Scribbles from the Same Island by Neil Humphreys

Author:Neil Humphreys
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789814398954
Publisher: Marshall Cavendish

THE TOURIST

THE Bangkok weather was surprisingly cool; the riverboat was cruising along the Chao Phraya River and my view was obscured by an arse that could have covered Mount Everest.

Prior to booking the Bangkok boat trip a couple of years back, I hadn’t realised that the Pentax pair were also coming. You’ve met them, right? They’re those red-faced ang moh tourists, usually American, with a penchant for floral shirts and knee-high white socks with sandals. They speak only one language — touristese — and they speak it loudly.

On that Bangkok trip, they bellowed comments like: “Gee, Mary Jane, I got me a real Thai pauper here. He ain’t wearing nothing but a pair of ripped shorts and a toothless grin. He’s doing his laundry in the river. You see him, Mary Jane? Come on, honey, get your glasses on and get yourself some culture here. You see him? Right there, in front of his wooden stick house. Be quick now, Mary Jane, I got me the long lens on my Pentax ready, so you just wave and get that peasant to wave right back.”

The Thai economy depends on the Pentax pair and their tourist brothers and sisters worldwide to bring in foreign currencies, by selling the more intimate aspects of its culture. And now, Singapore wants to do the same.

In March 2003, the Singapore Tourism Board announced that it was contemplating taking over two vacant HDB blocks in Tiong Bahru Road so it could transform them into budget hotels. The idea is that tourists will scratch beneath Singapore’s superficial veneer to gain a greater understanding of real, heartland life. The scheme is aimed primarily at an increasingly affluent and jet-setting middle class in China, because they’re big spenders here. They are only in Singapore for a couple of days, but, apparently, they whip out the credit card more frequently than most other tourists, including the Americans and the British.

Well, the average Chinese teenager must be beside himself with excitement after hearing of the Singapore Tourism Board’s plans here. “So let me get this straight, mum,” he will say, in Mandarin. “You want us to get on a plane, fly to Singapore... to look at people... living in tower blocks. No wait, that’s not quite correct, is it? You want us to look at predominately Chinese people living in tower blocks. Now that’s something I’ve never done before. Do you think I could rebook that appointment to have my irritable bowel removed?”

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for tourists moving away from the colonial track and the spectre of Stamford Raffles. It takes a week just to visit every statue, street, monument, school and so forth with the man’s bloody name on it. I don’t know about you, but I have better things to do with my time than listen to Singaporean tour guides say: “And on my left is a statue of a fat British imperialist with silly sideburns. And on my right is a street named after a fat British imperialist with silly sideburns.

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