The Catherine Lim Collection (40 page)

CONFUCIAN SAGE: Yes, the Master he say
virtuous woman always must prepare to co-opulate with man.

SHARILYN ZELDA LEE SWEE MEI: Your Benevolence,
let me be totally candid with you. I do look for a certain measure of physical
attractiveness in a man – which woman does not? Oh, I am not demanding the
looks of Robert Redford or Burt Reynolds and he does not have to exude the
sexuality of Tom Selleck, but is it too much to ask for a man who is the same
height as oneself, who does not have gold teeth and who dresses respectably? I
had fed the computer with precisely these requirements. I had ranked, as the
first prerequisite, ‘Absence of gold teeth’, followed by ‘Possession of minimum
height of five feet four inches in stockinged feet’ and ‘Absence of tendency to
wear starched white cotton shirts with singlets underneath’ (singlets showing
through shirts are not only passé but decidedly awful, Your Benevolence) and
what do I get? Precisely what I do not want. I am landed with Mr Chow Pock Mook
who has not one but two gold teeth – Oh, Your Benevolence, they glint horribly
both by sunlight and candlelight – and who wears the same light blue or light grey
short-sleeved cotton shirt the whole year round and the shirt is so ill-fitting
that when he sits down and raises his arms to rest them along the top of the
sofa, the shirt actually opens in between the buttons to force upon my sight
horrendous glimpses of singlet inside! Oh, the pain of it. Yet it is nothing
compared to the sheer agony of the gold teeth, Your Benevolence. The thought of
lovely morning sunshine gently breaking through my Laura Ashley lace curtains,
to suddenly light upon a gold molar in a cavernous mouth beside me, puts me in
a cold sweat: Oh, how should I get through the rest of the day, not to mention
the rest of the marriage?

CONFUCIAN SAGE: Gold in mouth is reflection
of gold in heart; woman very foolish to throw away such treasure.

SHARILYN ZELDA LEE SWEE MEI: I can see that
you are not very sympathetic, Your Benevolence, but let me continue. If this Mr
Chow Pock Mook had a sharp mind, were capable of witticisms, humorous puns and
verbal banter, then even the evil of the gold teeth might be somewhat
mitigated. But oh, Your Benevolence, he can talk of nothing beyond his next
salary increase or some big engineering project that he has been called to
assist in or his mother’s cooking! And the way he speaks English! I have never
come across anyone who so brutalises the rules of English grammar. The task of
mentally correcting his every mistake of grammar and pronunciation leaves me
quite exhausted. But I had thought to give the man a chance. Perhaps his
wretched speech could be compensated for by a sound intellect, a love of
intellectual inquiry, a passion for literature. I tried hard to probe his mind,
to find out the extent of his knowledge and his reading, but all he could
remember was that he did Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night
when he was in
Secondary Four, and even then, he could not recollect anything about the play
except two answers which he had memorised for the examination. And his entire
knowledge of English poetry is encompassed by the lines:

For men may come and men may go

But I go on forever.

He kept repeating the lines to me, with an
air of great learning; I never squirmed so much in my life. I tried to tell him
a few jokes, based on puns and subtle word-play, but it took me so long to
explain them that in the end I gave up. The jokes he enjoys are banal or crude
in the extreme and he has the naivete to think that I enjoy them too! He must
have told me the one about ‘The Emperor And The Dog That Was Operated On’, at
least six times, and the one about ‘The Monk In The Latrine’ at least four
times.

CONFUCIAN SAGE: The Master he say Emperor
must be benevolent ruler and must rule well and with justice; a good and just
man, he is emperor even if he is a beggar. The Master he say Monk must be
clean, must be good example of virtue; if not, he is like stinking latrine.

