I sometimes mused that I was a poor version of a Karen Blixen, a blue collar traveller. "I had a room in Singapore".
In 1994 I managed a comedy room at Singapore's "Riverbank club". It was a tiny theatre space on the third floor of a building nestled in among cafes, clubs and pubs along the Singapore River at Boat Quay. We booked two Australian comics per month. Each comic had to fill in required paperwork six weeks in advance before the 7-9 hour flight that took them north to the steamy equatorial urbana. Part of the paperwork included a copy of their comic routine. Each routine was to be scrutinised by the government officials for approval, (a bit like how it is here with some control freak venues in Columbus Ohio today). Having to explain jokes to uniformed officials was a surreal experience.
The "guidelines" given were that there were to be no cussing, swearing, no jokes about drugs, sex or religion, no subversive political references and no "creating political unrest," (whatever that means!). It was my first true taste of how powerful jokes were considered to be. Who'd have thought a comic could be a threat to a foreign country?
Not an awful lot of material left for a comic to cover really after that when you think about it. But there were some fine comic performers who rose to the challenge. It was hilarious watching each other twist our routines into "Disney-like" versions of what we would perform on our own home turfs. Comics who bravely performed at the Riverbank included: Julia Morris, Kitty Flannagan, Paul Brasch, Simon Rogers, Alan Glover, Fingers Demain, Peter Fox, Judy Glen, Bill Bailey, (U.K.), Terry Hansen, Jonathon Atherton, Andrew Goodone, Haskell Daniels, Dan McCartan, Jimmy Rice and Mr. Jimmy Borg.
Inside the comic network, it was considered a "badge of honor" to tackle some of the more difficult gigs on the circuit. This was certainly one of the more "difficult gigs". Not alot of money on offer either: one thousand bucks a week, for six nights per week, two shows per night (each spot 20-25 minutes). That works out to less than a hundred bucks a show- small pickin's when you consider how hard a comic works to gather up that amount of material. We did however manage to keep it just on actors' equity minimum and it is due to the goodwill of the comics who chose to perform that the gig survived for the year. Agents Ingrid Ricciardello and Fidele Crisci were incredibly supportive.
Every comic struggled at various points. The audience were not used to the bold brash hard and fast delivery style that was in vogue at the time. Most Singaporeans used English as a second language, so adored puns; the sort of pun that even kids at a pre school might groan at could garner a huge laugh at the Riverbank. There were two kinds of crowds, those that had been exposed to the Bill Cosby show, and others who'd seen pirated vids of Eddie Murphy's "Raw". So when we came to town, they were disappointed cos we weren't doing dentist routines, or wearing leather and cussing. And, we were white. (As with most countries, racism is alive and well. Racism, after all, doesn't have a color.)
There was a whole section of Singaporeans who had either travelled overseas to study, or had had their compulsory army training in Australia. These were the people that gradually began showing up at our club and building up some laff energy. They were hungry for some fun. Ex pats came, but were often disappointed because we could not "let rip" with as much freedom as they had hoped we might do, (hey they never saw the contracts we had to sign!) Older Singaporeans were completely baffled by the stand up comedy phenomenon and eventually drifted away from our clientele. A few locals tried to do some stand up comedy, and although we tried to be supportive of what they attempted, the locals were having none of it, and so would be Singer stand ups, became disheartened and often faded away into darkness, like a quick Singaporean sunset.
A bunch of us visited the local drag comedy show in town. It was full of puns, mime acts and some pretty rough jokes about bodily functions. They had a good following but it was tricky to understand why so many grown adults would laugh at so many poo jokes and turd references.
Then it dawns on you. Singapore is "clean". It's what every tourist will tell you when they first arrive, "my it's so CLEAN here". And they are ever so impressed. Yes, it's clean - but it's very manufactured cleanliness. They have public toilet flush inspectors (yes this is a real job), and the inspectors would fine people in public toilets for "not flushing". It was a 500 dollar fine.
There is no graffitti. The way most rebel is by expressing themselves in the most basic of ways. The public toilets are traditional squat holes - tastefully positioned among bathroom floor tiles. And so, around that gaping floor orifice, were the results of where the rebellious had purposefully missed. One would tip toe delicately through public bathrooms, and quickly learned NEVER to wear long trousers or skirts for fear of it traipsing through the trail of human waste dripping along the floor. So much for 500 dollar fines! However, it explains why poo jokes are popular. (None of us however, were able to quite make that cultural comic leap, so we left the poo jokes to the local masters of the genre.)
The beaches there were built from reclaimed sand. (pumped out from ocean beds some miles out at sea). Once, when they were busy setting off explosives offshore to deepen shipping channels and reclaim sand a pilot whale beached itself. It was all torn up. Everyone had just seen the movie "free willy" so they made a big deal out of trying to push this poor tattered creature back into the sea. Not surprisingly it rolled belly up and died. Al Gore would have spat up his noodles.
In the parks and on the beaches are loud speaker systems piping out "relaxing music" so there's no way to find anywhere that's silent. It was like being in George Orwell's wet dream.
I got the impression that there wasn't a blade of grass planted in Singapore that wasn't first approved of by the government.
One of the more interesting social experiments was the government run dating service. Singapore had achieved zero population growth. In order to encourage people to reproduce, the government first decided that they needed to encourage people to date and marry. However, only college graduates could date each other, and those without degrees had to date others who were similarly intellectually matched. (In other words, the government were keeping the smart asses away from the dumb f*cks.)
Lee Quan Yew, the Prime Minister had a daughter. She was an Oxford graduate. She married another Oxford graduate. Lee was apparently quite proud of this fact and used his family as an example for Singapore's non co-operative non populaters. Unfortunately his daughter and son in law gave birth to a down syndrome albino child. The local rumor was that she had suicided by throwing herself off a building.
