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Images of the city -nation: Singapore cinema in the 1990s

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Images of the city -nation: Singapore cinema in the 1990s

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IMAGES OF THE CITY-NATION:
SINGAPORE CINEMA IN THE 1990s
by
Sophia Siddique
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements of the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(CINEMA-TELE VISION)
(CRITICAL STUDIES)
August 2001
Copyright 2001 Sophia Siddique
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UM I Number: 3054806
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
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UNIVERSITY PARK
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This dissertation, written by
Sssh& ft.& ldsl& iufi.......................................
under the direction of h & x . Dissertation
Committee, and approved by all its members,
has been presented to and accepted by The
Graduate School, in partial fulfillment of re
quirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Date 7_,_200l
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE
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Sophia Siddique
A B STR A C T
IM AGES OF THE CITY-NATION
SING APO RE CINEM A IN THE 1990S
Singapore's cultural landscape in the 1990s is marked by the P.AP governm ent's bid
to market Singapore as a global city, w hile frantically trying to maintain a sense o f a
Singaporean culture, heritage, and national identity Therefore, the PAP governm ent
functions as a strong and cohesive force in m anaging Singapore's cultural consciousness
in the 1990s It is within the heavily regulated cultural landscape o f this city-nation that I
map the explosion o f works by Singapore filmmakers in the nineties
The body o f the dissertation b egin s with a chapter that m aps S in gap ore's
pedagogical landscape This landscape encom passes the realm o f cultural production to
illustrate the power that the pedagogical w ields in the developm ent o f film production
infrastructure and the way in which film production has been historicized Chapter Two
engages in a performative reading o f Singapore film history which seeks to theorize both
the diversity o f film m aking in the 1980s. and the intense burst o f theatrical feature
film m aking in the 1990s
S ection Tw o introduces the con cep t o f (other)ed spaces w hich function as
perform ative locations Filmmakers engage with the thickness o f Singaporean cultural
life within these spaces to offer com pelling and com peting voices o f what it means to be
Singaporean. Chapter Three m aps the (other)ed space o f cultural m em ory as a
battleground Here, the film m akers tactically deploy strategies o f queering, hybridity.
im plosion, allegory', and difference to im plicitly challenge the PAP government s official
history w hich has long been marketed as a form o f cultural memory
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Chapter Four situates Singlish as an (other)ed space in which film m akers adopt the
e x p lo siv e sig n ifier o f race to illustrate that Singlish serves as the cultural broker
language betw een the various races. Chapter Five introduces the contentious (other)ed
space o f the heartland. Filmmakers utilize the interplay o f various languages and dialects
to fram e the rising class-consciousness between the cosm opolitans w ho live in private
housing, and those livin g in the heartland or governm ent subsidized housing. Finally,
projections, offers glim p ses into the em erging phenom enon o f pan-A sianism . the
potentials o f digital video, and the increasing impact o f globalization on the Singapore
film industry
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ii
Table of Contents
• Personal Dialogues 1
• Setting the Stage 9
• Part One
1. Mapping the Pedagogical Landscape 21
2. Per(form)ing Film History 69
• Part Two: (Other)ed Spaces
3. Markets of Cultural Memory 123
4. Singlish: Cultural Dialogues of Nationality, Power, and Race
156
5. (Class)ifying life in the HDB Heartland 195
• Projections 235
• Bibliography 248
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1
Personal Dialogues
In 1991,1 and about 160 other film buffs applied to become members of the first
30-week intensive film appreciation and production workshop conducted at The
Substation, a Singaporean non-profit center for the arts.1 24 of us were accepted and
our participation in this workshop culminated in a 16 nun film called I Have Never
Told The Truth. This five minute piece was a finalist in the Best Short Film category
at the 1992 Singapore International Film Festival. In the summer of 1992, the
instructor of the course, a few other members of that class, and I embarked on an
ambitious, and ultimately doomed mission: to produce and theatrically release
Singapore’s first English language independent feature film since the 1970s, a
decade which had marked the end of large scale feature production. It would prove
to be my most exhilarating and challenging foray into filmmaking. We obtained
very little funding for our film, Shirkers, which was budgeted at about S$300,000.
Undaunted, we worked for no money and relied on our families and friends for
favors and support (gastronomic, equipment, and otherwise).
Many doors within the government and private sector were not merely politely
closed, they were slammed shut. When we approached the National Arts Council for
funding, we were bluntly informed that we could not receive any because film was
not recognized as an official art form in 1991. Therefore, no provisions in the
National Arts Council budget were allocated for film funding. The Economic
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2
Development Board, which had set up the Creative Business Unit in 1991 to promote
film production by offering incentive packages, declined to help, stating that since
we were not seasoned, experienced filmmakers, we would prove to be an extremely
risky investment. In the private sector, Singaporean distributors and exhibitors
responded bitingly to our attempts at brokering distribution and exhibition deals.
One distributor cum exhibitor declared that if he were given the option of exhibiting
Rambo and our film, which film did we think he would select? Without the ability to
gamer more funds and with the rising tension between a majority of our crew and the
director (who subsequently absconded with all of the processed film stock), we were
left to return, disillusioned, to our various universities scattered across the globe to
embark on our sophomore year.
After Shaw and the Cathay Organisation closed their doors to local feature
production in 1967 and 1972 respectively, only eight films were produced by four
local production companies in 1977. After a fourteen year absence of local feature
film production, 1991 saw the release of Medium Rare, the first locally produced
feature film. By 1999, in a short span of eight years, nineteen locally produced
feature films have been theatrically released to mixed critical and commercial
reviews. Some of my friends from both the workshop and the aborted feature
attempt have made their professional marks within this period. One friend in
particular, Jasmine Ng, edited the critically acclaimed 12 Stories, a second feature by
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3
pioneering Singaporean director, Eric Khoo in 1996. Jasmine subsequently co
directed a feature, Eating Air, with Kelvin Tong. Eating Air won the Singapore Film
Commission Young Cinema Award at the 2000 Singapore International Film
Festival. What began at the level of practice as my personal engagement with
filmmaking in Singapore at the age of eighteen has crystallized into a ten year
commitment to chart the development of Singapore cinema at the level of theory,
history, criticism and practice.
Writing this dissertation has forced me to embark on a personal odyssey to
confront the reasons behind this decade of fascination with Singapore cinema. As a
Singaporean transplant in Los Angeles for the last ten years, I have fervently sought
to maintain emotional and civic links to Singapore. I converse with family and
friends regularly via telephone and e-mail, I keep abreast with Singapore politics
and culture through annual (and occasionally bi-annual) visits to Singapore, and 1
conscientiously consume an international edition of our national newspaper, The
Straits Times. This process of dissertation writing has prompted me to acknowledge
the integral role film has played in forging my emotional and cultural links to
Singapore. As a vibrant beat, it affords me the opportunity to tap the pulse of
cultural production in Singapore for the ten years that I have physically lived away
from my country.
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I am inspired by scholars such as Fatimah Tobing Rony and bell hooks who
adopt this embodied position as a theoretical strategy to powerful effect. In her book.
The Third Eve: Race. Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle. Tobing Rony probes her
position as a racialized other to launch into a critical analysis of the manner in which
indigenous peoples have been objectified in ethnographic cinema prior to WWII, and
she further attempts to rigorously deconstruct representations of the Native much in
the same manner that Edward Said attempted to destabilize the Oriental and
Orientalism, bell hooks writes from her black, female subjectivity to explore
representations of race, specifically the dialogue between blackness and whiteness,
gender, sexuality, and class.
Launched from my embodied position, this dissertation therefore, is as much an
exploration of the nature of Singapore film in the 1990s as it is a search for my
cultural roots, my perceptions of what it means to be Singaporean in the 1990s, and
my own involvement as scholar and advocate for the continuing growth and
development of Singapore cinema. I situate myself, within an anthropological vein,
as a participant-observer, and as much a part of the subject that I propose to analyze
and theorize. Acknowledging the degree of subjectivity with which I approach the
subject of Singapore cinema in the 1990s, allows me to embrace the intimacy that I
feel towards this subject. This subjectivity serves as a rich resource that I draw upon
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to illuminate my arguments and consequently, 1 function as one of my own key
informants.
Initially, my interest in Singapore cinema included the shape of the industry
during the 1940s and 1950s, when Singapore was still under British colonial rule and
part of British Malaya. Shaw and the Cathay Organisation were the principal players
during the golden studio era of the 1950s. During the course of my research, I
looked anxiously towards Shaw and the Cathay Organisation for permission to
examine their archives in order to get a keener grasp of the state of the industry in
the 1950s. Shaw and Cathay denied my repeated requests over a period of five years
to gain access to their archives. Representatives from Shaw vehemently stated that
there was nothing to see and no people to meet because all the key players from
directors, actors, to editors, were dead. This was, of course, completely untrue.
Some of the directors who were active in the 1950s had, since the 1960s and 1970s,
based themselves in Malaysia. I traveled to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to interview
Jamil Sulong and Dato L. Krishnan, two of the most seminal directors of the period.
Despite such extensive interviews, I could not delve deeper into the subtleties of the
industry in the 1940s and 1950s without the full cooperation of Shaw and the Cathay
Organisation. It was these cool responses from Shaw and Cathay, coupled with the
sage advice o f Professor David James to perhaps consider writing on the 1990s, that
prompted me to change my dissertation topic from a study of Malayan cinema in the
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1950s to a cultural examination of Singapore cinema in the 1990s. In doing so, I
could interview the current wave of filmmakers with greater ease and gain ready
access to their films and other relevant literature.
Access to government records was a vital resource to mine for information on
film activity in the 1980s because very little has remained in terms of actual visual
material. Thus, for my historical chapter on the 1980s, I made arrangements with the
People’s Association to view their collection of written records which covered their
planning strategies, production memos, synopsis of films submitted, and the lists of
winners of the People’s Association - Cine Video Club video competitions housed at
the People’s Association headquarters. The written records and oral interviews were
my primary link to the 1980s because almost everything produced during that period
was on video and this body of work, to my knowledge, has not been stored within a
temperature controlled environment. Thus, much of the visual record of the 1980s is
lost to Singapore’s humid climate.
When I arrived at the People’s Association headquarters, I was told that a
significant portion of the 1980s material had been burnt. Shocked, I asked why, and
was told that the People’s Association needed to save space and so destroyed records
which it thought were irrelevant This pragmatic response to history and heritage is
symptomatic of the manner in which the People’s Action Party (PAP) government
contours what it perceives to be history and heritage and also illustrates the relatively
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dismissive attitude of the PAP government towards film as cultural product It is an
attitude that I discuss further both in my introduction and my third chapter which
specifically examines the PAP government’s dialogue with official history, heritage,
and cultural memory.
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1 Tan Yew Soon, and Soh Yew Peng, The Development of Singapore’s Modem Media Industry
(Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1994) 134.
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Introduction: Setting The Stage
Singapore, a tiny island approximately 646.1 km2 in size and lying one degree
north of the equator off the tip of the Malayan peninsula in Southeast Asia, is an
enigma. It is a multi-racial country, with a majority 76.9% Chinese population and a
minority population consisting primarily of Malays (14%), Indians (7.7%), and 1.4%
others.1 Although secular, Singapore is surrounded by the Muslim majority
countries of Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore has no natural resources, no
hinterland, and must pipe in its water from Malaysia. Its political history has been
an odd one at best, with Singapore gaining independence almost by default through
its expulsion from the Federation of Malaysia in 1965. Indeed, Singapore as a
political and national construct was never imagined to exist on its own. Having
achieved internal self-government from the British in 1959, Singapore was always
thought to exist as a member of the Federation of Malaysia. Faced with a myriad of
races and languages, the People’s Action Party (PAP) in power since 1959, was
forced as a consequence of this expulsion, to develop and instill a sense of national
consciousness and solidarity amongst a throng of disparate peoples.
Continuing to maintain the integrity of this national consciousness has been at
the heart of the PAP government’s rhetoric in the 1990s, a time when it has
aggressively positioned Singapore on the global economic map. Multinational
corporations, responsible for 70% of Singapore’s exports and employing 40% of its
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workforce in the early 1990s, dot the city skyline. Singapore is already a powerful
node in world trade and industry, boasting the world’s largest port, and in 1994,
through its international airport, Singapore served as a bridge to approximately 56
countries through 66 airlines with more than 2800 scheduled flights a week.2 This
tangible evidence illustrates that the PAP government is achieving its mission to
build Singapore into a world class city3.
While much has been studied and written about these remarkable
transformations in Singapore’s political and economic landscapes, very little has
been theorized about the nuances of Singapore’s cultural landscape.4 This
landscape in the 1990s, is marked by the PAP government’s bid to market Singapore
as a global city, while frantically trying to maintain a sense of a Singaporean culture,
heritage, history, and national identity. I argue that this seething tension be read
against the fabric of Singapore as a city-nation. 5 The city-nation is a productive
juxtaposition, a collision out of which emerges a lens to examine Singaporean
cultural life in the 1990s.
The nation, as embraced by Benedict Andersen, is an imagined construction
which exists in what he terms as, “...empty...homogenous time....”6 Since each
citizen cannot intimately know every other, it is this imagined relationship that
transforms the anonymous individuals into the people of a nation. Andersen’s base
definition of the nation does not adequately address the role of the State and the very
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active process of nurturing, perpetuating, and shaping this “imagined community.’'
The state presence in a city-nation such as Singapore is extensive and its role in the
contouring of this imagined community cannot be underestimated. I turn to Homi
Bhabha throughout the dissertation because he does theorize the position of the state
and recognizes the undulating nature of this imagined community. Bhabha discards
Andersen’s seemingly static and monolithic notion of time and instead injects a
double temporality where the people of a nation function as pedagogical objects of
the state and performative subjects which enact their own rituals of nationhood.
This doubling of the pedagogical and the performative opens up, in Bhabha’s
discourse, an extremely utopian space where there can be no essentialist, canonical
political ideology because the fissures or gaps lying between the performative and
the pedagogical allow for the emergence of counter-narratives that disturb attempts
at constructing totalizing boundaries.7 The imagined community is therefore not
static but is a living, breathing dialogue between the pedagogical and the
performative. It is within this dialogue that I map both the shifting sensitivities of
Singaporeans to the PAP government, as well as the explosion of works by
Singaporean filmmakers in the 1990s. Not content merely to bask within the glow of
economic success nor remain under the PAP government’s authoritarian shadow,
many Singaporeans are calling for increasing liberalization by exploring the viability
of a civil society in Singapore.
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The emergence of a burgeoning civil society is performatively illustrated
through the presence of the Speakers’ Comer and via the appropriation of the
Internet by civil society organizations. Situated in historic Hong Lim Park, the
Speakers’ Comer has had a tumultuous coming of age. In a Straits Times report
dated September 18, 1999, Prime Minster Goh Chok Tong in an interview with
World Link magazine, stated hat he felt that Singapore, which was still in the midst
of a regional economic crisis, was not ready for a Speakers’ Comer which would
afford the opportunity for an individual to speak on any subject, including potentially
religious divisive ones, unencumbered by any rules. However, a little over a year
later, a Straits Times report of August 12, 2000, announced the opening of a
Speakers’ Comer on September 1,2000.
The choice of location for the Speakers’ Comer was a strategic one made by the
PAP government. This site marked the victory of a moderate PAP candidate against
the pro-Communist Barisan Sosialis candidate in a July 1965 by-election. This
apparently signaled to the Malaysian Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, that
Singapore was able to stem a communist insurgency and therefore no longer needed
to fall back on the auspices of the Federation of Malaysia. This realization proved to
be yet another decisive factor that led to Singapore’s expulsion from the Federation.8
It was also the site of fiery oration by then Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.
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The Speakers’ Comer is, unsurprisingly subjected to regulation in 2000. Before
speaking, each speaker must register at the Neighborhood Police Post located close
to the Speakers’ Comer. This individual must be a Singapore citizen, thereby
effectively barring any foreign individuals from commenting on or participating in
Singapore’s political affairs or public sphere. Participants can only utilize the
Speakers’ Comer between 7 am to 7 p.m., seven days a week and cannot use any
amplification devices like microphones or loudspeakers. Although participants must
register at the Neighborhood Police Post, the government, according to Home
Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng, would not be responding to comments made at the
Speakers’ Comer because, “...We are not supposed to be there and eavesdrop on
what people say. We leave it to them to say what they wish to say....”9 Response to
the Speakers’ Comer has been mixed.
Members of the established opposition political parties, have, to this date, not
employed the Speakers’ Comer. In an interview with The Straits Times, former
opposition member, Mr. Maurice Neo, stated that, “...It will score high marks for
tourist attraction, but whether it will contribute to free speech remains a
question....”1 0 Public response to the Speakers’ Comer has been encouraging with
Singaporeans from all walks of life, using crates as platforms, to speak on issues like
fertility and democracy in Singapore. Bus driver Ong Chin Guan even took a
month’s leave from work so he could speak at the Comer everyday for a month.1 1 It
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remains to be seen what role the Speakers' Comer will continue to play in Singapore
civil society, but it is apparent that the citizens of this city-nation, are calling for
liberalization and this is increasingly evident in the dialogue between the people,
government, and the Internet.
When probed about the Internet and government regulation in the same World
Link magazine interview, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong answered with the
knowledge that while the government could not “...choke off every site...,” it could
and did ask local Internet service providers to block specific sites as a “symbolic
gesture....”1 2 The PAP government’s commitment to facilitating Internet access to
every residential home in Singapore via an elaborate network of fiber optic cables
has ironically provided the vehicle for an emerging cyber segment o f Singapore civil
society.
The Working Committee (TWC), a loose knit network of individuals, was
formed on-line in order to fulfill three key functions. First, to create a forum to
discuss issues of political and cultural significance to Singapore. Second, to
organize a two day conference on the status of civil society in Singapore, and third,
to co-ordinate a fair to enable other volunteer organizations and non-govemmental
organizations to network with each other. Through these activities, the TWC was
able to exert a tangible presence within Singapore’s emerging civil society. Such
shifting sensitivities have prompted the PAP government to strategically refine its
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15
construction of citizenship via campaigns like Singapore 21 to more effectively
manage the changing face of citizenship in 1990s Singapore. It is a pedagogical
response to a performative shift in what it means to be a Singaporean in the 1990s.
This quest for balance is crystallized in Singapore 21. a millennial vision of
Singapore launched by the PAP government in 1997. The campaign focused on
Singapore’s “heartware” which was defined by qualities such as social cohesion and
the collective will and desires of a Singaporean people. As I will elaborate
throughout the dissertation, this policy shift towards a “heartware” is a strategic
move by the PAP government to accommodate the changing face of citizenship in
the 1990s.
Singapore 21 outlines a key dilemma that speaks to the core of Singapore as a
city-nation, namely, internationalization and regionalization vs. Singapore as Home.
The government realizes the competing interests between a burgeoning, bustling
world city and the demands of a neophyte nation. The current population census
puts Singapore slightly past the four million mark, with foreigners like permanent
residents, non-permanent residents, workers, and students, comprising approximately
a fourth of this figure. Singapore citizens now form 74 % of the total population, a
decrease from 1990’s 86.1%.1 3 An article in Singapore underscores the national
and cultural implications of this increase in foreign labor by stating that,
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.. .now that about a quarter of Singapore residents are no longer
citizens, Singaporean-ness comes into focus. As does the issue of
patriotism and commitment...The Singaporean identity is still very
new, some would say fragile... In all this debate about foreign talent,
it is sometimes forgotten that there are also ongoing campaigns to
encourage identity with Singapore and Singaporean-ness....1 4
It is this search for a Singaporean identity and a sense of Singaporean-ness that
must be open for debate and dialogue. It is clear that the PAP government is a strong
and cohesive force that has managed and continues to manage this city-nation’s
cultural consciousness and national identity since 1959. What is at stake in this
dialogue is nothing less than the power for voices other than those of the government
to articulate what this Singaporean identity means. This dialogue between the
pedagogical and the performative operates within Singapore’s cultural landscape. It
is within the cultural landscape of this city-nation that 1 map the explosion of works
by Singapore filmmakers in the nineties. In this extremely vital moment in
Singapore’s history, 1 examine the images of the city-nation as articulated by these
Singapore filmmakers who offer in both oppositional and conservative voices what it
means to be Singaporean in the 1990s.
I do not argue in any way for a cohesive, nationally imagined cinema. Rather, I
subject the various films released to a cultural interrogation. What makes us
Singaporean apart from the institutional modes o f nation building adopted by the
PAP government? How do filmmakers join in this crucial debate around cultural
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identity and to what extent do they negotiate the local, regional, global nexus that
serves as a key dilemma of Singapore 21?
The dissertation is built on this cultural premise and answers these fundamental
questions through five chapters. The Hong Kong film industry functions as a
recurring signifier throughout the dissertation because the Singapore film industry
has had, in the 1990s, a largely ambivalent relationship with it. The Singapore film
industry has defined itself as its competitor and usurper, as well as partner, with an
increasing number of co-productions between Singaporean and Hong Kong
production companies. The hand over of Hong Kong to China in 1997, for example,
precipitated much discussion of attracting Hong Kong filmmakers, financiers, and
producers to participate in the building of Singapore’s film industry. It seems no
accident that the PAP government recognized film as an art form worthy of cultural
preservation and funding only in 1997. Singapore’s competition with Hong Kong is
not limited to the film industry but is symptomatic of a much larger cultural
phenomenon which extends into areas such as public transportation. When Hong
Kong completed its subway system called the MTR, Singapore proposed its own
subway, the Mass Rapid Transit or MRT. Not only did Singapore complete its MRT
in a relatively short span of time, it was also much cheaper than Hong Kong’s M TR.
The body of the dissertation begins with a chapter that maps Singapore’s
pedagogical landscape. It offers a cultural context within which to view the PAP
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18
government as a pedagogical force intent on micro managing and refining the face of
Singaporeans to construct national objects that conform to the PAP government’s
political ideologies. This pedagogical landscape encompasses the realm of cultural
production and illustrates the power that the pedagogical wields in the development
of film production infrastructure and the manner in which film production has been
historicized. Chapter Two engages in a performative reading of Singapore film
history which seeks to theorize, in cultural terms, both the diversity of filmmaking in
the 1980s, and the intense burst of theatrical feature filmmaking in the 1990s. This
reading functions as an alternative account to Latent Images: Film in Singapore, the
only book thus far written on the subject. This book offers a descriptive narrative
that reproduces the pedagogical disjunctural narrative of Singapore film history.
Section Two introduces the concept of (other)ed spaces. (Other)ed spaces
function as performative locations. It is a place within which filmmakers engage
with the thickness of Singaporean cultural life to offer a variety of vociferous voices.
These voices join in the crucial debate about what constitutes Singapore identity and
life within the city-nation of the 1990s. I want to stress that I do not feel that every
(other)ed space is intrinsically oppositional. Rather, what is of most import is that a
space be opened for these voices to be articulated. Chapter Three maps the (other)ed
space of cultural memory as a battleground, rife with challenges and contradictions.
The filmmakers operating in this space tactically deploy strategies of queering,
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19
hybridity, implosion, allegory, and difference, through films like Bugis Street,
Forever Fever, Medium Rare and God or Dog to implicitly challenge the PAP
government’s official history which has for so long been marketed as a form of
cultural memory.
Chapter Four situates Singlish as an (other)ed space. The government is
currently attempting to phase out the use of Singlish and contain its vibrant use
through the Speak Good English campaign which is designed to encourage
Singaporeans to speak Standard English instead. Filmmakers engaged within this
space adopt the explosive signifier of race to illustrate that it is Singlish rather than
Standard English that serves as the cultural broker language between the various
races in Singapore. Chapter Five introduces the contentious (other)ed space of the
heartland, in which filmmakers utilize the interplay of various languages and dialects
in order to frame the rising class-consciousness between the cosmopolitans who live
in private housing, and those living in the heartland or public, government subsidized
housing. It is a growing trend that threatens to destabilize the PAP government’s
foundational ideal of meritocracy. Finally, projections, offers glimpses into the
emerging phenomenon of pan-Asianism, the potentials of digital video, and the
increasing impact of globalization on the Singapore film industry.
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1 Lee Geok Boi, “Race relations under scrutiny,” Singapore Sept. -Oct. 2000: 11.
2 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester.
John Wiley and Sons, 1997) 1 - 2.
3 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester
John Wiley and Sons, 1997) 15.
4 Please see the following for more information: Cherian George, Singapore: The Air-Conditioned
Nation (Singapore: Landmark Books, 2000), Sanjay Krishnan. eds. Looking At Culture (Singapore,
1996).
51 want to thank Marsha for thinking of this term as a possible title for the dissertation.
6 Benjamin Andersen, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
(London: Verso, 1991) 24.
7 Homi Bhabha. “DissemiNation: time, narrative, and the margins of the modem nation,” Nation and
Narration, ed. Homi Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990) 297-299.
* Sheila Koh, “Speak up if you’re a citizen,” Singapore Jul. -Aug. 2000: 8-13.
’ Leslie Koh, “Government not tracking speakers,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 9 Sept. 2000:
6.
1 0 Yap Chun Wei, “Speakers’ Comer to open on Sept I,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 12 Aug.
