of the two cities where the figure is 50 percent — I know that scratching the veneer of another person’s reinvention is the essence of poor etiquette. Evelyn was Evelyn, with her perfect hair, Gucci bag, and (here I am only guessing) $700 shoes. In one of our talks, however, there did come a point where, bolstered by context, I thought it safe to inquire about how her family made out during the Japanese occupation, so many years before her birth. At first she sidestepped the question with diplomatic ease. Later, on her own accord, she returned to it, and recounted horrible scenes of rape and death as she had learned about them from her grandmother. “She could not forgive, she could not forget.”
In another two days, I would be crossing over into Malaysia. Bypassing Kuala Lumpur if possible (for I have bad memories of the place — details to follow), I would make my way up Thailand to rendezvous with my friend Christopher G. Moore, the thriller writer. Many of his books are set in Bangkok, though his experience of Southeast Asia overall is long, wide, and deep. He has expert Local Knowledge written all over him.
Before I left Singapore, however, Evelyn wanted to take me to Thian Hock Keng. I believed I knew why. This temple in the middle of Chinatown is the perfect illustration of how Singapore’s past and present connect in the way they do. For years, Thian Hock Keng, built in 1840 and thus one of the oldest buildings in Singapore, was the largest structure on the island. It took generations to complete, and the long-term commitment of poor immigrants as well as wealthy min businessmen. It is located on Telok Ayer Street, in the centre of the area that was so long ago decreed the Hokkien heartland. No doubt the neighbourhood always has been densely populated, but originally it must have been quite compact in area. I presume that the fact that a thoroughfare named Synagogue Street is only two or three blocks to the north suggests how closely it once bordered another very different community. I wish I knew about more the historical relationship between Jews and Singapore. What I do know is that the funeral customs of some Singaporean Chinese are quite close to those of Judaism. Mourners perform a ritual very much like sitting shiva. Mirrors are either draped in cloth or turned to the wall.
Thian Hock Keng follows the architectural conventions of Chinese palaces, with its upswept roofs, courtyards, and red-lacquered rooms with exposed beams. To say the least, it has multiple layers and levels of religious and mythological adornment, including stone windows decorated with a bat motif. Bats, whether living or symbolic, are valued because in Mandarin the word for bat (fu) is pronounced the same as fu, meaning good fortune. The complex faces south, and I would guess was once closer to the waterfront than it is now. In any case, its main hall is a shrine to Ma Zu, the sea goddess, whose day is the twenty-third day of the third lunar month. Workers either coming down from China to earn a living or returning home after a lifetime of labour would go there to give thanks for a safe sea journey or to pray for one. Over time, an assortment of other important deities, Confucian and Daoist, as well as Buddhist, protected the temple, and the place lost — outgrew, but not abandoned — its association with migrants. It became an important religious centre for Singapore Chinese, regardless of geographic ties of linguistic allegiance. It became, in fact, the very symbol of a strong, permanent, and self-sustaining Singapore that grew out of the sojourner experience.
On entering, I left my shoes on the stone steps, as one does. On leaving, I thought for a moment that they had been stolen. But no, an attendant of some sort, a surly fellow, had separated them from the shoes of Asian worshippers on the topmost step and placed them on one much lower down, indicating what in his view was my less than elevated status. I picked them up and carried them a short distance away before putting them on, so I wouldn’t give further offence by tying the laces on temple property. He glowered at me as I did so. Evelyn betrayed no reaction whatsoever. Such was her natural dignity that she refused to take notice.
— DODGE CITY R&R —
Years ago, I was in Kuala Lumpur for a conference when I was struck so horribly ill with some consciousness-attacking disease (it felt as though it must be a disease) that I rang down to the manager of the hotel. I was phoning from a supine position, as I was too weak to sit up. The manager was Malaysian, of course. I begged him to find an English-speaking doctor who might be persuaded to come examine me. During his long pause, I thought I could hear him thinking: Hmmm, I suppose I must do so, for if this big nose dies in 401, I shall have to lower the rate.
Eventually a South Asian doctor arrived wearing a lab coat and stethoscope and carrying his gladstone bag. He was followed by his nurse, also in a lab coat, pushing a large trolley with many crowded shelves of vials and bottles of assorted pills, powders, and liquids. Ah, I remember thinking to myself — proud that I could still think at all — this must be one of those places where physicians enjoy a monopoly on pharmacy. Rather than vice versa, as in some other countries in what was then still called the Third World (a term coined by a French anthropologist, Alfred Sauvy, in 1952).
In my state, I was having difficulty understanding what the doctor was saying, but mention was made of brain fever. Researching the matter some days later, after an injection of stuff into one buttock and a quite difficult flight back to Canada, I learned that this ailment primarily afflicts people in nineteenth-century English novels. I concluded that I must have had a brush with something well short of the mildest form of encephalitis. That’s far too powerful a word to be using, but the episode was enough to leave me with a lingering dislike of KL. So it was that I was now in Penang instead. I left my Chinese hotel in George Town, took a short detour through Little India, and tracked down a European breakfast (how much easier adult life would be if I had acquired a tolerance for congee as a child). Then I boarded the ferry across the channel to Butterworth on the mainland.
Naturally enough, few English names have survived in Malaysia, and those that have continue only as alternatives that are used rarely. Butterworth, for example, is the seat of the province of Wellesley, which nobody calls anything other than Seberang Perai. George Town is one exception. To complicate matters, Butterworth (for William John Butterworth, governor of the Straits Settlements, 1843−55), is also known as, simply, Bagan, a Malay word for “pier” or “breakwater.” It is an undemonstrative place of about a hundred thousand people. I made my way to the railway station where there is a taxi rank, for I was going to take a cab to Thailand. The plan was not nearly so ridiculous as it sounds, as the border is only about three hours to the north via the first-class motorway and the fare is quite inexpensive, varying a bit according to size of the car more than to length of the journey. I paid only 30 ringgit, which was about ten dollars at the time.
English is a mandatory subject in Malaysian schools. How successful the policy is I couldn’t judge, but one will sometimes hear English being used as a lingua franca when members of different ethnic minorities attempt to converse with one another. I knew the driver had English for he demonstrated as much when he asked if I wished my bag put in the boot. Once we got underway, however, his mouth slammed shut and remained closed despite my repeated attempts to lure him into conversation. He was a young fellow, expressionless except in the eyes. I mentally ran through a list of Malaysian sensitivities, wondering if I had stepped on one or more of them inadvertently. On my previous visit (before I took sick) I heard a Kuala Lumpur yuppie upbraid her paying audience of foreign professionals, saying “You people come over here and expect to see jungle and rubber plantations!” She snorted contemptuously. I remembered this incident because the countryside we were driving through now didn’t seem to be advancing headlong toward development. So perhaps I was simply being cast in the familiar unwanted role of despised Westerner, or maybe I was seen merely as an infidel.
Malaysia is one of those countries that doesn’t like to see an Israeli stamp in your passport, but levels of Islamic strictness vary widely according to locale. Based on nothing more than how women are dressed, there are luxury shopping streets in KL that you would almost swear were in the West — precisely as one would expect in a city of 10 million. And religious tolerance is naturally highest in areas where there are so many non-Muslims to be
