Scribbles from the Same Island Page 6

  “I think... Oh dear, time’s up. That’ll be 50 dollars. And, I must say, have you seen the state of your sunburn?”

  Incidentally, if I ever mention the riveting stayer-quitter debate again, you may take a red-hot poker and thrust it repeatedly in my groin. Such a course of action is also useful when dealing with the kiasu brigade.

  Unlike secret societies, kiasu members reveal themselves early, usually at Batam’s ferry terminal. It’s only been 45 minutes since we left Singapore, but they just couldn’t wait to spring into action. Indonesian Immigration officers who, rather mischievously, open only two counters are partially to blame. When the queues are long enough, they open a third counter and announce: “On your marks, get set... kiasu.”

  One chap, carrying a bag full of golf clubs, sprinted from one queue to another — covering a distance of 10 metres in 1.5 seconds. His wife, who had been holding the hands of her two unsuspecting children, followed just behind. For several seconds, the children were airborne. By the time the breathless mother had caught up, her two offspring had completed two cartwheels, a double-back somersault and had contemplated a career in acrobatics.

  My vision blurred after that. There were vague images of aunties running, luggage trolleys trundling over my toes, shopping bags scratching my legs and someone losing their patience and poking a runner in the eye. Though, on reflection, that could have been me. Then, miraculously, the dust settled and a third queue had formed.

  And then it occurred to me. The kiasus should be head-hunted by the Singapore Sports Council. The Olympic 100 metres final would be a formality, if certain apparatus were permitted. Line up the kiasus against the finest American sprinters and set them off. After 50 metres or so, wheel out an immigration counter and place it at the end of their track lane. It wouldn’t even be a contest.

  For eager kiasu-watchers, though, ferry terminals certainly have a high strike rate. At the Singapore arrival hall, there was a delay at the security checkpoint thanks to — potato chips. A traveller had brought back enough bags to feed Toa Payoh. The snacks only cost 20 cents in Singapore, so after spending 40 dollars on his ferry ticket, how much money is he saving? Does he know something we don’t? Are we on the threshold of a global potato-chip famine? If so, then this man stands to make, well, 20 cents a packet.

  The Batam tourism board must be informed. It should come up with a new slogan — forget the golf, come for the potato chips. Currently, the island is sold as a rural haven — 45 minutes from Singapore, with rainforests, a warm climate and a fine cultural heritage. In Singlish, this is translated as: “Cheap makan, seafood also can. Cheap golf, cheap hotels, cheap shopping, fake branded goods also can. Cheap VCDs, illegal one also can. Pay Singapore dollars? Also can.”

  In fact, at my hotel, a Singaporean couple complained because they only had Singaporean dollars and they had calculated that the item they wanted cost less in Indonesian rupiah. Now, where’s that red-hot poker when you need it?

  As for me, I visit the island periodically because I’d heard Batam is a popular place for Singaporeans to keep a mistress. And when you’re a foreigner, you must try to fit in and adopt the local customs.

  I caught a rather beautiful Indonesian waitress looking at me so I flashed my Toa Payoh library card (it looks like a credit card if you do it quickly) to win her over. It worked. She came over, looked into my eyes and said: “Have you seen the state of your sunburn?”

  NOTE: I still go to Batam regularly. I still get sunburnt.

  THE DRIVE

  I CAN’T drive. No, that’s not quite true. I can drive, I just can’t pass the test. For some reason, driving instructors and examiners have always lost faith in me for minor lapses of concentration, which have resulted in knocking off another car’s bumper during a three-point turn, mounting a kerb and narrowly missing a parked car and almost causing a 15-car pile-up at a gargantuan roundabout known as Gallows Corner in Essex. I’m not making any of that up. My sublime driving prowess is hereditary. My mother never passed her test either because she has a penchant for driving into ditches. It’s a rare skill. I’ve spent many a childhood summer climbing out of a vertically parked car to enjoy the sunshine.