SHARILYN ZELDA LEE SWEE MEI: Oh, Your
Benevolence, we seem to be talking at cross-purposes, but you have to pardon
me, I have not finished. And if you sense increasing agitation in my voice, it
is because I am agitated and distressed to be made the victim in this senseless
SEU experiment. By now, I must be a national laughing-stock. We were in this
restaurant. Your Benevolence, a place hot and noisy and simply awful with
spittoons under the large, circular stone-topped tables, but he had suggested
going to this place for lunch, because he particularly liked the fish-head soup
with ginger that was a specialty there, and he needed to use the spittoon. I
went along reluctantly. Oh the horror of it! He very soon abandoned spoon and
chopsticks and went for the large fish-head with bare hands, slurping and
making a loud running commentary on its merits. He poked and prodded the
monstrous fish-head in search of delectable bits of flesh here and there, he
gouged out the eyes with a violent forefinger, offered one to me and upon my
refusal, happily proceeded to chew both in the most revolting manner. His whole
face was suffused with the sweat of sheer satiety; his shiny pate was the
shinier with the moisture, and every now and then, he took out a large,
blue-striped cotton handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped the steam
that had gathered on his horn-rimmed spectacles. He was eating with such
enjoyment that he did not notice that I had hardly touched the food; the look
of revulsion on my face was obvious to everyone except him. When at last he
finished, he wiped his mouth, first with his by now damp handkerchief and then
on his left shirt sleeve, sniffed at his fingers with the most vulgar display
of nose-twitching that I had ever seen and then got up to go and wash them at a
sink at the back of the restaurant, without so much as an ‘Excuse me’. He
returned shortly, wiping his hands on his handkerchief and still making little
appreciative smacking noises, sat down, emitted two loud burps, picked up the
spittoon, gathered the phlegm in his throat with horrible crackling sounds
resembling those of jumping fire crackers and finally spat into the obnoxious,
filthy-looking vessel. While waiting for the waiter to come with the bill, he
lay back against his chair, with a languidly contented look on his moist face.
Then he began to feel with his tongue for bits of meat and vegetable lodged
between his teeth, and he opened his mouth wide and stuck in his forefinger and
thumb to try to dislodge the bits, turning his head this way and that, and
grimacing most grotesquely. Unable to stand the sight any longer, I called for
some toothpicks which I pushed towards him on the table. And he grabbed one and
began picking his teeth vigorously with it, without bothering to cover up the whole
operation with the free hand, as one would expect. When I left the restaurant
with him, I was so ashamed that I vowed I would never go out with him again.
But the SEU insisted that the programme which had cost them a lot of money and
effort, had to be gone through, to its completion. They kept telling me that I
ought to have more patience.

CONFUCIAN SAGE: The frog it will wait for the
chirping insect. Moon passes by, and clouds pass by. But frog will go on
waiting. Patient frog get insect in the end.

SHARILYN ZELDA LEE SWEE MEI: I don’t know
about frogs and insects, your Benevolence, but let me tell you of something
equally revolting! The next day, at the insistence of the SEU, I suppose, Mr
Chow Pock Mook called and said he was coming over with a present for me. The
optimistic part of me said that the situation might still be saved: suppose he
came with a dozen long-stemmed deep-red roses and an appropriate message on a
card? Miracles do happen, and the benefits of his six months’ attachment to an
engineering firm in France some years ago might not have been lost after all.
He could actually have picked up some refined forms of courtship there, and had
just let them lie unapplied up to now. But what did I see? A large raw
fish-head! The mouth was wide, gaping, and the eyes were vacuous and
protuberant. They were the most obscene protuberances I had ever seen. “Fish
very good and expensive”, said Mr Chow enthusiastically, “Very good for
fish-head bee-hoon soup, like my
mudder
and
grandmudder
used to
make”. He advised me to quickly put the fish-head in my refrigerator. Fish!

CONFUCIAN SAGE: The Master he say give woman
fish and she will have meal for a day. Teach woman to fish and she will have
meal for lifetime. The Master he also say, give woman flower, and her stomach
still go hungry. Therefore fish better than flower.

