Final Notes From a Great Island

by Neil Humphreys

  Fortunately, Orchard Towers can always be relied upon to provide the area with a splash of colour and a sense of humour. Often referred to by locals as the “four floors of whores”, Orchard Towers supplies alcohol, women and song in ample quantities at the right price. I made my way past the fidgety taxi drivers who were doubling up as pimps, ambled up the steps and brushed past the biggest pair of breasts in Singapore. I felt a right tit, and so did she. The lady of the night momentarily blocked my path until she accepted that I was not going to be her next client and all three of her left.

  I climbed the three escalators that had been cheekily turned off by the building’s operators. By the time that I had reached the top floor, I needed to lean on a handrail. A plump lady tottered over and enquired if I needed a special service. I asked if she had a defibrillator. As I battled in vain to get my breath back, I watched with nothing but admiration as these working women traipsed up and down the stairs hunting down customers. Occasionally, they got lucky and strode off with their client, arm in arm, to the nearest hotel. I will never know how they manage to have sex after all those stairs. I observed men twice my age climb all three escalators, agree a price with a woman and leave. I have no idea how they got it up in the bedroom. I struggled to get it up the stairs.

  If I were going to invest in a Singaporean business, I would open a tattoo parlour on the top floor of Orchard Towers without any hesitation whatsoever. Drunk Americans with close-cropped hair were queuing up to go under the needle in these places. It had never occurred to me before, but setting up a tattoo parlour beside a bar is sound marketing savvy because, as we all know, when you have had a few, those babies sell themselves. When you are sober, a tattoo is for people who believe that collecting semi-automatic weapons is no different to collecting stamps. But when you are drunk, that spider’s web on your left buttock is the very thing that has been missing from your life all these years. I walked quickly past one young American who could not decide whether to get an eagle tattooed onto his back or punch his reflection in the shop window. I peered inside another tattoo parlour and saw an ang moh who had fallen into the deepest of sleeps while sitting in the waiting room. His video camera was still switched on and recording his crotch while a steady stream of saliva dribbled down his chin.

  Unlike Geylang or Joo Chiat, however, I have never regarded Orchard Towers as seedy. Tacky, certainly; unsubtle, definitely; but there is an overriding sense of the tongue being placed firmly in the cheek here. From the taxi drivers and the club doormen to the working women and the guy in the wheelchair selling red roses to drunks at exorbitant prices, everyone knows the score. Orchard Towers offers sex quite openly, but if you do not want it, no one is going to think any less of you. They will still usher you inside to buy a few beers, enjoy the house band and have a good night. Unlike in Geylang, you will seldom find hundreds of greasy men sniffing around filthy back alleys here. Instead, I discerned families, couples and friends of all races and ages eating and drinking at the various restaurants and pubs in the building. Orchard Towers provides the street with a convivial ambience that, with the exception of Emerald Hill, is lacking elsewhere.

  I crossed the road and sat outside Forum—The Shopping Mall, near to a Malay motorcycle gang. Clearly going through their James Dean phase, the bikers were stretched out along the steps, sipping spirits from plastic cups and admiring each other’s tattooed forearms. To be honest, it was difficult to spot an arm that did not have any ink on it. I had never noticed biker gangs in Orchard Road before. The black-clad group, some of whom had a fawning girlfriend attached to their waist, numbered at least 30. Now and again, they disappeared to race down Orchard Road on their mopeds and scooters. They were neither rowdy nor threatening and I found their homage to The Who’s iconic movie Quadrophenia fascinating. But one or two of them reminded me of some of my Dagenham peers growing up. That was not necessarily a good thing.

  Just after 2am, I took a rest on a bench near Le Meridien Hotel and was quickly joined by an attractive, middle-aged woman. “I’ve been watching you walk up and down,” she said. “Where are you from?”

  “Toa Payoh,” I replied chirpily. She was the first person that I had spoken to in hours.

  “Ah, not too far from me. You want a good time tonight?” She put her hand on my shoulder. The woman was old enough to be my mother. It then occurred to me that I had not been propositioned by a single prostitute under the age of 35. How bloody old did they think I was?

  “No, no, it’s okay, really. I just came out for the exercise.”

  “I understand,” she said. Her warm, maternal smile betrayed a hint of rejection. I wanted to hug her. It was after 2am, most of Singapore was asleep and here she was talking to a sweaty stranger on a near-deserted, damp street. This was no way to earn a living. “Well, it was nice talking to you,” she continued. “But it’s getting late, you know. Maybe it’s time for you to go home.”

  She gave me that kind, maternal smile again. So I did as I was told.

  CHAPTER 28

  I will never forget the day I discovered what an archaeologist did for a living. I thought it was the most glamorous, and easiest, job in the world. Take a shovel, dig up your front garden and discover the complete skeleton of a Diplodocus before lunch. Thus, the following weekend, my best friend Ross and I set to work in my Dagenham side garden with a pitchfork. We had certain advantages. Undisturbed land is an obvious boon for any budding archaeologist and no one in our family had touched the side garden since 1822. We made light work of the sodden soil and recovered a historic gem in less than two hours. The moment the pitchfork hit something metallic, we dove into the dug-up earth and pulled out a round, off-green object caked in mud. Once we cleaned it up, we deduced that it was a military helmet left over from World War II! As Dagenham had suffered some bomb damage during the Blitz, it must have belonged to a soldier in the Home Guard.

