Notes From an Even Smaller Island Read online

  Towards the end of the trip, as we made our way from Las Vegas to San Francisco, food reared its ugly head once again. Edward was describing our next hotel, the Holiday Inn, when strawberry decided to take a stand. ‘Edward, no more Western-style breakfasts, eh?’

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ Edward replied. ‘I’ve managed to secure porridge for everybody. It will be brought to your room at 7 a.m. sharp.’

  ‘Good, I can’t take any more of that Western shit.’

  And that was it. I refused to speak to the ignorant bitch for the rest of the holiday. It was only my sensible partner who prevented me from calling everybody on the bus a bunch of wankers. I mean, that comment really was a bridge too far. The selfish tai tai was so immeasurably stupid that she could not see that she might have seriously offended two Westerners sitting opposite her. Just humour me for a few seconds if you will. Imagine you are sitting at home with friends enjoying a meal. I walk in, point to your food and say, ‘I can’t take any more of your Asian shit.’ Would you react? We are only human after all. And remember, it is not as if strawberry was in an Asian country. She was in a country where you cannot assume that Chinese porridge will be on the menu every morning, even though it had been for most of the tour thanks to Edward’s efforts.

  I had always believed that the whole point of travelling was to do the ‘When in Rome’ bit. With regard to the Singaporeans I went to the United States with, it was a case of ‘When in Rome, do as the Singaporeans do’. The Singaporean deputy prime minister Lee Hsien Loong recently said, quite seriously, that Singaporeans can always be spotted overseas. I could not agree more with the chap.

  Anyway, I was still seething over the ‘Western shit’ comment and the compulsory Chinese porridge so I had a quiet word with our beleaguered tour guide. ‘Edward, I’ve got to say something about this porridge arrangement.’

  ‘What’s the problem?’

  ‘Well, although I really like Chinese food proved by the fact that I’ve eaten nothing else all week, I don’t really like porridge.’

  ‘That could be a bit tricky, Neil.’

  I could feel my anger rising. ‘How can it be tricky, Edward? This is America, not Singapore or China or even Asia. All I want to do is to eat the food of the country I am visiting.’ I was getting a little sarcastic, which I later regretted, but Edward was sympathetic and when he was one-on-one he was brutally honest, something I respected.

  He said, ‘Look, people want to eat Chinese food on these tours, which is good for them and good for me because it’s cheap. I’ve been here many times and I know some great places to eat both Chinese and Western food but my guests are happy with Chinese food. Besides, we don’t get ang mohs on the trip.’

  This last part surprised me. ‘Why not?’

  ‘This is a Chinese tour.’

  ‘It’s a what?’

  ‘A Chinese tour. We specialise in Chinese tours.’

  That explained why there were no Malays or Indians on the trip. But I was still puzzled. ‘But you advertised in the Straits Times. It’s an English newspaper. There was nothing to say Chinese only. What if a Malay family came into the shop? Would you turn them away?’

  ‘No, of course not. But they tend to have their own operators and the Chinese usually come with us. That’s why I was surprised to see you at the orientation. But I’ll try to organise a different breakfast for you.’

  To be fair to the man, he did. He gave us the dollar equivalent in cash. So we slept in, had an early lunch at the famous Pier 39 and watched the sea lions sunbathe in the Bay before visiting the infamous Alcatraz prison. I was hoping to leave strawberry there but she did not go. Her family went with the rest of the tour group to San Francisco’s famous Chinatown for, and I am not making this up, a meal at one of its fancy restaurants. It was such a shame because I knew that all the young lads on the trip really wanted to go to Alcatraz. When we met up with them later, they bombarded us with questions about ‘The Rock’ and all its famous inhabitants. I mean, if you were a fifteen-year-old Singaporean and you had a choice of windowshopping in Chinatown or seeing where Al Capone was incarcerated, which attraction would you choose?