The government disbanded their dating service after that.
My bosses told me we were not allowed to discuss this onstage. (We never did, but we did find out that if you were "off microphone" you were having a "conversation" and as such this did not constitute a "performance". There were many hilarious "conversations" that took place on the tiny stage at the Riverbank. And it never created social unrest!)
Once we had befriended the cast at the local drag show, we became an unofficial gay bar. My boss was furious until he saw the bar totals at the end of the night. In Singapore there is apparently no such thing as "gays". It is considered an "illness". We made friends with alot of Singapore's "sick" people and had a blast.
Visiting performers were on one month contracts. I was there for a year. My job was to book the comics, oversee the barstaff, compere the shows, run the advertising and promotions of the venue. I was putting in 12-14 hour days and by the end of the year was pretty burnt out.
I met up with alot of overseas performers who had similar experiences, musicians who were expected to put in long hours, performing standing up on a bar, cos their venues had no stages, an improv troupe who found the government restrictions on their performance style almost impossible to work with, trained dancers who were horrified to find that they were working in nightclubs as little more than glorified escort girls...everyone had their story.
My unofficial role as tour guide for visiting comics was more rewarding. Fun was to be had squiring comics to local jazz bars and eateries. You soon get to understand that in the Singaporean culture, "saving face" is a big deal. If a waiter brings you a cup of tea when you've asked for a milkshake, you understand that they are telling you "we don't serve milkshakes". They are not going to use words to tell you that, that would be "losing face". You are supposed to just know they don't serve milkshakes. You can accept the cup of tea, or order something else. This might take awhile as you are offered many items rather than get told "we don't serve that," in the process. I watched as many comics had -what we came to call- a "Singapore snap!" They might lose it, thump hands on tables and yell "but all I want is a milkshake, I didn't ask for a cuppa tea!" The Singaporean will stand smiling politely and just watch. It's almost sadistic. What's happened is that the person screaming and yelling has just "lost face." (When you lose your temper, you LOSE.) The racist dictum there states that Ang Moh's are always losing face.
Most comics coped pretty well with the culture shock. There were a few cases where I had to step in as "madam bitchy pants". Totally no drugs. Yes, they are available in Singapore, the guy who sells it to you, will also sell the info to the cops that he just sold drugs to a whitey. In Singapore they hang you for drug possession, even if it is a pinch of lil ol' Mary Jane. The law also includes "guilt by association". One comic gets busted, then we all go.
One young American student was caned in Singapore while we were there. He'd vandalised some cars. The caning incident made international headlines. Singapore prides itself on it's hardline approach.
I also had to warn comics about romantic liason with Muslim folk in Singapore. They have their own court system. In short, if you break a Muslim heart, you might end up in muslim court, and the outcome might not be very Christian.
Then there was the time we worked out our phone was tapped. The "click click clicking" sound was offputting and quite paranoid making. We checked in with some local ex pat teachers, and apparently this was common practice for the government to do this with foreigners' phone lines. Maybe they needed some good one liners from us? (God knows even government officials must have got sick of the local puns and poo jokes!)
One bunch of comics and myself decided we'd go check out the redlight district. "Little India" is a little network of run down cement shacks lining some cobblestone alleyways. In the front of each cement brothel is a condom seller. Big cardboard placards depicting graphic photos of distorted pus spewing and wart covered penises (or should that be penii?) assist him in warning the customers of what might happen if they don't buy his wares. One wondered- if the sight of some very mean looking sari clad ladies sitting on cement benches with arms folded didn't put the customer off, -that the piccies of warty cocks might just be enough to chase them away altogether. It all seemed to defeat the purpose.
Food in Singapore is spectacular. Makan time can include: Chillied stingray, North Indian fish head curries, unbelievable dishes -eggs pickled in horses piss- and laksas that just either melt in your mouth or clean your system out in ways you never thought possible. (This may also explain the state of the public bathrooms).
Kerioke is taken very very seriously in Singapore. We learnt not to muck about with songs. Most locals were very offended when or if we did. We were once escorted off the building premises, for safety reasons because a gang fight had broken out in the kerioke bar below us.
Apparently one gang member sang "I did it my way", but it was known to be the member of the rival gang's song. Yes, it's funny. But remember, in our culture guys have been known to fight over pool games. So I guess it's all relative.
Towards the end of my run in Singapore I was exhausted. It seemed the more I was able to achieve, the more my chinese bosses expected from me. There were many business meetings, (don't show your hand, most believe quite heavily in palmistry and can see from the lines on your hand whether or not you have a good "money line"...apparently -surprisingly enough- I don't have a good money line), many visits from a Malaysian bomo, (like a "shaman") who would help with the feng shui, many dinners with visiting "guests" of my bosses.
My bosses began to ask for comics at a cheaper rate (pretty darned impossible- comics were quite rightly already concerned about the low payment rate in Singers), wanted to know why comics couldn't just use material from each other to fill when or if they were short on time (the word "plaguerism" seemed to be a foreign concept too), and I was just plain ol' homesick. I couldn't take noodles anymore.
It was time to say "nee how ma" for the last time.
"If I know a kerioke song of Singapore, of the gecko and the Asian new moon sitting on the Hilton, of the pathways linking buildings, and the airconditioned faces of the retailers, does Singapore know a kerioke song about me? Will the air over the riverbank quiver with an off color joke I have told, or the audiences retell a joke of mine? Or the full moon throw a shadow over the concrete swimming pool where I did laps? Or will the seagulls of Bedok look out for me?"
http://www.visitsingapore.com/publish/stbportal/en/home/what_to_see/singapore_river/boat_quay.html