  I waited impatiently for my mother to return home from work to inform her that she could quit her job immediately as my archaeological discovery guaranteed untold millions from a forthcoming Sotheby’s auction. When she walked into the house, I handed her the treasure and told her, with some authority because we had recently covered World War II at school, what it was. She laughed and told me that it was not a military helmet but an old bedpan. I had not dug up part of a valiant serviceman’s uniform; I had retrieved a potty from some old dear with incontinence. Despite that minor setback, I have been intrigued by archaeology ever since and decided to spend a morning at the site of Singapore’s most productive dig.

  I really like Fort Canning Park. Hidden away from the hubbub of Orchard Road, the historic site sits quietly, and most majestically, on a hill away from the maddening crowds. Old Raffles took one look at Bukit Larangan (Malay for “Forbidden Hill”, as it was then known), and said, “That’ll make a nice back garden.” Before you could say “Mind that heritage”, the jungle was cleared and animals were shot to facilitate the building of Raffles’ bungalow here in 1822. He died four years later, which was a bit of a bummer. After his death, Raffles found it quite difficult to return to the bungalow so Singapore’s governors lived there until 1860, when some bright spark realised that the hill’s incomparable vistas made it an obvious choice for a military fort.

  I mention old Raffles because it is hard not to conclude that Singapore’s history was wilfully determined by just two men. I have read several local history books, particularly school texts, and the same two dates take centre stage: 1819, when Raffles first landed in Singapore, and 1959, when the People’s Action Party was first voted into power. No one seriously disputes the impact these two events had on Singapore but the country existed, and thrived, before both Raffles and Lee Kuan Yew entered the picture. Fort Canning Park, the history of which can be traced back to Singapore’s golden age of the 1300s, is living proof of that.

  I planned to have my lunch of sweaty cheese sandwiches at the site of Singapore’s oldest known house. In the 1300s, the Mongol rulers of Chi
na referred to the island as “Dragon’s Tooth Strait”, probably due to a large pillar of rock off Labrador Point. How I wish the island still went by that name. Just consider the marketing potential for T-shirts for tourists. In the 1300s, Dragon’s Tooth Strait was ruled by a number of Malay kings, the fifth and last of whom, Sultan Iskandar Syah, was driven out of the country but went on to found Malacca before dying around 1413. The royal palace of Iskandar Syah and his predecessors probably stood at Bukit Larangan’s summit. There is also the belief that his final resting place is also here as the hill was once a keramat, a traditional burial ground for revered Malay leaders. Muslims have prayed here since the 1820s. They are convinced that the area is a 600-year-old tomb and, considering the island is largely starved of juicy history, I am content to agree with them.

  The keramat that now stands on the site is built in the traditional Malay style. Twenty wooden pillars support a replica of a 14th-century roof. At the centre is a tomb with Iskandar Syah’s name inscribed on the side. When I visited, an Indian Muslim was leaning on the tomb and praying so I took my shoes off and sat a respectful distance away. I was starving but refrained from eating my sweaty sandwiches. First, I was not sure if it was disrespectful to eat in a keramat. Second, I found myself donating blood by the litre to the local mosquito population. When I was not swiping them away, I tried to make a grab for a sandwich but intimidating pigeons kept hovering fearlessly in my face. And it is not right to punch a pigeon in a keramat, is it?

  So I had lunch at the wonderfully informative Archaeological Dig & Exhibition. I spent a happy hour there examining the artefacts and playing with the automated fan and lights system. But the exhibition also underlined the lack of understanding about Singapore’s history. There just is not enough evidence. When I was growing up in Dagenham, farmers and fishermen frequently stumbled upon ancient Roman relics in the bogs of the Essex marshes beside the River Thames. Coins, pottery and jewellery were often unearthed, to the indifference of the blasé local populace. But at Fort Canning, archaeologists are ecstatic if they find tiny fragments of 13th-century pottery or a piece of an indecipherable coin because it is all that they have got. It is so sad. The information panels even referred to the period of Singapore’s golden age as ancient history when, of course, it only took place 700 years ago and falls under the medieval period in the West.

  That is not to say that human indifference or neglect is not occasionally at fault. As almost every centimetre of land on this minuscule island has been bulldozed, reclaimed or tunnelled through since the 1960s, archaeologists believe that the only undisturbed sites left that might throw up some historical clues are the Padang, the Armenian Church and St. Andrew’s Cathedral. And economic and religious sensitivities are likely to keep the shovels away from all three.