2000: 2.
" Debbie Goh, and Cindy Lim, “Regulars plan to make the Comer a success,” The Straits Times
Weekly Edition 9 Sept. 2000:6.
1 1 “Singapore ‘not ready for Speakers’ Comer,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 18 Sept 1999: 6.
1 3 Laurel Teo, “Singapore population hits 4 million,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 2 Sept
2000:3.
1 4 Rosemary Chng, “Foreign yes, but ail talent?” Singapore Nov-Dee. 2000: 13.
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Chapter One: Mapping The Pedagogical Landscape
In this chapter, I begin to deconstruct the prevalence, as illustrated in Latent
Images, of the disjunctural narrative model of Singapore film history by focusing on
its strategic importance in the 1990s. The disjunctural narrative posits the slow death
of the industry in the late 1960s, followed by a spate of sporadic independent
productions in the 1970s. The narrative continues, painting the 1980s as a period of
stagnation and inertia, and triumphantly ends with a resounding explosion of works
by local Singaporean filmmakers in the 1990s. This disjunctural narrative gained
resonance and currency after 1997, with the release of Eric Khoo’s 12 Stories, Hugo
Ng’s God or Dog, and Lim Suat Yen’s The Road Less Travelled. These films were
thought to signal the advent of a Singaporean cinema. The reproduction and
reiteration of this narrative by scholars and journalists has had a naturalizing effect
on the manner in which Singapore film history and the industry are conceived and
understood. It is a master narrative, canonized as the definitive conceptual model of
Singapore film history.
As I began my own investigation of the Singapore film industry (1970s -
1990s), I observed strands of an alternative narrative of events in Singapore’s film
history. The existence of a prolific diffusion of video techniques and production
practices among the general Singaporean population via the Cine and Video Clubs of
the 1980s was, for example, forgotten or erased from the disjunctural narrative. I
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began to question the coherence of the narrative that had informed much of my own
thinking about Singapore film history. What are the ideological implications of this
narrative? Why does this narrative primarily laude the Singapore films released in
the 1990s as hailing the revivification or advent of a specifically Singaporean
cinema? What is at stake when terms like “Hollywood of the East ” or “Cannes of
the East ” are attached to the Singapore film industry in the 1990s by journalists and
government officials alike? Both these terms call for a measure of Asian specificity,
yet establish the West as the standard to which Singapore must aspire if it is to
become a viable global player.1 How do these terms fit into the disjunctural
narrative?
I believe that this apparently stable narrative masks a cultural rhetoric of
anxiety surrounding the impact of globalization that has saturated the city-nation of
Singapore in the 1990s. This cultural rhetoric, espoused vociferously by the
Singapore government, urges Singaporeans to maintain an Asian, and specifically
Singaporean identity in the face of globalized information and mass communication
flows. In a 1993 conference for the Association for Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) Ministers of Information, then Singaporean Minister of Information and
the Arts, Brig-Gen (NS) George Yeo, cautioned his ASEAN counterparts about the
possible threat of this flow of information:
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...The revolution in communication, information technology and
transportation has weakened the powers of governments and
integrated the world economy in a way never seen before... All
borders are now porous... It is a threat because, as entire
communities, we may lose the means to preserve and promote the
values important to us...There is a danger that our traditional
cultures may be drowned by the deluge of films, TV programmes,
videos, books and magazines from the W est...2
The text of his speech clearly illustrates the fears of a potential dilution or dissolution
of an Asian or Singaporean identity in the face of globalization. It expresses the
PAP’s ideology of survival and echoes the problematic triple bind of participating
within this porous world economy and maintaining a cohesive national (Singapore)
identity and an (ASEAN) regional identity. In his speech, Brig-Gen (NS) George
Yeo further cited the domination of the West in terms of media giants and pop
culture and urged other Asian nations within the region to resist these forces by co
operating with each other to “...facilitate the growth of Asian media companies that
can take on the Western giants....”3
This cultural policy outlined by David Birch in his article, “Rim and Cinema
in Singapore: Cultural Policy as Control,” extends beyond mere censorship laws.
The cultural rhetoric of anxiety (maintaining a “Singaporeaness” in the face of
“Western media flows”) lies at the root of the disjunctural narrative. The narrative
relieves a certain degree of this anxiety by championing a narrative of re-birth in
which contemporary Singaporean films are claimed as uniquely Singaporean cultural
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documents. It is another tool within the Government’s pedagogical arsenal which is
used to fashion and nurture a cohesive, nationally imagined “Singapore” heart that
continues to beat, impervious to the threats outlined by Brig-Gen (NS) George Yeo.
What this imagined “Singaporean” heartbeat is, is open for contestation. It is this
debate that speaks to the core of Singapore as a city-nation and the ramifications of it
pulse through Singapore films of the 1990s.
The explosion of feature films on to Singapore screens in the 1990s should be
framed within cultural, ideological, and political landscapes that have been heavily
contoured by the People’s Action Party or PAP government, which has held firmly
onto the reigns of power since 1959. The political history of Singapore pre and post
independence has undergone incredibly dramatic shifts. Because of Singapore’s
diminutive size, the PAP has been effective in propagating its socio-political and
socio-economic policies to help navigate Singapore through these turbulent shifts. It
is the continuing rule of the PAP that has provided the people of this city-nation with
a national imaginary of unity, and economic and political stability.4
While this imaginary has made for an incredibly prosperous and politically
secure nation, alternative debates, both cultural and political, about Singapore’s
political future and cultural identity have not been entirely successful at penetrating
this seductive imaginary. For example, foreign financial contributions to local
political parties have been outlawed and those Singaporeans interested in launching a
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political party must secure local funding instead. In such a heavily controlled
political landscape, such funding is difficult to obtain. Furthermore, the PAP
government, despite its call for an active civil society, still responds to non
governmental organizations and individuals who are interested in critiquing and
commenting on this political landscape to form their own political party. This, in
essence, severely constrains the potential contribution and growth of a viable civil
society in Singapore. The government even banned political filmmaking in 1998 to
discourage filmmakers from offering any overt, pointed political commentary.
1 turn to Homi Bhabha’s notion of the pedagogical and the performative to
open up these pervasively controlled landscapes in ord> r to allow for voices other
than those of the PAP to contribute to the contours and texture of the imagined
community of this city-nation. Although Bhabha theorizes his pedagogical -
performative split in the context of the Western nation, I argue that this mode of
theorization is vital to Singapore as a city-nation.5 The nature of the pedagogical in
the city-nation operates on very different levels of engagement and it is this very
difference that urgently calls for Bhabha’s double temporality. This chapter maps
the nature of this pedagogical force in Singapore, its rationale, mechanisms and
strategies for maintaining its pervasive presence. This provides a context within
which to understand how the PAP government constructs and refines Singaporeans
as citizens who function as “...pedagogical objects of the state...,” not only within the
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political and ideological spheres, but also discursively and institutionally in areas of
cultural production such as film.
The Consolidation o f Power and the Quest fo r Independence
The People’s Action Party was founded in 1954 with Lee Kuan Yew,
Singapore’s future Prime Minister, as its secretary-general. Members of the PAP
were comprised primarily of trade unionists and Chinese and English-educated
radicals.6 Singapore’s road towards internal self-government, and eventually,
independence, began with the first elections held in Singapore in 1955. The Labour
Front, headed by David Marshall, Singapore’s first Chief Minister, formed a
government with the support of three Alliance party members, the ex-officio
members, and two nominated unofficials. Lee Kuan Yew and two other PAP
members formed part of the opposition within this 32 member Assembly.7 The most
crucial election to follow was held in 1959 to realize Singapore’s new constitution.
The terms of this constitution were agreed upon by the all-party constitutional
mission, of which Lee Kuan Yew was a part, and by the British Parliament when it
passed the State of Singapore Act in 1958.®
According to seminal Malayan historian C. M. Turnbull, certain provisions of
this act included the transformation of the colony into a state which exerted control
over domestic affairs, while matters pertaining to internal security would revert to an
Internal Security Council consisting of representatives from Singapore, Britain, and
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the Federation. There would also be a Legislative Assembly of 51 members who
would be elected by all adult Singapore citizens. Parliamentary debates could be
conducted in Malay, Mandarin, English, or Tamil in an effort to recognize the
multiracial and multilingual character o f the electorate.9
The PAP launched a vociferous and ferocious campaign for the 1959
elections. The PAP platform, which called for an efficient government that
confronted such problems as education, trade unions, and health, proved to be
appealing to the voters. The PAP contested all 51 constituencies and won 43 seats.
This was Singapore's first elected government, and one in which one party clearly
dominated.1 0 The PAP government expressed anti-Western sentiments, no doubt
partly propelled by Singapore’s colonial heritage. According to C. M. Turnbull, this
ambivalent relationship with the West and western culture would prove to be a
consistent ideological motif deployed strategically by the PAP throughout its
leadership. Western films with perceived anti-Asian messages or which contained
corrupting influences were banned.1 1 The PAP recognized that these films and
magazines were not mere escapist entertainment, but were instead ideological tools
that could be manipulated for its own agenda.
Merger with the Federation of Malaysia was a PAP election pledge and one
which it intended to honor. Even the British government was encouraged by the idea
of merger. In the opening of the second session of the Legislative Assembly in
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1956, the Governor of Singapore stated, “...the Government will continue to foster
and strengthen those links so that ultimately the narrow gap will be bridged bringing
about the fusion of the two territories in a single united nation.”1 2 An official
publication declared in 1960, “...Nobody in his senses believes that Singapore alone,
in isolation, can be independent”1 3 Merger seemed to be both a political and
economic necessity. C. M. Turnbull writes that Singapore was faced with a growing
population, and much of Singapore’s economy was centered on entrepot trade and
income from British military bases. Merger with the Federation would engender the
growth of a common economic market from which to build a more secure economy.
Singapore politics in the initial years of self-government however, was far
from stable or secure. The PAP faced opposition from the more extremist faction of
its party. Several members of the PAP left to form a potent opposition party, the
Barisan Sosialis, that threatened to destroy the power base of the PAP. In July 1961,
many key figures of the PAP left to join the Barisan which subsequently controlled
two-thirds of organized labor and forty-three unions.1 4 These left wing extremists
were opposed to merger with anti-communist Malaya and wished for an independent
Singapore, separate from the clutches of the Federation. Malayan Prime Minister
Tunku Abdul Rahman, felt that merger could prevent the more left wing leaders
from taking control of the Singapore government. He expressed the fear that,
“...Singapore might achieve independence in 1963 as a communist state, potentially
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a second Cuba and a danger to Malaya’s security.” 1 5 The Malayan Prime Minister,
however, felt that a merger merely between Singapore and Malaya would upset the
Malay balance of power. If merged, Singapore, with its majority Chinese would
constitute 43 % of the population, while the Malays would only comprise 41 % of
the total population. Therefore, the Malayan Prime Minister proposed a merger not
only with Singapore and Malaya, but also with the British Borneo territories.1 6 A
public referendum was held in September 1962 to gauge and assess the electorate’s
feelings on merger. The sentiments were overwhelmingly positive with 71% in
favor of merger, and 25 % against.1 7
According to C. M. Turnbull, while talks of merger began to heat up, the
PAP lost its parliamentary majority when an Assemblywoman left to join the Barisan
Sosialis in July 1962. Without a clear majority, the PAP had to rely on the Alliance
party members, who supported only the PAP’s platform of merger. The strength and
stability of the PAP was bolstered after the Internal Security Council mandated the
detention of more than 100 trade unionists, students, etc., who supported the
rebellion in Brunei, which had opposed the merger.1 8 Many of the detainees were
from the Barisan Sosialis, and this act considerably weakened the Barisan, rendering
it almost ineffectual. The PAP thus managed to consolidate its power base yet again.
In 1963, under the Malaysia Agreement, Singapore, the Federation of Malaya,
Sarawak, Sabah, and North Borneo formed Malaysia. Both Malayan Prime Minister
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Rahman and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew agreed that defense, foreign
affairs and internal security ought to fall within the jurisdiction of the central
government, while education and labor were to be the responsibilities of the local
governments.1 9
The PAP had fulfilled its campaign pledge for merger and wisely seized the
moment of national elation to hold elections. According to C. M. Turnbull, three
parties contested the elections in 1963: the PAP, Barisan Sosialis, and the Singapore
Alliance. The PAP emerged, unsurprisingly, victorious winning thirty-seven of the
fifty-one seats it contested.2 0 With a clear mandate, the PAP began to
comprehensively eradicate and strip the Barisan Sosialis of its power base. For
example, the Singapore Association of Trade Unions, heavily populated by members
of Barisan, was de-registered and its leaders were arrested.2 1 While the PAP sought
to stabilize its presence within the Singapore government and legislature, tensions
between Singapore and the central Malaysian government were beginning to build.
The long anticipated merger proved to be both tumultuous and short-lived.
Of the many reasons offered for Singapore’s subsequent expulsion from
Malaysia, perhaps the one most foreshadowed during the discussions for merger,
was the manner in which the majority Chinese Singapore population was viewed
within Malaysia. Anti-Chinese sentiment was extremely high not only because of
this majority threat, but also because of the perception that the Malayan Chinese
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were associated with Communism. The ultimate loyalty of the Malayan Chinese
were questioned and viewed with suspicion. Would they pledge allegiance to
Malaysia or to China in times of national crisis? Furthermore, Lee Kuan Yew’s
tentative foray into federal politics in 1964 was construed by Malaysian Prime
Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman and Tun Abdul Razak, the Deputy Prime Minister of
Malaysia, as a political act that had broken Lee Kuan Yew’s pledge not to participate
in federal politics.2 2 Tensions mounted that threatened the racial, political, and
economic stability of Singapore, the central government of Malaysia, and the rest of
the Malaysian nation. With neither Lee Kuan Yew nor the Malaysian Prime
Minister able to devise a compromise amenable to both parties, expulsion seemed
the only viable solution. Singapore was subsequently expelled and was declared
independent on 9 August, 1965. Singapore, transformed from colony to state and
then to a member of Malaysia, became an independent nation by default.
The People’s Action Party (PAP) government was faced with several
monumental tasks in the initial troubled aftermath of Singapore’s abrupt birth as a
nation. It had to devise a blueprint for national development in a country that had
never been imagined as a nation in its own right, but rather as part of a larger
independent Malaysia.2 3 The PAP government was also driven to instill a sense of
national identity, social cohesion, and civic pride amidst the island’s diverse
immigrant population which consisted primarily of Indians, Chinese, and Malays.
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Pedagogical Power: Constructing National Objects
Given the many radical changes that Singapore underwent in such a relatively
brief period, the PAP government desperately needed to create a sense of political
stability, one which could function as a pedagogical force cultivating a unified vision
of the nation.2 4 Within this imperative, the PAP government interpellated
Singaporeans as national objects by asserting that the key to Singapore’s national
survival as a city-state and key global economic player lay with a successful
economy. The PAP continues to be adept at maintaining its pervasive presence
within Singapore’s political, cultural, ideological, and social landscapes by
cultivating its ideology of survival and pragmatism.2 5 By this I mean that the PAP
has been successful at selling these ideological signifiers to the Singaporean people,
its marketplace, through an intricate network that includes institutional agencies,
marketing campaigns, the media, and educational policies. The PAP has been
extremely sensitive and prescient to the cultural and political fluctuations within its
constituency, adapting its policies accordingly to maintain its party dominance. The
PAP’s consolidation of power in Singapore brings to the fore the peculiarities of
Singapore as a city-nation. What now functions as a pedagogical force, was, a mere
four decades ago, a performative element, one of many political parties struggling
for legitimacy in their bids for independence and nationhood.
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In their book, Singapore: A Developmental Citv-State. Perry, Kong, and
Yeoh argue that '‘...the developmental state is distinguished through the absolute
prioritizing of economic growth and its use as a prime indicator of government
performance....”2 6 To maintain its bid for economic growth, the developmental state
constructs an aura of insecurity within which it projects itself as the potent force
capable of securing the stability of the state. By placing itself within this position,
the developmental state is able to keep “...free from the challenge of alternative
agendas, minimizing the impediments to economic development....”2 7 This
designation and characteristic of a developmental state is not unique to Singapore,
but also includes the other newly industrialized Asian Tiger economies of Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and South Korea.2 8 The manner in which this insecurity is articulated
differs according to each country’s political and social agendas. In the case of
Singapore, this state of insecurity is manifested around Singapore’s minority status
as a majority Chinese island amidst a region populated by Malays.2 9 The other key
rhetoric of insecurity harkens back to the belief that Singapore could not exist as a
viable entity on its own after its abrupt expulsion from Malaysia in 1965.
While I feel that this model is useful in articulating the importance of
economic growth, I believe however, that Perry, Kong, and Yeoh do not adequately
take into account Singapore’s very unique status as a city-nation. In the city-nation,
the demands o f wanting to be both a global city and yet a cohesive nation constantly
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collide with each other. It is through the lens of the city-nation that the Singapore
government’s rabid economic goals and policies are better understood.
The query at the heart of the Government rhetoric is how can a country
without any natural resources or a hinterland function as a successful economy and
cohesive nation? To stress both the vital nature of continued economic prosperity
and growth, and the need to remain economically competitive with nations within
the regional and global marketplace, the PAP government has attempted to market a
set of ideological signifiers and metaphors to the Singapore public. The ideological
signifiers of pragmatism and survival were seen as a response to this perceived state
of insecurity. Singapore’s most precious resource, according to the PAP government,
was its people and Singapore could only survive and prosper through the molding of
its people into an efficient, trained, and productive workforce. The ideological
signifiers of pragmatism and survival were heavily marketed to the Singapore public
between 1968 and 1984, a crucial period spanning from Singapore’s independence to
the PAP’s significant losses during the 1984 general election.3 0 These ideological
signifiers functioned to rationalize state policies, and in essence, make them logical,
and attractive to the Singapore public.3 1
Government sponsored campaigns were integral in constructing Singapore
citizens as national objects in the service of Singapore’s quest to become a potent
economic player within the global marketplace. Sixty-six campaigns were launched
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between 1968 and 1982 to promote values like courtesy, productivity, and family
planning.3 2 Bubbly songs were laced with the value of courtesy, advocating that
“...courtesy is for free, courtesy is for you and m e....”. Schools were asked to
participate and I recall, as a student in grade school, singing various songs with
courtesy as their main theme. This campaign positioned courtesy as an enticing
offer; a value that could be had at no material cost, with the ultimate function to
interpellate Singaporeans as national courteous objects to graciously cater to the
onslaught of tourists and professionals from the many multi-national corporations
located in Singapore.
Productivity, a key component to economic production and success,
according to the PAP, was symbolized by Teamy, the worker bee. In this telling
campaign, Singaporeans, as busy worker bees, were to buzz industriously to build
and maintain the national hive at maximum efficiency. Family planning is perhaps
the domain that exemplifies the extreme interventionist nature of the state, now
growing increasingly indistinguishable from the PAP government. In 1983, the
graduate mothers policy, propelled heavily by Lee Kuan Yew’s eugenic proclivities,
offered tax incentives to encourage women with graduate degrees to have more
children. Women with comparatively lower education qualifications were urged to
stop at two children and heavily encouraged to have only one child. The incentive
offered was a cash grant of $10,000 which was added to their social security savings
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fund.3 3 The marketing of this concept however, proved to be extremely unpopular
with the public. They registered their dissatisfaction at the polls during the 1984
general election with the PAP losing an additional 12 % of its popular vote while the
opposition garnered 37 %
The unexpected PAP performance in the general election, sparked an
introspective process whereby prominent leaders of the PAP sought to reconnect
with the Singapore populace; a populace now comprising the newer generation of
Singaporeans who had been spared the societal upheaval and unrest that ensued in
the desire for independence in the 1960s. Ever responsive to the shifting sensitivities
of its market, the PAP government launched a different phase of governance in the
1980s. According to sociologist Chua Beng Huat, the PAP, no longer wanting to be
perceived as largely interventionist, launched the concept of a communitarian
ideology, one which offered a greater dialogue and negotiation between the
Government and the people.3 5 In keeping with this more consultative style of
government, the Ministry of Community Development formally established a
Feedback Unit to encourage greater participation by the public in matters of national
interest and policy. Although the PAP government made attempts to be more
conciliatory towards its market, election results in 1988 indicated that it garnered
only 60% of the total votes cast.
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1990s: Constructing National Objects For A Knowledge-Based Economy
The 1990s saw a resurgence of the ideology of survival, but this time
couched within its next product, the knowledge-based economy. This knowledge-
based economy centered on the cultivation of intellectual capital in sectors such as
high tech industries, hospitals, research, and what the Government called
“technopreneurs”. To reorient an economic policy long focused on production with
labor and capital, the Government in 1999, apportioned approximately $500 million
to the Initiatives in New Technology grant scheme and $250 million to the
Innovation development scheme, all of which were designed to create an
environment conducive to the development of this knowledge-based economy.3 6
Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by the Government to market this
concept to its citizens was one of its own design. It had to foster a climate of risk-
taking, innovation, and positive attitudes towards failure in a population that had
long been socialized to function as an efficient, managed workforce. In an effort to
mold cultural sensitivities towards what the Government termed a “Silicon Valley
state of mind,'’ the state rationalized yet another transformation in policies like
education by offering the alluring prospect of Singapore, a small city-nation,
attaining first world economy status to become a vital node within the global web.3 7
Then Brigadier-General (NS) Yeo, Minister for Trade and Industry for
example, cited the life sciences as a key sector for growth in this knowledge-based
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economy. According to Brigadier-General (NS) Yeo, “...there is a revolution going
on which will change human life itself...we’ve got to be part of it...what we are
trying to do is to prepare our people from a young age....”3 8 To respond to this
perceived revolution, the Government, with great pragmatism, introduced sweeping
policy changes in its education policies by revamping course syllabi from primary
school to the university level to incorporate the life sciences. The Economic
Development Board, with its observation that the life sciences would be the “next
big thing after the Internet”, planned to nurture the output of this manufacturing
industry from $3.8 billion in 1998 to $10 billion annually.3 9 To further complement
both the emphasis on this growth sector, as well as the transformation of educational
policies, the Economic Development Board would begin to offer scholarships to
study life-science subjects like biology.4 0
The shift towards a more knowledge-based economy did not only involve the
Government targeting new economic growth sectors and transforming educational
policies, but also introduced the pithy notion of the technopreneur within
Singapore’s socio-cultural and economic landscapes. The Government’s
Technopreneurship 21 Concept Plan saw the development of four initiatives which
were designed to build Singapore into a “technopolis”. These initiatives were drawn
from education, regulations, financing, and facilities.4 1 The National Science and
Technology Board was the lead government agency and its goal was to encourage
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the development of this technopolis by outlining potential areas for growth such as
nurturing local technopreneurial growth by urging local university faculty members
to capitalize and commercialize their product ideas.4 2 An injection of US$1 billion
by the Singapore government in the form of the Technopreneurship Investment Fund
was announced in 1999 to meet the financing needs of fledgling high-technology
companies. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology was
established in 1999 to further reflect the Government’s desire to both create this
technopolis and furnish the necessary infrastructure to ensure its viability.
In an effort to inculcate the coveted “Silicon Valley mindset”, the National
University of Singapore and MIT in a Singapore-Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Alliance (SMA), selected 96 engineers from Asia, including 28 from
Singapore to “...turn out the technopreneurs of tomorrow..”.4 3 The National
University of Singapore further hoped to manage the production of entrepreneurs by
setting up the Centre for the Management of Innovation and Technopreneurship
which would offer a course in Technopreneurship to undergraduates. According to
the National University of Singapore, “...Apple’s Steve Jobs was said to have started
the company from the garage of his home, and the university hopes to discover some
Steve Jobs of its own by providing ‘garages’ or cheap laboratory space for budding
technopreneurs...”. 4 4 In this vein, the Silicon Valley ethos was perceived to be
transplantable and ironically enough viewed as a value that could be manufactured,
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managed, and tamed. The desire to foster technopreneurs was taken a step further in
a speech by Mr Ong Kian Min (Pasir Ris GRC) in a parliamentary session. Rooted
within a sea of analogies, he claimed,
...Look at Star Wars’ Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dirty Harry and Ram bo: ail
individualistic characters who defy authority, but who return to save
the world...They chase their own dreams but think of their own
people. These are powerful attributes of entrepeneurship...To get full
benefits from Singapore’s entrepeneurship drive, the negative side
must be managed and the positive aspects tapped....4 5
Mr Ong’s comments exemplified the ambivalent relationship with the West
and Western media that Singapore has had since the PAP’s consolidation of power.
