a six-pack of San Miguel and Sky Sports playing on cable in the background and it could have been a family jaunt to Tenerife.
Just 12 months earlier, Scott and I had been living in the most decrepit terraced house in the north of England. On the positive side, our Victorian hovel was close to the University of Manchester. But then, so was the local park. And on most nights, its benches were warmer than our living room. Rising damp was a perennial problem. In the bathroom, the wall turned black every month. The landlord solved the health hazard by painting over it. By the end of the year, the paint on the wall was an inch thick. The box bedroom beside the bathroom was even worse, with a bubble the size of a pillow emerging in the centre of the ceiling after three months. But our penny-pinching Fagin followed strict health and safety regulations. He burst the bubble and painted over it.
Walking up Kent Ridge Road now reminded me of those hard times. We were not destitute by any means in Manchester, but we rarely had any money and lived in a crumbling dump fit for demolition. Singaporean students, on the hand, are a pampered lot. They should be. Studying for one’s future takes precedence over everything else here. They should not be preoccupied with fiscal concerns, inadequate housing or a Fagin-like landlord, such as ours who sincerely believed that a washing machine was a superfluous consumer durable (sad, but true). I spent most of my second year in Manchester’s fine John Rylands University Library. Not because I was the university’s most conscientious student, but because the library was much cosier than that hovel.
In comparison, the accommodation at the National University of Singapore looked more like jaunty seaside chalets. I felt the slightest pang of envy when I strode past King Edward VII Hall. With the sea as their backdrop, the students’ rooms were modern, uncluttered blocks, similar to the holiday retreats at Pasir Ris. As I followed the winding, precipitous road, a sulphur-crested cockatoo let out a distinctive loud screech as it flew over my head and landed in the tree above. Lucky bastards, I thought. Those students attend a first-class university (NUS was ranked 22nd in the world’s best universities, according to the Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings in 2005. That figure attracts just as many raised eyebrows here as it does plaudits), the accommodation is top-notch, the institution is surrounded by the greenery of Kent Ridge Park, Clementi Woods and West Coast Park and they are visited by confused wildlife mistaking the place for Darwin.
But they do not have a bar. I still find that incredible. Sitting in a food court at Yusof Ishak House, I was surprised to see a sushi restaurant and a bakery on campus, but no pubs. Some of the guys have already carried a gun through the Pulau Tekong jungle during their National Service, but they cannot wield a pint at university. As I had been struggling up Kent Ridge Road earlier, a pizza delivery boy whizzed past me on his scooter and it now occurred to me: Why did anyone on campus need a pizza? No one was drunk.
Singapore boasts more gamblers than serious drinkers, yet NUS undergraduates cannot have a beer together at a student bar on Friday night but gambling addicts will soon have two gleaming casinos to choose from, at Sentosa and Marina Bay. The irony is bewildering. But then, if student bars provided over 30,000 jobs, attracted coachloads of tourists and contributed billions to the economy, then I am sure they would be springing up all over the country, too.
At the food court, I took out my trusty street directory to determine whether or not Clementi Woods was within walking distance. As usual, I found myself distracted by the street names. Just a little further north was Dover Road, with Folkestone Road, Maidstone Road, Sandwich Road and Deal Road branching off. I could not believe it. They are all towns in the English county of Kent, where my mother now lives. Deal is one of the family’s favourite seaside towns and my brother goes to Sandwich Technology School (where they told my mother during induction week that the curriculum was based on the “Singaporean model”). I had been here 10 years and had no idea that there were such poignant reminders of my family back in England. To Singaporeans, this small enclave was tucked away behind the Transview Golf and Country Club and had little significance. But to me, almost every street name represented a memory.
I took a bus down Clementi Road, missed my stop and ended up walking back down Commonwealth Avenue West, passing some schoolchildren messing around at the fitness corner of their HDB estate. Then I crossed over into Clementi Road, passed some Singapore Polytechnic buildings, turned into Dover Road and overtook some giggling teenagers from New Town Secondary School before finally reaching Folkestone Road.
And I stepped back into the 1920s. The tiny street had a charming, rural setting. Trees sheltered the houses, which were almost identical. Detached, spacious whitewashed colonial residences with black window frames were complemented with lovely gardens, swimming pools and space for two cars, which were typically Lexus, Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs. Why are rich people so shockingly unoriginal when it comes to their choice of car here? Why do they never say, “Screw it, I’ll have a 1959 pink Cadillac?”
