Scribbles from the Same Island Read online

  Cruise tickets may not always be inexpensive, but comments like that are priceless. Playing in the ship’s casino, however, does come at a price. Forget the swimming pools and the lounge singers; for many passengers, the wonderful vessel is just a floating Singaporean casino. It’s tragic, but that’s the reality, and that’s not good for the industry’s family-oriented image. So according to the ship’s flyer, there really wasn’t a casino covering half of one of its decks. There was an entertainment area that provided “games of chance” instead. So I turned up ready to play a quiet game of Monopoly.

  What are “games of chance” anyway? It’s rather like saying Geylang’s brothels provide “activities of pleasure”. The only difference being you are likely to spend a hell of lot more money on the former, than you would on the latter — unless you have the sexual voracity of a well-hung stallion, of course. But these “games of chance” do not exactly appeal to the most positive traits of the average Singaporean gambler.

  “I know I shouldn’t say this, but the Singaporeans are very kiasu when it comes to gambling,” said the ship’s food and beverage director, a rather harried Malaysian chap.

  “We aim to open our restaurants half an hour before the designated times to reduce queueing. Then we avoid pushing and shouting matches. Many want to get into the casino as soon as possible, you see.”

  “Couldn’t you install a turnstile that connected the casino to the restaurant?” I offered, unhelpfully.

  “No,” he replied. “They’d break it getting in.”

  And that’s when I discovered it’s all a question of timing. The discerning punter knows that the casino cannot operate until the ship reaches international waters, so he eats quickly before the doors are opened.

  Many passengers are unconcerned, or even unaware, of the ship’s course or eventual destination. Under the cloak of darkness, the captain should spend the twilight hours circling Sentosa endlessly. Gamblers wouldn’t notice the difference. Passengers who notice the Merlion in their porthole for the seventeenth time will just put it down to either seasickness or alcohol. I’m not kidding. When I was checking out at 11.15am, a passenger asked what time the ship would arrive back in Singapore.

  “At 11am, madam,” came the stunned reply. “We docked 15 minutes ago.”

  I acknowledged the woman’s acute observational powers by poking her in the eye with my cardkey as she left.

  When I visited the casino at 1am and again at 9am, it was never less than packed. And on both occasions, I saw the mad, gambling auntie telling everyone “what a great holiday resort this International Waters” was. That’s the reality. So why on earth is the government stalling on the proposal to legitimise casinos in Singapore?

  In the latter part of 2002, the Tourism Working Group, a government-appointed task force said it was time for one or two “games of chance” to be set up on Sentosa.

  Calls to build a casino came about during the last recession in 1985-6. It’s a guaranteed money-spinner. Local betting revenues generated $500 million during the soccer World Cup.

  I don’t gamble, but I don’t begrudge people who do. So I say to the chaps in government: Build a casino on an exclusive Sentosa resort, tax it and if my insane auntie friend wants to fritter away her life savings on the roulette wheel, then so be it. And if it offends your personal or religious beliefs, then don’t go. The cruise proved that Singaporeans will never stop gambling, so the government might as well cash in on it. But most importantly of all, I discovered that foreign objects should never come into contact with one’s bottom.

  NOTE: I’ve been to casinos in Las Vegas, Perth, Malaysia’s Genting Highlands and on a cruise liner and I’ve always met Singaporeans. And my mother has just told me that she visited a casino near her home in Ramsgate, Kent, which is a seaside resort tucked away in the south corner of England and she ended up chatting with some Singaporeans there! When it comes to the English Premiership, the millions of dollars that are generated by illegal football betting in this tiny island is nothing short of obscene. And that will never change. I know there are religious sensitivities to consider. But I can’t believe that the Singaporean government, which has to be the most fiscally minded on the planet, is still content to allow these vast revenues to be lost on someone else’s blackjack tables.

  THE WAR

  I HATE Saddam Hussein. Given the opportunity, I would gladly pull out his moustache hairs with a pair of rusty pliers. I have nothing against men (or women) with moustaches, you understand, just men with moustaches who also happen to be murderous tyrants. Using the examples of Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Omar Sharif, my mother sat me down when I was five years old and said: “Neil, never trust a man with a moustache.”

