ANGRY PHROAR.
Yes, another of those angst-ridden days.
I don't know how to start ranting, gosh; I must be out of practice.
The primary thing I'm all riled up about is the utter disappointment of the RGS Lit Dept. I am singularly unimpressed with their comments on my short story, with their rubrics and marking schemes and results, and just with their discernable perspectives generally, and I think I lose more and more respect for our Lit Dept with every curriculum implementation, what with the tiresome focus on feminism and then the inherently contrived Moodle forum and now this apparent complete failure to grasp the point of literature. The trigger point is my intense frustration with their outright misunderstanding of my short story, evidenced by their uselessly misguided comments, and how they obviously couldn't be bothered to read my story properly and understand it, damn it.
Hence, when his boss told him about the trans-Atlantic flight and offered him a stopover package with a fully paid hotel room for two nights in Singapore - Jonathan frowns. That seems implausible, somehow. Hence, when his boss told him about the trans-Atlantic flight and offered him a stopover, he agreed readily, even though there was only a gap of three hours between his flights, three hours he could easily have spent in the world-class Changi Airport, shopping duty-free or sipping airport-rate coffee with a paperback under soft lighting.
The structure of my story is that of a Singaporean author, Jonathan, writing a story about an Australian tourist in Singapore for the first time, hence the shift between past and present tenses. 'Jonathan frowns', was circled with a careless red stroke, presumably for the discrepancy in tense usage. It was deliberate. I do not believe the intention behind the choice was very opaque or subtle. I am also insulted that you think me capable of making simple grammatical errors like not being able to differentiate between past and present tenses.
“Aiyah, but this is Singapore lah. The government is efficient, that’s why our economy is so good now! What to say? We say this, say that now, but who will say anything when they have no more jobs?”
Jonathan thinks about it, and decides that the requisite political angst ubiquitous in Singaporean literature has been elaborated upon. To be facetious, he deliberate makes the taxi driver say,
“Thank you ah, have a nice day!”
Note the typographical error in the second last line; obviously 'deliberate' should be 'deliberately'. This glaring mistake was not pointed out. Exactly how closely was my short story read?
It feels slightly awkward, this lead-in to the interaction with the security guard. The plush chaises of Starbucks seemed an attractive option, before he remembered he was in foreign Singapore to discover, not to lapse into the familiar, and so he asked a security guard passing on his round where he could find a food place, to point him to the local restaurant or food centre or whatever it was they had in Singapore.
Very specifically, scrawled next to this paragraph was the comment "Is this intentional?" Is what intentional? The paragraph? I hope I am not in a habit of inserting entire paragraphs for fun.
“Do you know where the taxi stand is?” The security guard asks. He is a good man. He will not like for the Australian to miss his flight because he got lost searching for the taxi stand.
Jonathan paused to consider how the security guard could possibly know that the Australian was only in transit. Maybe he was carrying light luggage, and the security guard put two and two together. Were security guards that smart? They needed a minimum O-level certificate, he knew that; most jobs in Singapore did, nowadays.
Here, there was an astute question, "How would he know this?" regarding this paragraph. In what way does "Jonathan paused to consider how the security guard could possibly know that the Australian was only in transit." not show that I am aware of the potential plot loophole and have worked to incorporate it into the story?
Finally, of course, the general comments were epically irrelevant and patronizing: "Nice story. Good way to put across Singapore through the eyes of an Australian."
I - I HAVE NO WORDS FOR THE INFURIATION I FEEL. Nice story? It is not a nice story; I am not interested in writing a nice, fluffy little short story about the amorphous resilience of the inchoate Singaporean spirit, damn you. In categorically no way was my story about "Singapore through the eyes of an Australian"; how insipid, how positively banal, how typically Singaporean, primary school composition a point to bring across.
There are so many things wrong with this scene that's eating at me. I am not being upset because I did badly; from all accounts, 29/32 isn't something to scoff at, considering it's a creative writing piece, but the fact is, if you can completely misunderstand my story and give me a 90% for it, how the heck do you actually grade our assignments? By how much you don't understand it? Also, if this is Literature, I would appreciate some feedback on my literary devices, my metaphors, my phrasing, my diction (beyond the mere presence of our vernacular Singlish), because upon second reading, I can see that the beginning of my short story was unpolished in terms of precision and clarity. If I can see things like that, as a Lit teacher, shouldn't you have, and then commented on it to improve my writing? Or is it too much of a bother, that my short story isn't worth the time spent on refining it? Why did you not comment on the exchange of tenses between Jonathan's reality and the Australian's reality throughout the story? Isn't that the kind of literary devices you tell us to look out for during Lit lessons? Did you not notice?
The complete, blatant failure to pick up on the many threads of subtlety and nuances running through my short story is just appalling. I was trying to show a multitude of concepts: how the typical Singaporean author writes (as proven by the bulk of the 'winning' short stories), the established, subtle prejudices of the modern Singaporean, the interesting juxtaposition of the foreigner and the local, with the sense that the Australian feels more at home in Singapore primarily because he sees Singapore as a strange place, while Jonathan does not even realize the extent of his ignorance about his country, the dual perceptions of Orchard Road and underlying all that, a genuine picture of Singapore. It. Is. Not. An. Exposition. On. Singapore. Through. The. Eyes. Of. An. Australian.