  I sympathised with the young lads because I have been in exactly the same predicament. When I was seventeen, my father took my sister and me to the Spanish island of Tenerife, which is the British equivalent of Bintan. It is cheap, sunny, full of beaches, and foreigners have overrun the place. Being young and inquisitive, I wanted to explore the island. Despite the fact that mass tourism has transformed the place into a tacky resort, Tenerife is dominated by a natural wonder – the volcanic mountain, Pico de Teide. Moreover, Franco met his officers on the island in 1936 to plan the nationalist rebellion that sparked the Spanish Civil War, so the island had some history. Did I get to explore any of this? Of course not. For two weeks, I spent my days by the swimming pool, doing my bit to help turn us all into the prune family, and I spent my nights in the bar, tediously watching my father work his way towards liver failure. In short, my father transported his England of beer, burgers and football and replanted it temporarily in Tenerife. By the end of the holiday, he knew no more about Tenerife than he did when he first arrived on the island but he had swallowed a hell of a lot of beer. Similarly, the Singaporeans with whom I went to America consumed a great deal of Chinese food. In both cases, the bored children had no choice but to sit and watch.

  The person in the middle of all this was poor old Edward, the tour guide. At the start of the trip, he looked immaculate. By the time we had reached San Francisco almost two weeks later, it was becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish him from the homeless guys dotted all over California.

  Undoubtedly, the stresses of the job made the chap a character. Always fearful of losing one of the party, which I am sure must be any tour guide’s nightmare, Edward always made sure he was easily identifiable. Apart from wearing bright pink shirts, he spent his time in the land of the free imitating the Statue of Liberty. No matter where I went, if I looked up at any given time of the day, I would invariably spot a pink Edward twenty metres in front, holding a map in his raised right arm. He always held a map and we always seemed to be chasing after him.

  When we went to Universal Studios, we had from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. to look around. Even though it was one of the busiest months of the year, we saw absolutely everything. From the Back to the Future ride to the studio tour, he somehow managed to squeeze it all in. At times, the group actually ran from one attraction to another. Just picture it. Twenty-five Chinese and two Caucasians all sprinting after a pink Chinese Statue of Liberty. I was pleased to go on the Jurassic Park water ride just to rest for three minutes. But like I say, by 4 p.m., we had seen and done everything. So I have to admit that kiasuism can really come in handy sometimes, especially if you are in an American theme park.

  Sometimes, however, it does not. For months, my girlfriend had been driving me mad about Disneyland. Ever since she had watched Mary Poppins as a small girl, she has believed in flying umbrellas, talking penguins and nannies who break into song every time their charges misbehave. Consequently, I was fully prepared for the fact that she was going to be insufferable for the entire day. However, spending 12 hours with her inside the Magic Kingdom was nothing compared to spending just over 12 minutes with the kiasu gang outside its entrance. Poor Edward was bombarded with trivial questions.

  Strawberry asked, ‘Will my children be safe here?’

  ‘No! The “double M” mouse family owns the place and runs a protection racket.’

  ‘Will you be waiting for us when the theme park closes?’

  ‘No, I’ve left you in the capable hands of a local triad gang.’

  ‘Do we have to stay here all day?’

  ‘No, blue mac, you can leave whenever you want but there are no casinos nearby so you’ll just have to play with the traffic.’

  Many other pointless questions were asked but the Pulitzer Prize went, rather surprisingly, to strawberry’s husband. He said, ‘Look
at the long queues. Can’t you do anything about the queues, Edward? We are part of a large tour.’

  This insane request was then followed by a chorus of ‘wah, so many people’, ‘must queue so long’ and ‘how to get on all the rides in one day?’

  Edward promptly lost it. When we reached the counter, he steamed into the young American girl. He complained about having to wait in a long queue even though we already had tickets as we were a group party. Before the poor girl had a chance to respond, irate members of my tour suddenly surrounded the counter, all of whom were bitching to Edward or to the girl or scrambling for free maps. Naturally, blue mac was at the front rudely informing the girl that the theme park should implement a more efficient queuing system. His smugness suggested genuine self-satisfaction for ‘educating’ this girl, as he had probably done countless times to the waitress at his local country club. But this was America and the delightfully filthy look from the girl suggested that the prick could go fuck himself.