Looking towards these cinematic characters as ideologically emblematic of the spirit
of entrepeneurship becomes increasingly problematic when transplanted onto the
Singaporean landscape. Neither Obi-Wan, Dirty Harry, nor Ram bo ever becomes
assimilated into the community. They exist as renegades, unable to be tamed, or
least of all managed. Mr Ong and the PAP government espoused a contradictory
belief that it was possible to construct a climate that not only fostered the production
of these so-called technopreneurs, but one in which these technopreneurs could be
managed and promoted as national objects. In essence, the PAP government, as a
pedagogical force, intends to co-opt and incorporate all potential performative
subjects.4 6
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The drive for a more knowledge-based economy coupled with the desire to
become a key global player has prompted the Government to introduce yet another
enticing ideological product, that of Singapore's ‘heartware’ and its millennial
ideology of Singapore 21. A product of the Singapore 21 Committee which was
established in 1997, ‘heartware’ involved “...our love for the country, our rootedness
and our sense of community and nationhood...,” qualities deemed essential for
maintaining political and national solidarity in the wake of the Government's vision
for Singapore as a global technopolis.4 7 This ‘heartware’ was an effective slogan,
made palatable by extending the communitarian ideology of the 1980s.
The Committee, through its five -sub committees, tapped the pulse of the
Singaporean public to gauge what type of society they would like to develop for the
21st century. It achieved this by organizing focus groups, discussions, and
seminars, as well as forums organized by the Feedback Unit and the Institute of
Policy Studies. The Committee highlighted five areas of concern confronting
Singaporeans and Singapore in the 21st century, which were tackled by these five
sub-committees. The sub-committees comprised approximately 10 to IS members
from various professional and civic segments of the Singaporean population
including unionists, journalists, and grassroots activists.4 8 The areas outlined
necessitated a delicate balance between intemationalization-regionalization versus
Singapore as home, a less stressful life versus retaining the drive, attracting talent
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42
versus looking after Singaporeans, the needs of senior citizens versus aspirations of
the younger generation, and perhaps most in line with the communitarian ideology,
consultation and consensus versus decisiveness and quick action.4 9
The Singapore 21 Vision, launched by Prime Minister Goh on 24 April 1999,
was the culmination of the findings of these five sub-committees which took into
account feedback by more than 6,000 Singaporeans. The resulting vision
incorporated the following values: every Singaporean matters, strong families: our
foundation and our future, opportunities for all, the Singapore heartbeat: feeling
passionately about Singapore, and active citizens: making a difference to society.5 0
True to the essence of Singapore as a city-nation, the values outlined within the
Singapore 21 Vision were still centered on tapping the economic drive, now fueled
by the emphasis on a more knowledge-based economy and encouraging the
strengthening of the Singapore “heartbeat.” In statements made to parliament after
the launch of Singapore 21, Prime Minister Goh sought to inject a “strong dose of
realism,” by arguing that Singapore 21 ought to propel the nation-building process as
Singapore could not yet be considered a nation. He ended his observations by
stating that, “we can create the Singapore tribe,” and this, in essence, reproduced the
power of the pedagogical through campaigns like Singapore 21 to interpellate
Singaporeans as national technopreneurial and civic objects to ensure a successful
knowledge-based economy.
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43
The call for active citizens, the most provocative value within Singapore 21
which could open a site where the pedagogical would exert less of a ubiquitous
presence, was tempered by Prime Minister Goh’s clearly articulated boundaries
where,
...Singaporeans will have more space for political debate, it does
not mean that the Government is vacating the arena...anyone
who wants a policy changed, or to set the national agenda, must
expect a debate with the Government...but those out to
undermine the Government or wrest political control from the
ruling party can expect an extremely robust response...the PAP
will guard its turf jealously, not for itself, but for the good of
Singapore...5 1
This guarded approach was justified along the familiar ideological trope of insecurity
that had been strategically deployed to account for policies and regulations enacted
in the 1970s and 1980s. As has been mentioned in earlier sections of this chapter
and as clearly evident from Prime Minister Gob's text, the distinctions between the
state, government, and the PAP were virtually indistinguishable and this makes the
realization of an active and potent citizenry much more tenuous. What has instead
initially emerged from this call for an active citizenry has been a citizenry more
benign and gentler in form. Singapore Kindness Movement, a civic group
established in 1997 for example, launched the Singapore Kindness Week in 1998
with the intent to encourage Singaporeans to practice acts of kindness. Prime
Minister Goh, who was asked to be its patron, stressed the importance of exhibiting
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44
kindness during the Asian economic crisis and issued a challenge for the Singapore
Kindness Movement to become “a mass movement with a strong spirit and a life of
its own...”.5 2 While the Prime Minister sought to establish clear boundaries in terms
of political discourse in Singapore, a more fluid space, that of the Internet, raised
interesting propositions for the possibilities of a civil society married to information
technology that could potentially elude the Singapore government's attempts at
control.5 3
The Government, through the Infocomm Development Authority of
Singapore (IDA), has pledged $S 25 million to ensure that every Singaporean will
have access to the Internet. One program involves working in conjunction with the
Singapore Network Information Center to supply every Singaporean aged five and
over, with his or her own e-mail address and personal website. Plans are also
underway to enable senior citizens and Singaporeans irrespective of class or
language, to participate on-line. Appropriately enough, the claim made that “...no
Singaporean will be denied access to the digital world because he is poor, does not
speak English or fears IT...,” was followed by eCelebrations Singapore, a five-week
campaign organized by the IDA to market and sell the premise that every
Singaporean ought to go on-line.5 4 Such saturation is only feasible because of
Singapore's status as a city-nation, a space small enough to be managed and
contained. The Government believes that this campaign would fulfill its vision of a
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45
techno-sawy populace, literate in the cutting edge cyber- jargon of the Internet, and
groomed to produce the next Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or a Wynthia Goh?
Wynthia Goh along with Tan Chong Kee, a Ph.D. student at Stanford, set up
the Singapore Electronic Forum, an e-version of The Straits Times forum pages in
1994 and incorporated the Singapore Electronic Forum to form the Singapore
Internet Community or SINTERCOM. SINTERCOM covers issues pertinent to
Singaporeans and is accessible to them via the Internet. Topics discussed on
Sintercom’s soc.culture.Singapore newsgroup are candid and provocative.
SINTERCOM was initially mandated to seek registration with the Singapore
Broadcasting Authority. Goh lodged a successful appeal and protested the required
registration over the Internet with a ‘Responsibility, not regulation campaign.5 5 In
effect Wynthia Goh and Tan Chong Kee’s SINTERCOM, provides a much needed
space within which Singaporeans living at home and abroad can debate, discuss, and
keep current with Singapore politics, society, and culture.
A more policy oriented civil group, The Working Committee for Civil
Society or TWC, was an initiative established via the Internet in 1998. It was
designed to achieve three key goals, after which it could potentially disband. First,
TWC worked to establish a network within which civil society activists, volunteer,
and civic groups could get in contact with each other. It also served to raise
awareness of these groups by organizing open houses and the Partnership for an
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46
Active Community fair, and finally, TWC aimed to generate discourse about the
continuing growth and development of a vibrant civil society by bringing interested
parties together in a conference on the subject in 1999. By establishing itself as a
working committee, a work yet in progress, TWC has been able to circumnavigate
the rigid demands of registering as a society, which is subject to government
regulation and oversight. The cultural climate in the late 1990s concerning the place
and space to be occupied by civil society is measured at best A member of the civic
think-tank group, The Roundtable, claimed that, “In Singapore, the state is extremely
powerful. The Government calls the shots here. Civic organizations only test rather
than determine the limits of the growth of civil society...,”5 6 Given that the
Singapore 21 policy of active citizenship was endorsed and propagated by the
Government, it remains to be seen how these limits are to be contoured in the
coming decades.
Regulating And Commodifying Cultural Production
The Government worries that a lack of creativity is blunting the
nation's competitive edge...in a break from tradition, the state is
officially allowing personal expression, even rebelliousness...in the
arts and media...so goes the hope...a feistier spirit will infect
business and technology, and keep the old edge honed....s7
As the quote suggests, there has always been an intricate and controlled relationship
between the Government’s vision for its economy and the spheres o f arts production
in general, and film production in particular. For the 1990s, the socio-cultural vision
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47
that complements the move towards a more knowledge-based economy was the
Government’s plan to mold Singapore into a Renaissance City. As with the desire to
produce and tame the “Silicon Valley” mentality, the Government expected to
nurture arts production in Singapore to cultivate the “Renaissance” spirit. The
Government began to inject the Renaissance City discourse into Singapore's socio
cultural landscape as early as 1996 with a speech by former Minister of Information
and the Arts George Yeo when he spoke about the important role knowledge and
culture would play in Singapore’s economic success in the 21st century.3 8 Other
political PAP players like Abdullah Tarmugi, Minister for Community Development,
and Deputy Prime Minister Tony Tan introduced the concept in their respective
public addresses.
By March 2000, the Government announced plans to inject $50m dollars into
arts education, activities, and groups. Despite infrastructural support for its
economic counterpart, the Technopreneur, the $50m dollars for the arts would not be
used for any arts infrastructure. As with the Technopreneurship 21 Committee, an
economic blueprint and Singapore 21, its national equivalent, the Government
released its map for arts production with its Renaissance City Report This report
which drew its vision from approximately three years of feedback and dialogue with
the arts community in Singapore, proposed two goals to fulfill and six strategies with
which to realize these aims.
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48
The first goal was to manufacture Singapore as a global city for the arts
which would be able to hold its own with urban cultural meccas like New York and
London, while the second vision, that of fostering an appreciation for the local arts
community, echoed the Government’s desire to construct a national identity that
would pulse with the Singapore heartbeat According to the Government, the
building of an arts economy and developing “flagship” arts companies, were central
to achieving these aims.3 9 In keeping with its Technopreneur vision for the economy
and the Renaissance City concept for its cultural vision, the Government announced
a set of monetary incentives to encourage the growth of both spheres. Inventors
within the technopreneurial sector viewed incentives like tax breaks from their
royalties with much more excitement then their cultural Renaissance counterparts,
the artists. According to those artists interviewed, few would qualify to receive such
tax benefits because the likelihood of obtaining royalties from their artistic works
were extremely rare.6 0
The Place O f Singaporean Film Within The Arts Economy
Although the Renaissance City Report was released in 2000, the seeds for
this vision of nurturing local arts were sown in 1987 with the Government’s desire to
turn Singapore into a “...culturally vibrant society by 1999...”.6 1 Consequently, the
Ministry of Information and the Arts (MITA) was established in 1990, an official
endorsement that the Government acknowledged the relevance and importance of the
arts along a national register. The National Arts Council (NAC) founded in 1991,
was designed to assume the functions and responsibilities of the Arts Division of
MITA, the Singapore Cultural Foundation, the Festival of the Arts Secretariat, and
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49
the National Theatre Trust.6 2 The NAC’s vision statement declared that it was to
nurture the arts and to “develop Singapore into a vibrant global city for the arts.”
This vision statement defined the arts in decidedly limited terms. Forms like music,
dance, theatre, the visual arts, photography, and literature were considered art and
therefore eligible for support. Film, however, was not officially recognized as an art
form by the NAC until 1997.
With feature films like Medium Rare (1991), Mee Pok Man (1995), and Army
Daze (1996) released and the successful Singapore International Film Festival
already in its 10th year in 1997, why then did it take the Government so long to
officially recognize film as an art form? More than the recognition that local film
production was flourishing, I argue that this move to position film as an art form was
consistent with the Government’s ideology of survival and its pragmatic beliefs. It
saw the contribution local film production could make not only in the development
of an arts economy but also politically, in sustaining the Singapore heartbeat. With
Hong Kong reverting back to Chinese rule in 1997, the Government speculated that
there could be an impending flow of incredible talent moving from Hong Kong to
Singapore that could further serve to boost Singapore’s arts economy. In order to
provide an attractive and lucrative infrastructure to tap into this perceived exodus,
the Government declared film as an art form. This imbued film with an aura of
legitimacy, and more importantly, granted it powerful institutional support
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The recognition of film as a national art form, for example, enabled aspiring
filmmakers to apply for film studies scholarships and made them eligible for arts
awards. The most prestigious award, the Cultural Medallion, long awarded to artists
within the fields of art, dance, music, theater, photography, and literature, were now
open to local filmmakers. This marked a deepening in the perception of local film as
both a business and cultural product.6 3 In 1997, the NAC donated $38,000 to the
Singapore International Film Festival to organize the Silver Screen Awards to
recognize local talented filmmakers. Finally, as part of its Arts Education
Programme, the NAC would work with organizations like the Singapore Film
Society to promote film appreciation in schools. However with an annual film fund
budget of $100,000, the NAC could not provide the much-needed film financing
local filmmakers sought.
Although talk about establishing a Singapore film commission to offer
funding for local filmmakers emerged as early as 1985. a more comprehensive
proposal was offered in 1996.6 4 Submitted in the form of a white paper by 12
Stories director Eric Khoo, his executive producer James Toh, and Lucilla Teoh, a
staff of Theatre Works, this report detailed the viability of founding a Singapore film
commission.6 5 With the government policy for an arts economy boldly declared,
MITA announced its plans to position Singapore as a film events center. To
facilitate this “Cannes of the East” concept as an important component in the growth
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51
of an arts economy, MITA established the 13 member Singapore Film Commission
(SFC) in 1998.6 6 The mandate for the SFC included nurturing local film production
and providing assistance to foreign productions who wished to use Singapore as a
film location. Falling under the auspices of the NAC, the SFC operated on a budget
of $2.5 million for its April 1999 fiscal year. It planned to offer loans of up to
$250,000 for the production of four local features and provided grants between
$5000 and $10,000 to 40 short films, internships, and scholarships.6 7 The Economic
Development Board provided a portion of the $2.5 million, along with MITA and the
Singapore Tourism Board.
The Economic Development Board (EDB)’s involvement with the Singapore
Film Commission was not its first foray into the film production scene. According
to Tan and Soh, in their book, The Development of Singapore’s Modem Media
Industry, the 1985 economic recession prompted the Government to look into other
sectors of commerce in order to diversify its economy. The Economic Committee
Report subsequently targeted creative services like film, music, media, design, arts,
and entertainment, as potential sectors for investment and growth.6 8 Prompted by
the findings, the EDB set up the Creative Services Strategic Business Unit (later
renamed the Creative Business Programme) in 1990 to these industries, of which
film production was viewed as a business investment rather than a cultural product.
To attract foreign film companies into Singapore, the Creative Business Programme
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52
offered eligible companies pioneer status. Incentives accorded to pioneer status
companies included tax incentives and training grants.6 9 The EDB further hoped to
offer adequate infrastructure for the film industry by providing labor skilled in
technical production and post-production skills. It had initially planned on setting up
an Academy for Creative Training Singapore (ACTS), but opted for a more
decentralized alternative with the founding of Ngee Ann’s diploma course in Film,
Sound, Video (FSV) in 1993.7 0
With Ngee Ann Polytechnic projected to spend $7 million over the next five
years to provide the necessary manpower for the video, film, and sound industries,
the Economic Development Board decided to instead, offer support for the course
with scholarships and contacts with foreign film companies and expertise.7 1
According to Daisy Goh, director of the Creative Business Programme,
Instead of EDB being involved in the training, we have collaborated
with the polytechnics and asked them to take over the priority
areas...It’s more efficient to use existing facilities and build on that
rather than duplicating various areas of training and nurturing... . 7 2
Ngee Ann’s commitment to the industry extended to offering a screenwriting
laboratory in conjunction with the Singapore Film Commission in 1998. These
screenwriting labs, open to the general public, included a seminar on “Alternative
Scriptwriting: Beyond the Formula.” Ngee Ann was not the only institution to
position film within an academic arena. The Mass Communications Department of
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53
the National University of Singapore was transferred to the Nanyang Technological
University to become a part of the School of Communication Studies in 1993. This
move to integrate arts education and film studies within a school curriculum could
not merely serve the machinery of an arts economy. According to pioneer
playwright Kuo Pao Kun, “...If we recognize the urgency of righting the lop-sided
national development where the arts and humanities have been too long
disregarded...than not a day should be delayed in launching a national arts education
scheme...”.7 3 Two years later, the Government in 1998, began feasibility studies for
an arts institute at the National University of Singapore with the opportunity to earn
a degree in the visual and performing arts. This signaled a shift in which the arts,
long regarded as peripheral to the national interest, would be legitimized as viable
and productive career options.7 4
The local arts community has existed, flourished, and continued to test
personal, political, and national boundaries and limits in spite of and much earlier
than the Government’s attempts to boost an arts economy in the 1990s. This vision
is most effectively articulated in a 1996 speech by ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh
when he likened Singapore’s goal to become a vibrant cultural and artistic mecca
akin to London and Sydney by 2020 to Singapore’s realized goal of reaching the
1984 Swiss standard of living by 1999. Ong Keng Sen, for example, was a New
York University Tisch School of the Arts educated Singaporean playwright who
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adapted Shakespeare’s King Lear by infusing it with strains of Asian art forms. It
hybridized, for example, a Beijing Opera performer with a Japanese Noh actor. King
Lear proved to be an incredible critical success. Ironically however, Ong could not
obtain any funding from the National Arts Council. The Japan Foundation funded
Ong’s play instead for approximately $3 million. Desdemona, Ong’s second
Shakespearean adaptation, obtained funding from the Adelaide Festival, the
Singapore Arts Festival, and received $80,000 from the National Arts Council 7 5 It
was only when Ong won international acclaim for his first Shakespeare production,
that any local financial support from government bodies was forthcoming. In
Desdemona, Ong successfully explores the negotiation between the local
(Singapore), regional (Asia), and global (the West). Desdemona drew from 10
visual and performing artists from five Asian countries with a script collaboration
between Ong and Japanese playwright Rio Kishida.7 6 Ong captures a sense of local
flavor in that he has, “...abstracted the confusing melange of Singapore into a
form....”7 7
The government has begun to capitalize on the successes of its local artists,
like Ong, to build its arts economy. Under the auspices o f the Singapore
International Foundation, the government launched a new grant program, Singapore
Internationale in 2000 which would “...support the projection and expression of the
Singaporean image, identity, and outlook around the world...”.7 8 Ong was its first
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55
recipient with Desdemona. Ong’s experiences problematizes the dialogue between
the performative and the pedagogical, suggesting perhaps, the interdependence
between the two, and the precarious balance between asserting one’s artistic vision
and being co-opted as yet another cog in the driving PAP arts economy.
Legislating Culture: Censorship, Copyright, And The Films Act
“...If creativity strengthens us, it’s marvelous...if it weakens us, we’ve got to manage
it....”7 9
...His cultural prognosis was that among Singaporeans ‘there has
been a clear shift’ from communitarianism to individualism and by
extension to Western values, which would imply a risk o f declining
economic competitiveness...room is thus made for the concepts
‘vulnerability’ and ‘survival’ prevalent in Singapore's initial
political idiom to be transferred to the cultural discourse....
The struggle for the 1990s with the Government’s call for an arts economy
and the development of a Renaissance city or a global city for the arts has been to
balance this notion of a Singaporean cultural identity with the liberalization and
modernization needed to produce this so-called arts economy and Renaissance city
within the city-nation. As former Minister for Information and the Arts BG George
Yeo so aptly articulated in 1992, that in the expression of cultural policy
“...censorship is not simply a matter of enforcement; it is also a public declaration of
what we want our society to be...”.8 0 If Singapore were to be this global arts city and
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maintain the balance of values outlined in Singapore 21, censorship laws needed to
be shaped accordingly.
The Board of Film Censors (BFC), who mandate encompassed both
international and domestic films, was established with the enactment of the
Cinematograph Films Ordinance in 1953. The Ministry of Home Affairs was given
responsibility for censorship after Singapore achieved internal self-government in
1959.8 1 In 1963, the BFC became part of the Ministry of Culture (currently known
as the Ministry for Information and the Arts). The BFC consequently assumed the
responsibility of censoring videotapes, videodiscs, and cassette films following the
amendment of the Cinematograph Films Act in May 1979.8 2 The video market was
not spared legislative scrutiny and it became subject to regulation via a licensing
system with the enactment of the Films Act in 1981. The BFC served to censor
these materials not only at the level of public exhibition, but within the spheres of
sale, hire, and circulation. Furthermore, the BFC extended its mandate to include the
censorship of publicity materials, the vetting of scripts for films produced in
Singapore, and to oversee the licensing of video companies who dealt with
videotapes.8 3 The BFC could either choose to ban a film or video or approve it
with or without cuts. Despite seemingly rigorous censorship standards, certain films
and videos were either exempt from censorship or enjoyed a more liberal
enforcement. Video categories declared exempt include documentaries, training and
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57
educational videos, personal recordings, cartoons for children, and pre-1966 films
produced in certain selected countries.8 4
Couched within the ideology of survival, the breadth and shape of censorship
laws functioned as a form of cultural policy to ensure that core values like religious
harmony and filial piety were preserved. According to David Birch in his article,
“Film and Cinema in Singapore: Cultural Policy as Control,” this expression of
cultural policy serves as a pragmatic solution to the ideology of survival by
functioning to maintain and exert an Asian and Singaporean national identity when
faced with a “...rapidly modernizing -liberalizing world....”8 5 The Government
called for a censorship review committee in 1991 to examine censorship policies of
the time. The most sweeping change was the introduction of a film classification
system that replaced the single tier classification system in operation until 1991. The
single tier classification enabled the BFC to pass films which were accessible to all
members of the public. Scenes like Sally’s orgasm in When Harry Met Sally or
Jodie Foster’s rape sequence in The Accused were excised. The films were bereft of
context by being made universally passable through the single tier classification
system. The classification system introduced in 1991 produced four categories. G
for general viewing, PG for parental guidance, NC-16 which prohibited children
under the age of 16 from attending, and R (A) Restricted Artistic for adults aged 21
and above.
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The Censorship Review Committee, in an effort to extend the Government’s
Singapore 21 value of consensus and consultation, called for greater public
involvement in constructing censorship policies and argued for more stringent
censorship standards for television, a mass medium. The nine member Films
Appeals Committee comprised members from grassroots organizations, members of
the general public, and representatives of Singapore’s majority ethnic communities.
Each member is appointed by the Ministry of Information and the Arts and must
serve for one year. The Committee serves as a check and balance for the BFC. Any
owner of a film or video who disagrees with the findings of the BFC can lodge an
appeal with the Committee. Their decision is final and the Committee can also exert
the power to approve, recommend cuts, or classify any objectionable portions of a
film or video.8 6 A further 56 member Film Advisory Panel, established in 1982, was
similarly comprised of the general public who would advise the BFC on censorship
issues and offer feedback on controversial films. Members of this panel serve for
two years and are likewise appointed by the Ministry of Information and the Arts.8 7
The ambivalent relationship between Asian values and the West is not only observed
within the arena of censorship, but is strongly illustrated in the rhetoric describing
the Singapore film industry.
Terms like Hollywood o f the East, and Cannes o f the East color the frame of
the disjunctural narrative in the 1990s. Hollywood of the East was a label attached
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to the Singapore film industry in the early 90s. The Economic Development Board
(EDB) offered extremely enticing incentives to foreign film companies to invest and
utilize Singapore’s production / post-production infrastructure.8 8 According to
government policy, Singapore was to function as a “...regional support center for
foreign companies, providing technical and manpower services.” 8 9 The Singapore
film industry was positioned within government rhetoric to offer production / post
production services and to look towards the region, Europe, and the United States for
business and investment opportunities.
The shift in terminology from “Hollywood of the East” to “Cannes of the
East” occurred largely in the mid-1990s when the Government realized that
Singapore would prove to be too small to function as an effective center of
production. In accordance with the Singapore government’s policy of positioning
itself as a global arts center, a move that the Government hoped would secure
Singapore a unique niche within Southeast Asia as a premiere distribution and
exhibition center for Asian films. As a visible presence and icon, the Cannes Film
Festival became the next model in the film industry’s projected development. In the
early 1990s, the Singapore International Film Festival, established in 1987, was
largely thought to develop into a Cannes-like festival, gaining prestige and
popularity through time. Lino Brocka, a prominent Filipino filmmaker and judge for
the Singapore International Film Festival in 1991, stated that, “...Singapore is the
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best place to be the Cannes of the East, as the film festival is actively supported by
the Government and well-organized.”9 0 Sharing in this vision o f Singapore as a
Cannes of the East, is the Singapore Film Commission which was established in
1998 by the Ministry of Information and the Arts. Among its many mandates is to
"...promote Singapore as a Films Event Center in the mold of the Cannes Film
Festival...”.9 1 This is the current rhetoric and it remains to be seen whether the
industry will rise to the level of its official government moniker.
The disjunctural narrative moment in the 1990s involves not only a re-
imagining of the industry in terms of production, distribution, and exhibition, but
also a re-casting of Singapore within a colonial and seductively oriental space.
Singapore, as the Hollywood of the East, suggests an unsuccessful, yet blissful
attempt to usurp Hong Kong' premiere position within the Asian market. It further
embraces the practices and politics of a Hollywood mode of production and it is this
alignment of Singapore within the neo-colonial cultural space that is precisely what
General Yeo cautioned against in his ASEAN ministerial speech mentioned earlier.
Perhaps most problematically of all is the geographical re-imagining of Singapore in
a mythic and monolithic East In truth, Singapore’s majority Chinese population lies
in a Muslim dominated region in Southeast Asia. The monikers of Hollywood and
Cannes of the East thus re-draw Singapore not only along geographical boundaries,
but along racial and national ones as well. Underneath the placid surface of the
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61
disjunctural narrative (of which Hollywood and Cannes of the East are a part),
seethes the elusive search for a Singaporean cultural identity that must negotiate
between Asian specificity and the degree to which the West functions as a standard
that Singapore must continually measure itself against.