Vacation
Wisma Atria, a blue chunk of a shopping centre sitting comfortably at the foot of Orchard Road, calmly next to the mammoth, partially constructed Orchard Ion, with Orchard MRT station nestled tightly in between, sweated under the snug afternoon sun. It was a few breezes before four, and the lunch crowd had already melted back into their air-conditioned cubicles to count down the minutes till the evening rush hour home. From the hungry noise and buzzing static of people a few hours ago, only the discontent whirr of central air-conditioning and the cold vastness of the tiled marble floors remain, the picture of silence stolen only by the footsteps of loiterers - students with uniforms and illegal hair, dispersed tourists, stony faced security guards.
It was difficult to say if they liked being here, these people. Their steps were not uncertain, but bored, the slowness attributable to a lack of aim rather than unease. Four o’clock was still too early to be sure about the day’s ending, and the period between two and five the worst off for its middling position, after the business of lunch and just shy of the prospect of home. For the security guards and cleaners, these quiet hours left their shopping mall frozen still like winter trees, or what one should imagine winter trees would look like, with only images of the warm leafy umbrellas lining expressways for comparison; chilled and crisp and sharp.
There was a woman striding down the wide corridors in the basement, eyes straight forward, paying no attention to the lines of shops on either side.
Jonathan crosses out that line after a long pause. It seems a little too significant for such a simple action, or at least, what should be one, since it is merely a plot device intended to introduce the primary character in the story. The woman’s act of ignoring the shops naturally makes the shops far more important than they should be. Indeed, perhaps it should be a man, then; who would ever believe that a woman could walk in a shopping centre without casting a least a stray glance at an article of clothing, a shiny piece of jewellery? He chuckles softly to himself, looks self-consciously, irrationally about him; he isn’t a chauvinist. It is a fairly humorous line, he supposes, but he knows better than to put it in. His editor is a strong, university-educated feminist; aren’t they all, these days in Singapore? He chuckles again. He has a girlfriend, Anne.
There are precious little people in Wisma Atria at this moment. Contrary to his inspired description of the short story’s setting, Wisma is neither completely silent nor still. There is rather a compressed quality to the muted noise of shopkeepers exchanging fifty-dollar notes for smaller ones with complaints about the inconsideration of customers who pay for small purchases with large bills, and the regular movements of security guards making their rounds. But he leaves out these trite details, as part of his artistic license as a writer. His setting gives him the inspiration for his story; he is not bound by them. Today he is writing a story about the dual perceptions of Orchard Road.
There was a man walking down the wide corridors in the basement, eyes occasionally flickering to the neon signs of restaurants where strategically placed menus called to people’s appetites. Anne will laugh at that line, he thinks. She appreciates subversive humour like that, when it is about men. He has changed the gender of the protagonist to a man, because it is easier to write in your own gender, he supposes. Relationship 101 lectures that men and women are fundamentally different, have fundamentally different psyches, and what is writing but an exploration of fundamentalities and psyches? If he cannot understand when his girlfriend is upset, he thinks, he cannot write about a woman. The man was Australian; sharp nose, freckled skin, the floppy blond hair. He was in Singapore for a stopover, between a business meeting in Vancouver and the office where he is based in Perth, and he had heard good things about Singapore - its food, its people, the cleanliness; it was the last that had caught him.
He came from a good Catholic family, and his mother had been fond of the saying, Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and even though he had left his religious upbringing behind long ago in university, there were some things that never really go away. Religion is always an iffy subject matter, more so in Singapore; even though he is sure it is as inoffensive as possible, it is still often difficult to say with some readers. He cannot afford to alienate his small reader base. It was the last that caught him. He would like to see how a city-state could remain effortlessly clean amongst the spreading stain of globalization; do the laws of conservation not apply in Singapore? The diversity of the cultures in Singapore was something else which attracted him, too.
Hence, when his boss told him about the trans-Atlantic flight and offered him a stopover package with a fully paid hotel room for two nights in Singapore - Jonathan frowns. That seems implausible, somehow. Hence, when his boss told him about the trans-Atlantic flight and offered him a stopover, he agreed readily, even though there was only a gap of three hours between his flights, three hours he could easily have spent in the world-class Changi Airport, shopping duty-free or sipping airport-rate coffee with a paperback under soft lighting. In curiosity, he had decided to spend his three hours at the heart of Singapore’s Central Business District, on the famous stretch of shopping centres, Orchard Road.
The length, the unyielding, continuous line of road cutting through two rows of proud, tall buildings, the government-regulated creativity behind the individual architectural designs, the panache of the overhead greenery had him gaping. Of course, he had Googled Singapore before he came, and the first thought that had come into his mind as he stared at the brilliant tropical colours lent to the various structures by the glittering afternoon sun was, all these for four point five million people? The coordinated trees and streetlamps and chairs! The Australian was deeply impressed, and he said as much to his taxi driver, a friendly, brown uncle familiar with the awe of tourists.
“Yah, Singapore is like that one, you know.” The taxi driver paused for the Australian to instinctively comprehend what the phrase ‘like that’ meant. “Orchard Road is very beautiful! All the tourists ah, come here and go, Wah! Must thank our government, they build very nice shopping centres for us.” For emphasis, he slapped his hand against the steering wheel and honked loudly at the car slowing down in front of them.
“I heard your government is very good.”
“Not good also cannot say!” The uncle met his eyes through the front mirror, and then turned back to the road. “The government here is very strict, we have the Internal Security Act, what Sedition Act, this act, that act, we cannot say anything!” A last turn, and they were here, at Wisma. The Australian had told the taxi driver to bring him to Orchard Road, and the uncle had suggested starting at Wisma Atria and then walking all the way down. He would see more this way, if he could stand the foreign, oppressive heat.