The palatial homes were aesthetically pleasing, but strangely incongruous beside the HDB estates that I had only just left in Commonwealth Avenue West. Perhaps it was not the houses, it was the people. There were no Asians. A young British girl came out of one house riding a scooter, overtook me and then knocked on the door of a house further down the same street, where other British children played on a trampoline that was bigger than my living room. At another mansion, a female British voice shouted instructi
ons to her children and I saw another small group of my fellow countrymen playing in the back garden.
I am sure there were Asians living in “Little Kent” but, on this particular day, I only saw three—an old Chinese uncle cutting a front lawn, a young Filipina who was walking her employer’s dogs and another, older Filipina who gave me a warm smile as she closed the gates of one of the houses. Everyone else was white.
It was a shock to see my culture in such an unusual environment. Every race has its favoured enclaves in Singapore, whether the government chooses to admit it or not. And everyone knows that Caucasians frequent Holland Village, River Valley Road and Cairnhill but I had never realised that bastions of Little Britain remained within HDB estates. It was extraordinary, as if several streets had been airlifted from the real Kent in England and replanted here. I could not have been more surprised, even if Somerset Maugham had wandered across in a white silk suit and enquired if I fancied joining him for a pink gin and a chinwag on the wonders of Raffles Hotel while the ladies showed off their charleston steps on the veranda. I later discovered that “Little Kent” was once a housing estate called Medway Park for British officers, who named the streets after the English Channel ports in the county. Singapore has been independent for over 40 years, but little has changed at Medway Park. When they are stationed in Singapore, naval officers still occupy some of the black-and-white mansions and the area remains a thriving expatriate community. Now, I do not begrudge the expatriates who occupy these houses. I am sure the head of every household contributes to global security or oversees a multinational corporation that generates zillions towards Singapore’s GDP and generously patronises an arts scene desperate for every cent. But as I walked briskly along Commonwealth Avenue West trying to escape a cheerless shower, I noticed those schoolchildren again. They were still playing on a cycling machine at their fitness corner. Many of the gardens around the colonial residences in “Little Kent” were bigger than the fitness corner that served an entire HDB estate. Somehow, it just did not feel right.
Clementi Woods was a bit of a disappointment. There was actually nothing wrong with the park. Indeed, it was a pleasant little town garden, with the usual fitness corners, acacia and tembusu trees, a children’s playground and a closed-down seafood restaurant. But its name had suggested I needed a miner’s helmet with a torchlight. I had expected country bumpkins to stroll over from the village pub, look up at the sky and mumble, “Stay on the path, yah? It’s a full moon.” Or, at the very least, three disparate bears moaning that someone had eaten their porridge. But no, the atmosphere was all too convivial and laidback so I made the short walk over to one of Singapore’s finest parks.
West Coast Park is easily one of the country’s best-kept secrets. Residents who live in the area use it frequently and smile knowingly when they pass each other, as if they are masons walking across sacred ground, the keepers of a natural treasure. The rest of Singapore, of course, goes to East Coast Park. I have got nothing against the East Coast, even if it is a mite overrated. Indeed, when I first arrived in Singapore, I followed the expatriate dictum: You are an expat. You will go to the East Coast. You will eat its seafood and pretend you understand why everyone makes such a fuss over it. You will cycle up and down its congested paths. You will hire Rollerblades and make a complete tit of yourself. Okay, I did everything except the last part. You must draw the line somewhere.
But it was eight years before I visited West Coast Park, and even then it was not intentional. Part of the reason it is overlooked is its size. The park is only 50 hectares, a fraction of the East Coast’s 185 hectares that stretch over 20 kilometres. But therein lies the attraction. With the exception of its filthy beach (which was in the process of being cleaned up by the town council), West Coast Park offers everything the East Coast offers: green spaces for sports, sea views, a bird sanctuary, more wildlife, barbecue pits and, most important of course, a huge McDonald’s. And to think it all stands on the sea. The park was built on reclaimed land back in 1979 and redeveloped in 2000.
When I got there, a football match occupied the sizeable fields. Nineteen men who clearly could not count made up two teams of plump, have-a-go footballers. It was marvellous. I stood on the sidelines for 5 minutes and never witnessed a tackle. The game was played at a walking pace, which contrasted sharply with the social football at Dagenham’s Parsloes Park when I was a kid. Crop-headed types with massive sovereign rings kicked the hell out of each other for 90 minutes. As the old joke goes, 10 minutes before the end, a game of football broke out. Indeed, I once observed a full-scale brawl. There was screaming and shouting and the fists finally flew when someone shouted, “Why don’t you mind your own business, you fucking nosy cow?” And they were the footballers’ wives and girlfriends watching from the sidelines! It was unforgettable. As the tackles flew on the pitch, the peroxide partners abused each other on the touchline. When the women began pushing each other, and this really is true, I debated whether I should intervene and play the noble peacemaker. But I shaped up the situation by examining their brawny partners. Then I looked down at my partner. I was a 13-year-old walking skeleton and my partner was a poodle puppy called Bruno. Well, it was none of my business really.