In order to grapple with these intricacies of Singapore filmmaking and image
culture, I adopt a model that revolves around three main spheres: studio,
independent, and grassroots. These terms oscillate and respond to shifts in the socio
cultural and political climate of Singapore. While the disjunctural narrative focuses
primarily on the pedagogical or level of official policy, my narrative incorporates the
notion of the performative, where filmmakers operate in an indeterminate, interstitial
zone of cultural production to explore the tensions oscillating between globalization,
cultural identity, regional identity, cultural memory, heritage, race, class, and
language.
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' I am grateful to Marsha Kinder for making this point
1 Brig-Gen (NS) George Yeo, “Asia must contest West’s domination of world media,” The Straits
Times 20 Dec. 1993:28.
3 Brig-Gen (NS) George Yeo, “Asia must contest West’s domination of world media,” The Straits
Times 20 Dec. 1993: 29.
4 My thanks to Marsha for bringing this to my attention and for suggesting this comment.
s Homi Bhabha, “DissemiNation: time, narrative, and the margins of the modern nation,” Nation and
Narration, ed. Homi Bhabha (London: Routledge, 1990) 299.
6 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1819 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
248. I am drawing the political history o f Singapore largely from C. M Turnbull’s seminal work. It is
meticulously researched and offers a more balanced representation of the People’s Action Party.
Please also refer to the following for further reading: Singapore 1997 (Singapore: Ministry of
Information and the Arts, 1997), Chua Beng-Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in
Singapore (London: Routledge, 1995), and Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A
Developmental City State (Chichester John Wiley & Sons, 1997).
7 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1 8 1 9 - 1 988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
252.
* This was the third such mission to Britain. See, C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1819-
1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989) 261.
9 C. M. Turnbull, A History o f Singapore: 1819 - 1 988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
261.
1 0 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1819 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
263.
" C. M. Turnbull, A History o f Singapore: 18 1 9 - 1 988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press. 1989)
264.
1 2 C. M. Turnbull, A History o f Singapore: 1819-1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
266.
1 3 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1 8 1 9 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
267.
1 4 C. M. Turnbull, A History o f Singapore: 1819 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
272.
1 5 C. M. Turnbull, A History o f Singapore: 1819 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
270.
1 6 C. M. Turnbull, A History o f Singapore: 1819 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
272.
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63
1 7 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1 8 19 - 1 988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
273.
1 8 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 18 1 9 - 1 988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
273.
1 9 Terms of merger included the following: (a) Singapore was given IS seats in the 127 member
legislature, ( b) Singapore was able to keep her executive government and Assembly, as well as her
own head-of-state, (c) a separate Public Services Commission, and (d) payment to the central
government of 40% of Singapore’s income from taxes. See, C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore:
1819 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989) 274.
:° C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1819-1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
278.
2 1 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1819 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
278.
2 2 C. M. Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1819 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
281.
2 3 Upon hearing that the Federation of Malaya was successful in its bid for independence in 19S7, the
Singapore Legislative Assembly, who was lobbying for Singapore’s own emancipation, sent this
message, “We of Singapore look forward to that day when our strength will be added to your strength
and our separation will be ended " ( italics are my own emphasis). See, C. M. Turnbull, A History
of Singapore: 1819-1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989) 260.
241 am again grateful to Marsha for this suggestion.
2 8 Chan Heng Chee, and Hans-Dieter Evers, “National Identity and Nation Building in Singapore,”
Studies in ASEAN Sociology: Urban Society and Social Change, eds. Peter S. J Chen, and Hans-
Dieter Evers (Singapore: Chopmen Enterprises, 1978) 117 - 129.
2 6 Martin Peny, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv-State (Chichester.
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 10.
2 7 Martin Periy, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv-State (Chichester.
John Wiley & Sons. 1997) 6.
2 8 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv-State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 6.
2 9 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv-State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 6.
3 0 Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London: Routledge,
1995) 19.
3 1 Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London: Routledge,
1995) 5.
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64
3 2 Philippe Regnier, Singapore: Citv-State in South-East Asia trans. Christopher Hurst (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1991) 241.
3 3 Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London: Routledge,
1995)21.
3 4 Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London: Routledge,
1995)21.
3 5 Chua Beng Huat, Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London: Routledge,
1995) 7.
3 6 Narendra Aggarwal, “Knowledge-based economy gets $750m boost,” The Straits Times Weekly
Edition 23 Jan. 1999: 24.
3 7 See, “Target: A ‘first-world economy’ for S’pore,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 28 Aug.
1999: 6.
3 * Salma Khalik, “Life-sciences push to start in primary school,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition
25 Mar. 2000: 1 .
3 < > Narendra Aggarwal, “EDB out to sell ‘the next big thing’,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 1 1
Dec 1999: 24.
4 0 Salma Khalik, “Life-sciences push to start in primary school,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition
25 Mar. 2000: I. The interplay between education and the Internet has also received renewed
attention. Raffles Institution, a premiere academic institution in Singapore, offered virtual classes
during one week of school. This access to the Internet was fostered by SingaporeOne, a high-speed
broadband network, and CommonTown, a local software package that afforded the opportunities for
the students to create their virtual school. Raffles Institution principal Wong Siew Hoong stated that
this project, “...is to prepare students for the challenges of the 21st century; an integral part of that will
be independent and life-long learning...no doubt IT (information technology) will play a big part...”.
See, Sandra Davie, “RI to become a virtual school after June holidays,” The Straits Times Weekly
Edition 22 May. 1999: 2.
4 1 Geoffrey Pereira, “Easier now to start high-technology firms,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition
3 Jul. 1999: 1.
4 2 Samantha Santa Maria, “NSTB to lead Singapore in technopolis campaign,” The Straits Times
Weekly Edition 12 Jun. 1999: 7.
4 3 Sandra Davie, “96 picked for MIT, S’pore scheme,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 1 May.
1999: 7.
4 4 Sandra Davie, “Techno Street to roll out at NUS campus,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 6
Mar. 1999: 1.
4 5 “Wanted: An Obi-Wan Kenobi,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 1 1 Mar. 2000: 6.
4 6 My thanks to Marsha Kinder for this suggestion.
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65
4 7 Walter Fernandez, ‘‘New panel set up to help make S’pore global city,” The Straits Times Weekly
Edition 25 Oct. 1997: 1.
4 4 Walter Fernandez, “Panel to get views of as many people as possible,” The Straits Times Weekly
Edition 25 Oct 1999: 5.
4 9 Walter Fernandez, “New panel set up to help make S’pore global city,” The Straits Times Weekly
Edition 25 O ct 1999: I.
5 0 “Conference Summary,” 2 Jul. 1999: 5.
5 1 Chua Mui Hoong, “Let ideas bloom, says PM Goh," The Straits Times Weekly Edition 16 O ct
1999: 1.
3 2 “PM urges 'kindness’ revolution for S’pore,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 14 Nov. 1998: 4.
3 3 The potential growth o f a civil society in Singapore has generated much discourse. Then
Information and the Arts Minister George Yeo recognized the need to promote the development of
civic groups in 1991. The National University o f Singapore hosted a forum that was organized by the
NUS Political Science Society in March 1998. Attended by more than 300 undergraduates and
faculty members, the forum entitled, “Is there a future for civil society in Singapore?”, featured four
speakers. Dr. Gopal Baratham, one of the featured speakers, argued that even though there was a
modicum of fear and apathy within the population, there were enough “cracks in the system which
individuals or groups o f them could use to their advantage...”. Other volunteer and civic minded
organizations in Singapore include the Association of Women of Action and Research (Aware) which
lobbied to amend the Women’s Charter in relation to provisions concerning domestic violence, Action
for Aids (AFA), worked to disseminate knowledge and clear misconceptions about Aids and HIV. and
The Roundtable, a think-tank comprised of professionals who felt that any group should engage in
political commentary without having to start a political party. The Association o f Muslim
Professionals or AMP, formed in 1990 as a result of the dissatisfaction with the growth of the Malay
community, was one solely begun by Muslim-Singaporean citizens and offers an alternative to
Mendaki, an organization established by the Government. See, “Room for civil society to grow here,
say speakers,” The Straits Times 18 Mar. 1998: 37 and Zuraidah Ibrahim, “What grows beneath the
hanvan tree?” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 9 May. 1998: 14. The Institute of Policy Studies
organized a conference on civil society as well in 1998.
3 4 Chang Ai-Lien, “$25 m so you, too, can go online,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 4 Mar.
2000: 2. The campaign is still on going.
3 3 Jaime Ee, “Making connections count,” The Business Times 22 Jan. 1998: 12.
3 6 Zuraidah Ibrahim, “What grows beneath the banyan tree?” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 9
May. 1999: 14.
3 7 G. Pascal Zachary, “Singapore hopes relaxing rules will help economy,” The Asian Wall Street
Journal 3 Jun. 1999. Page number not available.
5 1 Kelvin Tong, “Show me the money,” The Sunday Times: Sunday Plus 29 Aug. 1999: 2 - 3.
3 9 The other four strategies are to nurture Singaporeans through arts education, groom talent by
offering scholarships, providing arts facilities, and promoting local artists overseas and strengthening
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66
cultural relations with other countries. See, Lydia Lim, “A $50m boost for the arts,” The Straits
Times Weekly Edition 11 Mar. 2000: 1. See also T. Sasitharan, "A bridge not too far,” The
Sunday Times Focus I Mar. 1998: 10, for a discussion of the Asia-Europe Cultural Forum held in
1998.
4 0 “Inventors cheer, but artists are unmoved,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 4 Mar. 2000: 4.
6 1 Malini Rajendran, “Artistic leap of faith," Asia Magazine 6 - 8 Feb. 1998: 10.
4 2 Singapore (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, 1994) 244.
6 3 Sandi Tan, “$100,000 boost for Singapore filmmakers,” The Straits Times: Life At Large 13 Dec.
1996: L10.
4 4 For more information see the following: Business Times Weekend Edition 1 - 2 Aug 1992, Toh
Han Shih, “Films in search of funding,” Business Times Weekend Edition 7 Dec. 1996: ELI - EL
2, and Ben Munroe, “Lights, Camera, Direction,” Business Times Weekend Edition 1 6 -1 7 Aug.
1997: EL I.
0 5 Sandi Tan, “$100,000 boost for Singapore filmmakers,” The Straits Times: Life At Large 13 Dec.
1996: L10.
4 6 The current members as of 1999 are listed as follows: Mr. Chong Wing Hong, Lead Writer for the
Chinese newspaper Lianhe Zhaobao, Ms. Meileen Choo, CEO of Cathay Organisation, Mr. Lim
Chwee Seng, Director of Industry Development for the Singapore Tourism Board, Mr. Geoff Malone,
Chairman of the Singapore international Film Festival, Ms. Pearl Samuel, Station Manager for
Passion 99.5, Mr. Harold Shaw, Managing Director for Shaw Organisation, Mr. Basir Siswo, Senior
Assistant / Vice President for STV12 (Prime), Mr. Tan Chek Ming Director for the Services
Development Division of the Economic Development Board, Mr. Kenneth Tan. Chairman of the
Singapore Film Society, Dr. Victor Valbuena, Head of the Film and Media Studies at Ngee Ann
Polytechnic, and Mr. Woon Tai Ho, Vice President of the Information and Business Channel at the
Television Corporation of Singapore. Dr. K I Sudderruddin and Christine Lim were listed as Director
and Deputy Director of the SFC. See the SFC website: www.sfc.org/sg/people.htm.
4 7 Kelvin Tong “Loans for four feature films,” The Straits Times: Life 22 Aug. 1998. Page number
not available.
“ Tan Yew Soon and Soh Yew Peng The Development o f Singapore’s Modem Media Industry
(Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1994) 129.
4 9 Claire Low, “New incentives in the offing to help film industry,” Business Times 8 Mar. 1991.
Page number not available. According to Tan Yew Soon and Soh Yew Peng, Tang Dynasty Village
was developed by Hong Kong television mogul Deacon Chiu in 1992. It cost approximately $70
million dollars and was designed as a theme park and movie studio complex, Tlien Singapore
Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) joined in the fray to build Tuas Television World. Scheduled for
completion in 1992, Tuas Television World was hailed as “...one of the world's largest television
backlots for film production...” See, Tan Yew Soon and Soh Yew Peng The Development of
Singapore’s Modem Media Industry (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1994) 131.
7 0 Tan Yew Soon, and Soh Yew Peng, The Development of Singapore’s Modem Media Industry
(Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1994) 133.
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7 1 “Ngee Ann Poly to spend $7m to train people for video and film industry,” The Straits Times 3
Feb. 1993. No page number available.
7 2 J. Goh, “Plans for specialist arts academy shelved,” The Straits Times 12 Dec. 1992. No page
number available.
7 3 Koh Buck Song, “An arts scene on par with these cities by 2020,” The Straits Times: Life at large
9 Apr. 1996: L3.
7 4 Leong Weng Kam, “LaSalle, Nafa welcome new arts institute,” The Straits Times 29 Apr. 1998:
34.
7 5 Clarissa Oon, “She is unstable," The Straits Times 27 Apr. 2000: 4.
7 6 Clarissa Oon, “She is unstable,” The Straits Times 27 Apr. 2000): 4.
7 7 Parvathi Nayar, “Ong Keng Sen speaks his mind,” The Business Times 8 Jul. 2000: EL3.
7 8 “Showing the world who we are,” Singapore Sept. - Oct. 2000: 30.
” G. Pascal Zachary, “Singapore hopes relaxing rules will help economy,” The Asian Wall Street
Journal 3 Jun. 1999. Page number not available.
8 0 Cherian George. “Tougher stand on films and TV.” The Straits Times 19 O ct 1992. Page
number not available.
S l “Singapore country paper on censorship and market access o f film/video in ASEAN region,”
Conference on censorship and market access of film/ video in the ASEAN region Jakarta. 2 3 -2 5
Sept 1996: 1.
8 2 “Singapore country paper on censorship and market access of film/video in ASEAN region,”
Conference on censorship and market access of film/ video in the ASEAN region Jakarta. 23 - 25
Sept. 1996: I.
8 3 Tan Yew Soon and Soh Yew Peng, The Development of Singapore’s Modem Media Industry
(Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1994) 151. In a further advisory capacity, the BFC consulted
with the Customs and Excise Department, Postal Department, and the Imports and Exports Office
about the release and importation of video discs, cassette films, films, and videotapes. Finally the
BFC was also to oversee the licensing of cinemas showing Restricted (Artistic) films.
8 4 See, “Singapore country paper on censorship and market access of film/video in ASEAN region,”
Conference on censorship and market access of film/ video in the ASEAN region Jakarta, 2 3 -2 5
Sept. 1996: 5-6.
8 5 David Birch, “Film and Cinema in Singapore: Cultural Policy as Control,” Film Policy:
International. National and Regional Perspectives, ed. Albert Moran (London: Routledge, 1996)
200.
8 6 Felix Soh, “Community has last word on films, not government censors,” The Straits Times I
Sept. 1992. Page number not available.
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68
8 7 See, “Singapore country paper on censorship and market access of film/video in ASEAN region,"
Conference on censorship and market access of film/ video in the ASEAN region Jakarta, 23 - 25
Sept. 1996: 4 and Tan Yew Soon, and Soh Yew Peng, The Development of Singapore’s Modem
Media Industry (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1994) 151-152.
8 8 The Economic Development Board was formed in 1961. It is part of the Ministry of Trade and
Industry and is the most powerful economic promotion agency in Singapore. See, Martin Perry, Lily
Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv-State (Chichester John Wiley & Sons,
1997) 120.
8 9 Jennifer Lien, and Jaime Ee, “Getting our act together,” The Business Times 11-12 May. 1991:
130.
9 0 “Singapore can be Cannes of the East, says film director,” The Straits Times 3 Apr. 1991. Page
number not available.
9 1 Kelvin Tong, “Singapore, the Cannes of the East?” The Straits Times 28 Apr. 1998. Page number
not available.
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69
Chapter Two: Per(form)uig Film History
“The important point is that most historical sequences can be emplotted in a number
of different ways, so as to provide different interpretations of those events and to
endow them with different meanings.”1
...Except in the historical perspective...Singapore has not come in
for much discussion, mainly because feature film production has all
but ceased...As late as 1977, four local outfits brought out eight
films, chief of which was Chong Gay, who made three. Other
producers that year were Singapore Feature Productions, Malaysian
Film Distributors, and Cinema Centre Productions....2
Framing The Questions
This chapter conceptualizes a narrative of Singapore film history that offers
an alternative to the canonical disjunctural narrative, a narrative that continues to be
reproduced and reiterated by Western and Singaporean media scholars and the PAP
government.3 The narrative that I construct redefines the term “film industry” to
incorporate non-studio or non-institutional modes of production.
This approach is linked to a more fluid understanding of production one that
probiematizes these privileged filmmaking activities and provides an account of
video production by Singaporeans in the 1980s, a phase that has been almost totally
effaced by the disjunctural narrative. My recuperation of the 1980s suggests that
Singaporeans were defining their national, cultural, and physical landscapes through
the use of moving images much earlier than the disjunctural narrative posits. This
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70
intense flurry of video production in the 1980s signaled an emerging Singaporean
cinema within the larger backdrop of the Singapore film industry, an industry
populated by post-production houses and foreign films (American, Hong Kong,
Indian, etc.)- Production, as I use the term, encompasses three spheres of
filmmaking: institutional (studio), independent, and grassroots. These spheres are
dynamic and diachronic, fluctuating in content and form, across various historical
moments.
This narrative spans from 1950 to 1999, and highlights the interplay of these
three spheres across the golden studio era of the 1950s, the late 1950s and early
1960s, when ideological and nationalist seeds for independence were being sown,
and through the continual process of developing and nurturing a national
Singaporean imaginary from 1965 to 1999. These spheres and the performative
narrative I propose serves to place film within an interstitial space of cultural
production where the forces of the pedagogical and the performative battle for
articulation and representation.
/ 950s: The Golden Studio Era
As outlined in the previous chapter, Singapore and Malaysia faced both
political and social upheavals in their quest for independence from the British. The
Malayan film industry, propelled by the dominant vision of two studios, Shaw’s
Malay Film Productions or MFP and Cathay-Keris, reached its peak during this
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71
turbulent moment. The Malay films produced by MFP and Cathay-Keris, flourished
within the context of rising Malay cultural nationalism which was sparked off by the
perception of a mounting Chinese chauvinism in the 1950s. With its celebration of
the indigenous language and rich Malay folklore and legends, the Malay film served
as a vehicle through which Malays could exert and celebrate their cultural identity.
The market for these films comprised primarily the region of Malaya and included
the Babas, a culture of Straits-bom Chinese who spoke Malay.4 These Malay films,
however, also bore the cross cultural imprint of many acting, technical, and
directorial talents imported by the MFP and Cathay-Keris, from countries such as
India and the Philippines. This cosmopolitan imprint was to foreshadow the state of
Singapore cinema in the 1990s with its many co-productions and aesthetic and
technical influences from Hong Kong and Australia. This stable infrastructure of
vertically integrated studios, led by pioneers Shaw and Cathay, ensured both the
steady output of Malay films, and the formidable presence of Shaw and Cathay
within Singapore’s cinematic landscape for almost fifty years.
Sowing the Seeds fo r the Studio System: Shaw's MFP and Cathay-Keris
Shaw Brothers
Runme and Run Run, businessmen from Shanghai, realized the potential of film as a
product with an infinite capacity for profit. They formed the Unique Film Company
around 1926 and produced Chinese films to meet the increasing local demand for
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72
filmed entertainment.5 In 1926, the brothers left Shanghai for Malaya to embark on
a venture to screen silent Chinese films. They wisely began to tap into the growing
population of Chinese laborers who had left mainland China to enter the burgeoning
job market in Malaya. When the talkies arrived in 1930, the Shaw Brothers made
arrangements to exhibit Eddie Dowling's The Rainbow Man, the first talkie to arrive
in Malaya. It was extremely well received by audiences and was influential in
enlarging the market for the exhibition and distribution of American, British, and
Indian films. By the late 1930s, the Shaw Brothers were well-versed in the
distribution and exhibition of films.6
Laila Majnun (1933) was the first feature-length Malay film produced for
the local cinemas and was adapted from a Sanskrit folklore about two ill-fated lovers
separated by objections from their families.7 The producer, an independent named
Chistry and the director, B. S Rajhans, were both Indian nationals.8 The cast of
Laila Majnun was recruited from the Bangsawan with great success. The actors
were already trained and versatile and the film could tap into the loyal following that
the Bangsawan cast already enjoyed within the Malay community. Realizing the
growth potential for Malay films as demonstrated by the mass appeal of Laila
Majnun, the Shaw Brothers began to produce Malay films with initial directors
recruited from Shanghai.9 The plans for vertical integration with legitimate studio
facilities and infrastructural support was curtailed by the advent of WWII and
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73
subsequently, the Japanese Occupation. After the Occupation ended in 1946, the
Shaw Brothers resumed their plans to vertically integrate and formed the Malay Film
Productions or MFP in 1947.
MFP, located at 8 Jalan Ampas, Singapore, was a complete studio containing
a processing laboratory, production office, three stages (Studio 8, Studio 9a, and
Studio 9b), a storage facility, and six rows of single storied terrace houses,
approximately 500 square feet, for those actors and crew under contract.1 0 Malays
Arts Film Production, the company owned by Chistry released Seruan Merdeka,
directed by B. S Rajhans in 1947. The company soon folded because it could not
compete with the steady and popular output of the MFP or find a suitable exhibition
venue." MFP’s first film, Singapura Di Waktu Malam, was released in 1947.
Unlike Malays Arts Film Production, the Shaw Brothers did not encounter
difficulties in securing premiere exhibition locales because of their extensive
involvement in the business of distribution and exhibition since the 1920s. Spurred
on and encouraged by the success of the film, MFP began to produce more Malay
films, thus reaching its zenith in the 1950s. The competition for box-office receipts
came not from Malay Arts Film Production, but from Cathay-Keris instead.
Cathay-Keris
The history of Cathay-Keris is intimately linked with the figures of Ho Ah
Loke and Loke Wan Tho.1 2 Ho Ah Loke owned the Oriental in Ipoh, Malaysia, and
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as the Shaw Brothers had done so many years earlier, began acquiring cinemas in
Taiping, Teluk Intan, and Kampur. In 1934, he sold his interests to Runme Shaw.
Ho, however, once bitten, could not give up the film bug. He signed a fifteen year
lease on the Odeon in Kuala Lumpur and two more Odeons in Ipoh and Penang.1 3
Ho Ah Loke, now having experienced the exhilaration of exhibition and distribution,
sought to expand into production, thereby wishing to become vertically integrated.
He met with Loke Wan Tho in 1948 and became the director of Associated,
International, and Loke Theaters, as well as head of the Film Booking Department.1 4
Ho entered the fray of production with the establishment of Keris Productions. Its
first film, Buloh Perindu (1953), was the first Malay film to be shot in color.1 3
Keris Productions had a makeshift studio in Tempenis. Singapore, where most of its
productions were shot.1 6
In 1953, Loke Wan Tho and Ho Ah Loke merged to form Cathay-Keris. The
studio facilities were transferred from the studio in Tempenis to a new site on East
Coast Road in Singapore. The Cathay-Keris studio, like MFP, possessed a
processing lab, sound studios, living quarters for actors and crew, offices, and a
canteen. In 1958, Tom Hodge became the Executive Producer at Cathay-Keris and
Managing Director of Cathay Film Services Ltd. or CFS.1 7 Hodge had originally
formed CFS in 1957 to make advertising, public relations, and documentary films.
Loke Wan Tho could not have anticipated the impact Tom Hodge would exert on
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75
Cathay-Keris. Loke eventually discovered that funds earmarked for feature film
productions were instead requisitioned for the production of CFS documentaries.