“Aiyah, but this is Singapore lah. The government is efficient, that’s why our economy is so good now! What to say? We say this, say that now, but who will say anything when they have no more jobs?”
Jonathan thinks about it, and decides that the requisite political angst ubiquitous in Singaporean literature has been elaborated upon. To be facetious, he deliberately makes the taxi driver say,
“Thank you ah, have a nice day!”
The sweltering heat immediately wrapped around him like a heavy quilt, and he made his way quickly into the cool interior of the shopping centre, taking the escalator down as the bright fluorescent lighting swallowed him. The sharp, cosmopolitan atmosphere, the clean, coloured walls, the neat boutiques, all felt exhilaratingly different to him. He had never seen a country like Singapore before, never seen anything like Orchard Road back home Down Under. He pauses here to consider if that reference to Australia will be lost on some readers. Perhaps not; at any rate, he shall leave it there as a piece of verisimilitude. He chuckled, slightly awed, at the diversity of the shops in Wisma (only one shopping centre in Orchard!), some quaintly tucked away in the corner, with teak floor panels and cosy attic lights, some mainstream, wide, with polished steel shelves and minimalist hangers, a dizzying array of brands, familiar ones occasionally popping out at him at disorienting moments. The people were interesting too, speaking to each other in a garbled mishmash of English and other languages, presumably their mother tongues, with a distinct intonation shared by the same curious character who had driven him here.
Right next to Jonathan, a cleaner has pushed her trolley over and parked it by the pillar while she empties a trash can two-thirds the height of her stooped, uniform-clad body. He shifts away minutely, even though there is no rancid smell; he feels uncomfortable somehow. He does not know if a slight overbalance or a misstep might bring the contents of the dustbin helter-skelter onto his Mac. Of course, he isn’t saying that the cleaner, being old, is therefore careless and senile. His parents are that age, twilight years. He is just being cautious. All of his work - his assignments, his book drafts, his contacts - are on his Mac. Birthdays, too. He needs to find a way for the Australian to interact with the people working in Wisma.
The cool embrace of the air-conditioned, partially emptied basement further increased the positive impression he had of Singapore ever since his exit off the plane into Changi Airport. He had taken the first escalator up the shopping mall and gotten lost wandering around the upper floors for nearly an hour, before he had grown bored of the tidy, compartmentalized rooms. The plush chaises of Starbucks seemed an attractive option briefly, before he remembered that he was in Singapore to explore, not to slip into the familiar, and so he looked around for more local options.
It feels slightly awkward, this lead-in to the interaction with the security guard. The plush chaises of Starbucks seemed an attractive option, before he remembered he was in foreign Singapore to discover, not to lapse into the familiar, and so he asked a security guard passing on his round where he could find a food place, to point him to the local restaurant or food centre or whatever it was they had in Singapore.
The man led him down to the basement with a strange sort of distance, tempered by a human connection - John thinks it should be more fitting for it to be the other way. Perhaps the other way round, the instant kinship of man to man tripping over the barrier of professionalism, but whatever it was, in his voyager’s excitement, the Australian cannot resist exchanging a few words with the weary face of the security guard, boredom cut into the weathered face like lines. He asks about the weather in Singapore, if it is always this molten, wet, sliding down the nape of necks into thin cotton shirts, and the man replies, You don’t feel it that much in the shopping malls, because of the air-con. My friends tell me, that’s the good thing about working on Orchard Road! Free air-con, 24/7. His voice is not bitter. Even if it is, the Australian will not have caught it. The reality of Singapore has not caught up to him yet, will not in the three hours he has to spend here.
Some students had come to sit on the bench opposite Jonathan, and now proceeded to behave in a most undignified manner, shrieking and laughing over each other’s shoulders, even as the girl in the middle half-heartedly tried to remonstrate them over the grin of her laptop. It wasn’t uncommon to see secondary school students with laptops these days. Jonathan considered his draft of his short story, gauged the remainder of his plot against his word limit, and decided that he must end his story right after the Australian’s little chat with the security guard, which would be carefully constructed to mean a lot by saying very little. To him, that was the art of dialogue writing.
Maybe it would be difficult to read if he did not carefully delineate his dialogue. After a pause, while the Australian is busy staring out the glass elevator, he asks the still silent security guard, “Is it always this wet in Singapore? You know, like, hot, and sticky.”
The man looks at him quickly, then back at the display in the lift, as if the basement cannot arrive soon enough. “Yes. But you don’t feel it so much in the shopping malls, because of the air-con.” There’s the slightest moment’s breath here, while the security guard debates internally how much of Singapore to share with this blond Australian tourist. “My friends tell me, that’s the good thing about working on Orchard Road! Free air-con, 24/7.”
The Australian laughs, loudly. “Man, they’re right. Are we here now?” For the lift has stopped. The security guard gets out first, shuffling forward with only a backward glance to make sure his charge is following.
“Many things to eat here! And the marketplace also, if you want to buy something.” The security guard’s gaze flickers back to him once more, before he continues, “All the tourists like the marketplace. Orchard Road also, that’s why they call it a tourist attraction.” Around them, the empty shops seem to give them a feeling of solitude, power, as if they were the real proprietors of this shopping centre, the security guard and his Australian guest.
“And you? You’ve worked here for a long time, right? You must really like Orchard Road too.” He cannot help but ask. He cannot help but think that it must be a wonderful job, to be caretaker to this glittering attraction, guardian to this illustrious responsibility he is only privy to as an alien; it is incomprehensible why the man is not simply overflowing with exuberance.