  With the benefit of hindsight, I suspect her jaundiced view was due to the fact that my parents had just divorced and my father had fashioned a trendy hairstyle on his upper lip during the marriage. He went for Tom Selleck in Magnum, but bore a closer resemblance to George Harrison in Sgt. Pepper.

  I know Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust and Stalin engineered the Great Terror, but my father often came home pissed on a Friday night, so you can see where my mother was coming from. But “Mad-ass” Hussein is a different kettle of moustaches altogether. On Friday, March 21st, 2003, that evil bastard made me walk down 28 flights of stairs.

  Since the world was plunged into yet another war, security measures have become even more stringent in Singapore. Yes, I know, the conflict really only involves Iraq, the United States, Britain and a few stragglers, but Americans have a habit of singing songs like “We Are The World”. Say no more.

  But with the disobedient Hussein refusing to die, as instructed by the Texan in the White House, Singapore has been forced to tighten its belt and keep its citizens on its toes. So on that fateful Friday, at 2pm, there was a fire drill in the office. Over the PA system, a robotic, but strangely sexy, female voice said: “This is a fire drill. Imagine the place is being ravaged by flames and you are choking on the smoke and everyone around you is screaming: ‘Get out of the fucking way, you dopey prick, there’s a fire’. Well, ignore all that and make your way slowly to the staircases.”

  I finished my sandwich and read the paper. There was hardly a mad stampede for the door. I expected John Cleese’s hotel manager, Basil Fawlty, to storm in and shout: “I don’t know why we bother, we should let you all burn.”

  I don’t wish to sound flippant, but it’s difficult to take fire drills seriously. We all know that in the event of a real fire, we’d all be running around like headless chickens and thinking: “Now, if I boot that dithering auntie out of the way, push over that meandering woman who’s carrying four children and knock out that uncle with the fire extinguisher, I should be the first one down the stairs.”

  And, may I ask, have you ever attempted a brisk walk down 28 flights of non-air-conditioned stairs at 2pm in the humid afternoon? If the government posted Newater officials at the exit at the bottom of the stairs, the water dispute with Malaysia would be settled immediately. They could just wring us out.

  Indeed, there should have been water stations on the way down, like those in the Singapore Marathon. Every 10 floors, volunteers should hand out isotonic drinks and shout words of encouragement, such as: “Come on, you sweaty, red-faced ang moh prick. Stop ogling equally sweaty secretaries and get a bloody move on.”

  I wouldn’t mind, but my fellow evacuees and I were not even awarded certificates or rosettes when we made it out into the dazzling sunshine. At the very least, the soundtrack to Chariots of Fire could have been played over the PA system. And security guards could have held up a silk ribbon so we could “breast the tape” as we crossed the finish line.

  Why is the Singapore government wasting its time with the National Healthy Lifestyle Campaign and investing in sports stadiums, running tracks and subsidised gymnasiums for national servicemen? Organise two fire drills a week and Singapore will become the fittest country on the planet. It is certainly the most a
ttractive, at least during the time of war. Since the Iraqi conflict began, Singaporeans have been flocking to the hairdressers, according to an informed source of mine. The day after the fire drill, I was taken off the glucose drip and released from hospital, so I thought I’d treat myself to a haircut. I waited two hours. Two bloody hours. When I asked Alvin, my hairdresser, why he was so busy, he replied: “Don’t know man, it’s been like that since the war started.”

  And it wasn’t even self-conscious men lining up to have their moustaches shaved off. The room was full of women, predominately aunties, all sitting there having trims, washes and perms. Some were even sitting under those huge helmetlike radio headsets, listening, I presume, to the latest news on Iraq. But how did this come to pass?

  Did concerned aunties watch the outbreak of hostilities on TV, call their friends and say: “Ah Soh, it’s started. It looks like Baghdad won’t fall for another month. We better go get our hair coloured. Yep, it’s that serious.”