  There are also unforgivable stories that highlight the contempt people can have for a country’s heritage. Consider the discovery of the Singapore Stone. Now the Singapore Stone should have been a key to the locked door marked the Dark Ages. Discovered at the mouth of the Singapore River in the 19th century by British engineers, the ancient boulder was around 3 metres high and 3 metres wide and contained approximately 50 lines of engraved text. Believed to be a variant of old Sumatran script, the stone has been dated from the 10th to the 14th century. Its scholastic importance to Asean history should have been obvious to all and sundry. The Singapore Stone could have been its country’s “Rosetta Stone”. (The Rosetta Stone was unearthed in an Egyptian port by invading French forces in 1799 and, because it was written in Hieroglyphic, Demotic Egyptian and Greek, allowed historians to finally decipher hieroglyphs and unlock the language of the pharaohs.) Comparing the Singapore Stone with the Rosetta Stone may smack of hyperbole, but we will never know now. Because in their eternal wisdom, British engineers blew up the Singapore Stone to prepare the ground for Fort Fullerton. Only a few fragments remain today in the National Museum of Singapore and they are either too small or too badly damaged to determine the date of or the language used on the stone. It was a gross error of judgement that can never be rectified. Singapore wields the financial clout to purchase water from Malaysia, rice from Indonesia, fresh milk from Australia and cheap labour from the subcontinent but it cannot buy back its own history.

  Fort Canning Park has two trails: the 14th Century Walk of History, which includes the keramat and the archaeological dig, and the 19th Century Walk, which focuses on the impact Raffles had on the hill. Strangely, the former felt more authentic than the latter. In 2003, Fort Canning Park opened Raffles Terrace, which showcases reminders of the British Empire’s contributions to the vicinity. There was a replica of the flagstaff originally erected by Singapore’s first British Resident William Farquhar, a largely pointless time ball and a replica of the old Fort Canning Lighthouse. There was even Raffles House, a replica of the old man’s bungalow, which, I believe, is available for private functions and conferences. That is always good to know, I suppose. I found the information panels enlightening, but Raffles Terrace seemed so artificial after spending time at the very real archaeological dig.

  But Fort Canning is a remarkable park. I have not even mentioned the Battle Box, where the British made the decision to surrender to the Japanese on the morning of 15 February 1942; or the Sally Port; or the historic cemetery; or the simple fact that the city’s green refuge is an ideal spot for a family picnic. More pertinently, Fort Canning provides a little insight into the increasingly forgotten island of Dragon’s Tooth Strait, ancient royal palaces and fleeing kings. The sacred hill is a constant, physical reminder that the country was not born in 1819 or reborn in 1959. For that reason alone, the park should be revered as a national treasure.

  I left Fort Canning, walked along Hill Street and entered the historical site that gave me the initial idea of writing this book. Sitting at my desk in the TODAY office in late 2005, I received an email request to cover the anniversary of a small church that served a tiny community within Singapore. I was not interested. Its name—the Armenian Church of St Gregory the Illuminator —was not familiar so I stopped reading the press release after the first few lines. A couple of days later, my boss asked me when “that Armenian Church story” was coming out so I sighed, reluctantly retrieved the email and read it properly. I was stunned. The church claimed to be the oldest in Singapore and was finalising its 170th anniversary celebrations. Surely that was a typing error? A 70th birthday seemed acceptable, but a building that was 170 years old in Singapore was absurd. This is a country, remember, where a good deal of the history syllabus in schools focuses on events after the Japanese Occupation of 1942. And here were church volunteers claiming that their particular house of worship was constructed just 12 years after Raffles sailed away from Singapore for the last time and when most of the country was still a swampy jungle. I was not having it.

  Of course, it all turned out to be true and it really is a wonderful story of dedication, application and perseverance from a community that has punched above its weight in Singapore for over 180 years. In the 1800s, 12 Armenian families came together to commission the Armenian Orthodox Church. Never a community to take half measures, they employed the services of George Coleman, one of the country’s most respected architects and responsible for the Old Parliament House (now The Arts House). Construction began on the Hill Street site on 1 January 1835.

  Just to reiterate, that is 1835. There were more Malayan tigers roaming freely around the jungles of Singapore than there were Armenian families. I am not joking. According to the helpful staff at the superb Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, one person was killed every day by a tiger in 1835. That is seven deaths a week. That is a lot of tigers.

  But nothing stopped those resolute Armenians. The church opened its doors in late 1835 (in those days, they could commission, plan and build a stately neoclassical structure in less than a year. At the time of writing, Wembley Stadium was still not finished.). And those doors have stayed open to the public ever since. In the meantime, the
surrounding jungles were cleared, the last of the tigers was shot in Choa Chu Kang in the 1930s, the British were attacked, the Japanese wreaked havoc, the British returned, communism loomed large, race riots threatened social order, HDB flats went up all over the island, reclaimed land was redeveloped just south of Hill Street and the banks at Raffles Place were built to clutter the skyline. Yet a small, unremarkable church still quietly goes about its business, serving the same community after 170 years.

  But then the Armenians are a resilient bunch. Ignoring the adage that size matters, the tiny group has certainly left its imprint on the country. The Sarkies brothers conceived Raffles Hotel, which opened in 1887, and the botanist Agnes Joachim cultivated the Vanda Miss Joachim, the hybrid orchid that later became Singapore’s national flower. When you consider that there are now around 40 Armenians still living in Singapore, their impact is nothing short of extraordinary. There are more people at my local coffee shop on most week nights.