No chance of a brawl with these guys at West Coast Park. They lacked the energy. I left them to their gentlemen’s game and crossed the Marsh Garden Boardwalk, which led to a pond popular with ornithologists. I was delighted to spot a purple heron, a bird more commonly found around Kranji. I knew it was a purple heron because it looked dead. This bird stands still for so long that it begins to blend into the reeds around it and you begin to think it is a model. Then just as you are about to complain to the National Parks Board for pulling such a cheap trick, the heron suddenly stabs its beak into the water and comes up with a fish stupid enough to mistake the heron’s legs for reeds. And that is exactly what happened here.
I was having trouble savouring the experience though because mosquitoes were chomping through my calf muscles. Irritated by their persistence, I took out my insect repellent, bent over my legs and engaged in a petulant spraying frenzy. Then I heard a cough and the distinct phrase “kan ni na”. That was an extremely unpleasant Hokkien vulgarity, I thought. Still bent over, I glanced through a gap under my armpit just in time to see the last of a substantial cloud of insect repellent float into a seething teenager’s face. That was most unexpected. I had not realised she was there. Standing on the other side of the viewing platform, she rubbed her eyes repeatedly while her boyfriend comforted her and contemplated throwing me into the pond. With my chin sheepishly tucked into my chest, I had little choice but to exit stage left. I was eager to avoid causing a scene at the Marsh Garden Boardwalk. And I had run out of insect repellent.
CHAPTER 9
There is an unwritten rule that owners of landed properties in this country must own a dog. Not a cuddly canine that hangs off Paris Hilton’s cleavage, but a drooling, snarling, brutish creature that spends most of its days locked in a dungeon with its testicles tied up with barbed wire. The dog has only one purpose—to sniff out the poorer classes and bite off any swinging appendages. And should an unknowing stranger inadvertently stray past the capacious cavern owned by its master, the beast’s testicles are unleashed and it flies at the gates, sensing proletarian blood.
I know. It happened to me. I was wandering down Pasir Panjang Road, admiring the private houses, when I walked past the garage gates of one particularly lavish property. In a split second, I glimpsed the dog. Suspended in mid-air. Going for my jugular. Although I did not catch its name tag, it looked like an Alsatian, but could have been a lion for all I cared. This startling image sent me reeling backwards. His bark almost threw me under a bus. Only divine intervention prevented me from a vicious mauling. That and the garage gates.
In Singapore, the bigger the house, the bigger the dog. It is a rather transparent status symbol. HDB flats only permit small dogs. When I amble across the garden beneath my Toa Payoh block, I always
check my shoes to make sure there is not a squashed sausage dog underneath. Some of them are no bigger than a toilet roll and have that scrunched-up face that suggests they have chased one parked car too many.
But no such regulations are in place to deny the landed property folk. They want the world to know where they live and a slathering, farting savage apparently does the trick. Walk around some of the wealthiest private estates off Sunset Way and you will discern dogs bigger than their owners. Honestly. When they take Digby for a walk, it is like a scene from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. You can almost hear the owner saying, “Yeah, I know. It’s an Afghan hound. Big, isn’t it? Wouldn’t get that in an HDB flat, would you? No way. I’ve got three of them and they’ve all got their own maid. Yep, I know what you’re thinking, my house is that big. Now, as the notice on my driveway clearly states, members of the working class will be exterminated, so piss off.”
I actually had no plans to even be in Pasir Panjang Road. I had been on a Clementi-bound bus when I saw the entrance to Haw Par Villa, with a banner advertising the attraction’s free admission. That surprised me. I thought Haw Par Villa had closed down years ago, and so did some of its neighbours. When I got off the bus, I double-checked with a teenager to see if that really was the old villa up ahead.
“Yeah, that’s Haw Par Villa, but you sure you wanna go there?” He appeared to find me amusing.
“Well, I was hoping to. Otherwise, I’m just a weirdo asking strangers to point out national landmarks for me.”
Final Notes From a Great Island Page 7