  For some reason, my mother favoured country lanes because they were low on traffic. Unfortunately, they were high on roadside ditches. As we approached a bend, cries of “Mind that ditch” were always followed with “What ditch?”

  “That fucking ditch! The one we are now sitting in. Sideways.”

  Until recently, I believed it was a curse against my family. But finally, my sister broke the spell by passing her driving test. She’s up there with Michael Schumacher as far as I’m concerned. After demonstrating remarkable reflexes to avoid that roundabout pile-up, my driving instructor turned to me and said: “I just don’t know what to do with you anymore. You’ve reached the stage where you’ve actually become a danger to yourself and the other drivers around you. What happened at the roundabout... Well, I’m still shaking. It was just luck that stopped us from crashing. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

  In my defence, though, he’d never driven in Singapore. In England, when you drive as recklessly as I did, you fail every time. In Singapore, such behaviour appears to be rewarded with a Mercedes Benz and a free handphone. Now I know that criticism of Singaporean drivers has almost become a cliché in itself. I had never commented upon it before because we’d never had any direct experiences to draw upon.

  Then, a week before Chinese New Year, we decided to hire a car. Despite having the mental age of a slightly backward four-year-old, my girlfriend is remarkably competent behind the wheel. We were toying with the idea of having a mini-driving holiday over the New Year period, with a drive up to Mount Ophir in Johor, Malaysia, which I’m told is a peach of a place with wild environments and animals aplenty. But the missus had never driven in Singapore before so we decided to spend the weekend burning rubber along the expressways. I mean tyre rubber, not the rubber they burn in parked cars up Mount Faber. She’d driven all over the south of England, Western Australia and along dirt roads in the Northern Territory’s Outback. Singapore should be a breeze — like a drive in the country (with no ditches), right?

  We witnessed two accidents in two days. My girlfriend has driven for over 10 years now and had never seen a crash while driving before. And in two days in Singapore, we saw two. What does that tell you? Admittedly, we were on the roads for at least eight hours each day but still the odds must be outlandish. The first incident was comparatively minor. At the busy junction off Bugis, a taxi clipped another car as they both turned right. Aside from a little broken glass and a crumpled wing, there was little to see. But that didn’t stop the traffic crawling along so kaypoh drivers could gawk at the taxi driver and the woman who was in the other car. It also gave me a chance to criticise women drivers. Yes, I will take every opportunity to bolster my suspect masculinity.

  The second crash, though, was more serious. Sitting at the traffic lights beside Lower Seletar Reservoir, my missus shouted: “Neil, he’s going to fall off.” There was a motorcycle turning right into the other side of the road, but he took the corner too sharply. Carrying a heavy load on the back of the bike didn’t help and he toppled off, sliding along the fast lane for a couple of seconds. He actually stopped only a few feet from our car. But we were separated by the central reservation divider. The guy was obviously in some distress. Then, we saw the sort of thing that only fuels my misanthropic tendencies. The kind of incident which makes you think that an apocalypse might not be the end of the world.

  The traffic lights changed so cars from the other side of the road moved across the junction and towards the stricken motorcyclist. They slowed, I assumed, to enable someone to get out and help him. But they didn’t. They slowed to overtake him. That’s right. As the injured man lay on the floor clutching his bleeding leg, cars pulled out and around him. They paused briefly, of course, to stare at the poor chap, and then they drove off. At least half a dozen cars did th
is. It’s highly unlikely that such people will ever read this book. They’re usually devoid of a sense of humour and spend their free time either boring listeners about property prices or battering maids. When they’re not overtaking crash victims, of course. But should one or two of them pick up this book, having incorrectly assumed they can grow rich with it, then may I humbly say: You are a disgrace to humanity. If you could drive to the top of Mount Faber and then kindly jump off it, then there’d be one less kiasu prick for Singaporean society to worry about. Consider it your civic duty.