  Meanwhile, the other Singaporeans in the group were greedily grabbing extra maps from the counter even though they had all been given a map with their ticket. The girl behind the counter had had enough. ‘Look, can you just take one map each, please?’ she said irritably but with remarkable self-restraint.

  Edward came back to the counter and surpassed himself. ‘I need some more maps. Some of my group say they don’t have a map.’

  ‘Yes they do, sir. I gave a map to each and every one of them.’

  ‘Well, I need some more,’ retorted Edward. I could hear people behind muttering disapprovingly.

  ‘But I gave a map to everyone along with their ticket.’

  ‘I need some more.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Take these.’ She virtually threw three maps at Edward.

  ‘That’s not enough,’ he said and then he leant over the counter, grabbed a handful and walked off.

  ‘What are you doing?’ the girl shouted but it was too late. Edward was already dishing them out.

  When we caught up with the others, they were still bitching about the ‘so rude’ girl at the counter. Meanwhile, blue mac was telling Edward, who must have been to Disneyland at least twenty times, the best route around the theme park. I had already told Edward that we were more than happy to spend a long day completely lost in the Magic Kingdom so we went off to find the Indiana Jones ride.

  As our monumental vacation reached its last leg in San Francisco, I was really pining for Singapore. I missed its safety. Having lived in Singapore for a couple of years now, even I had begun to take its security for granted. So there is nothing like a little bit of Californian poverty to bring you back to your senses. In Chinatown in Los Angeles, I saw an elderly black woman urinating in the street in the middle of the day. Obviously homeless, her clothes were ripped and torn and the poor woman was filthy. Being less than five metres away, we could see everything and she could see us. To calm my startled partner, I tried to revert to the old streetwise Neil of Dagenham, telling her that it was no big deal and that there was poverty in all the major cities of the world. I knew I sounded false and she knew it too. I had been conditioned by Singaporean safety and my words had a hollow ring to them. I was repulsed by the terrible hardship and I did not want to be there either.

  Similarly in San Francisco, there were homeless people everywhere and it was tragic. They would beg openly for money and some even pursued us down the street. I hated myself for staying at a four-star hotel while these people slept on benches less than fifty metres away. I felt so ashamed for deliberately avoiding encounters with people who had a social background not a million miles away from mine. In fact, I probably had more in common with these people than I did with many of the group I was travelling with.

  This was the other reason why I was homesick for Singapore. I was fed up with the Singaporeans with whom I was travelling. The whole rigmarole of taking photographs was driving me crazy by the time we had reached San Francisco. I seriously wondered if the whole point of them coming on this trip was to take as many photos as possible to prove that they had been there. I can think of no other rationale for my tour party’s behaviour.

  When Edward took us to a hilly peak that spoilt us with panoramic views of the San Fransisco Bay, it was unquestionably cold. However, I had a quick look around as I thought that I may never go back there, whereas my companions dashed off the heated coach simultaneously, clicked their cameras and then dived back on the bus again. It then occurred to me that they had performed the same ritual throughout the entire tour. At the Hollywood Bowl, where strawberry had famously wondered out loud why a lift had not been installed, the same thing happened. I wanted to explore it because the Beatles had recorded a live concert there but once the cameras had whirred, we hit the road. At the Grand Canyon, everybody posed and then asked to leave because it was too hot. In San Francisco, it was too cold. In fact, throughout the tour, the group always wanted to be somewhere else as soon as they had taken their photos.

  That grievance, however, was nothing compared to the disgraceful homophobia that we experienced. I will admit that I was eager to visit the gay village of San Francisco to see how liberal it really was. Indeed, it was but it was also an absolute slum, which was depressing. What I did not expect, however, was for my companions to treat the village like a freak show.

