“Oh, yes, when I started work as a nurse, I earned less than $100 a month! Young people nowadays would be shocked to hear this,” says Pansy. “How many children do you have?”
“Seven,” the old man says, His cheeks crinkling as he smiles, proud to prove his prowess. “Old days people have more children hor? Nowadays chenghu have to persuade young couples to have even one! But maybe young people are cleverer. Might as well enjoy their lives. Why have children? Look at mine. So ungrateful. Before ah, I have to work so hard. Morning to night, my stall was open. So my children can have better life. Now they are doctors, lawyers and accountants. Now I think they ashamed to have me around, talk so rough, act so rough, like swah koo, a mountain tortoise…”
“And your wife…?”
“She changed body already,” he says using the Teochew metaphor for death.
The man has perked up, losing his grave look. Someone is listening to him.
“I think I come with you to VivoCity lah!” The old man says after a while, and for one horrible moment, Pansy has a vision of herself walking into Flintstones with a stranger trailing, causing Emily to throw an almighty fit. “...I can take the train into Sentosa with my EZ-Link card and get nice view of island. Maybe after, go to Malaysian Food Street at Lesort World for some Penang lo bak. So use up many hours hor?”
For lonely people, each day is an enemy of hours. The chasm of time needs to be broken down into manageable units of activity so that the hours can be spent. In one’s youth, there is never enough time but in old age, there is too much, so much that one can sink into its pool of depression. Pansy is ashamed of her ungracious thought about the man gate-crashing Emily’s dinner party. In her shame, she allows the old man to talk and talk, interjecting every now and then just to assure him that she is listening. She gets a litany of his aches and pains, his children’s preoccupation with themselves and their families, his dead wife, his life that was.
We cling to the past, as if it’s a life raft because we fear drowning without a future.
The old man’s loneliness penetrates Pansy and she wishes she could escape. In desperation, she looks out the window and to her amazement, the roadside trees are displaying beautiful flowers. The oppressive heat had been followed by a few days of heavy downpour and that must have awakened the trees, resulting in a mock spring.
Pansy is delighted. Furry clusters of gold decorate the tops of the Golden Penda trees. Besides these are other trees which have pendulous, bright yellow grape like blooms, similar to the ones that are in England except that here, they are called, Indian Laburnum or Golden Showers. To Pansy the tree is both beauty and the beast. Though beautiful, like its English sister, the laburnum can be used for healing skin and other problems; yet, it is poisonous. Excessive consumption can be lethal, resulting in vomiting, convulsive movements, and coma. Nonetheless, they are cheerful trees, which soften the impact of the imposing tower blocks. The winds blow and clusters of the beautiful yellow petals are loosened and they flutter gracefully down towards the pavement in a golden shower.
This is one of the best things that Lee Kuan Yew had done. He had wrested the country from the colonial government, merged with Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to create the new nation of Malaysia. In 1965, when Singapore was booted out of the union, Lee Kuan Yew suddenly found he was responsible for creating jobs, housing and an economy for almost two million people. He gave tax holidays to foreign investors and manufacturing companies sprouted. But even as his government built more and taller buildings, he endeavoured to protect the environment so that nature was not completely destroyed. He came up with a Garden City concept, so that any urban planning must include green landscaping, to soften the harsh presence of concrete. The Parks and Recreation Department, which eventually evolved into the National Parks, was set up to study, design and incorporate his grand plan. Today, the island is promoted as a ‘City in a Garden’. Whatever the semantics, the idea was brave and daring. It is Lee Kuan Yew’s wonderful legacy to Singapore. Not all his legacies are as well lauded.
Now that her attention has switched to flowers and trees, the severity of the tower blocks recede in attention, Pansy can appreciate the beauty in and around Singapore. Red flame of the forest flowers, white frangipani, yellow allamanda, and pink Princess of India blooms brighten up the view. Bushes shout their profusion of natural colours—red, bright orange, royal purple, deep blue, bringing a cheer to the heart. How interesting that a shift in focus can result in a change in attitude. Pansy feels less oppressed.
She is going up the escalator at VivoCity with the old man.
“Okay, I’m getting off at this level. Enjoy the train ride. Walk properly. Kia hor-hor,” she ends up saying, in the usual Teochew parting.
“Aiyoh! Very crowded ah? My time, we thought one million people was a lot. But look at this! Like so many rats in a small cage! Everybody also walk so fast like have no time, like rats running round and round in cage.