In an effort to subsidize Cathay-Keris’s profit loss, Loke Wan Tho began
producing Chinese-language features and rented Cathay-Keris’s studio facilities to
foreign filmmakers. Cathay-Keris’s technicians and crew were utilized to produce
Your Shadow Is Mine or Cast The Same Shadow, a Singaporean-French co
production written by Elizabeth Comber. The film about an interracial love story
was a box-office flop and did nothing to improve Cathay-Keris’s financial
position.1 8 Undaunted, Cathay-Keris served as production headquarters for
Columbia Pictures, with its film, The Virgin Soldiers, directed by John Dexter. It
was a prescient film given the nature of the political climate at the time. The film
was an adaptation of Leslie Thomas’s novel which focused on British troops in
Malaya during the 1948 - 1952 Communist insurgency. Loke Wan Tho eventually
declined further offers for co-productions and announced that Cathay would continue
to distribute, exhibit, and through its studios in Singapore and Hong Kong, produce
its own films.1 9 Plans for setting up a studio in Hong Kong, were initially proposed
when, in 1959, Loke Wan Tho announced that the studio [Cathay-Keris] would
produce Chinese language features,
...in keeping with the progress of the country...As the Federation
had already gained its independence and Singapore has been granted
self-government, the country should have its own independent
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76
culture. The motion picture is the best medium to advance this
purpose...2 0
Wan Tho had tapped, perhaps unwittingly, into the currents of racial and ethnic
tension seething beneath the search for independence. He likened the production of
Chinese films to “independent culture”, thus raising the perceived specter of Chinese
dominance feared by many Malays, especially those in the now independent
Federation. Perhaps as powerful a statement was Loke Wan Tho’s realization that
film functioned as a potent ideological tool capable of shaping and molding cultural
sensitivities. With that, MP & GI (Motion Picture General Investment Co. Ltd.), was
established by Loke Wan Tho to make Chinese films in Yung Hwa Studios, Hong
Kong.2 1
During this golden age of the studio period in the 19S0s, audiences could
expect to see a new film released by either the Shaw or Cathay circuits each
month.2 2 Both studios were engaged in friendly competition within the spaces of
production, exhibition, distribution, and technology. Cathay-Keris boasted a series
of pioneering efforts with Sumpah Pontianak, the first film to be released in
CinemaScope and The Lion City the first film to be dubbed in Chinese. Although
Shaw’s MFP and Cathay-Keris were engaged in the friendly competition of
producing Malay films, each studio illustrated and fostered very different business
ideologies and strategies.
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77
MFP: Effective Cost Management
Effective cost management was an integral facet of MFP’s business strategy.
The studio worked on a system in which seven or eight directors produced three
films a year. Each film took approximately three months to complete and
encompassed pre-production, production, and post-production. Because of this tight
schedule, Units A and B, would make features simultaneously. If Unit A were
shooting interiors, Unit B would shoot exteriors.2 3 A third unit was added if
production demands warranted it. The existence of these three units meant that the
director did not have as much creative autonomy when it came to casting; he not
only had to draw upon the stable of actors and actresses under contract by the MFP,
but was often was forced to cast an actor in the role irrespective of whether he or she
was suitable for the part2 4 Other strategies to maximize cost efficiency included
importing directors from India and the Philippines, simultaneous casting, a fixed pay
scale, and adherence to a very strict contract. Rather than invest time and energy in
training local directors, seasoned and trained directing personnel were imported from
India and the Philippines. According to Dato Krishnan, a respected Indian director
during the studio’s golden era, a director was seen as a “captain of the boat” who had
to perform a wide range of tasks including scriptwriting, continuity, and even at
times, organizing publicity campaigns; all designed to further the strategy of
effective cost management.
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78
Simultaneous casting was frequently practiced at MFP to reduce production
costs by hiring supporting actors to appear in two pictures at once. They would
perform in an interior scene for one film, and then be shuttled off to the exterior
location for the second one. The ethic of effective cost management was
occasionally taken to extremes in terms of administrative strategies involving pay
scales and contracts. The pay scale was a fixed monthly one instead of the standard
now used in Malaysian film production that was based on a one picture deal. During
the 1950s, directors generally received between $200 - $240, while actors were paid
between $70 - $200 a month.2 5 Constricting contracts were especially issued for
actors because they could not perform in stage productions or appear in publicity
campaigns without the express consent of the studio. As stringent was the provision
that if a film could not be completed within the given schedule, the actor would have
to be recalled and perform all the re-shoots without any monetary compensation.
Furthermore, if a film required non-period costumes, the actors were required to
furnish the appropriate clothes themselves.2 6
This restrictive contract was understandably viewed in extremely unfavorable
terms by the employees of MFP. Fueled by the social and political turmoil of the
1950s, directors, crews, and actors, formed PERSAMA (Artist’s Union of Malaya)
in 1954 to demand an incremental pay scale with an entry level minimum and a
maximum based on seniority and service.2 7 Members of PERSAMA staged a strike
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spanning one month to stake their claims, with the issue o f pay never being fully
resolved.
Cathay-Keris: Greater Creative Freedom
Dato Loke Wan Tho attempted to infuse Malay culture and customs within
his studio ethic. On the day of every shoot, a Doa Selamat or prayer was uttered and
followed by a serving of nasi kuning or yellow rice. This traditional Malay
ceremony was thought to foster good luck. An imam or Islamic religious teacher
was on hand to bestow his blessings on the production.2 8 This emphasis on Malay
customs served to create an atmosphere within the studio and on the set that was
sensitive to the cultural practices of its Malay cast and crew. By 1964, Dato Loke
Wan appointed S. Roomai Noor as Associate Film Producer at Cathay-Keris. S.
Roomai Noor, with 30 films to his credit, was the first Malay director to work for
Cathay-Keris. with his release of Adam in 1956.2 9 Dato Loke was keen to hire
Malays for senior positions within his studio because he believed that “...it is now
time for us to have Malay film producers of Malay films and Inche Roomai Noor’s
appointment is a step towards achieving this aim”.3 0 Dato Loke’s untimely death in
an airplane crash 1964, coupled with the internal strife following his death and
Noor’s appointment resulted in Noor leaving Cathay-Keris. By 1962, there were
four Malay directors, and after 1964, all directors at Cathay-Keris were Malays.3 1
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Actors received much better pay than those in MFP. Cathay-Keris’s star,
Shariff Medan, started at S300 a month, and also earned a 10% royalty from each
film made. Stars were generally paid between $1000 and $5000 per picture, at the
maximum, while new actors earned between $500 - $700.3 2 In his interview, Dato
Krishnan, felt that Cathay-Keris nurtured an environment of greater creative
freedom, when compared to MFP. If Dato Krishnan were to request funds to hire ten
extras, MFP would have asked him to hire five, while Cathay-Keris would have
encouraged him to hire fifteen.3 3 Both studios, irrespective of diverse business
strategies, were committed to producing a steady output of Malay films.
Shooting the Malay film : A Multiracial and Multilingual Melange
Both Shaw and Cathay were faced with the challenge of producing Malay
films that would respond to the needs o f the Malay community, while working with
a multiracial, multinational, and multilingual cast and crew. Because of the polyglot
nature of the set, MFP’s shooting efficiency, for example, was kept at a maximum by
the ministrations of the assistant director or AD. Conversant in both English and
Malay, the AD was hired to translate the English copy of the script which was
authored by the Indian or Filipino director into a Malay version for the actors.3 4
Only the principal actors who received top billing would receive a copy of the entire
script. Chinese, Indian, and even English actors and actresses were cast alongside
Malay actors and actresses. The cast of Seri Menanti, was a combination of Malay
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and Chinese actors and actresses. The Chinese however, could not speak Malay.
Thus, during filming, the Chinese spoke Cantonese, while the Malay actors
conversed in Malay. The language divide was surmounted when the Chinese actors
merely had to know the correct timing of their lines and the Chinese sequences were
subsequently dubbed into Malay.3 3 This multiracial and multilingual melange
contributed to the narrative, themes, and aesthetics of the final product, the Malay
film in various ways.
Malay Sandiwara and Literature
Certain Malay films drew their inspiration from traditional sources like the
Sandiwara or Malay Theater. Malay dialects from the north (Penang and Kedah) or
from the south (Johor and Riau) were incorporated into Malay films by the actors
themselves. Siti Tanjung Perak, who played Hang Tuah’s mother in Hang Tuah,
spoke in a Javanese accent because she, rather than the character, was Javanese.3 6
This celebration of dialect diversity served to highlight the dynamic and varied
texture of the Malay culture and customs. Adaptations from Malay novels were also
rich sources for these films, although box office success was not a guarantee. Rayuan
Sukma, for example, was adapted from a Malay novel and proved to be a box office
failure because Malay audiences were reportedly unable to understand its complex
social message.3 7
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Indian Influences
Talent from India shaped both the cultural and aesthetic sensitivities of the
Malay films released. Dato Krishnan, a key Indian director of the 1950s, cast P.
Ramlee, a famous Malay singer, actor and director, as a hero in his film Bakti.,
which was released by MFP. Dato Krishnan was following a trend he had observed
in India in which popular Indian singers were cast as heroes. This casting choice
transformed P. Ramlee’s persona from comic to hero and introduced a greater degree
of depth and range to P. Ramlee’s acting style and subsequent roles.3 8 Contributions
by director Phani Majumdar, known in India for his socially-conscious films,
inflected many of the films he directed in Singapore with socially conscious themes
relevant to Singapore and other parts of Malaya.
Both Malay and Indian cultures enjoyed similar legends and folktales which
were translated onto the silver screen. According to Dato Krishnan, Indian folklore
and stories centered around the celebration of songs and dances that the Malay
community could eagerly respond to. This element proved to be extremely popular
with the Malay audience in the 1950s; almost every film incorporated at least five
songs and dances within its narrative. A ninety minute film could even have a third
of its film devoted to singing.3 9 The Malay Bangsawan which was developed by the
Indian community who lived and traded in Singapore, further contributed to the
thematic construction of Malay films with its storehouse of legends and costumed
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dramas from eras past. Popular Malay Bangsawan actors formed a majority of the
cast in early Malay films, ensuring an initial loyal following.4 0
Filipino Influences
Filipino directors employed by both studios infused their own brand of
aesthetics into the Malay films, aesthetics that were different than those practiced by
the Indian directors. Many of the Filipino directors were fond of using the master
shot to compose their shots, while the Indian directors would visualize their scenes in
terms of multiple shots. Differences in aesthetic styles were perhaps most manifest
in the use of lighting and make-up. Indian directors favored a look that was highly
stylized with liberal doses of makeup on both the female and male stars, while the
Filipino directors chose to make-up the actress, while leaving the actor with a natural
look. The most striking dissimilarity in terms of narrative was the virtual absence of
the song and dance within Filipino directed films, unless the songs and dances were
a functional element of the narrative 4 1
Other Source Material
Western novels were great thematic fodder for Malay films. Dato Krishnan
regularly adapted Western novels like The Bat to produce such classic films as
Orang Minyak. The film drew upon the sensationalist subject of the Orang Minyak
or Oily Man. The local papers were saturated with supposed sightings and people
claiming to have been attacked by this creature. This topical element was infused
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with characterizations from The Bat which included the character of the frightened
servant girl who was terrorized by the antagonist. Wuthering Heights provided the
inspiration for Bakti , another Dato Krishnan film.4 2 P. Ramlee was particularly
inspired by Japanese director, Akira Kurasawa and Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune in
Rashamon. He paid homage to both in his film Semerah Padi, when he used the
same tracking shot that followed Mifune’s character through the forest.4 3
/ 960s: Studio Production Decline, Emergence o f Grassroots Film Groups
In 1960, Ho Ah Loke left Cathay-Keris and acquired his own studio in 1960
called Merdeka Studios. H. M Shah and Ho Ah Loke officially took over Merdeka
Studios in 1961 under the title Merdeka Film Productions Ltd.4 4 Cathay-Keris’s box
office profits from Malay films began to decline in the early 1960s45. According to
Loke Wan Tho, the lack of government support was detrimental to the long-term
growth of the Malay film industry. In India, for example, all entertainment tax was
given to the producer if the film was of cultural value.4 6 No such incentives or
monetary support was exhibited by the government at the time and profits from the
production of Malay films for both studios continued to decline.
The Malay cultural nationalism that had flourished in the 1950s, was now
tempered by a younger, more modernized Malay audience who had moved beyond
the more traditional, costumed Malay films to gravitate towards television, which
was introduced into Malayan households in 1963, and English language films.4 7
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The Malayan film industry’s output of primarily black and white films could not tap
into these evolving political and cultural sensitivities by modifying its product. The
marketability of Malay films to Indonesia decreased substantially after Indonesia
expressed disapproval of Malaya’s attempts to create a larger federation involving
Singapore. A fledgling indigenous Indonesian film industry further served to
diminish demand for the Malay film.4 8 With the increasing loss of the Malay
audience and the shrinking number of export markets. Shaw’s MFP closed in 1967
and concentrated on the more lucrative business of exhibition and distribution.
Although the vertically integrated studio system was dismantled by the early 1970s,
the Malayan film industry could not have reached its golden studio era in the 1950s
without the existence of the two studio giants: MFP and Cathay-Keris. These
vertically integrated studios were able to subsidize the production of Malay films via
profits gleaned from the exhibition and distribution wings of the studios and made it
feasible to ensure the steady output of Malay films because they possessed the
necessary technology, infrastructure, and a consolidated pool of diverse acting,
technical, and directorial talents.
Production did not solely fall within the institutional domain of the studios.
The Singapore Cine Club broke away from its origins in the Singapore Film Society
in 1961. The SCC began as an organization whose initial membership was
composed largely of the British expatriate community in Singapore. These
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expatriate members used Super 8 and 16 mm film formats to produce home movies
of themselves and their families. The films were then screened at club meetings and
responses to these films as well as advice on the technical aspects of filmmaking
were enthusiastically shared. The SCC not only organized local competitions
amongst its members, but was also heavily involved in regional competitions
between SCC’s in Southeast and East Asia (Japan, Malaysia, Australia, and Hong
Kong). These regional competitions, held every two years, still largely involved the
British expatriate community. Singaporean membership followed in 1968, thereby
prompting the slow growth of local membership.
1970s: Swirl o f Spheres
Cathay Organisation’s Cathay-Keris closed its studio in 1972 for the very
same reasons Shaw’s MFP did.4 9 This closure virtually ended any future
development of a studio system or a vertically integrated studio. The 1970s was
characterized primarily by films produced by independent production houses and
members of the CVC, while cinema attendance continued to flourish despite the
existence and popularity of television.5 0 Historical records conflict as to how many
theatrically released features were produced by these independent production houses.
Lent and others have identified the following production houses as being particularly
active: Chong Gay, Singapore Feature Productions, Malaysian Film Distributors,
and Cinema Centre Productions. Chong Gay is said to have produced three films
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around 1977.5 1 Cinema Centre Productions released Full House, the first locally
produced English feature, in a co-production with Perfima, a Malaysian production
company.5 2 According to the ASEAN Country Reports on Film published in 1983,
there were a total of eleven films released theatrically during the 1973 to 1976
period. Neither Lent nor Singapore media theorists Sow Yew Peng or David Birch
mention the existence of these films in any great detail.5 3
Independent producer Sunny Lim released They Call Her Cleopatra Wong
and Dynamite Johnson in 1978. Both films were low-budget B films and were
genre hybrids of the secret agent -James Bond and Bruce Lee karate - martial arts
craze.5 4 Johnson Yap, a young Singaporean boy, played the title role in Dynamite
Johnson and starred in Bionic Boy in 1977. According to reviews of the period.
Bionic Boy centered around Sonny Lee (Johnson Yap) who was a world children's
karate champion when he and his parents were attacked by a sinister villain who
wanted to gain control of Southeast Asia. Sonny Lee survived this attack by
undergoing life saving surgery to emerge, transformed, as Bionic Boy.5 3
Reviews for these films were extremely measured. In Gloria Chandy’s
review of And They Called Her Cleopatra Wong, for the New Nation, she was
excited to see ‘‘...familiar Singapore landmarks...” but was perturbed when she
realized that “...every other actor’s part, including Marrie Lee as Cleo, had been
dubbed with a nasal American twang...Odd, seeing as how the cast consists of
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Chinese, Filipinos and Eurasians.”.5 6 One particular review o f And They Called Her
Cleopatra Wong spends a cursory amount of text space on the plot and devotes a
considerable segment of her review to a description of various scenes of Singapore’s
landscape. Many o f the reviewers and audiences, it seemed, were less interested in
the narrative and action of the films, but were enthralled by the spectacle of sights
and sounds of Singapore. In a country that primarily imported its film products from
Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, and India, a segment of the film audiences
were thirsty for and thrilled by visual icons of Singapore’s landscape.
The topic of the CVC and the 1970s in the grassroots sphere is very much
filled with gaps. During my interviews with the primary informant, Mr. Fu, who
joined the CVC in 1968, I discovered that Mr. Fu expressed the fact that he had
trouble remembering the exact details of the number of members, types of films
screened, or any other business pertaining to club meetings because he did not have
access to that information. Mr. Fu did say however, that the 1970s was a pivotal
decade in terms of the Singapore CVC because the membership by the end of the
decade was primarily local. This tension between memory and forgetting and the
often fleeting historical record echoes with what Hayden White refers to in his
writings on the interpretation of history. In his book Tropics o f Discourse, White
acknowledges the speculative nature of historical writing. He states that the
historian is and often will be confronted by a dearth of data or an incomplete
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historical record. The historian is therefore forced to fill “...in the gaps in his
information on inferentiaL.grounds.” 5 7
1980s: People Pictures...Can the Industry be revived?
With the doors to local production closed, Shaw and Cathay invested capital
and time to further consolidate their distribution and exhibition interests. In 1982,
Cathay Organisation embraced the video craze by opening its own video library of
films for which it possessed copyright.5 8 Cathay also sold its Malaysian chain of
theaters to the Borneo Film Organisation (BFO) in 1984, with the BFO now
acquiring 66 cinemas to become the largest chain in Singapore and Malaysia.
According to Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Harris Salleh, who was an influential force
behind the BFO, the acquisition was designed to increase bumiputra or Malay
participation, as well as to become a potent competitor for Shaw and Cathay.3 9
Unlike Cathay, Shaw was heavily hit by the video boom. It shut down or leased
fifteen cinemas in Singapore and Malaysia, as well as diversified into the property
market.6 0 In 1987, the Shaw Brothers (M) Sdn. Bhd., the holding company for the
Shaw Organisation’s Malaysian assets, opted to lease its chain of cinemas to Golden
Communications, a Hong Kong based company and its joint venture partner. Perlis
Plantations. This signaled the end of any Shaw Brothers (M) film activity in
Malaysia.6 1
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Without an institutional mode of production or vertically integrated studio
system, production in the 1980s was largely centered around the grassroots sphere of
which the SCC was a vital member. The SCC was extremely focused and active with
its outreach programs, seeking to extend film appreciation and production beyond
the confines of CVC members, to the larger Singaporean public. The SCC, for the
most part, abandoned its Super 8 and 16 mm formats and turned to video, a far more
accessible medium; it changed its name to the Singapore Cine and Video Club
because of video’s popularity as a shooting format. By 1984, approximately 500
video cameras and 350 VCRs were being sold on a monthly basis. Taking in
Singapore’s population size and growth potential, Singapore was one of the greatest
buyers of video recorders worldwide.6 2 In 1983, the CVC joined forces with the
People’s Association to conduct video workshops and to jointly organize an annual
video competition. The People’s Association (PA) was designed by the PAP
government as a space for the PAP to foster ties with Singaporeans living throughout
the island. One of the PA’s mandates was the administration of approximately 180
community centers. These centers provided social activities, recreational facilities,
and in the 1980s, offered video production courses as part of its outreach
programming.6 3
The first course offered in 1982, comprised four sessions with forty people
attending each session. Session One involved the screening and viewing of short
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films, some of which were made by CVC members. A workshop detailing the
differences between film and video production and a discussion were conducted
during the second session. Session three outlined the importance, among other
subjects, of pre-planning, storyboarding, use of camera angles, while the last session
highlighted the intricacies behind the craft of sound and editing.6 4 In 1983, the very
popular course offered ten sessions of film and video production instruction. The
role of the CVC was to provide technical and aesthetic expertise with the aim of
encouraging Singaporeans to use video as a means of personal and cultural
expression.
The first annual competition for amateur movie-makers was held in 1983,
with no thematic restrictions on the movies for submission. Hagemeyer Electronics,
agents for National, Panasonic and Technics video products, donated $25,000 worth
of prizes. The competition was initially divided into two sections; the open section
in which Singapore citizens and permanent residents could participate, and the
students section which was open to students enrolled in schools, tertiary institutions,
and colleges.6 5 Twelve community centers were selected by the CVC to discuss
production and editing techniques. The partnership between the People’s
Association and the CVC and the genesis of the amateur video competition was vital
in disseminating the tools and techniques of video production to the larger
Singaporean public. Moving from a trajectory o f an institutionalized system of
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studio production in the 1950s and early 1960s, the 1980s offered a form of
production that was much more personal, participatory, and civic in nature.
The Old Days o f Chinatown, by Tan Bee Hong garnered second place in the
Amateur Competition of 1983. This film captured the “...old charms of vanishing
scenes in Chinatown...with Chinese classical music...”.6 6 In other advertisements for
the video filmmaking course organized in 1984, “...participants...leam...how special
occasions like stage performances and weddings can be ...recorded and made into
artistic home movies...”, thereby injecting a sense of high art into a tool otherwise
perceived for the recording of television programs.6 7 The 1984 competition saw
approximately forty-one entries, with a Special category added alongside the open
and students sections. In addition to prizes in these sections, the 1984 competition
awarded prizes for photography, creativity, editing, sound, and the Special Judges
award.6 8 These advertisements and Tan Bee Hong’s film not only indicated the
popularity and extent of the diffusion of video cameras in various community centers
and to individual Singaporeans, but also echoed the rich potential of video as a
medium to participate in constructing alternative stories and personal narratives
within the fabric of the city-nation.
The CVC -PA video competition continued to be held annually until 1988,
after which it was organized on a bi-annual basis until 1996. Inspired by the success
of the video competition, the Singapore International Film Festival inaugurated the
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Best Singapore Short Film Category at the 1991 Singapore International Film
Festival.6 9 Before the introduction of this category, the Singapore International Film
Festival, established in 1987, screened primarily feature films from various Asian
regions as well as showcasing works from American, European, African, and
Middle-Eastern directors. The addition of this category marked the opportunity for
voices from the fledgling Singaporean film community to be heard within a nodal
point of the film festival circuit.
While most of the filmmaking activity was centered along non-institutional
modes of production, the 1980s was filled with rhetoric about the viability of
reviving the film industry. Speculations about the possibility of a film industry in
the 1980s explicitly tackled the issue of government involvement In 1979, a
committee was formed by the PAP government to examine the feasibility of such an
option. The question raised by Dr. Ow Chin Hock, then parliamentary secretary to
the Ministry of Culture, was consistent with the attitudes of the PAP government in
any sphere of Singapore life and culture, namely, “...what will be the economic
benefits?...”.7 0 When asked about the possibilities of establishing protectionist
policies to nurture a fledgling Singapore film industry, Dr. Ow stated that, “...this
relates to our trade, industries and economic policy. We are an open economy...We
don’t believe in protectionism...”.7 1 This response envisaged an industry in purely
business and economic terms rather than as a national film industry or a
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Singaporean cinema, which would position film as a cultural product as well as a
business or economic enterprise. When asked if he was thinking along the lines of a
national film industry, Dr. Ow clearly responded with an equivocal no, stating that
local television production would employ foreign talent, perhaps from Hong Kong or
Taiwan. The Ministry of Culture in fact, viewed foreign companies who used
Singapore for location sites, as generating tourist revenue, revenue that would not be
reabsorbed into specific film protectionist policies. Perhaps most telling of the
government rhetoric about the industry in the early 1980s, was Dr. Ow’s statement
that the film industry ought to be viewed as a "service oriented" industry, and one
that would fall within the purview of the Ministries of Finance and Trade, rather than
that of Culture.
A forum discussing the possibilities of establishing a national film industry,
rather than merely a service-oriented one, was held in 1982 at the Nanyang Siang
Pau conference room. Filmmakers from Taiwan, as well as, other speakers
unanimously believed the viability of a national film industry in Singapore. Rather
than trumpeting the economic merits of an industry, the participants called attention
to the cultural and national dimensions to an industry, fervently believing that,
“...films can be used as a medium to portray a country’s strength...and Singapore
being a young and multiracial country should have abundant material for interesting
scripts...”.7 2
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By the mid to late 1980s, rhetoric on the film industry began to figure Hong
Kong more prominently. In 1984, Philip Cheah, a respected Singaporean film critic,
speculated on the possibilities of transplanting the Hong Kong film industry to
Singapore before Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997. Alan and Eric Films
Company Ltd., a film company set up by Hong Kong celebrities, Alan Tam and Eric
Tsang proposed to not only co-finance film ventures, but to set up production
facilities as well. Cathay Organisation was to have an exclusive distribution
contract, and Tam and Tsang expressed the desire for joint ventures between their
production company and Cathay Organisation. A reason given for the establishment
of this company and its focus on Singapore was to source out other production
avenues because of Hong Kong’s imminent return to China.7 3 Alan and Eric Films
took on an even more prominent role by suggesting a joint venture in 1988,
involving themselves, Teddy Robin, a shareholder of Alan and Eric Films,
Taiwanese director Zhu Yanping, Chai Soong Lin, owner of the two largest chains of
movie theaters in Taiwan, and Cathay Organisation. This proposed venture was
again rationalized by Hong Kong’s return to China, and Taiwanese fears that their
films would no longer have exhibition access to Hong Kong upon its return.
According to Tsang, “...he would not produce movies which audiences can identify
as “Oh! That’s a Singapore product!”...He intends to make use of the country’s
cosmopolitan nature to project a different setting for each movie...”.7 4 This
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emphasized the quandaries inherent in a film industry situated within a city-nation.
Filmmakers had to balance the merits of a local industry with potentially lucrative
regional and international markets.