SHARILYN ZELDA LEE SWEE MET: Oh Your
Benevolence, you keep misunderstanding me. Well, I was so depressed that I was
unable to get to work the next day. But a fortunate thing it turned out to be,
for who should call, but an old flame! Somebody I had met briefly in England.
He happened to be in Singapore on vacation, and he called to say hello and ask
how I was. Oh, to hear good English spoken again! To hear refined laughter!
Most of all, to hear my name pronounced correctly. Mr Chow Pock Mook is
incapable of pronouncing the ‘r’ and the ‘z’ sounds, Your Benevolence, and as a
result my name comes out from his mouth cruelly mutilated! I was so relieved at
seeing this friend – his name is Mr Vernon Alexander James Wu – that I forgot
about the special SEU programme for that day. Needless to say, the SEU was very
cross with me and gave me the usual lecture about the ideal Confucian woman who
is totally modest, chaste and faithful and who will never dream of playing
around with other men.

CONFUCIAN SAGE: The Master he give this
warning to all flirtatious women: woman who play with men come to sticky end!

SHARILYN ZELDA LEE SWEE MEI: Your
Benevolence, you keep turning everything I say against me. I can see that it is
no use talking any longer or seeking any advice from you. I wish now that I had
gone to seek the advice of my English Bard instead; he would have been more
helpful and sympathetic! Goodbye.

***

MR CHOW POCK MOOK: Ah, Sir ah, I come to you
because I want advice. The SEU it match me with this lady – her name very hard
to pronounce – got all funny sounds – and I think some problem now. I promise
to co-operate with SEU, they say they spend a lot of government money on the
project, and I a very good civil servant, so I want to cooperate. My boss, he’s
very good boss, he tells me if project of SEU succeed, will give his company
good name, and he will give me promotion. Last promotion, I got increase $240.
Actually, Sir, I want to go to Confucian Sage for advice, because I think he
will understand me better, but this lady – her name Miss Sha-lilyn Jal-da Lee
Swee Mei – she always speak of her English Bard, how you inspire her, how she
learn so many things from you, so for her sake, I come to ask advice to solve
problem. We are going out on the SEU programme many months now, it is good
programme, but problem has crop up, and I think Miss Sha-lilyn Jal-da not very
happy.

ENGLISH BARD:

The spot of rose on my lady’s cheek,

Is it gone?

‘Tis a pity!

Oh, to move worlds

Till the spot is restored

And my lady smiles once more.

MR CHOW POCK MOOK: Sir, ah, problem is she
don’t like me to smile. She don’t like men who have gold teeth, and I got this
gold teeth for twenty-five years now; they very good quality gold, my
grandfather had whole front row all gold teeth, and my father also, and I think
they bring us luck. But Miss Sha-lilyn Jal-dah don’t like them. She is a very
modern lady, Sir, and has the high education in England, and speaks the good
high class English that sometimes very difficult to understand. I learnt
English in school, Sir, and now I go for English lessons twice a week, but
still cannot speak so good and so fast like Miss Sha-lilyn Jal-dah.
Waah
,
Sir, she use big, big words – cannot even find them in the dictionary.

ENGLISH BARD:

Words, words, words

Less a balm to the wounded spirit

Than the soft touch of hand on cheek

Or velvet sighs in the ear

Or lingering silken gaze.

MR CHOW POCK MOOK: I don’t understand what
you saying, Sir, but I will go on to explain my problem, Sir. This lady is
quite beautiful, Sir. She 35 already, I think, but can still have some children
if marry now. She likes to wear the fashionable, fashionable clothes and the
mini-skirt and one day she wear a very short black mini-skirt, make her look
sexy when she sit on a sofa. I just look at her legs – all men like to look at
beautiful women’s legs, do you agree, Sir?
heh! heh!
– and I wipe my
glasses because cannot see so clearly and when I look again, she got up and
look very angry. She said Singaporean men are very disgusting because very ‘
hum-sub
’.
But the SEU lecturers say we must appreciate women’s beauty, must say
lomantic
things, but then when we get
lomantic
, they get angry.
Ah,
Sir,
Singaporean women very hard to please. What for want to wear mini-skirt and
then get angry if we look?

ENGLISH BARD:

Dost hear the rustling of her skirts?

Hush, my lady comes.

Dost see her face upturned

To gaze’upon the moon?

Her hand upon her pale bosom.

Oh to be that hand, upon that throbbing bosom!

See, she sways, as in a swoon,