Singaporean Short Story

There’s no place like home.

Home doesn’t refer to the building that I live in. But home is the country that has made me who I am.

Home is a little red dot, a miniscule country on the global map. It is one of the very few city-states in the world.

Home is Singapore.

Singapore has made me speak with Singaporean slangs. Such as adding a word of “la”, “lor” or “ah” at the end of every sentence, it has been known as “singlish” here. Singapore has also made me “kiasu”, which means afraid of losing out in dialect.

Even though Singapore is a tropical country, there are 4 distinct seasons: the wet and hot season, the dry and hot season, the wet and cool season, and the shopping season. You see, Singaporeans are known for their innate ability to sniff out bargains of any sort from the other side of the Central Expressway (CTE). Singaporeans are also known to queue up for two over hours just so they can get freebies. That explains the never-ending queues you see around.

In Singapore, you could turn to any direction and spot greenery. Compared to roads in other countries, they are naked.

I have been living in Singapore for the past thirteen years of my life. Everything has gone pretty well so far. The holidays were ending and I finally could get away from the squabbles of my brother and my sister. It was not that my siblings didn’t love each other, they undoubtedly did. Their quarrels were just the manner they exhibited their affection to each other.

One thing I have in my mind is that Singapore has high expectations for us students to do well in school academically. As a student, I have always been the average. Not the smartest, not the dumbest, but somewhere in the middle. I have met people who have their eyes glued to their textbooks and workbooks almost the entire day and it isn’t surprising how they top the class or how thick their spectacles are. No offence, but those students look like goldfishes with those goggle like specs. I wouldn’t want to be that kind of person now would I? Everyone described them as “no life”.

I feel like there are only three types of people in the schooling world: the students who spend hours and hours on subject guidebooks, those who slack off each day and those who are like me, the students standing in between. It was until the first day of my second year in secondary school where I realized there was another type of student.

The second year at secondary school started conventionally except the fact that there wasn’t orientation. I was in a whole new class this year. Our new form teacher was a tall middle-aged man. He had his hair elegantly combed to the right side with gel I reckoned. He wore a red and blue-checkered shirt with a bow tie at his neck. He could pass off as a clown if his bow tie and shoes were two sizes larger.

“Right gentlemen, I’m Mr Loo and I shall to be your form teacher for this year.” Mr Loo projected his voice perfectly in Queen’s English.

“This is totally going to be an amusing year…” I growled.

“Every one of you shall introduce yourselves now. Starting from…you.” He pointed his lengthy finger at me.

I raised my left eyebrow and stood up.

“I’m Gerald.”

Mr Loo remained expressionless and glared at me for a moment before directing his finger at someone else. Everyone else stood up, said their names and stated their hobby, their CCAs or some fact about themselves before sitting down. I knew I hadn’t created a fantastic impression of myself.

As boys took their turns to introduce themselves, I noticed a boy. He had unkempt hair and I could see eye bags under his eyes like a mini panda, as if he hadn’t slept for the whole night. He declared he was a new student at our school.

“Well, welcome to our school, Wei Song. I hope you will enjoy studying here,” Mr Loo mentioned.

I judged he could be the type of student who gamed all night. From past experiences, my judgments were accurate. Well I guess from time to time? Mr Loo proceeded to assign us seats in the classroom. It was just my luck. I had to sit next to Wei Song. We were seated all the way at the rear gloomy right-hand corner of the classroom.

I knew he would absolutely influence me in a truly “special” way.

The following day, lessons started habitually. Our first period was math, Mr Loo taught that subject. It was rather entertaining to listen to every single word being flawlessly pronounced. I guess I could grasp the concept of the math technique that he was teaching. Getting zonked of listening to Mr Loo, I scanned the classroom. Everyone had his eyes glued to the whiteboard, omitting some fools who were sniggering at each other’s jokes in secret. I speculate I had one of the shortest attention span in the class after those chaps. I revolved my head to the right and detected that Wei Song was dozing off. I was utterly flabbergasted at how Wei Song could fall asleep during a lesson, on the second day of school! I gave him a disgusted look. But I didn’t want him to get a scolding from that quintessential teacher, so I gave him a nudge. He woke up and looked around in bafflement. He was so heavy-eyed that he wrestled with his eyelids to stay open.

“Alright. I shall hand you a copy of this mathematics worksheet right now.” Mr Loo announced.

As soon as we received the worksheet, the one’s who had been listening so attentively during the lesson were working on their worksheets as if they were fiddling with some microscopic organisms. They had their eyes a little less than six inches away from their worksheets. The blockheads who were sniggering away during the lesson could only scratch their heads and give quizzical looks at each other.

I was calculating the numbers slowly but surely so that I could get the right answer. As I was scribbling out my workings, I caught a glimpse of Wei Song. He was at the fifth question already! How did he do the questions so exceptionally quick? I saw him writing down the answers in speck-and-span order yet rapidly. It was like he had an answer sheet in his head and was writing it down like a printing machine! I stared in disbelief. Wei Song had been sleeping throughout Mr Loo’s lesson and yet he knows his work so well? I saw Wei Song’s drowsy eyes as he was printing his answers on the worksheet. Could he have written down random answers? He couldn’t have. He had crystal clear workings that lead to his answer. At that moment, I knew I had to ask Wei Song some questions and get to know him better.

After the bell sounded for recess, everyone zipped to the canteen to have a bite or the field for some soccer while I sat next to the snoozing Wei Song. I had to ask him some questions while he and I were alone. This was one the few moments that I could “interview” him. So I joggled him until he well out of sleep, he looked at me with raised eyebrows.

I questioned, “why are you always so sleepy during class? Do you game a lot?”

He shook his head and mumbled, “My mum makes me study all night almost everyday. I barely get any sleep.”

So he wasn’t a gamer! He was the kind of student who studied all night! But the reason behind the studying was not sheer willingness but the force his mother applied on him. I continued to ask him more questions. I began to understand what he was going through.

As the school terms went by, Wei Song and I were best buddies! I couldn’t hang out with him much due to his authoritarian mother. But I could spend lots of time with him during class. I acted like an alarm clock, waking him up whenever he dozed off during class. He taught me some tips and tricks about math occasionally and that helped me quite a bit with my work. We worked on a few school projects together. I could still remember the first time I went to Wei Song’s house for the project. His mother was extremely particular about things and was downright austere. I was absolutely petrified when she just gave some advice to us. She was undeniably passionate about whatever assignment her son did. It had to be done a cut above the rest otherwise she would prefer it not to be done. She was the firmest parent I have ever met. I respected Wei Song for being raised in such a household. Their household was unquestionably prodigious and the first I’ve ever seen.

One of the weekend mornings, I saw a featured article. Its headline read, “Battle hymn of the Tiger mother”.

I laughed secretly to myself, “Agree.”

Gerald Tan

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