  Perhaps they meet friends and say: “Love your tight perm. You had that done after allied forces entered Basra, didn’t you? Yeah, me too. No choice, right?”

  Discussing haircuts and fire drills might appear insensitive during a time of war, but life must go on. I know, because Nicole Kidman told me so on TV, during the recent Oscar ceremony.

  Besides, I’d rather talk about moustaches than money, which seems to be the most popular topic of discussion in Singapore since the allied forces started bombing Baghdad. I swear if one more dull Singaporean tells me that people dying in Iraq is going to weaken the strength of the dollar in the pocket, I will gag them with a two-dollar bill.

  Singaporeans, who have been polled on the streets by the various media for their views during the war, have come out with some real crackers, such as: “We must be prudent with our spending”, “Our recession is going to get worse”, “This war is bound to affect our pockets” and “I’m a boring bastard obsessed with economics”.

  While the world is hitting the streets to protest against an unjust war, what are these people doing? To be fair, six Singaporeans attempted to stage a peace protest outside the American Embassy on the eve of the war, but were stopped by plain-clothes policemen. Apparently, two of the protesters were checked by police before they had even taken their peace placards out of their bags. These are wonderfully courageous Singaporeans. It’s impossible to feel anything other than admiration for such global citizens.

  But what about these fiscal fuckers fretting over their bank accounts? What did they do during the Iraqi conflict — sit at home and count their money on a calculator? Perhaps I’m missing the point because when I was at school, I only used calculators to write the word “boobs” on the screen. That always impressed the girls.

  I’m not seeking to tempt fate here, but should an invading army ever make its way through Malaysia and across the Causeway, I often wonder how the money-minded will react. Perhaps then, those mass protests for peace that were held all over the planet, except in Singapore, of course, won’t appear so futile. Perhaps then, the greedy gang will accept that, in most cases, one’s savings book is not a bullet-proof vest.

  Aside from moustaches, my mother always told me it was uncouth to discuss money matters publicly. But to selfishly lament the weakness of your country’s dollar because citizens elsewhere have the impudence to die is so staggeringly inhumane, it is beyond comprehension.

  After the terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York in 2001, I remember a Singaporean friend expressing his concern. He worked for an American corporation and knew that September 11th would damage the American economy. We were discussing the tragedy when he said: “Never mind the attack; I didn’t know the people who died. All I know is, this is going to really fuck up the American dollar. Our company is really going to struggle because of this fucking thing.”

  You can’t talk to these wankers. You can’t rationalise with them. How do they sleep at night? I just cannot understand, let alone tolerate their logic.

  To keep your sanity, I would advise you to steer well clear of these people. Personally, at a time of war, I’d rather get my hair coloured at Alvin’s hairdressers with the mad aunties. Their actions make more sense to me.

  THE AMERICANS

  I’M NOT sure whether it was the blustery winds, the lack of warm clothes or a combination of both because I wasn’t my usual, tolerant self. For some reason, I wanted to rip out the American lady’s vocal cords and strangle her with them. A little harsh, perhaps, but she never stopped bloody talking.

  I was in the United States to interview an actor because his upcoming movie was about to be released in Singapore. I’d never been to New York before, but to me it was the movie capital of the world. Like many Singaporeans, I’d seen its famous landmarks in so many films and TV programmes, I felt like I’d lived there.

  Naturally, I wanted to see as many of its famous sites as I could during my whirlwind 48-hour trip. As soon as it was daylight on a brisk November morning, I headed for the Statue of Liberty. The old lady had terrorised me as a child when I saw her sticking out of the sand in the post-apocalyptic world of the Planet of the Apes. I still expected to find a distraught Charlton Heston banging the ground in bitter frustration, wearing nothing but a loincloth. Instead, I found a daft old bat from Kansas who rattled my eardrums.

  From the moment we left Manhattan, I suffered her mindless chatter across the choppy Hudson River all the way to Liberty Island. Initially, she seemed almost normal.

  “Gee, doesn’t the Statue of Liberty look fantastic?” she asked.