“What to like? Orchard Road is Orchard Road, lah.” That is all the security guard has left to share. He has brought the Australian around the long way to see the beige, benign tiles of the fountain, around which tired people sit, shopping bags clutched tightly under arms. This is what tourists come to see, the ring of Singaporeans around a lovely constructed pool of water; the novelty of Japanese ice-cream sold alongside fudge brownies and Italian gelatissimo, of cone pizzas and stout German sausages, the gastronomic delights associated with Singapore’s schizophrenic food culture; signboards of local and imported brands alike; floor tiles so clean and smooth little kids slide on them on the seat of their pants. “Do you know where the taxi stand is?” The security guard asks. He is a good man. He will not like for the Australian to miss his flight because he got lost searching for the taxi stand.
Jonathan paused to consider how the security guard could possibly know that the Australian was only in transit. Maybe he was carrying light luggage, and the security guard put two and two together. Were security guards that smart? They needed a minimum O-level certificate, he knew that; most jobs in Singapore did, nowadays.
“You know where the taxi stand is?” The security guard asks. The Australian is surprised for a moment, before remembering that he has his luggage in hand. It is not rocket science to deduce that he isn’t here on holiday. He supposes the man is used to foreigners in Orchard Road, must think they come, bloom and go like seasonal flowers, fruits; Brits in June, the French a month later, things like that. Australians like him now. He knows where the taxi stand is, he will do a little shopping now. Try out the exotic-looking food. He says goodbye to his tour guide of ten minutes, thanks him with the open, dimpled face of tourists grateful for even that little bit of kindness in a strange, foreign land.
Jonathan thought that was a fitting end to the story, a divergence of paths, the Singaporean on one, and the Australian on the other, although one could not suppose he was racist, oh no. Anne was Chinese, like him, but he had dated a Malay girl in university, and even an Indian one, though, in retrospect, his mother did not like her much. He will title his short story, Vacation. He got up gingerly from the cold marble bench, his back protesting faintly; he had met his deadline. His editor would be pleased, as will Anne. With the final payment, he could finally buy the ring he had seen Anne looking at through the shop windows of Lee Hwa Jewellery.
He would treat her to dinner, tell her it was in celebration of his new short story, and then propose to her when the sun was low in the sky and the sweet wine had just been served. Maybe he’d leave the ring with the waiter, tell him to put it into their dessert. His parents would be so happy. As he left, he walked past the same cleaner emptying the trash can next to him again. Twice in an afternoon. They must have nothing better to do.
At the end of his three hours sojourn, the Australian leaves Wisma Atria, catches a cab back to Changi Airport, striking up a lively conversation with the cab driver on the way. He tells him about what he has seen in Orchard Road, how wonderful it is, how much he’ll like to come back, and the taxi driver is right there with him, sharing his enthusiasm. The taxi driver tells him that the Singapore Zoo, and its sister counterpart, the Night Safari, are even better, that they are world-renown, and he should come back to Singapore some day. On the plane, the Australian pulls out his paperback as the crisp accents of the air stewardess makes the flight announcements, and promises himself he will, will stay longer, the next time.
All that ranted, I - must confess I don't understand why I feel so strongly about this. It is not as though I am not cynical enough about RGS; it is not as though I had total faith in the competency of the Lit Dept to begin with; it is not as though I treated this short story as the ultimate chance of displaying my writing prowess - it began as just another writing assignment. Maybe it was that Ms. Kamsir had told me that I had done well earlier, privately. Maybe it was the fact that so many people scored full marks. Maybe it was the utterly devastatingly banal comments I received, the sense of injustice. Right now, I don't even feel safe enough in claiming that I am entirely impartial; the scariest thing is that I don't know if all these is really just products of my subconscious jealousy. But I don't think I deserve my mark, if you really look properly at my language use - it's unpolished! I don't - really care about other people and whether they deserve their marks, but I just - want genuine feedback on my short story, on my craft as a writer, I think. I would be fine, relieved - I would desire it, even, for Sakhar or Kamsir or even Law, people I respect (esp. with regards to Lit) to list out exactly what the faults of my short story are, so I can improve, not this useless shell of a 4.0.
It's just eating away at me, and I really, really regret the fact that there is no one who has the power and whom I respect enough to discuss my short story with, unlike say, if I had issues regarding SS or History or even Economics or Inconvo or WSC or general academic endeavours, I could look for Law/Jalleh/Chew, but even though I genuinely respect Kamsir as a Literature and English teacher, it is unfortunately and regrettably obvious that she - doesn't have a significant say in the proceedings ): (I thought what the Lit Dept did to her re: Lit group PT, whether inadvertently or otherwise, was very mean and totally undeserved.) Obviously, I am too agitated to talk to Picca about this, and I don't feel comfortable enough with her to, anyway. Sakhar is an option, but. Law is also an option, albeit a last resort. It is - kind of sad that I feel desperate enough about the sorry state of the Lit dept that I cannot find anyone to address my Lit concerns to.
If RGS kills my joy for Lit, I am - going to do something potentially risky and life-threatening. I told Kamsir today, This is why Singapore literature is degenerating. This is why we moan when Lit teachers tell us we will be doing Singapore lit, why all of us can name a hoard of foreign poets but barely a handful of locals, why we study classics instead of local literature. Singapore literature is more than just using Singlish in short stories, bloody hell. I will write you a damn short story about Singapore without using a single word of Singlish.
E.T.A Have also found two tense errors in the last three paragraphs. Again, something that should be picked up upon. Here's an idea: in future, why don't you let us grade our own essays?