The pervasive myth of the peril of Hong Kong's film industry became used
as an increasing justification for Singapore to develop a film industry and to counter
claims that Singapore did not have the necessary talent or infrastructure to sustain an
industry. By 1988, the timing, it seemed, was more amenable to develop an
industry that could absorb the “...expected exodus of film experts...”.7 5 A nine
member Committee for the Promotion of Motion Picture Industry, was formed to
look into establishing an infrastructure amenable for sustaining the growth and
development of an industry. These incentives were to include relaxed censorship
guidelines, state of the art technology, and attractive financial packages. It was
telling that no filmmakers were part of this committee; the members were instead
drawn from the Ministry of Community Development, the Ministry of
Communications and Information, the Singapore Tourist Development Board, the
Board of Film Censors, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Finance, the
Economic Development Board, and the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation.7 6
While talks about the viability of a film industry were active in the 1980s,
theaters themselves were undergoing rapid transformations. There began an
increasing trend in 1980 to build cinemas in housing estates.7 7 Facing declining
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movie attendance from a peak of 46 million a year in 1979 to about 36 million in
1982, many movie theaters were converted into live theaters, restaurants, and places
of worship.7 8 In land scarce Singapore, the logical solution was the introduction of
the multiplex. Shaw Brothers, for example, introduced the multiplex concept by
splitting its theaters, Prince and Jade, into Prince 1 and 2, and Jade 1 and 2 in 1988.
It became apparent that the rhetoric by 1989, focused on Singapore as a
“centre for filmmaking, and not to make movies itself...”.7 9 Perhaps the most telling
claim against the possibilities of a national film industry, or as I argue for the
development of a Singapore cinema, is one that states that “...current and possibly
future generations of Singapore lack the basic ability to think creatively and
independently, both prerequisites for filmmaking.”8 0 This is clearly not the case, as
evidenced by the output of the CVC, members of the Singapore public,
independents, and the current wave of filmmakers in the 1990s.
1990s: Media Hub
Rather than characterizing the wave of nineteen feature films released over
the last decade as a birth or revivification of a film industry, I would position the
flurry o f activity, this Singaporean cinema, within the larger context of a media hub.
It is this media hub that crystallizes filmmaking within the city-nation. It highlight
the dialogue between the desire for films that explore a specifically Singaporean
cultural identity, with the need to appeal to regional and international markets and
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audiences. By 1993, the Economic Development Board and the Ministry of
Information and the Arts had begun to position Singapore as a hub for the
production, distribution, and sourcing of films and television programmes by
offering pioneer tax incentives and agreeing to review regulations that might inhibit
Singapore's growth as a media hub.8 1 To further promote Singapore's fledgling
status as a media hub, Singapore played host to Cine Asia, a cinema convention, held
for the first time outside North America and Europe in 1995.
The first foreign media company to plant its regional roots in Singapore was
HBO in 1992. This signaled an intense six year media boom, with approximately 25
media companies setting up their regional headquarters in Singapore. MTV
Networks Asia, for example, established its headquarters in Singapore in 1995 with a
reach of 96 million households in Asia.8 2 AXN Action TV, owned by Sony Pictures
Entertainment, was the first 24 hour cable and satellite TV channel to exclusively
screen action and adventure programmes. Launched in 1997, this channel beamed
into 5 million homes in Asia. Asian media companies like Japan Entertainment
Television, have also opted to work from Singapore. Established in 1997, this cable
channel focused on Japanese programming and was a joint venture between
Sumitomo and Tokyo Broadcasting Systems.8 3
The development of this dense media hub stemmed from the concerted
efforts of the Economic Development Board, which over a two year period, lured
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many media companies to Singapore, with glimpses of Singapore’s extensive
infrastructure featuring an efficient and educated workforce, an extremely stable
political and social environment and firms like VHQ and JSP Productions who
offered post-production facilities,.8 4 The proliferation of this hub was further
encouraged by the development o f cable television in Singapore in 1997, with
Singapore Cable Vision supplying 120,000 Singaporean subscribers access to
channels like HBO and Cinemax.8 5 In 1998, over 150 members consisting of cable
broadcasters, programmers, equipment and hardware suppliers, channels, and
satellite systems operators, convened in Singapore for CASBAA, or the conference
for the Cable And Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia.8 6 This move from
Hong Kong, where it had been traditionally held, to Singapore, marked a further
consolidation and recognition of Singapore as a regional media hub. Local
production companies like The Right Angle, with its 52 episode deal for Channel
News Asia, and The Moving Visuals, run by Mr Galen Yeo, a former producer for
the Television Corporation of Singapore and Ms Khim Loh, originally of Hong
Kong’s Centro Digital Pictures, was set to produce a three part documentary on
marine life in Indonesia for the National Geographic Channel, have also joined this
thickening media hub.8 7
With this evolution to a media hub occupying much of the rhetoric of the
1990s, how does Singapore cinema operate within such a media institutional
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landscape? Singapore cinema in the 1990s is largely characterized by the prolific
activity within the independent and grassroots spheres. 1991 marked the first attempt
to locally produce an English feature since the 1970s. Errol Pang of Derrol-
Stepenny Promotions was the executive producer of Medium Rare, a 1991 film
about the medium turned ritual killer, Adrian Lim. The film, with a budget of $1.7
million was a critical and commercial failure, having been theatrically released for a
run of only 16 days.8 8 The production history of this feature was a chaotic one.
Medium Rare was to have originally featured prominent Singapore thespian, Lim
Kay Siu in the lead role, while Singaporean Tony Yeow was to direct.8 9 By the time
the film reached completion in 1991, the script had been re-written by local actresses
Rani Moorthy and Margaret Chan, American actor Dore Kraus replaced Lim Kay
Siu in the title role, and Arthur Smith took over the helm as director. According to
then director, Tony Yeow, the market for the film was “...America...and we need a
story that is global...our first movie...must have a very good story theme and it must
be marketable....”. This bid at marketability produced a tourist spectacle of
Orientalist displays of a mystic and exotic East coupled with Singapore’s more
modem claim to fame, that of a speedy and efficient cosmopolitan city.
Cathay Organisation, which dissolved its production wing, Cathay-Keris in
1972, ventured gingerly into contemporary production by producing $500,000 Army
Daze, a successful feature comedy in 1996. The film, based on a best selling novel
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and critically acclaimed play by Michael Chiang revolved around the antics
surrounding a subject very familiar to Singaporean men; compulsory military
service.9 0 By 1997, the film had grossed $1.6 million at the box office.9 1
Directed by well-respected actor and playwright, Ong Keng Sen, the film
integrated song and dance sequences that were a nostalgic homage to Malay films of
the 1950s and 1960s, while peppered with Singlish or Singaporean colloquial
English. 1996 also saw the release of Bugis Street, a film set in Bugis Street, a
popular and prominent haven for sailors, transvestites, transsexuals, and prostitutes
in 1960s Singapore. Produced by Katy Yew, a Singaporean, and directed by Hong
Kong's Yon Fan, the film offered a complex negotiation between the fluidity of
gender and sexuality amidst the soft, wet city-scape of Singapore in the 1960s.
Costing a whopping $3m to make, the film earned a dismal $lm at the local box
office.
Some Singaporeans entered the filmmaking scene from spaces other than
theater. The popularity of the Singapore Video Competition further functioned as a
forum within which Singaporeans could both express their national and cultural
sentiments in visual terms. It also proved to be an invaluable training ground for
filmmakers hoping to receive funding, experience, and recognition in their
preparations for feature projects. Eric Khoo, Singapore’s eminent independent
filmmaker, received recognition for his short film, A Question o f Lust, with a $500
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102
merit prize in the 1988 Singapore Video Competition. Khoo’s next short film, a very
raw and vibrant, Barbie Digs Joe, garnered the first prize in the open section of the
1990 Singapore Video Competition. Building on his track record at national
competitions, Eric Khoo began to submit his films for the Best Singapore Short Film
Award at the Singapore International Film Festival. August (1991), Carcass
(1992), Symphony 92.4 FM (1993), and Pain (1994), soon followed. Khoo’s film,
Pain, was banned because it pushed the censorial envelope with its violent and
sado-masochistic content. It did, however, win the Best Director and Best
Achievement awards during the 1994 Singapore International Film Festival, while
Carcass received an R(A) classification, the first Singapore film to do so.9 2
Armed with a penchant for pushing the boundaries of violence, perversion,
and sexuality, Eric Khoo took stock of his critical recognition and prize money from
festival wins to begin his first feature project, Mee Pok Man, in 1995.9 3 The film
offered a necrophilic centered love story between a noodle seller and a prostitute
named Bunny. Its rabidly gritty and seedy city-space was a stark contrast to
Singapore’s pedagogical city-scape of clean, green, sterility9 4 . Distributed by Shaw,
the film received an R (A) rating by the Board of Film Censors and garnered two
special jury prizes at the 1995 Singapore International Film Festival.9 5 Khoo’s next
film, 12 Stories, was released in 1997 and offered a biting social commentary on the
lives of three families living in government subsidized housing or Housing
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Development Board flats. These HDB high rise apartments house approximately
90% of the Singaporean population. 12 Stories proved to be a critical milestone for
independent Singaporean filmmakers because it not only won the Critic’s Prize and
the $10,000 UOB Young Cinema Award, but also because of its selection for the
Cannes International Film Festival. The film piqued the interest of a French
distributor bought the film’s French theatrical distribution rights.9 6
12 Stories was released with two other features in 1997, Lim Suat Yen’s
The Road Less Travelled and Hugo Ng’s God or Dog. As with Eric Khoo, Lim Suat
Yen found the Best Singapore Short Film award to be a training ground to hone her
filmmaking and directorial skills. Sense o f Home, a poignant exploration of a young
girl’s experiences of dislocation and alienation upon returning to Singapore after a
long absence, garnered Lim a Best Director and Special Achievement Award at the
9th Singapore International Film Festival. Her feature. The Road Less Travelled,
the first contemporary local Mandarin feature, focused on the lives of several young
Singaporeans as they struggled to fulfill their dreams as artists in Singapore.9 7 Hugo
Ng’s God or Dog reprised the controversial figure of Adrian Lim, the subject of
Medium Rare . These three features celebrated their world theatrical debut at the
10th Singapore International Film Festival and were distributed locally by Cathay-
Golden Village.9 8
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Although 1997 proved to be a critically prolific year for Singaporean
independent filmmakers, 1998 was filled with domestic box-office successes. For
the first time, a local Hokkien-Mandarin feature comedy, Money No Enough,
distributed by Shaw, competed successfully with both Hollywood and Hong Kong
movie fare, to gross $5.8 million at the box office. Money No Enough further out
grossed Independence D ay's 42,500 video and laser disc sales with its total of
64,331." With its box office figures, Money No Enough, ranked as the third highest
grossing film in Singapore, with Titanic and Jurassic Park: The Lost World
holding down the top two spots. The film’s appeal came from a variety of sources,
some of which stemmed from its comedic focus on life within the HDB heartland
which proved to be a solace to a populace mired in the Asian economic crisis, its
colorful use of the Hokkien dialect which showed a playful disregard for the PAP
government’s Speak Mandarin campaign, and via an in built television fan base for
its stars Jack Neo, Mark Lee, and Henry Thia, all performers in the hit TV variety
show, Comedy Night, on Channel 8.1 0 0
Forever Fever, a homage to Saturday Night Fever was the first local feature
to receive a distribution offer from Miramax Films during the Cannes film festival
film market in 1998 and was the only feature out of approximately 500 films to be
bought by Miramax at Cannes. Miramax bought the distribution rights to release the
film in Britain, the United States, and Canada, and offered its director, Glen Goei, a
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105
three picture development deal.1 0 1 The total figures for distribution deals with
Miramax, Beyond Films for New Zealand and Australia, and exhibition rights in
Germany, Spain, France, Poland, Holland, South Africa, Israel and India left Forever
Fever with $4.5 million in earnings even before it opened on local screens.1 0 2
Two more films, Tiger 's Whip and The Teenage Textbook were also
released that same year. Tiger’ s Whip , according to its co-directors Victor Khoo
and Tony Yeow, attempted to convey the theme of tiger conservation by focusing on
an American character, Dick Winner, played by David Calig, who embarked on a
journey to Singapore to search for an aphrodisiac of tiger's genitals mixed with
herbs. This remedy claimed to cure koro, a tropical disease that afflicted Dick
Winner’s manhood. This $lm comedy received very lackluster reviews and did not
fare well at the local box office. Directed by former MTV Asia senior producer
Philip Lim, The Teenage Textbook, a youth oriented drama-comedy, was an
adaptation of the 1988 best seller, The Teenage Textbook and its sequel, The
Teenage Workbook, both by author Adrian Tan.1 0 3 It offered a comic, yet poignant
exploration of teenage life within the pressure cooker educational environment of
Singapore.
Perhaps the most compelling feature to make its debut in 1998, was the
experimental video feature OffCentre. It premiered at the Singapore International
Film Festival. Shot exclusively on video, OffCentre' s director, Remi S. Sali made a
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106
conscious effort to capitalize on the potential aesthetics of video, exploring, for
example, split screen effects. Based on a 1993 Necessary Stage play of the same
name, OffCentre revolves around the relationship between two ex-mental patients,
Saloma, a depressive, and Vinod, who experiences a nervous breakdown as a result
of academic pressures faced in school. This is the only film released thus far that
offers principal characters who are not Chinese in race. Harkening to Singapore's
claim as a multi-racial nation without artifice, Saloma, Vinod, and Emily are
convincingly played by Malay, Indian, and Chinese actors respectively.1 0 4
With six features either theatrically released, distributed via VCD, or
premiering at the Singapore International Film Festival in 1998, local cinema
continued to flourish with the release of four additional features. Jack Neo's vehicle.
$800,000 Liang Po Po, based on the antics o f his 85 year old granny character from
Comedy Night, broke sneak box-office records for local films with a take of
$183,885 on 30 screens. This beat the figures for The Siege, which took in $83,613,
and The Corrupter which earned $96,000 during that same weekend.1 0 5 Its final
box office take was approximately $3.03 m. This film, which is a melange of
Mandarin, English, and dialect, marks the producing debut of Raintree Pictures, the
film production subsidiary of the Television Corporation of Singapore and the co
producing venture with Eric Khoo’s Zhao Wei Films. Raintree's business strategy
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107
was outlined in a statement by Mr Daniel Yun, its chief executive office. According
to Mr Yun,
...I am not saying that we should not make localised movies...I am
saying that the subject-matter can be localised but the theme must be
universal. And one way of doing this is to view a film not so much
as a Singapore product but as an Asian one....1 0 6
This local-global outlook prompted Raintree Pictures to look towards Hong Kong for
its next venture, The Truth About Sam and Jane. It was written and directed by
Derek Yee from Hong Kong and starred Singapore television icon Fann Wong and
Peter Ho from Taiwan. It took in $446,555 for its opening weekend which included
the sneak previews.1 0 7 Raintree Pictures is currently in a joint venture with Hong
Kong’s Media Asia to produce five feature films, the latest in the creative pipeline
being 2000AD, an action film starring Hong Kong pop super star Aaron Kwok.1 0 8
Money Mo Enough producer J. P Tan directed Where got problem, a comic
look at the lives of two wealthy men as they get caught within the economic
downturn. The film starred stage actor Lim Kay Siu, who was to have played Adrian
Lim in the 1991 production Medium Rare. The $800,000 film made a disappointing
showing at the box office with a take of $150,000.1 0 9 That One No Enough, the
sequel to box office success Money No Enough, did not fare as well as its
predecessor, bringing in only $1.2m at the box office.1 1 0
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According to Mr Kenneth Tan, chairman of the Singapore Film Society, That One
No Enough's tepid performance could be due to,
...the identical subject matter in the spate of made-in-Singapore
works...the audience might be tired of the slice-of-life...type of
storyline...It is a problem of too many homegrown films with similar
subject matter in too short a time....1 1 1
Independent productions continued to flourish in 1999 with the releases of
Street Angels, Lucky Number, and Eating Air. Costing approximately $590,000,
Street Angels was directed by Hong Kong's David Lam Tak-yuk and produced by
Singapore’s Act Venture films. .“ 2 Providing a potentially subversive look at the
world of girl-gangs in Singapore, the Mandarin language film opened on only nine
screens and earned a dismal $100,000.*1 3 centered around the world of girl-gangs.
Lucky Number, a Mandarin-Hokkien film was released by local production house, D.
S. Movie Production and directed by yet another Hong Konger, Gao Lin Pao. The
film’s release was delayed because the censors were grappling with Lucky Number's
dialogue of which 40% contained crude humor and the Hokkien dialect. Lucky
Number attempted to model itself after the highly lucrative and hugely popular
Money No Enough, to no avail. Costing approximately $500,000, it garnered merely
$380,000 at the box-office.
Eating Air was the final Singapore film to be released at the end of the
decade. Suffused with a rich melange of Singapore music, the Hokkien dialect, and
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a smattering of Mandarin, English, and Malay, Eating Air according to its co
director, Kelvin Tong is “...translated loosely from Chinese as “joyride”...is a
motorcycle/ gong fu love story...It’s a movie about being young, speed, recklessness
and having hands that do things before the mind can catch up...”1 1 4 Although
Eating Air did not fare well in the box office, having earned only $350,000, it was
extremely critically acclaimed. It garnered a Silver Screen Award at the 2000
Singapore International Film Festival and was described by the international 10
member jury as “brash and dynamic.”1 1 5 Eating Air was also selected to compete at
both the Hong Kong and Amsterdam International Film Festivals.1 1 6
The grassroots sphere was perhaps as active as the independent sphere. The
CVC-PA organized Singapore Video Competition continued its run until 1996.1 1 7
The Video 90 Awards for the Sixth Singapore Video Competition featured two new
categories for entry. To commemorate Singapore’s 25 years of independence, and
the FA’s 30th anniversary, special merit awards were to be given to those videos that
best expressed either the theme of Singapore as nation and home or the PA’s
contributions to Singapore’s sense of community and belonging.1 1 8 This theme of
Singapore as a special award category was carried into the seventh Singapore Video
Competition, with the “My Singapore” Award that was designed to “...instill a sense
of community feeling and nationhood among Singaporeans...”.1 1 9 The Seventh
Singapore Video Competition also saw the sponsorship of the Asian Film Centre.1 2 0
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110
This signaled a transformation from video production that was encouraged
to be personal and locally based, i.e. home movies, to a wider understanding of the
currents within Asian cinema by offering talks, courses, and workshops with Asian
filmmakers.1 2 1 The 8th Panasonic Video Awards (Singapore Video Competition),
furthered encouraged the participation of students, who already constituted 30% of
past entrants, by establishing a new award, the “Best Student Entry.”1 2 2 Fringe
activities associated with the Singapore Video Competition enabled participants
other than those entering the competition to learn valuable technical and aesthetic
production skills. Many of these fringe activities were aimed at schools. Mr.
Michael Fu and Mr Lee Yeow Kiang, for example, conducted video outreach
programmes in schools like River Valley High, Raffles Institution, and St. Nicholas
Girls' School to introduce the use of video as a medium for cultural and personal
expression.
The CVC-PA organized competitions and workshops, were to a certain
extent, affiliated with the PAP government through the involvement of the PA and
its community centers. Other grassroots production spheres like those courses
organized at The Substation were in private hands. The Substation, a non-profit
home for the arts established in 1990, described its philosophy in an inaugural
brochure as a “...small, nimble, free and open space - outside of the official arts
institutions...”.1 2 3 The Substation therefore, bills itself extremely explicitly as a
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I l l
more neutral, less government infused site for the vibrant growth of Singaporean arts
production. Its affiliation with film theory, production, and criticism began in 1991
with the introductory course in filmmaking of which I was a part. In 1997, the
Substation launched its core film programming, Moving Images, which offered
screenings, talks, seminars, and courses by local and foreign filmmakers to the
Singaporean public. For its screening program, Moving Images intended to exhibit
experimental films, documentaries, Southeast Asian films, and Singaporean films in
Super-8, 16mm or video formats. Documentaries, short films, and music videos
produced by students in the Mass Communication and Film programmes at Ngee
Ann Polytechnic and Nanyang Technological University were exhibited at the
inaugural screening event.
Moving Images included film appreciation courses taught by Dr. Timothy
White and an avant garde -experimental film production workshop offered by
Monster Films’s Philip Lim and Jonathan Foo, director and producer o f The Teenage
Textbook. Monster Film’s Guerrilla Filmmaking Workshop, advocated what Philip
Lim called “poor man’s filmmaking” in which “...you don’t need fanciful stuff, just a
16mm film camera and radical ideas...Like a guerrilla, you hit and run...Subvert the
system, dominate, control and destroy...”.1 2 4 This brand of radical filmmaking, with
a different pedagogic agenda than the CVC-PA sponsored Singapore Video
Competitions, aimed to introduce the 36 participants in 1997 to the notion of film as
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112
a potent art form and weapon for social commentary and artistic expression.1 2 5 The
goal behind the core of the Substation's film programming was to nurture and foster
the growth of a Singaporean film culture and establish a network between members
of the film industry, independent filmmakers, and the general Singaporean public.1 2 6
The trend in the 1990s towards an increasing media hub forces a
resignification of the terms production, cinema, and film industry. As I have tried to
indicate throughout this chapter, the meaning of the studio, independent, and
grassroots spheres are inflected in different ways across the various decades to
indicate the extremely dynamic and organic nature of these spheres. Rather than
asking a set of static questions and reproducing the rhetoric of the 1980s and 1990s
surrounding the viability of a local film industry, I prefer to position these acts of
production within a smaller, looser collection of filmmakers who together produce
and constantly redefine a Singapore cinema. The film industry that includes post
production houses, and distribution giants like Shaw, Cathay, and Golden Village, as
well as this imaginary of Singapore cinema, exist as nodes within the larger media
hub of international and domestic film and television companies and cable and
satellite networks. The succeeding chapters examine a number of these films along
the axis o f cultural memory, race, class, and language in order to performatively
explore how these filmmakers engage with Singapore cultural identity and the
ramifications of living within a city-nation in the 1990s.
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113
‘Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978) 84 - 85.
2 John Lent. The Asian Film Industry (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990) 198.
3 See, Tan Yew Soon, and Soh Yew Peng, The Development of Singapore’s Modem Media Industry
(Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1994) and David Birch, “Film and Cinema in Singapore:
Cultural Policy as Control,” Film Policy: International. National, and Regional Perspectives, ed.
Albert Moran (London: Routledge, 1996) 185 - 211. Birch relied upon Tan Yew Soon and Soh Yew
Peng’s book for some of his information, while Tan and Soh obtained their information about
Singapore cinema in the 1970s from John Lent and his book, The Asian Film Industry.
4 851 films were exhibited in the Federation in 1956. These films comprised 277 Chinese language
films (except one) from Hong Kong, 257 from the United States, and 141 from India. American and
Chinese films constituted about forty per cent of business each in Singapore and Malaya. See, Loke
Wan Tho- “Where The Cinema Skv Is Cloudless. Kinematograph Weekly 12 Sept. 1957:6.
s Alhambra Souvenir Programme (1938) 1.
“ A Mr Lim Chem Sem was said to have produced three films within the 1945 to 1946 period.. These
films were mainly in Mandarin. By the end of 1946, the Shaw Organization controlled approximately
one third of cinema operations in Singapore. See, Anna Kang Joo Lian, Cinemas in Singapore
(Singapore: Academic Exercise, National University of Singapore, 1984) 15 - 16.
7 According to Anna Kang in her academic exercise Cinemas in Singapore, the first local film
released was by Liu Peh Jing in 1927. See, Anna Kang Joo Lian, Cinemas in Singapore (Singapore:
Academic Exercise, University of Singapore, 1984) 8.
* Baharuddin Latif, “The Beginning,” Cintai Filem Malaysia (Malaysia: Perbadanan Kemajuan Filem
Nasional Malaysia, 1989) 45.
9 Jamil Sulong, “Bangsawan’s Influence in Malay Films,” Cintai Filem Malaysia (Malaysia:
Perbadanan Kemajuan Filem Nasional Malaysia, 1989) 57.
1 0 The head of the studio was Shaw Vee Ngok who was the nephew of the Shaw Brothers. He was
later replaced by Mr Lui, who was then replaced by Kwek Chip Jian. Mr Kwek’s assistant, Mr Hsu,
was then replaced by Mr Lee Tun Koo. See, Jamil Sulong, Kaca Permata (Darul Ehsan: Percetakan
Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1990) 170. Most of the discussion o f Shaw during the golden studio
period was drawn from Sulong’s autobiography, Kaca Permata. See also, Jamil Sulong, personal
interview, 10 August 1993 and Dato Krishnan, personal interview, 10 August 1993.
" Jamil Sulong, Kaca Permata (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Percetakan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 1990)
14.
1 2 Loke Wan Tho owned Associated Theaters Ltd., Loke Theatres Ltd., and International Films
Distributing Agency and was chairman o f Cathay Organisation until his death in an air crash in 1964.
1 3 Lim Kay Tong, Cathay: 55 Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 116.
1 4 Lim Kav Tong. Cathay: 55 Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 116.
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114
1 5 Some sources list the film as having been released in 1953. See, Lim Kay Tong, Cathav: 55 Years
of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 174.