  As the coach drove through the streets of the village, they asked the driver to slow down so that they could get a better look. Some of the comments from so-called intelligent Singaporeans left me dumbfounded. At first, I wanted to scream at them, then I wanted to cry. By the end, I just felt numb. It remains the worst experience I have ever had with Singaporeans. The children were falling over themselves to get a better look at the ‘freaks’ while their parents whispered to them that such behaviour was wrong and evil.

  I recall one particular boy who said, ‘They’re holding hands. Ugh, those men are holding hands, mum. It’s horrible.’ Then all the insane comments came gushing forth.

  ‘It’s sick, isn’t it? They shouldn’t be allowed to do it.’

  ‘Slow down, slow down. That one’s wearing make-up.’

  ‘It’s not right. It’s disgusting. You’re not allowed to be like that, okay? It’s evil.’

  ‘Why do they do it?’

  ‘Because they’re not well. Some can be cured but others can’t.’

  These comments gave me a knotted feeling in my stomach. I grew up in a very racist, sexist, homophobic environment, as many working-class children do in England, and I wanted to leave that world behind. Of course, I have gay friends in Singapore and I understand the problems they suffer but I had never directly encountered such large-scale Singaporean homophobia before. I am not saying that it does not exist in Britain because it does. However, homosexuality is not considered evil and the country accepts that gays exist. Singaporeans will not and I know that my travelling companions, both young and old, never will. I realised then; it was time to go home.

  Chapter Nine

  There is nothing like a funeral to really ruin your day. Or to be precise, one tragic funeral that I had to cover as a reporter. A former national footballer had died and I was sent to the family home to interview the relatives. They say it comes with the territory but if I never have to interview grieving relatives again, I will be a happy man. After speaking to the family, I racked my brain in an attempt to conjure the words needed to write an obituary for a man I had never met. As I stood by the roadside, waiting for a taxi, it started to rain and I had no umbrella. What a day this was turning out to be.

  I was then blessed with what probably has to go down as the greatest conversation of my life. Finally stepping into a taxi, I was initially startled when the middle-aged Chinese driver turned a full 180 degrees to say hello to me. This has never happened before. At best, the cab driver may nod through his rear-view mirror but usually he just stares straight ahead and says, ‘Where you wanna go?’ So there is nothing like a set of pearly whites beaming at you to make you wan
t to slip back out of the taxi. Before I had even had the chance to contemplate such a drastic course of action, he spotted my notepad and away he went.

  ‘Ah, you’re a writer, is it?’

  ‘Yeah, kind of. I’m a reporter.’ I saw his eyes widen in the rearview mirror and he sat up straight. ‘What you write about?’

  ‘Sports, but mainly soccer.’

  ‘Ah, Fandi Ahmad?’ he enquired brightly.

  Fandi is Singapore’s favourite footballing son, a fabulous striker who played for several European clubs. He is now the coach of the Singapore Armed Forces.

  ‘Yeah, I sometimes have to speak to Fandi when his team plays,’ I replied but the driver did not seem too interested in this. His fidgety body language suggested he was itching to get something off his chest.

  ‘Listen, I have a story. But no name, eh? Like you say, off the record, okay?’

  ‘Sure, Mr Ong, no problem.’ I replied teasingly.

  ‘Hey, how you know my name?’ he cried out in despair.

  ‘It’s written on the name tag next to your picture, Mr Ong.’ He began to look seriously distressed so I stopped teasing him.

  ‘They’ll know it’s me if you say my name.’

  ‘Who will know it’s you?’

  ‘The PAP.’

  Now this was getting interesting. The taxi driver was referring, of course, to the People’s Action Party, the ruling party of the Singaporean government. Generally speaking, the local men that I have interviewed here are more willing to talk publicly about their penis girth than they are about the negative aspects of the PAP. This guy clearly had something interesting to say. Unfortunately, he was insane.