Also, had fun today. This is not as innocuous a statement as it sounds.
I don't know how to start ranting, gosh; I must be out of practice.
The primary thing I'm all riled up about is the utter disappointment of the RGS Lit Dept. I am singularly unimpressed with their comments on my short story, with their rubrics and marking schemes and results, and just with their discernable perspectives generally, and I think I lose more and more respect for our Lit Dept with every curriculum implementation, what with the tiresome focus on feminism and then the inherently contrived Moodle forum and now this apparent complete failure to grasp the point of literature. The trigger point is my intense frustration with their outright misunderstanding of my short story, evidenced by their uselessly misguided comments, and how they obviously couldn't be bothered to read my story properly and understand it, damn it.
Hence, when his boss told him about the trans-Atlantic flight and offered him a stopover package with a fully paid hotel room for two nights in Singapore - Jonathan frowns. That seems implausible, somehow. Hence, when his boss told him about the trans-Atlantic flight and offered him a stopover, he agreed readily, even though there was only a gap of three hours between his flights, three hours he could easily have spent in the world-class Changi Airport, shopping duty-free or sipping airport-rate coffee with a paperback under soft lighting.
The structure of my story is that of a Singaporean author, Jonathan, writing a story about an Australian tourist in Singapore for the first time, hence the shift between past and present tenses. 'Jonathan frowns', was circled with a careless red stroke, presumably for the discrepancy in tense usage. It was deliberate. I do not believe the intention behind the choice was very opaque or subtle. I am also insulted that you think me capable of making simple grammatical errors like not being able to differentiate between past and present tenses.
“Aiyah, but this is Singapore lah. The government is efficient, that’s why our economy is so good now! What to say? We say this, say that now, but who will say anything when they have no more jobs?”
Jonathan thinks about it, and decides that the requisite political angst ubiquitous in Singaporean literature has been elaborated upon. To be facetious, he deliberate makes the taxi driver say,
“Thank you ah, have a nice day!”
Note the typographical error in the second last line; obviously 'deliberate' should be 'deliberately'. This glaring mistake was not pointed out. Exactly how closely was my short story read?
It feels slightly awkward, this lead-in to the interaction with the security guard. The plush chaises of Starbucks seemed an attractive option, before he remembered he was in foreign Singapore to discover, not to lapse into the familiar, and so he asked a security guard passing on his round where he could find a food place, to point him to the local restaurant or food centre or whatever it was they had in Singapore.
Very specifically, scrawled next to this paragraph was the comment "Is this intentional?" Is what intentional? The paragraph? I hope I am not in a habit of inserting entire paragraphs for fun.
“Do you know where the taxi stand is?” The security guard asks. He is a good man. He will not like for the Australian to miss his flight because he got lost searching for the taxi stand.
Jonathan paused to consider how the security guard could possibly know that the Australian was only in transit. Maybe he was carrying light luggage, and the security guard put two and two together. Were security guards that smart? They needed a minimum O-level certificate, he knew that; most jobs in Singapore did, nowadays.
Here, there was an astute question, "How would he know this?" regarding this paragraph. In what way does "Jonathan paused to consider how the security guard could possibly know that the Australian was only in transit." not show that I am aware of the potential plot loophole and have worked to incorporate it into the story?
Finally, of course, the general comments were epically irrelevant and patronizing: "Nice story. Good way to put across Singapore through the eyes of an Australian."
I - I HAVE NO WORDS FOR THE INFURIATION I FEEL. Nice story? It is not a nice story; I am not interested in writing a nice, fluffy little short story about the amorphous resilience of the inchoate Singaporean spirit, damn you. In categorically no way was my story about "Singapore through the eyes of an Australian"; how insipid, how positively banal, how typically Singaporean, primary school composition a point to bring across.
There are so many things wrong with this scene that's eating at me. I am not being upset because I did badly; from all accounts, 29/32 isn't something to scoff at, considering it's a creative writing piece, but the fact is, if you can completely misunderstand my story and give me a 90% for it, how the heck do you actually grade our assignments? By how much you don't understand it? Also, if this is Literature, I would appreciate some feedback on my literary devices, my metaphors, my phrasing, my diction (beyond the mere presence of our vernacular Singlish), because upon second reading, I can see that the beginning of my short story was unpolished in terms of precision and clarity. If I can see things like that, as a Lit teacher, shouldn't you have, and then commented on it to improve my writing? Or is it too much of a bother, that my short story isn't worth the time spent on refining it? Why did you not comment on the exchange of tenses between Jonathan's reality and the Australian's reality throughout the story? Isn't that the kind of literary devices you tell us to look out for during Lit lessons? Did you not notice?
The complete, blatant failure to pick up on the many threads of subtlety and nuances running through my short story is just appalling. I was trying to show a multitude of concepts: how the typical Singaporean author writes (as proven by the bulk of the 'winning' short stories), the established, subtle prejudices of the modern Singaporean, the interesting juxtaposition of the foreigner and the local, with the sense that the Australian feels more at home in Singapore primarily because he sees Singapore as a strange place, while Jonathan does not even realize the extent of his ignorance about his country, the dual perceptions of Orchard Road and underlying all that, a genuine picture of Singapore. It. Is. Not. An. Exposition. On. Singapore. Through. The. Eyes. Of. An. Australian.