  I’m sure you’re not surprised that such parasites still live among us. A few years ago, I was on my way back to the office when my colleague and I saw a motorcyclist slam into a taxi. We quickly stopped and ran across to help. It was one of the worst injuries I have ever seen. The screaming motorist’s foot was hanging off at the ankle. Moreover, the bones around his foot and ankle had been broken and twisted so severely that his foot pointed inwards, effectively in the opposite direction. I phoned the office to let the guys know I was going to be a bit late because we were going to wait for the ambulance and I was reprimanded. I was ordered to get back to the office immediately. When I returned, I suggested the decision was a bit harsh so I suffered the standard lecture about “my priorities and how the company should always be at the top of the list”.

  In Singapore’s corporate world, you hear this hackneyed bullshit quite often in the office environment, don’t you? Whenever I hear the sentence, “Well Neil, you must question your priorities,” I stifle a yawn and head for the classified section. I no longer work for that company. My general rule of thumb has always been: ‘Unless you’re a hooker, avoid working under too many arseholes.’

  At the junction off Lower Seletar Reservoir, I was beginning to think the drivers on the other side of the road were all heading for a ‘We’re All Arseholes And We Love It!’ convention. Eventually, and I’m really not making this up, a Mercedes attempted to drive around the victim’s motorbike, but the car was too wide, jutting out dangerously into the next lane. So the driver pulled back and got out of the car to help him. Then others joined her. They had no choice, did they? Her Mercedes was blocking their path completely now. I went across the divider to help just as the lights changed, which meant my missus had no option but to pull away, do a U-turn into the side of the road where the bike crash was and drive off into the opposite direction because there was nowhere to stop. When she tried to slow down, she was beeped by other cars behind. I tried to beep back at them, but they couldn’t hear me and I was busy trying to get the bike off the road with the help of a couple of taxi drivers. In the end, the missus got lost, drove a couple of kilometres in the wrong direction before completing one giant loop to come back and get me. By then, the motorcyclist was sitting on the grass verge speaking to his boss on his handphone, his bike had been moved and most of the debris had been cleared and I was roasting in the midday sun. By the time Mrs. Schu-macher returned from her jaunty tour of Lower Seletar, I was ready to throw the daft cow into the reservoir.

  We never drove to Malaysia for Chinese New Year in the end. There was no guarantee that I wouldn’t end up in a police cell, charged with extreme road rage. On three separate occasions, the missus pulled me back into the car as I attempted to play ‘Hide the Gearstick up the Rectum’ with other drivers. I’m not sure what the offending drivers must have thought when they saw a lanky ang moh jump out of the car shouting: “Right, that’s it, you kiasu fucker. That’s one overtaking too many, you impatient bastard. Hang on, my minuscule missus is pulling me back into the car. But if she wasn’t here...”

  There are two prerequisites required to being accepted in the Singaporean driving community. Firstly, you must overtake continuously. In any lane. At any time. A bird’s eye view of any major road in Singapore would just be a blur of zigzagging vehicles, gliding past each other like some well-choreographed dance routine. I’m sure it’s necessary because the Republic is such a vast country, isn’t it? If you were travelling from, say, Toa Payoh to Junction 8 at Bishan, the zigzagging manouevre must shave whole seconds off your driving time.

  And don’t forget to horn! Many drivers, particularly cabbies, seem to grab their horn and show it off to the world more frequently than a porn star. My particular favourite is when you are sitting in a mini-traffic jam waiting for the lights to change. Even though you could be six or seven cars down the line, the second the lights turn green up ahead, if you haven’t revved your engine, you will get another man’s horn. Now, you may call me old-fashioned in the modern age of sexual liberalism, but I’ve never wanted to receive another man’s horn. You should savour it, gentlemen, only using it on special occasions. Otherwise it will become predictable and ordinary and it will lose its rarity value. Besides, if you waste your horn on me in a traffic jam, I will inevitably retort: “There are six cars in front of me. Where the fuck would you like me to go? You prick.”

