by Annabelle Goh

I admit that I’m totally unfamiliar with the genre of Singapore Literature prior to this module, so I selected Gregory Nalpon’s The Wayang at Eight Milestone in class at Prof Holden’s recommendation. The collection is a mixture of short stories, essays and brief sketches of life in Singapore in the 1960s. It is a fascinating glance into Singapore before my time.

Gregory Nalpon was born in Singapore and educated here, but he travelled widely following an eclectic variety of careers from disc jockey to journalist. The Wayang at Eight Milestone was published posthumously in October 2013 over thirty years later. The title of the collection was inspired by an ‘Eight Milestone’ at Seletar Road, Changi Road and Bukit Timah, a pragmatic description indicating it was located eight miles from the Singapore city centre.

One of my favourite short stories is ‘The Rose And The Silver Key’. It is a story about a beautiful rose that unexpectedly grows out of a rubbish heap and is tenderly cared for by a man Hamid, whose sarabat stall is near the rose. The rose has fantastical magical properties and a pretty young prostitute Fatimah attributes qualities such as healing to it. She wants the rose very badly and attempts to cajole and bribe Hamid into giving it to her. She wears a silver key that opens the door to her bedroom and rents it out to men. She offers repeatedly to lend Hamid the use of her key for the rose. One day Fatimah is ill used by a group of young men, badly beaten and presumably raped. Hamid comes to her rescue, caring for her, giving her his precious rose to comfort her and money to go home. He finds her silver key and buries it under the rose stem only to find a new bud blooming. I like the element of fantasy in it, prosaic street living in contrast to the fantasy and fairytale element. It contains all the elements of a fairytale told in street style Singapore. The allegory contains a moral of kindness being rewarded by the magic. Nalpon’s characteristic style of having both eye witness and omniscient narrator tell the story lends itself to this particular story by allowing us to access the dual viewpoints of Hamid and Fatimah without being too close as to lose the story in the characters. The silver key is used as a euphuism to suggest that buying Fatimah’s favors is an expensive commodity and yet even amongst the higher class of prostitutes, she is still vulnerable to abuse. Women are often compared to flowers, especially roses, which symbolize love and are often given to women as romantic gifts. Flowers are beautiful, fragile and are temporary, a plucked rose will wilt just as even women who believe themselves beautiful, treasured and secure can fall prey to abuse.

Another favourite is ‘The Hunter Lays Down His Spear’. It is a critique of employment policies, taking into consideration the economic climate and the effects of unemployment not just in financial hardship but also in emotional cost and loss of respect. This resonates powerfully with a Singaporean audience who are always concerned about the assuredness and stability of their jobs and worry about being unemployed. This is very much in the point of view of its time, when men were expected to be the head of the household and provide financially for the family in a patriarchal society. This is still true to a large extent today, but not so much as it used to be. Nalpon asserts that Man’s self-respect and self-worth is intrinsically tied to his ability to provide for his family and that nothing is worse than social handouts. Nalpon scorns the Western welfare states, stating that going on the dole, receiving money without working is tantamount to being emasculated, using the image of a hunter, the atavistic original Man laying down his spear, his weapon as the cost of being provided for. Nalpon laments that ordinary people desperate for work to avoid such a fate are taken advantage of by employment agencies. He suggests strongly that the law is being circumvented by the unfair actions of these employment agencies in spite of the Employment Act meant to protect the citizens and that it would be better if the government took over these employment agencies to offer honest help to people who are willing to work to maintain their self-respect. I agree with Nalpon about the unfairness he perceives and while this is still relevant and interesting, I believe that employment agencies are much better regulated today, hopefully at least in part due to his works and those like him who believed in fairness and a better life.

In conclusion, Nalpon’s collection was an easy enjoyable read that managed also to be deeply meaningful in spite of the limitation of short stories in conveying characters. I will definitely go back to finish the collection and reread my favourite stories.