Vacation
Wisma Atria, a blue chunk of a shopping centre sitting comfortably at the foot of Orchard Road, calmly next to the mammoth, partially constructed Orchard Ion, with Orchard MRT station nestled tightly in between, sweated under the snug afternoon sun. It was a few breezes before four, and the lunch crowd had already melted back into their air-conditioned cubicles to count down the minutes till the evening rush hour home. From the hungry noise and buzzing static of people a few hours ago, only the discontent whirr of central air-conditioning and the cold vastness of the tiled marble floors remain, the picture of silence stolen only by the footsteps of loiterers - students with uniforms and illegal hair, dispersed tourists, stony faced security guards.
It was difficult to say if they liked being here, these people. Their steps were not uncertain, but bored, the slowness attributable to a lack of aim rather than unease. Four o’clock was still too early to be sure about the day’s ending, and the period between two and five the worst off for its middling position, after the business of lunch and just shy of the prospect of home. For the security guards and cleaners, these quiet hours left their shopping mall frozen still like winter trees, or what one should imagine winter trees would look like, with only images of the warm leafy umbrellas lining expressways for comparison; chilled and crisp and sharp.
There was a woman striding down the wide corridors in the basement, eyes straight forward, paying no attention to the lines of shops on either side.
Jonathan crosses out that line after a long pause. It seems a little too significant for such a simple action, or at least, what should be one, since it is merely a plot device intended to introduce the primary character in the story. The woman’s act of ignoring the shops naturally makes the shops far more important than they should be. Indeed, perhaps it should be a man, then; who would ever believe that a woman could walk in a shopping centre without casting a least a stray glance at an article of clothing, a shiny piece of jewellery? He chuckles softly to himself, looks self-consciously, irrationally about him; he isn’t a chauvinist. It is a fairly humorous line, he supposes, but he knows better than to put it in. His editor is a strong, university-educated feminist; aren’t they all, these days in Singapore? He chuckles again. He has a girlfriend, Anne.
There are precious little people in Wisma Atria at this moment. Contrary to his inspired description of the short story’s setting, Wisma is neither completely silent nor still. There is rather a compressed quality to the muted noise of shopkeepers exchanging fifty-dollar notes for smaller ones with complaints about the inconsideration of customers who pay for small purchases with large bills, and the regular movements of security guards making their rounds. But he leaves out these trite details, as part of his artistic license as a writer. His setting gives him the inspiration for his story; he is not bound by them. Today he is writing a story about the dual perceptions of Orchard Road.
There was a man walking down the wide corridors in the basement, eyes occasionally flickering to the neon signs of restaurants where strategically placed menus called to people’s appetites. Anne will laugh at that line, he thinks. She appreciates subversive humour like that, when it is about men. He has changed the gender of the protagonist to a man, because it is easier to write in your own gender, he supposes. Relationship 101 lectures that men and women are fundamentally different, have fundamentally different psyches, and what is writing but an exploration of fundamentalities and psyches? If he cannot understand when his girlfriend is upset, he thinks, he cannot write about a woman. The man was Australian; sharp nose, freckled skin, the floppy blond hair. He was in Singapore for a stopover, between a business meeting in Vancouver and the office where he is based in Perth, and he had heard good things about Singapore - its food, its people, the cleanliness; it was the last that had caught him.
He came from a good Catholic family, and his mother had been fond of the saying, Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and even though he had left his religious upbringing behind long ago in university, there were some things that never really go away. Religion is always an iffy subject matter, more so in Singapore; even though he is sure it is as inoffensive as possible, it is still often difficult to say with some readers. He cannot afford to alienate his small reader base. It was the last that caught him. He would like to see how a city-state could remain effortlessly clean amongst the spreading stain of globalization; do the laws of conservation not apply in Singapore? The diversity of the cultures in Singapore was something else which attracted him, too.
Hence, when his boss told him about the trans-Atlantic flight and offered him a stopover package with a fully paid hotel room for two nights in Singapore - Jonathan frowns. That seems implausible, somehow. Hence, when his boss told him about the trans-Atlantic flight and offered him a stopover, he agreed readily, even though there was only a gap of three hours between his flights, three hours he could easily have spent in the world-class Changi Airport, shopping duty-free or sipping airport-rate coffee with a paperback under soft lighting. In curiosity, he had decided to spend his three hours at the heart of Singapore’s Central Business District, on the famous stretch of shopping centres, Orchard Road.
The length, the unyielding, continuous line of road cutting through two rows of proud, tall buildings, the government-regulated creativity behind the individual architectural designs, the panache of the overhead greenery had him gaping. Of course, he had Googled Singapore before he came, and the first thought that had come into his mind as he stared at the brilliant tropical colours lent to the various structures by the glittering afternoon sun was, all these for four point five million people? The coordinated trees and streetlamps and chairs! The Australian was deeply impressed, and he said as much to his taxi driver, a friendly, brown uncle familiar with the awe of tourists.
“Yah, Singapore is like that one, you know.” The taxi driver paused for the Australian to instinctively comprehend what the phrase ‘like that’ meant. “Orchard Road is very beautiful! All the tourists ah, come here and go, Wah! Must thank our government, they build very nice shopping centres for us.” For emphasis, he slapped his hand against the steering wheel and honked loudly at the car slowing down in front of them.
“I heard your government is very good.”
“Not good also cannot say!” The uncle met his eyes through the front mirror, and then turned back to the road. “The government here is very strict, we have the Internal Security Act, what Sedition Act, this act, that act, we cannot say anything!” A last turn, and they were here, at Wisma. The Australian had told the taxi driver to bring him to Orchard Road, and the uncle had suggested starting at Wisma Atria and then walking all the way down. He would see more this way, if he could stand the foreign, oppressive heat.