  But that’s just me. Or so I thought. In early 2003, there was a high-profile case of road rage in Singapore. A prominent expatriate businessman, from England, lost his temper with a taxi driver and punched him. Well, that’s what the judge eventually concluded, based upon the cabbie’s facial injuries. According to the expat twat, he merely “brushed the cabbie aside” during their little skirmish. The bruises on the cab driver’s face suggested he’d been brushed aside with a hammer. As I’m sure you’ve discovered by now, there are expatriates in Singapore who are masterful bullshitters, borderline con men, really. They are capable of some absolute whoppers if it helps them get a highly paid job, keep a highly paid job or get a reduced jail sentence.

  It reminds me of another mini-court case that involved a car crime. At my university hall of residence, a guy on my corridor got drunk one night and stole a radio from an unlocked car. The hall held an impromptu kangaroo court to determine whether or not the idiot should be kicked out. When asked how he came to be in the possession of another man’s radio, the idiot replied: “Well sir, I’d had a few drinks and things were a bit hazy. It was foggy that night so visibility was a bit poor. Then, I looked down, and suddenly I was holding a car radio. To this day, I have no idea how it got there.” He was booted out of the hall and screwed up his university degree. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was a CEO in a Singaporean company now — still lying his arse off.

  But for the guy who can smash in people’s faces with a mere brush-off, bullshit would not save him in Singapore this time. The driving savage was sentenced to four months — a ridiculously small sentence. I can’t see a Singaporean being treated so leniently, can you?

  But his case both alarmed and shamed me. On three occasions, I was only one step away from losing my rationality. Perhaps all aggressive drivers or passengers should drive with my missus. For many years now, Singapore has spoilt many Caucasians by providing them with lucrative salary packages, condominiums and, quite often, an undeserved cultural pedestal to stand on. It would be disgraceful if expatriates, particularly British, reciprocated by promoting two of their biggest social successes — a drinking culture and road rage.

  But, ironically, Singaporean drivers have gone to the opposite extreme. There is a kind of laissez faire apathy on the roads. Other drivers overtake on the inside line, narrowly missing your vehicle, so you have no choice but to do likewise, right? Other idiots like to sound their horn at traffic lights, so the sheep follow the shepherd and the intolerance and impatience endures.

  I asked my old mate Dave, a Singaporean and a bloody good driver, how this selfish, reckless driving culture evolved. He told me: “In Singapore, it’s just the way it is now. If you don’t do it, you won’t get to work on time. You will be late. So if you don’t cut in and pull out on another car, you’ll be stuck there waiting to turn left all day. Because no one else will let you out. That’s how it is. Everybody does it.”

  That’s how it is. The apathy endures. Everybody does it, so what choice does the average Singaporean driver have? I disagreed with Dave. There a
re one or two Singaporeans who batter their maids and leave their so-called children in 24-hour daycare centres, but that doesn’t mean I must follow suit. Though I am more than willing to employ these bastards as road obstacles the next time I take my driving test.

  But this nationwide apathy is like a disease permeating through society and it threatens to rip out the soul and break the backbone of one of the greatest countries I’ve ever known. To me, it seems top-down. In a one-party state, you have no alternative in the political sphere. You have no alternative in the economic sphere, with this never-ending recession. You have no alternative in the social sphere, because if you emigrate you will be labelled a “quitter” so don’t even think about trying to come back. And now, it seems, you don’t even have an alternative behind a bloody steering wheel. This mindset has taken Darwinism to its most extreme and boring form.

  However, that is nothing compared to the ‘Mercedes culture’. Where in the name of social snobbery did that come from? I was out with a friend once and a Mercedes cut right across our car, missing the left wing by a few inches. Pulling down the window, I was about to offer my compliments for an outstanding manouevre which almost maimed me when my friend pulled me back.

  “Don’t say anything to him,” he warned.

  “Why not?”

  “That’s an expensive car he’s got there. Probably a big-shot CEO or something. Better not say anything.” Do the words ‘bull’, ‘red’ and ‘rag’ mean anything to you? They did to me and I was even more determined to shout at somebody.