  “Yes, she looks good,” I muttered.

  “Gee, you’re not from round here are ya?”

  When I concurred that I came from England, she spewed the kind of verbal diarrhoea usually reserved for parliamentarians.

  “Gee, England?” she began. “I love your train stations. They’re just great. Gee, I thought Harry Potter was fictitious. I never knew that all the stations really were like that. They’re the same. Where is Hogwarts Station? Is there a real one?”

  “Oh yes, of course,” I replied. “It’s in Kent.”

  “Gee, really? I guessed as much. Gee, that’s real cool.”

  “Excuse me, if you say ‘gee’ one more time, would you be awfully offended if I smacked you with my souvenir Statue of Liberty figurine?”

  I didn’t really say the last part. The figurine was a gift for someone and it was quite expensive. But Americans do say the daftest things. They certainly help to put Singlish into perspective.

  Fearful of the social stigma attached to a ‘street’ dialect, Singaporeans are often worried about being pigeonholed with the lower classes if their sentences are littered with the odd lah, aiyoh and referee kayu.

  Well, stop fretting over it because the Americans, particularly New Yorkers, really don’t care what they say or how they say it. They, too, have their own dialect and, unlike some Singaporeans, they are most proud of it. It’s called shouting. If human beings came with built-in remote controls, then God would hit the mute button on New Yorkers. They love to say what they think — though not always in that order.

  Having lived in both England and Singapore, two conservative societies by comparison, it is both intimidating and invigorating. New Yorkers want to share their opinions with the world. Stunned to learn the Statue of Liberty was closed, I asked a gum-chewing park ranger why. Without hesitation, he replied: “Because of those bastard terrorists.”

  Well, quite. Fortunately, his colleague, a rather buxom woman, who never stopped eating, had a readymade solution. “Find a field,” she said. “And stick George Bush and Saddam Hussein in it. Then let them punch each other out. They obviously have issues, right? So let them beat the crap out of each other and leave us out of it. If that don’t work, stick ‘em on Jerry Springer.”

  Being a contentious issue, I kept quiet. Fortunately, her geopolitical views had been shared with just 500 other tourists of all nationalities. We were waiting in line for a full body
search, which involved being patted down by a young man, who seemed to pat far more zealously around the groin area.

  Understandably, since September 11 the heavy hand of security can be felt everywhere. It’s a constant reminder of the tragedy. Eager to pay my respects, I tried to locate Ground Zero, but it was hidden among Manhattan’s labyrinth of streets and avenues. When I thought I’d spotted it, I asked a Wall Street trader if I was right.

  He said: “What you mean is that big hole in the middle of the street with cranes and construction guys everywhere? I’m thinking — yes, you’ve found it.”

  He wasn’t being flippant or insensitive. Tourists posing for holiday snaps in front of the devastated site — that’s insensitive. Street vendors selling framed photographs and t-shirts of the disaster right beside Ground Zero — that’s insensitive. This guy, like most New Yorkers, just wants to return to some semblance of normalcy.

  There is a discernable citywide effort to become bolder and brasher than ever before. This is positively terrifying: New Yorkers were bold and brash in the first place. If you don’t believe me, just ask one of them for directions. I did — and I’m suing the bastard for causing deafness in one ear.

  “Waddaya wanna go to the Chrysler Building for?” He bellowed. “The Empire State Building’s got a viewing platform. No? Okay, you gotta make a left on 59th, then a right on 38th, a zigzag on 5th, followed by a hot shoe shuffle on 42nd. Then cross to 9th and make over to 63rd.”

  “Now, take away the number you first started with and waddaya got?”

  It was like doing one of those silly mental arithmetic games when I was in school. And it’s exhausting work — enough to make you say ‘gee’, in fact. But that’s not advisable.

  There are enough Singaporeans with phoney American accents as it is. In the United States, it’s their mother tongue and they still say the daftest things. So don’t tell the government, but you’re better off with Singlish, don’t you think? Anyway, I’d better stop there. I’m meeting my family at Hogwarts Station.