“Aiyah, but this is Singapore lah. The government is efficient, that’s why our economy is so good now! What to say? We say this, say that now, but who will say anything when they have no more jobs?”
Jonathan thinks about it, and decides that the requisite political angst ubiquitous in Singaporean literature has been elaborated upon. To be facetious, he deliberately makes the taxi driver say,
“Thank you ah, have a nice day!”
The sweltering heat immediately wrapped around him like a heavy quilt, and he made his way quickly into the cool interior of the shopping centre, taking the escalator down as the bright fluorescent lighting swallowed him. The sharp, cosmopolitan atmosphere, the clean, coloured walls, the neat boutiques, all felt exhilaratingly different to him. He had never seen a country like Singapore before, never seen anything like Orchard Road back home Down Under. He pauses here to consider if that reference to Australia will be lost on some readers. Perhaps not; at any rate, he shall leave it there as a piece of verisimilitude. He chuckled, slightly awed, at the diversity of the shops in Wisma (only one shopping centre in Orchard!), some quaintly tucked away in the corner, with teak floor panels and cosy attic lights, some mainstream, wide, with polished steel shelves and minimalist hangers, a dizzying array of brands, familiar ones occasionally popping out at him at disorienting moments. The people were interesting too, speaking to each other in a garbled mishmash of English and other languages, presumably their mother tongues, with a distinct intonation shared by the same curious character who had driven him here.
Right next to Jonathan, a cleaner has pushed her trolley over and parked it by the pillar while she empties a trash can two-thirds the height of her stooped, uniform-clad body. He shifts away minutely, even though there is no rancid smell; he feels uncomfortable somehow. He does not know if a slight overbalance or a misstep might bring the contents of the dustbin helter-skelter onto his Mac. Of course, he isn’t saying that the cleaner, being old, is therefore careless and senile. His parents are that age, twilight years. He is just being cautious. All of his work - his assignments, his book drafts, his contacts - are on his Mac. Birthdays, too. He needs to find a way for the Australian to interact with the people working in Wisma.
The cool embrace of the air-conditioned, partially emptied basement further increased the positive impression he had of Singapore ever since his exit off the plane into Changi Airport. He had taken the first escalator up the shopping mall and gotten lost wandering around the upper floors for nearly an hour, before he had grown bored of the tidy, compartmentalized rooms. The plush chaises of Starbucks seemed an attractive option briefly, before he remembered that he was in Singapore to explore, not to slip into the familiar, and so he looked around for more local options.
It feels slightly awkward, this lead-in to the interaction with the security guard. The plush chaises of Starbucks seemed an attractive option, before he remembered he was in foreign Singapore to discover, not to lapse into the familiar, and so he asked a security guard passing on his round where he could find a food place, to point him to the local restaurant or food centre or whatever it was they had in Singapore.
The man led him down to the basement with a strange sort of distance, tempered by a human connection - John thinks it should be more fitting for it to be the other way. Perhaps the other way round, the instant kinship of man to man tripping over the barrier of professionalism, but whatever it was, in his voyager’s excitement, the Australian cannot resist exchanging a few words with the weary face of the security guard, boredom cut into the weathered face like lines. He asks about the weather in Singapore, if it is always this molten, wet, sliding down the nape of necks into thin cotton shirts, and the man replies, You don’t feel it that much in the shopping malls, because of the air-con. My friends tell me, that’s the good thing about working on Orchard Road! Free air-con, 24/7. His voice is not bitter. Even if it is, the Australian will not have caught it. The reality of Singapore has not caught up to him yet, will not in the three hours he has to spend here.
Some students had come to sit on the bench opposite Jonathan, and now proceeded to behave in a most undignified manner, shrieking and laughing over each other’s shoulders, even as the girl in the middle half-heartedly tried to remonstrate them over the grin of her laptop. It wasn’t uncommon to see secondary school students with laptops these days. Jonathan considered his draft of his short story, gauged the remainder of his plot against his word limit, and decided that he must end his story right after the Australian’s little chat with the security guard, which would be carefully constructed to mean a lot by saying very little. To him, that was the art of dialogue writing.
Maybe it would be difficult to read if he did not carefully delineate his dialogue. After a pause, while the Australian is busy staring out the glass elevator, he asks the still silent security guard, “Is it always this wet in Singapore? You know, like, hot, and sticky.”
The man looks at him quickly, then back at the display in the lift, as if the basement cannot arrive soon enough. “Yes. But you don’t feel it so much in the shopping malls, because of the air-con.” There’s the slightest moment’s breath here, while the security guard debates internally how much of Singapore to share with this blond Australian tourist. “My friends tell me, that’s the good thing about working on Orchard Road! Free air-con, 24/7.”
The Australian laughs, loudly. “Man, they’re right. Are we here now?” For the lift has stopped. The security guard gets out first, shuffling forward with only a backward glance to make sure his charge is following.
“Many things to eat here! And the marketplace also, if you want to buy something.” The security guard’s gaze flickers back to him once more, before he continues, “All the tourists like the marketplace. Orchard Road also, that’s why they call it a tourist attraction.” Around them, the empty shops seem to give them a feeling of solitude, power, as if they were the real proprietors of this shopping centre, the security guard and his Australian guest.
“And you? You’ve worked here for a long time, right? You must really like Orchard Road too.” He cannot help but ask. He cannot help but think that it must be a wonderful job, to be caretaker to this glittering attraction, guardian to this illustrious responsibility he is only privy to as an alien; it is incomprehensible why the man is not simply overflowing with exuberance.