1 6 The studio was equipped with a Westrex sound recording system, Mitchell cameras, and Mole-
Richardson studio lamps. Other features released included, Teran Bulan Di-Malaya, Tangisan Ibu,
Kaseh Menumpang, and Saudaraku. See, the Odeon Souvenir Program. 1955.
1 7 CFS also produced government filmlets on education, health, medicine, housing, the port, the
national language, pollution, and road safety. The CFS made 120 filmlets between 1960 and 1968.
O f these filmlets, 59 were in Mandarin, 25 in Hokkien, 244 in Cantonese. 92 in English, 85 in Malay,
16 in Tamil, and one each in Burmese, Thai, French, and Singhalese. See, Lim Kay Tong, Cathav:
55 Years o fCinema fSingapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 132. The CFS was responsible for
everything except processing and printing the color film. The studio even produced sixty-three news
film stories on the region for Independent Television News in London. See, Lim Kay Tong, Cathav:
55 Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 135.
" The producer was Edmond Courau, who had won a Golden Lion Prize at the 1961 Venice Film
Festival for Last Year Marienbad Cathay-Keris attempted yet another co-production with
Indonesia’s Perfini Films and shot its first overseas film, entitled Malam-di-Tokyo, in Japan.
1 9 Lim Kay Tong, Cathav: 55 Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 139.
:o Lim Kay Tong, Cathav: 55 Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 132.
:| Yiu Tiong Chai, “Dian Mao: MP & GI,” Cathay: 55 Years of Cinema, ed. Lim Kay Tong
(Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 145. Another source claims that Cathay Organization formed
the Cathay Production Company in 1953 to produce Chinese films in Singapore. See Jarvie, 177:36.
Loke’s Yung Hwa studio hired Li Li Hua and Yien Chu. two of the more famous actresses and actors
at that time. See, “Movies, Not Talkies, Are The Big Money Spinners In Asia,” Tiger Standard 5
Aug. 1955: 7.
2 2 1 am focusing my narrative on the production of Malay films in Singapore. Kong Ngee, was
another studio that produced approximately 70 Cantonese films between 1958 to 1963, including
some which were co-produced with filmmakers from Hong Kong. Kong Ngee was formed in 1927
by Singapore businessmen who wanted to distribute Chinese films. For more information, please
refer to, “Singapore company that contributed to Cantonese films,”. Loke Wan Tho cited that
Pontianak, a Malay film established an “all-time, first-run record M. 58,000 dollars for Singapore....”.
See, Loke Wan Tho, “Where The Cinema Sky is Cloudless,” Kinematograph Weekly 12 Sept. 1957:
6.
7 3 Jamil Sulong, personal interview, 10 August 1993.
2 4 Jamil Sulong, personal interview, 10 August 1993.
2 5 Jamil Sulong, Kaca Permata (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Percetakan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,
1990) 130.
2 6 Jamil Sulong, Kaca Permata (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Percetakan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,
1990)71.
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115
2 7 Jamil Sulong, Kaca Permata (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Percetakan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,
1990) 130.
:s Lim Kay Tong, Cathav: SS Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 120.
2 9 P. Ram lee was the first Malay director for MFP, having directed Penarik Beca in 195S. He had
already proved himself as a bankable box office start and MFP was willing to let him direct. This
decision could have been more financial than cultural in intent.
3 0 Lim Kav Tone. Cathav: SS Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 135.
3 1 Lim Kav Tone. Cathav: SS Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 135. These
directors were Hussein Haniff, Salleh Ghani, M. Amin, and Roomai Noor.
3 2 Lim Kay Tong, Cathav: 55 Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 120.
3 3 Dato Krishnan, personal interview, 10 August 1993.
1 4 Occasionally however, the translation process would go awry. Dato Krishnan mentioned that
during one translation, the word “fire” was translated into “api” when it should have been “tembak”.
The difference lay in the fact that “api” meant fire (flames), while “tembak” meant shoot. Translation
was not a foolproof process.
3 3 Jamil Sulong, Kaca Permata (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Percetakan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,
1990)94.
3 6 Jamil Sulong, “Bangsawan’s Influence in Malay film,” Cintai Filem Malaysia (Malaysia:
Perbadanan Kemajuan Filem Nasional Malaysia, 1989) 58 - 60.
3 7 Nazrul Amri. “Film industry pioneers were non-Malavs.” The Straits Times 22 Mar. 1988. Malay
films like Bermadu or Ibu Tiri were adaptations o f popular Chinese films from Shanghai. These
were considered to be the first Malay films with a strong Chinese bent.3 7
3 1 Dato Krishnan, personal interview, 10 August 1993. P. Ram lee was also known as the “Charlie
Chaplin” of the East.
3 9 Jamil Sulong, Kaca Permata (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Percetakan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,
1990) 103 - 107.
4 0 I have found certain inconsistencies in the role of Sandiwara and Bangsawan in early films
produced by the Shaw Brothers. Latif writes that, “importing second hand...film equipment from
Shanghai, China, they set up their own unit, recruiting talented Bangsawan artistes such as Tina,
Habsah, Puteh Lawak....”. See, Baharudin La tiff, “The Beginning,” Cintai Filem Malaysia
(Malaysia: Perbadanan Kemajuan Filem Nasional Malaysia, 1989) 45 - 46. While Sulong writes that,
“...Shaw Brothers at that time did not produce any movies based on Bangsawan. Theirs were based
on the Sandiwara with actors from both the Sandiwara and Bangsawan...”. See, Jamil Sulong,
“Bangsawan’s Influence in Malay Films,” Cintai Filem Malaysia (Malaysia: Perbadanan Kemajuan
Filem Malaysia, 1989) 57. Very little is known about these films, prompting Amri to write that only
films after World War II could be considered the first few with a Chinese influence.
4 1 Jamil Sulong, Kaca Permata (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Percetakan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,
1990)94-103.
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116
4 2 Dato Krishnan, personal interview, 10 August 1993.
4 3 Jamil Sulong, Kaca Permata (Selangor Darul Ehsan: Percetakan Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka,
1990)147.
4 4 Lim Kay Tong, Cathav: SS Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 124. There are
conflicting or vague reports about Shaw’s involvement in Merdeka Studios. According to Dato
Krishnan, Ho Ah Loke obtained financing from his Odeon circuit shares to start Merdeka Studios. He
brought Shaw in as his partner because he needed a circuit for distribution. Dato Krishnan did not
mention H. M Shah at all. See, Dato Krishnan, personal interview, 10 August 1993.
4 5 Singapore’s first mandarin film. The Lion City, was produced in 1960. Tang Bo Qi, working in
film distribution at Cathay talked Loke Wan Tho into getting into the Mandarin film market. Six
more films were made, and according to Philip Cheah, “...though dynamic, it began to be seen that
Tang could not steer a full-scale production...the subsequent films flopped under severe
mismanagement...”. See, Philip Cheah, “Can Singapore build a film industry?” Singapore Monitor 2
Jul. 1984.
4 6 Lim Kav Tone. Cathav: 55 Years of Cinema (Singapore: Landmark Books, 1991) 126.
According to Loke in 1956, the government of the Federation of Malaya placed an import duty of ten
cents on each lineal foot entering the Federation. Malay films in Singapore were forced to pay this
duty as well. Loke also raised the interesting ramifications of this British quota should the Federation
receive independence. Any theater screening English language films were required to devote ten per
cent of their screening time to exhibit British films. Malay films, produced in Singapore, did not
qualify for this protective quota. See, Loke Wan Tho, “Where The Cinema Sky Is Cloudless.”
Kinematograph Weekly 12 Sept. 1957: 6.
4 7 John Lent. The Asian Film Industry (Austin: University of Texas, 1990) 189. Teletalent,
Singapore’s first live television show occurred in 1957. See, “Singapore’s First Taste O f A TV Show
- ‘Teletalent’,” Singapore Tiger Standard 5 Nov. 1957:4. Dato Krishnan expressed the belief that
the wave o f modernization in the 1960s, with an emphasis on English as a language o f economic
development, fostered a sense of humiliation, among many Malays, of watching Malay films in a
Malay theater.
4 1 John Lent. The Asian Film Industry (Austin: University of Texas, 1990) 189.
4 9 The date of Cathay-Keris’s closure varies. I have read accounts ranging from 1970, 1972, and
1977. For the 1977 account, refer to: “The Film Industry in Singapore,” ASEAN Country Reports on
Film (Manila: National Media Production Center, 1983).
5 0 “Cinemas continue to flourish despite TV,” 15 Nov. 1972.
5 1 A 1975 report in the New Nation stated that Chong Gay had placed 5200,000 order for film
equipment from Hong Kong and was in the process of recruiting local talent. The films produced
would be in Mandarin. The features would integrate local acting talent with well-known stars from
Hong Kong. See. “Filming in a big wav." New Nation 21 May. 1975.
5 2 Full House, a thriller comedy, directed by J. P Tan, was submitted to the 1975 Asian Film Festival.
The film featured Vietnamese actress Kie Chinh, Alan Young, a local actor, and an actor who was a
former sparring partner of Bruce Lee. See, “Full House for Asian Film Festival,” Sunday Times 11
May. 1975 and “Promoting Our First Thriller Film In English,” Sunday Times 10 May. 1975.
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5 3 Ring o f Fury, a kung fu film in Mandarin, was in production during 1974. This feature, shot in
Cinemascope and on Eastmancolor, was re-shot to please the Singapore Board of Film Censors. In
this newer version, co-director and co-scriptwriter, Mr James Sebastian, sought to “...increase the
involvement o f the police in th story and emphasize the theme that no man should take the law into
his own hands.” there was also to be “...a new scene before the opening credits...showing in dramatic
visual terms what Singapore is...”. See, Sonnv Yap. “New Scenes for Ring of Furv.” New Nation 1 1
Dec. 1974. Further research is needed to determine if the film did indeed have a release date.
5 4 There seems to be a discrepancy with respect to who produced these films. Newspaper articles
credit the producer role with Bobby Suarez, while the 1997 Singapore International Film Festival
retrospective program credits Sunny Lim with producing both films. Chong Gay did release The Two
Sides O f The Bridge, a Mandarin film in 1976. It was screened in 1985, 1990, and finally as part of
the Singapore International Film Festival's Singapore Rediscovery Programme in 1998. According to
the article, those viewers who watched the original screening, felt that, “...it was more popular among
the Chinese-educated population who believed Singapore should be part of Malaysia.” Indeed, this
morality tale centered around a young man from Kelantan, Malaysia, who, upon entering the bright
city lights of Singapore, was lured into the deep, dark world of drug traffickers, and then caught and
sent to jail. See, Li Xueying, “Traverse this bridge to the Singapore of old,” The Straits Times 15
Apr. 1998.
5 5 Tan Bah Bah. “Going bionic with the kids.” New Nation 17 Sept. 1977.
3 6 Gloria Chandy, “Movie is good for only a couple of laughs • and a few surprises,” New Nation 26
Apr. 1978.
5 7 See, Hayden White, Tropics of Discourse (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978)
51.
5 1 Mo Lian Lam, “Cathay to open video library,” New Nation 15 Oct. 1982. Cathay’s flaship
cinemas at the Cathay Building closed their doors in 2000. Cathay, which opened in 1939, is making
way for a multiplex. See, Kelvin Tong, “Thanks for the memories,” The Straits Times: Life! News
4 Jul. 2000: 6.
5 9 Bumiputra refers to Malay-Malaysian citizens. See, “Cathay taken over in $20m deal,” Singapore
Monitor 25 Jun. 1984.
6 0 Gandhi Ambalam, “Closing More Cinemas,” Singapore Monitor 27 Jan. 1983.
6 1 Amy Balan, “Shaw Bros to lease out its Malaysian cinema chain,” R. Times 21 Mar. 1987: 8.
6 2 Bertilla Pereira, “Singapore is among the world’s biggest buyers of video recorders,” Sunday
Monitor 19 Aug. 1984. According to an article by Gandhi Ambalam, one in five households in
Singapore owned a VCR, with almost six million blank tapes imported the first nine months of 1982.
See, Gandhi Ambalam, “Closing more cinemas,” Singapore Monitor 27 Jan. 1983.
6 3 C. M Turnbull, A History of Singapore: 1819 - 1988 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1989)
307 - 308.
6 4 Yoke Meng Lee, “Movie-making course for eager amateurs,” The Straits Times 23 Aug. 1982.
6 3 Chee Eng To, “Contest to bring the Spielberg out o f you,” Singapore Monitor 3 Aug. 1983.
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6 6 Peter Ooi, “Roll’em! It’s easy," Singapore Monitor 5 Mar. 1984.
6 7 “Learn how to make your own video," Singapore Monitor 8 May. 1984.
Kannan Chandran, "Our budding filmmakers," 18 Aug. 1984.
6 9 Michael Fu, personal interview, March 1998.
7 0 Marlene Kitts. “Whose business is show business?" The Straits Times 29 Nov. 1980.
7 1 Marlene Kitts, “Whose business is show business?” The Straits Times 29 Nov. 1980. Dr. Ow
mentions the existence of 8 Chinese feature films produced by independents over the last 20 years.
He cites Dream of the Red Chamber as one film that did not perform well financially in the local
market Singapore’s entertainment tax at that time was approximately 35%, and did not offer an
incentive to local feature production.
7 1 Sok Chng Tng, “Viable to start film industry," The Straits Times 29 Sept 1982. There was also a
brief mention in 1984, about transplanting the Hong Kong industry after Hong Kong’s return to China
in 1997. See, Philip Cheah, “Can Singapore build a film industry?” Singapore Monitor 2 Jul. 1984.
7 3 Their first film was Too Happy For Words, a joint venture with Cinema City, while their second
proposed film would be titled Ice on Fire. See, Julie Tan, “Hopes for a Singapore film industry,"
Sunday Times 3 May. 1987.
7 4 Jenny Lam, “Plan for Singapore-made movies,” 14 Mar. 1988.
7 5 Anne Low, “Wooing movie-makers to Tinseltown, Singapore,” 3 Jun. 1988.
7 6 Anne Low, “Wooing movie-makers to Tinseltown, Singapore," 3 Jun. 1988.
7 7 “Cinema operators anticipate a gloomy future,” 3 1 Mar. 1980.
7 9 This declining attendance was primarily credited to the advent of video and copyright infringement,
where pirated video copies were available before the film’s theatrical release. See, “Show’s not over
yet for cinemas,” Singapore Monitor 7 Dec. 1983. The first registered cinema attendance decline
since 1976, occurred in 1980. Smaller, more rural theaters like Nee Soon and Bright were among the
first to close. Theaters like Hoover, Rex, Republic, and Premier, followed the conversion trend to live
Chinese theaters in 1983. Jurong Drive-In, Metropole, and Venus, were closed in 1985. This
occurred after the building frenzy o f 1979 - 1980 in which 12 theaters were built For more
information, see: Philip Cheah, “More new roles for cinemas,” 13 Jan. 1986: 4.
7 9 “Coming Soon - filmmaking,” Business Times 23 Mar. 1989.
* ° “Coming Soon - filmmaking," Business Times 23 Mar. 1989.
* * See, “Singapore to compete to be TV and film centre,” The Straits Times 26 February 1993,
“Government plans to make Singapore a film centre.” Business Times 26 Feb. 1993, and “Tax
incentives to boost Singapore’s filmmaking industry,” The Straits Times 22 Apr. 1993.
5 2 Rebecca Lim, “I want my, I want my, MTV, from Singapore,” The Straits Times: Life Section 12
Sept 1998:2.
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“ Rebecca Lim, “1 want my, I want my, MTV, from Singapore,” The Straits Times: Life Section 12
Sept 1998:2.
M Rebecca Lim, “1 want my, I want my, MTV, from Singapore,” The Straits Times: Life Section 12
Sept 1998: 2. This advertisement for political stability, fed into the anxieties and uncertainties
surrounding Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997.
1 5 At the time of this article’s release in March 1997, all HDB estates were in the process of being
wired for cable. SCV had hoped to wire 90% of all the 800,000 homes by the end of 1998. See, Tan
Yi-Ling, “Soon, 70 movies a month on new cable TV channel,” The Straits Times: Life At Large 20
Mar. 1997: L3. The introduction of cable with more programming in Hokkien, Cantonese, and other
Chinese dialects illustrates a more relaxed enforcement of the PAP government’s policy o f Mandarin
as the privileged Chinese dialect. The Television Corporation of Singapore’s channels, however,
would continue to promote Mandarin to facilitate the PAP government’s Speak Mandarin Campaign.
See, “Cable TV to screen more Chinese dialect shows,” The Straits times 11 May. 1997: 34.
1 6 Rebecca Lim, “I want my, I want my, MTV, from Singapore,” The Straits Times: Life Section 12
Sept. 1998: 2.
* 7 Magdalene Lim. “Target the world.” The Straits Times: Life! Cover Story 25 Aug. 1999: 3. Part
of the reason for the rapid growth of the television production industry has been the result of
incentives by the government in the form of $6 million dollars offered by the Singapore Broadcasting
Authority to STV12 and TCS to be used in commissioning more programming either in-house or
through independent production houses. The SBA and EDB have worked together since 1997
through the Local Industry Upgrading Programme, to nurture the growth o f this industry.
“ Rizwana Begum, “Now Showing...,” Singapore Jan. - Feb. 1998: 8.
8 9 “Adrian Lim story to he basis of SI ,7m film.” The Straits Times 14 Nov. 1990.
9 0 Santha Oorjitham, “Laugh-that’s an order, a comedy may bring Singapore film to life,” Asiaweek
27 Sept 1996.
9 t Malini Rajendran, “A reel look at pain,” Asia Magazine 2 - 4 May. 1997: 16 - 17. The film was
produced by Cathay Asia Films, the production wing of Cathay Organisation. Cathay also established
its Cathay Vidfilm Asia, a joint venture between itself and American post house Vidfilm Services. As
Asia’s first film restoration laboratory, plans are not only in the works for restoring old Cathay films,
but to also look for restoration projects within the region. See, www.asiapages.com.sg / direct / text/
multi.htm.
9 2 See, David Birch, “Film and Cinema in Singapore: Cultural Policy as Control,” Film Policy:
International. National, and Regional Perspectives, ed. Albert Moran (London: Routledge, 1996)
193. According to Birch, R (A) censorship involved: “...the film should have a strong storyline and a
credible cast, the film’s theme should not be exploitive of sex or violence, scenes o f nudity, love-
making and violence should not form an integral part of the film, and the film should be critically
acclaimed or possibly award winning...”.
9 3 Khoo’s film has been adapted into a stage play. It received an R(A) rating for its nudity. See,
Jessica Tan, “Mee Pok with nude sauce,” The Straits Times: Life! News 9 Oct. 2000: 4.
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9 4 Eric Khoo was inspired by Damien Sin’s short story, “One Last Cold Kiss.” The script was written
in English by Sin, and was subsequently translated into Mandarin and the other Chinese dialects. See,
Sandi Tan, “Mee Pok Man gets the flavours right,” The Straits Times 7 Aug. 1995: 2.
9 5 Other key distributors and exhibitors in Singapore include Eng Wah, Cathay, Overseas Movies, and
Golden Village. Every Chinese film released in Singapore is screened at Eng Wah’s theaters.
Founded in the 1940s, Eng Wah also co-produced Hokkien films in Hong Kong for the Singapore and
Malaysia markets. It began screening English language films in 1989. See, Li, XueYing, “Bigger,
better cinemas,” The Straits Times 28 Mar. 1998:6.
9 6 Rizwana Begum, “Now Showing...,” Singapore Jan. — Feb. 1998: 8-13. See also, Hiebert
Murray. Far Eastern Economic Review 17 Jul. 1997.
9 7 Hiebert Murray. Far Eastern Economic Review 17 Jul. 1997.
9 8 Golden Village is a joint venture between Australia's Roadshow Limited and Raymond Chow’s
Golden Harvest Group of Hong Kong and is the largest cinema operator with 50% of the market.
Golden Village was the primary figure in ushering the era of the multiplex in the 1990s with the
opening of Yishun 10 in 1992. It proved to be Asia's largest multiplex at the time. Golden Village
multiplexes dot the island with locations in a housing estate in Bishan, Tampines in the east, the
Marina, Tiong Bahru, Great World City, and GV Plaza in Plaza Singapura. See, the Golden Village
website.
9 9 Kelvin Tong, “Jack’s hot on the small screen too,” The Straits Times: Life! News 10 Sept. 1998:
2. Money No Enough's Jack Neo was an extra in Are You Lonesome Tonight, a film starring Hong
Kong actor Jordan Chan and China actress Huxin. See, Teo Kuan Yee, “'Extra' time for Jack,” The
New Paper 1 1 Mar. 2000: 38.
1 0 0 Kelvin Tong, “Wah, no money, so funny,” The Straits Times: Life! Cover Storv 7 May. 1998: 2.
Jack Neo subsequently released a S 100,000 budgeted video film on VCD called Hitman In The City.
This 72 minute film is a longer version of Neo’s 8 minute parody of Chow Yun Fat’s The
Replacement Killers. This short film garnered Neo a Best Director award at the Singapore Internal
Film Festival Silver Screen award in 1998. See, Lee Shu Hui, “Hitman No Enough for Neo,” The
Straits Times: Life! News 28 Sept. 1998): 3.
1 0 1 Rebecca Lim, “Glen Goei takes on Hollywood,” The Straits Times: Life! Cover Storv 26 Jun.
1998): 2.
1 0 2 Kelvin Tong, “Forever Fever sizzles with a $4.5m take,” The Straits Times: Life! News 27
May. 1998: 3.
1 0 3 Jonathan Foo produced this feature. He entered the 1996 Singapore International Film Festival
with his short film. Wasteland: A Prelude to Death.
1 0 4 Bissme S, “Plight of ex-mental patients,” The Sun 30 Jun. 1999: B14.
1 0 5 “Liang Po Po is a winner,” The Straits Times: Life! News 9 Feb. 1999: 6.
1 0 6 Kelvin Tong, “Got a story? Climb on-board Raintree,” The Straits Times: Life! News 8 Aug.
1998: 3.
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1 0 7 Raintree Pictures 2 Aug. 1999. See, www.raintree.com.sg/main.htm.
1 0 * K elvin T o n g ,‘‘They want to blow up a 747,” The Straits Times: Life! News 16 Sept. 1999: 4.
1 0 9 All the box office figures are current to the date of the newspaper article. I do not have the current
figures. See, Tee Hun Ching, “Problem is at home,” The Straits Times: Life! News 25 May. 1999:
2.
1 1 0 “Enough! Jack Neo’s movie out on video,” The Straits Times: Life! (19 June 1999).
1 1 1 Tee Hun Ching, “That One still no enough,” The Straits Times 11 Jun. 1999.
1 1 2 Ellen White, “Singapore’s Gang of Five,” Asiaweek 5 Nov. 1999: 45. David Lam Tak-yuk also
directed Girls Without Tomorrow and Women's Prison.
1 1 3 Jan Uhde and Yvonne Ng Uhde, Latent Images: Film in Singapore (Singapore: Oxford University
Presss, 2000) 142.
1 1 4 Teo Pau Lin, “Hop on, the road is yours,” The Straits Times 28 Jan. 1999. No page number
available.
1 1 5 Helmi Yusof,“Air, dark, light...magic!” The Straits Times 15 Apr. 2000: 3.
"* "Eating Air rides back to cinema,” The Straits Times 14 Jan. 2000: 2.
1 1 7 Thomson Community was also a co-sponsor from 1990 - 1996.
' 1 8 There were no winning entries for either “Best Video Featuring Singapore” or “Best Video
Featuring the People’s Association.” See, internal memo, “Summary of “Video 90 Awards” - Sixth
Singapore Video Competition.” ce/vcp/v90-rep 1990.
1 1 9 Press Release on the Panasonic Video Awards - The Seventh Singapore Video Competition, 20
Nov. 1991). Approved by Mr Douglas Koh, Director PA (Programmes). The other categories
include best drama, best documentary, best music video, best sound, best cinematography, best
editing, most creative, and best direction awards.
1 2 0 The Asian Film Centre was established in 1990 to “...promote serious works of Asian cinema...and
to help support the work o f local filmmakers...”. Mr Phillip Cheah was the coordinator of the center,
located within the offices of the Singapore International Film Festival. See, Lo Tien Yin, “Centre for
art films set up,” The Sunday Times 16 Sept. 1990.
1 2 1 Press Release on the Panasonic Video Awards - The Seventh Singapore Video Competition, 20
Nov. 1991. Approved by Mr Douglas Koh, Director PA (Programmes).
1 2 2 The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema also co-sponsored this event. See, Press Briefing
by Mr GohChim Khim, Deputy Director (Programmes), 29 Jul. 1993.
1 2 3 The Substation Brochure. 1996.
1 2 4 Siew Fem Yong, “Introducing Poor man’s filmmaking,” The New Paper 19 Jan. 1998: 25.
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1 2 5 Guerrilla Filmmakers Workshop and Zouk co-organized the “Not Your Sister’s Wedding Video”
contest in 1999. This contest was designed to select the best short film idea to be made into a film
which the winner would direct The goal of this contest was to discover raw talent and inject some
vitality into the local film scene. See, Seto Nu-Wen, “Your chance to become a director,” The New
Paper Showtime 31 Aug. 1999.