“What to like? Orchard Road is Orchard Road, lah.” That is all the security guard has left to share. He has brought the Australian around the long way to see the beige, benign tiles of the fountain, around which tired people sit, shopping bags clutched tightly under arms. This is what tourists come to see, the ring of Singaporeans around a lovely constructed pool of water; the novelty of Japanese ice-cream sold alongside fudge brownies and Italian gelatissimo, of cone pizzas and stout German sausages, the gastronomic delights associated with Singapore’s schizophrenic food culture; signboards of local and imported brands alike; floor tiles so clean and smooth little kids slide on them on the seat of their pants. “Do you know where the taxi stand is?” The security guard asks. He is a good man. He will not like for the Australian to miss his flight because he got lost searching for the taxi stand.
Jonathan paused to consider how the security guard could possibly know that the Australian was only in transit. Maybe he was carrying light luggage, and the security guard put two and two together. Were security guards that smart? They needed a minimum O-level certificate, he knew that; most jobs in Singapore did, nowadays.
“You know where the taxi stand is?” The security guard asks. The Australian is surprised for a moment, before remembering that he has his luggage in hand. It is not rocket science to deduce that he isn’t here on holiday. He supposes the man is used to foreigners in Orchard Road, must think they come, bloom and go like seasonal flowers, fruits; Brits in June, the French a month later, things like that. Australians like him now. He knows where the taxi stand is, he will do a little shopping now. Try out the exotic-looking food. He says goodbye to his tour guide of ten minutes, thanks him with the open, dimpled face of tourists grateful for even that little bit of kindness in a strange, foreign land.
Jonathan thought that was a fitting end to the story, a divergence of paths, the Singaporean on one, and the Australian on the other, although one could not suppose he was racist, oh no. Anne was Chinese, like him, but he had dated a Malay girl in university, and even an Indian one, though, in retrospect, his mother did not like her much. He will title his short story, Vacation. He got up gingerly from the cold marble bench, his back protesting faintly; he had met his deadline. His editor would be pleased, as will Anne. With the final payment, he could finally buy the ring he had seen Anne looking at through the shop windows of Lee Hwa Jewellery.
He would treat her to dinner, tell her it was in celebration of his new short story, and then propose to her when the sun was low in the sky and the sweet wine had just been served. Maybe he’d leave the ring with the waiter, tell him to put it into their dessert. His parents would be so happy. As he left, he walked past the same cleaner emptying the trash can next to him again. Twice in an afternoon. They must have nothing better to do.
At the end of his three hours sojourn, the Australian leaves Wisma Atria, catches a cab back to Changi Airport, striking up a lively conversation with the cab driver on the way. He tells him about what he has seen in Orchard Road, how wonderful it is, how much he’ll like to come back, and the taxi driver is right there with him, sharing his enthusiasm. The taxi driver tells him that the Singapore Zoo, and its sister counterpart, the Night Safari, are even better, that they are world-renown, and he should come back to Singapore some day. On the plane, the Australian pulls out his paperback as the crisp accents of the air stewardess makes the flight announcements, and promises himself he will, will stay longer, the next time.
All that ranted, I - must confess I don't understand why I feel so strongly about this. It is not as though I am not cynical enough about RGS; it is not as though I had total faith in the competency of the Lit Dept to begin with; it is not as though I treated this short story as the ultimate chance of displaying my writing prowess - it began as just another writing assignment. Maybe it was that Ms. Kamsir had told me that I had done well earlier, privately. Maybe it was the fact that so many people scored full marks. Maybe it was the utterly devastatingly banal comments I received, the sense of injustice. Right now, I don't even feel safe enough in claiming that I am entirely impartial; the scariest thing is that I don't know if all these is really just products of my subconscious jealousy. But I don't think I deserve my mark, if you really look properly at my language use - it's unpolished! I don't - really care about other people and whether they deserve their marks, but I just - want genuine feedback on my short story, on my craft as a writer, I think. I would be fine, relieved - I would desire it, even, for Sakhar or Kamsir or even Law, people I respect (esp. with regards to Lit) to list out exactly what the faults of my short story are, so I can improve, not this useless shell of a 4.0.
It's just eating away at me, and I really, really regret the fact that there is no one who has the power and whom I respect enough to discuss my short story with, unlike say, if I had issues regarding SS or History or even Economics or Inconvo or WSC or general academic endeavours, I could look for Law/Jalleh/Chew, but even though I genuinely respect Kamsir as a Literature and English teacher, it is unfortunately and regrettably obvious that she - doesn't have a significant say in the proceedings ): (I thought what the Lit Dept did to her re: Lit group PT, whether inadvertently or otherwise, was very mean and totally undeserved.) Obviously, I am too agitated to talk to Picca about this, and I don't feel comfortable enough with her to, anyway. Sakhar is an option, but. Law is also an option, albeit a last resort. It is - kind of sad that I feel desperate enough about the sorry state of the Lit dept that I cannot find anyone to address my Lit concerns to.
If RGS kills my joy for Lit, I am - going to do something potentially risky and life-threatening. I told Kamsir today, This is why Singapore literature is degenerating. This is why we moan when Lit teachers tell us we will be doing Singapore lit, why all of us can name a hoard of foreign poets but barely a handful of locals, why we study classics instead of local literature. Singapore literature is more than just using Singlish in short stories, bloody hell. I will write you a damn short story about Singapore without using a single word of Singlish.
E.T.A Have also found two tense errors in the last three paragraphs. Again, something that should be picked up upon. Here's an idea: in future, why don't you let us grade our own essays?
Also, had fun today. This is not as innocuous a statement as it sounds.