1 2 6 Elisabeth Gwee, “Next change: A movie feast,” The Straits Times 24 Mar. 1997: L7.
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Chapter Three: The (other)ed space of per(form)ing cultural memory in
Singapore
Singapore, as a city-nation, is faced with both its fervent desire to extend its
global reach in the 1990s and its frantic search for fragments of a Singaporean
culture, history, and national identity. This dilemma finds its echoes in Singapore 21,
a millennial vision of Singapore launched by the People’s Action Party (PAP)
government in 1997. The campaign sought to focus on Singapore’s “heartware”
which was defined by qualities such as social cohesion and the collective will and
desires of a Singaporean people. According to Singapore 21, the strength of
Singapore’s heartware depends on its ability to reconcile “internationalization and
regionalization vs. Singapore as home.”1
I would argue that this desire for a Singapore heartware is perhaps best
observed within the battlefields of cultural memory. It is within this terrain that
competing voices vie for the power to articulate national and cultural narratives.
Cultural memory is therefore dynamic, diachronic, and a vital presence in any
discussion of identity politics, whether cultural, historical, or national.2 Although
theorists who grapple with this ephemeral concept acknowledge the uneasy
boundaries between personal memory, cultural memory, and official history', many
continue to maintain a degree of demarcation between them. The dialogue between
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cultural memory and official history operates somewhat more intimately in
Singapore.
In the context of Singapore, the PAP government has long marketed official
history as cultural memory through institutional agencies like the Singapore Tourist
Board (STB). I present the mythic figure of the Merlion, a hybridized creature of
fish and lion as a case study to highlight the degree to which the Merlion, as a
Singapore cultural icon fabricated by the Singapore Tourist Board to generate tourist
revenue, was packaged as cultural memory. It is symptomatic of the manner in
which official history as cultural memory is shaped according to market forces and
subject to the vagaries of the tourist industry. It is vital in Singapore, to de-couple
and re-negotiate official history’s stranglehold on cultural memory by examining
other contributions to it. As cultural memory is actively produced within the domain
of popular culture through representations in images, films, and television I turn to
four Singaporean films released in the 1990s, Bugis Street, Forever Fever, Medium
Rare and God or Dog that function as technologies of memory to inject, along
performative lines, competing contours onto the turbulent landscape of cultural
memory, which has for so long been dominated by the PAP.J
Marketing Cultural Memory: The Merlion and the Singapore Tourism Board (STB)
...Their spirits yearn again for images,
Adding to the dragon, phoenix,
Garuda, naga, those horses of the sun,
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This lion of the sea,
This image of themselves...4
The metonymic power of monuments and statues to ideas of nation and
national identity is obviously a universal one. Many nations such as America and
France have very recognizable icons that, besides bringing in tourist revenue, are
woven into the warp and weft of nationhood and national identity. Unlike the Statue
of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower, whose histories are as immovable as their
foundations, the Merlion’s claim to cultural memory is especially malleable and
shaped largely according to the official marketing strategies of the Singapore Tourist
Board.
The Merlion, as monument, sits proudly at the mouth of the Singapore River.
Jets of seawater spew forth from its fanged lips, while its smooth alabaster body is
the embodiment of Singa-pura; lion city. Singapore. As an ubiquitous cultural icon,
the Merlion adorns everything from T-shirts to playing cards. Although a stable
figure in Singapore’s physical landscape, the Merlion is a controversial presence in
Singapore’s cultural landscape and cultural memory because of its origin as a
corporate logo for the Singapore Tourism Board (STB). This corporate logo and the
Singapore Tourist Board served as a way to market Singapore as a country in its own
right and to create a sense of Singaporean culture and history after its expulsion from
the Federation of Malaysia in 1965.
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The Singapore Tourism Board is a powerful player in the dialogue between
cultural memory and official history. It launched a new campaign in 1996 to
position Singapore as a tourism capital. With approximately 7.29 million visitors to
Singapore in 1996, and a revenue of about 11.2 billion dollars, tourism is a pivotal
industry and tourist attractions penetrate the Singapore landscape.3 Debates about the
status of the Merlion in Singapore’s cultural affairs has permeated official channels
of parliament and raged in the Singapore press.
In a Singapore parliamentary session in March 1999, Dr. Toh See Kiat
(Aljunied GRC) advocated,
...Three principles in developing Singapore’s attractions: Keep
astride of international developments and what people want in
tourist attractions; continually update the obsolete, such as Sentosa’s
“dead” Asian Village; and avoid the “tacky”, such as Sentosa’s
Merlion, which puts off visitors....6
He went on further to say that, “...I was amazed at the totally unconvincing nature of
this legend, which is, of course, totally fictional, because the Merlion was invented
by the Tourist Promotion Board some years ago....7 In reference to a similar letter
sent to The Straits Times Forum page, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) issued a
stark rejoinder. It claimed that the Merlion,
...has become an instantly recognized mark of Singapore, thanks to
more than three decades of careful consistent promotion
throughout the world. The Merlion the corporate logo of the
Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB)... was established in
1964...Today, it is the most recognized representation of Singapore,
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although the orchid, traveller’s palm, and the Raffles Hotel are a few
other symbols the board uses in its international marketing and
promotional programmes...8
According to the Singapore Tourist Board, the lion head alludes to the legend of
Sang Nila Utama who believed he saw a lion when he first landed in Singapore. The
fishtail barkens back to Singapore’s roots as a fishing village.9 In the past 35 years,
the Merlion has undergone rapid shifts in signification. It has served as a corporate
logo, an ephemeral beast baptized in Singapore literary works, as a marketing
concept, and finally as a problematic presence in Singapore’s cultural landscape and
cultural memory.
As a branded good and cultural icon, the Merlion is symptomatic of the
relationship between Singapore cultural memory and economic imperatives where
these acts of remembering and forgetting take on an added dimension. Both are
linked to market forces and respond to issues of profitability and loss. In its bid to
market and promote the Merlion, the Singapore Tourist Board has “forgotten”
Singapore’s integral role in colonial maritime history and instead has constructed a
cultural memory that appeals to a pre-British colonial past. It is a rustic past
suffused with a healthy serving of exotica in the repackaged myths and legends of
Sang Nila Utama who hailed from the Sri Vijaya Empire of the 11th Century.
It is ironic perhaps, that the PAP government and the STB do not recognize
the subversive potential of their mythic creation. The Merlion, with its entangled
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position between official history and cultural memory does not merely offer a
glimpse into the tumultuous production of cultural memory in Singapore and
highlight the need to open up other sites to examine the process of constructing
Singaporean cultural memory. The Merlion is also a vision of hybridity, of
difference, of disorder, of dislocation, and of implosion. Bugis Street, Forever
Fever, Medium Rare, and God or Dog revel in these fractured moments to delve into
the nuances and contradictions of a cultural memory operating within a city-nation.
Performative Acts o f Re-presentation: Bugis Street, Forever Fever, Medium Rare,
and God or Dog
...There are older voices. Avenues were
Streets before; gleaming condos replaced
Ancestral homes extended celebrations.
We move, adjust, discover yet again
There are two imaginings, perhaps
More, between pages, between lines...1 0
In Singapore's presently designated Heritage District, most of the
older markers of our collective urban past are gone, and surviving
older buildings covered under air-conditioned domes as markers to
the pioneering poverty-stricken migrants who came in the colonial
era, even while there is a stronger emphasis than ever in the nation
during 1998 on ‘who we are and where we came from'. The ‘real'
past, as it were, lies elsewhere.1 1
Singapore’s Heritage District and other sites of conservation not only mark a shift in
terms of signification (“surviving older buildings covered under air-conditioned
domes”), but also point to the dynamic relationship between Singapore’s economic
imperatives and its cultural memory. Core components to this tumultuous union
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include the potential economic profitability and viability of these conservation areas
not only as spaces celebrating Singapore’s sense of a national past and culture, but
also as sites for tourist consumption.1 2 Issues of conservation and heritage should
therefore contribute to the “...economic assets of the country in the same way more
conventional landscapes of industrial production.” 1 3 Many Singaporeans feel this
constant tension between the economy and cultural memory. According to a 1994
survey, “...the bulk of respondents not only identified the attraction of tourists to
Singapore as a prime motivation for urban conservation but felt that conservation
benefits tourists more than Singaporeans...”.1 4
The most current controversy has again involved the Singapore Tourist Board
with its intention to remap historic Chinatown with the strategy of thematic
development. The Tourist Board’s $97.5 million dollar thematic development budget
included color coding districts and an elemental garden.1 5 The Tourist Board’s
vision unleashed a flood of letters in both the Lianhe ZaoBao, the Chinese language
newspaper, and the Straits Times, Singapore’s English language daily. In 1998.
television forum program, Talking Point, highlighted the Chinatown debate and
sought opinions from academics, professionals, and the public. By 1999, a public
forum, comprising a diverse range of participants, was organized by the Singapore
Tourist Board. The status of Chinatown as a cultural site and tourist lure remains
uncertain. As of 1999, consultations between the Singapore Heritage Society and the
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Singapore Tourist Board are ongoing.1 6 The uproar over the Singapore Tourist
Board’s plans for Chinatown reflects an increasing trend of vocal Singaporeans with
a vested interest in their heritage, which in this case, is heavily embodied by the
physical landscape of Chinatown.
Just as the “markers of our collective urban past” reflect a tension between
economy and cultural memory, so too do markers of Singapore’s collective urban
present or cityscape. Singapore’s small landmass (646.1 square kilometers) and its
population of almost three million residents, presents an urban landscape of immense
density.1 7 This urban cityscape is rigidly structured around the principles of the
People’s Action Party (PAP). According to the PAP’s policy of multiculturalism
and meritocracy, where, in theory, the ethno-racial population of Singapore is
considered equal, the government has configured its national housing policy
according to ethno-racial quotas to insure that there are no ethno-racial enclaves.1 8
Apart from this highly ethno-racialized space, the PAP government has also
embarked on several campaigns designed to instill a sense of cleanliness and order
within this cityscape (public housing, residential areas, and city center). One of
these campaigns, “Clean and Green Singapore,” called for a rabid surveillance of
littering activity. The government also interspersed pockets of shrubbery and trees
between towering skyscrapers in order to maintain the longevity and success of the
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Green-city concept. This vision of the Singapore cityscape, along with the grotesque
Merlion, continues to be marketed and exported as added incentives for tourism.
I argue that films like Bugis Street (1996), Forever Fever (1998), Medium
Rare (1991), and God or Dog (1996) shatter the hegemonic image of a clean and
ordered city-scape and open up the site of the elsewhere to explore the multiple
temporalities and spatialities of Singapore’s cultural memory. It is this performative
exercise as a mode of cultural production, coupled with the views expressed by the
Singapore public on heritage issues like Chinatown through the written and spoken
word, that destabilizes the pedagogical as the primary agent controlling the contours
of Singapore’s cultural memory. These acts begin to interrogate the claim made by
Brig-Gen (NS) Yeo, the former Minister of Information and the Arts, that,
“...nostalgia is big business in Singapore now.” 1 9
Bugis Street: Seepy Spaces
Bugis Street is named after an actual geographical location in Singapore,
Bugis Street, but frames this location through a nostalgic filter of the 1960s. The
Bugis Street of the 1960s was a popular attraction for tourists and sailors who would
congregate for raucous nightly entertainment and sex with mostly Chinese
transvestites in the many brothels that populated the area. True to the ordered and
sterile nature of government redevelopment policies, Bugis Street was transformed
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from this site of decadence to a more palatable location for restaurants and curio
shops in the 1990s.
The film centers around the intersection of three predominant spaces: the
hotel / brothel Sin Sin and its attendant rooms, Bugis Street with its rambunctious
crowds, and the contemporary skyline of Singapore with its towering skyscrapers.
Temporal markers like the overwhelming presence of rickshaws as modes of
transportation and period costumes, suggest a coherent diegetic space and time of the
1960s. Exterior scenes that take place at the bus stop are also shot in a sepia tone in
order to evoke a sense of nostalgia and history. However, the final shot of the film,
which is a long take, pans from crumbling shophouses, and tilts to reveal the
contemporary skyline. This skyline presents a temporal conflation and echoes
Thumboo’s suggestion that Singapore’s cultural memory functions on multiple
temporalities and spatialities. Singapore’s physical and cultural landscape are
extremely permeable. It is this idea of permeability and conflation that begins to
strip away the coherent and linear veneer of official history.
More provocatively, Bugis Street queers cultural memory and the
construction of the Government cityscape through the spaces of the brothel, Bugis
Street, and the physical landscape. Many of the characters in the film are either
transsexual or in the process of becoming transsexual. Other characters are drag
queens who challenge the conventional notions of femininity and beauty through the
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performative mode of the masquerade. In an incredibly poignant moment, several
characters gather in a bedroom to reveal their innermost thoughts. One of the drag
queens subjects each participant to an interrogating lens of a home video camera,
intricately building a confessional space. 2 0 Discussions rage around issues of sex
changes and are punctuated not only by these confessional moments but by elements
of narcissism and voyeurism as well.
In another touching scene, Drago laments his /her fate at being bom a
daughter but being embodied as a son. It is not made explicitly clear whether Drago
is a transvestite or transsexual. This points to the implosion of categories of sex and
gender, and hints at the potential for mutability and transformation in identity
formation. The brothel is a site where the dichotomies of sex and gender are
dissolved to reveal the interstitial space of liminality. In this site, space and time can
no longer be effectively coded in terms of gender division and the demarcation of
public and private space. The private or residential space of the bedroom becomes
the public site of work and commodification through the act of prostitution.
Marsha Kinder, in her article, “Documenting the National,” underscores the
manner in which transsexuals like Drago function as “...transgressive figures to
explore the cultural and historical specificity of the nation in which they are
struggling to survive...'*2 1 Drago’s state of uncertainty, liminality and masquerade
function allegorically to suggest that the PAP government is performing its own
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national drag or masquerade as Singapore shifted from a city under British rule to a
city-nation by default.2 2 Indeed the 1990s itself was seen as a decade of transition,
experimentation, and uncertainty with Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong being
appointed in 1990 only after Lee Kuan Yew stepped down from almost 31 years as
Singapore's Prime Minister. Lee Kuan Yew was subsequently appointed Senior
Minister and his powerful presence continues to loom large and exert a tremendous
impact on Singapore's political and cultural landscapes.
The Clean and Green Government cityscape is queered as well. Bugis Street
intersperses scenes of the brothel and Bugis Street with scenes of lush greenery.
This verdant landscape is reminiscent of the ordered pockets of greenery that form
an essential component of the Clean and Green cityscape. In a titillating scene, two
transsexual prostitutes observe and coyly flirt with a group of men jogging through a
dense thicket of trees. Clad in tight shorts, these men become spectacles and are
reduced to functioning as objects of desire. The stability of the gaze is rendered
problematic because the transsexual characters collapse categories of sex and gender;
the gaze can no longer be coded as either masculine or feminine. Bugis Street not
only constructs an alternate, competing cityscape of implosion, fusion, transgression
and chaos, but also uses nostalgia to reveal the queered, seepy, seminal, and
menstrual spaces of Bugis Street in the 1960s. It is this performative act that boldly
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refuses to forget or erase Bugis Street as a charged, visceral icon in Singapore’s
cultural memory.
Forever Fever: That’ s The Way I like It
Forever Fever opens with a map of the world as the voice of an American
radio disc jockey spins disco music. We see the origin of this transmission in
Southern California, and follow the spread of disco across European, African, and
Asian radio stations. The film positions, in rather explicit terms, the hegemonic
transmission of American pop culture through the medium of music (via radio
waves), fashion, and Hollywood icons (John Travolta and Saturday Night Fever).
Ah Hock, the central character, is the filter who absorbs these fragments of pop
culture within his Singaporean identity. From the outset, therefore. Forever Fever
imbricates Singapore’s cultural memory with America, and more specifically,
Hollywood (exhibition and distribution).2 3
This construction of Singapore’s cultural memory is at a counterpoint to the
PAP government’s notion of a pure Singaporean essence. Forever Fever produces
cultural memory, which revels in hybridity and gleefully celebrates the seductive
power of American pop culture. Ah Hock manages to dance a mean disco step and
maintain his Asian value of filial piety. He unfailingly works to support his family,
and we soon learn that it is Ah Hock who becomes the family breadwinner when his
father is unemployed for a period of time. The complexities and costs of this cultural
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hybridity are effectively explored in the dinner sequences, which feature Ah Hock
and his family. It is a multi-general family with parents, siblings, and grandmother
all occupying the same domestic space. The dinner scenes predominantly end with
the grandmother speaking in a Chinese dialect that no one responds to. It is clear
from her comments that she does not understand English and consequently, cannot
follow the chain of events taking place around the dinner table. She is separated by
her inability to speak English, a broker language that should ideally enable her to
transcend the barriers erected in terms of language and generation. The PAP
government believed that English would serve as broker language, that is a language
that could be used by all the various ethno-racial groups in Singapore. This would
ideally enable Singaporeans to communicate with each other irrespective of race or
ethnicity. The figure of the grandmother is a poignant reminder of the potential costs
of adopting English, a tool with a colonial past, to enter the fray of global trade and
industry.
Bhabha’s idea of the performative is couched in extremely oppositional
terms. While this is largely the case with Bugis Street, Forever Fever, as a
performative force, infuses Singapore's cultural memory with strains of a mythic and
immemorial East. The historical narrative presented at the beginning of the film
starts with Singapore’s independence from British rule. By doing so, the film re
writes Singapore’s history from 1963, when Singapore joined the Federation of
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Malaysia, to 1965, when it became an independent nation. It erases this turbulent
ethno-racial moment of expulsion in Singapore’s history and constructs a seamless
transition from Singapore as colony to Singapore, as an independent nation in 1965.
Forever Fever does not only re-draw Singapore cultural memory along
historical lines, it also re-casts Singapore as a seductive oriental space whose identity
is imbricated in a mythic East. It is a nation with chopsticks as its “official utensil”.2 4
This imaginary geography not only erodes the rhetoric of a plural society espoused
by the Singapore government, but does not conform to Singapore's actual
geographical location. Singapore’s majority Chinese population lies not in an
ephemeral east, but in a Muslim dominated region in Southeast Asia. This
geographical resignification is reflective of larger cultural currents observed in the
disjunctural narrative in chapter one.
Glen Goei, director of Forever Fever, illustrates the process whereby
personal memory enters the domain of cultural memory. Heavily influenced by
Saturday Night Fever and his own experiences as a youth in 1970s Singapore, Goei
has effectively created an homage to Saturday Night Fever with a Singaporean flair.
Ah Hock converses with a John Travolta look-alike who steps off the screen ala
Purple Rose o f Cairo to offer Ah Hock valuable dating and dress tips. Clad in the
signature white suit, Ah Hock does not surround himself with images of Al Pacino as
Travolta’s character does in Saturday Night Fever. He is instead enamored with and
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emulates Bruce Lee. It is through this wonderfully hybrid homage that Goei
performatively explores issues like a Singaporean identity that must balance between
its regional status (Asia - Hong ICong) and its international one (primarily the West
in the guise of the United States). It is this commentary and exploration that
performatively thrusts Goei’s personal memory into the wider terrain of cultural
memory.
Like Bugis Street, Forever Fever engages in gender play and maps this
mutability within Singapore’s cultural landscape. Ah Hock’s brother, Leslie, is the
golden child of the family until he expresses his desire to become a woman. He is
subsequently banished from the house and reappears only to meet Ah Hock before
his debut in the disco competition. Dressed in drag with an Audrey Hepbumesque
wig and black gown, Leslie enters the house not knowing that Ah Hock has already
left for the disco. His father does not recognize Leslie at first, but gradually
recognition dawns. Enraged, he banishes Leslie from the house. Faced with the
prospect of being disowned, Leslie attempts suicide. The film ends on an
ambiguous note, leaving the audience to speculate whether Leslie will recover, and
use Ah Hock’s prize money to complete his sex change. Forever Fever, like Bugis
Street features transvestites like Leslie who function allegorically to suggest the
political uncertainty and period of transition following Goh Chok Tong’s emergence
as Prime Minister. Goei, for example, dispenses with the role of the priest in
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Saturday Night Fever. What was originally the figure of authority, stability, and
order, is now queered and displaced onto the figure of Leslie. He is confused about
his identity and place within his family and socio-cultural environment and is
uncertain about his future
Like Bugis Street, temporal markers of the 1990s (car models and the
skyline) infuse the production design of Forever Fever with the slippery sheen of
historical conflation. By doing so, Bugis Street and Forever Fever performatively
interrogate the notion of linear, ordered official history by presenting a notion of
history that contains multiple temporalities and spatialities which exist in radical
disjunctive with one another. These films present an organic layering of time which
the Government, in its own vision of Singapore, attempts to disavow. In the
Government’s conception of monotime, Singapore political history began in 1959,
and its geographic history established in 1962 with the Housing Development Board.
Urban redevelopment, as mentioned earlier in the chapter, does not seek to restore as
much as it does to renovate and refurbish. Uncomfortable with Singapore’s colonial
heritage and the poly-nature of time and history, the Government is constantly in the
process of razing buildings to produce a uniform or non-descript sense of time and
place (as evidenced by plans to reshape Chinatown). Bugis Street and Forever
Fever, through their images of temporal conflation, confront this organic thickness
of the Singaporean past and present to explore this cultural dynamic and construct
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imaginings, which exist not between pages or lines as in Thumboo’s poem, but
within images.2 3 It remains to be seen whether other Singaporean films choose to
engage with this notion of organic, poly-time and what that means for Singapore
heritage and culture.2 6
The Case o f Adrian Lim
While Bugis Street roots cultural memory around a geographical location and
Forever Fever engages with cultural memory along the frontlines of popular culture,
both Medium Rare and Forever Fever seek to explore cultural memory through the
persona of Adrian Lim, a notorious medium who was convicted and hung in 1988
for killing an eight year old Chinese girl and an eleven year old Malay boy in 1981.
Both Adrian Lim’s wife and mistress were also sent to the gallows. Adrian Lim and
his accomplices, as controversial Singaporean figures, have been buried and dis-
remembered within Singapore's official history. Although both films engage loosely
with Adrian Lim’s persona and his wife and mistress, Medium Rare and God or Dog
dredges this perceived blight from its forgotten presence in Singapore’s cultural
memory and infuse it with discourses of sex, exotica, and the supernatural.
Medium Rare: Exotic Fare
Medium Rare, apparently is a “...pun on the words ‘a rare medium’. The play
on word position is meant to evoke an “...image of a bloody steak, giving an idea of
what the movie is about”2 7 Yet rather than evoking the image of a bloodied steak,
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Tony Yeow, who was fired as the film’s director, provides a pithier description of
what the film is about. In a 1990 interview, Yeow comments that, “...Our main
target is America and we need a story that is global. Our first movie in English must
have a very good story theme and it must be marketable...”2 8 With emphasis on the
key word marketable, producer Errol Pang’s cast is decidedly cosmopolitan. In this
loose adaptation of the Adrian Lim cult murders, the Adrian Lim figure is not
Chinese. Lim Kay Siu, a Singaporean Chinese, was the original lead. By the time
the film went into production, Dore Kraus, a dark haired, olive skinned American
assumed the role of Daniel Lee. Daniel Lee’s biracial status, he is of Caucasian
American and Singaporean parentage, makes him a literal hybrid or blend of East
and West. Daniel constantly sports a five o’clock shadow on his face and whenever
possible, displays his rather impressive bare chest and flexes his pectoral muscles
voraciously. A particularly striking scene features Daniel practicing tai-chi bare
chested on the beach. It is somewhat baffling that Daniel has a Chinese last name,
yet has a Caucasian American father. This suggests the conflicted relationship
between east and west as a recurrent trope within Singapore’s cultural memory and
political history.
The film deviates in a marked way in terms of Daniel Lee’s two lovers.
Unlike Adrian Lim’s two Chinese women lovers, Daniel Lee’s lovers are Beverly, a
blonde American photojournalist, and Yoke Lin, a Chinese woman clad in South
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Indian garb. The secondary cast of characters include Mei, Yoke Lin’s sister.
Winston, Mei aged suitor, Daisy, Yoke and Mei’s mother, Yoke and Mei’s unnamed
stepfather, and amah, a South Indian female devotee of Kali. This recasting of the
Adrian Lim horror with both Asian and Western faces functions to explore the
anxiety, demands, and conflict inherent in living within a city-nation that must
balance its local identity with its desire for a global embrace.
Medium Rare is consciously marketed for the international audience and
offers a lavish, exotic spectacle of the supernatural, the decadent, the macabre, and
the sensual for global consumption. Beverly, a photojoumalist, is sent to Singapore
to write an article about mysticism in Singapore. She wants to uncover how
mysticism, mediums, and “dark spirits” fit in a “country that’s so modem”. As a
product for global export, Pang piques the curiosity of his intended international
audience, enticing them with visions of Singapore’s seemingly exotic rituals and
religious practices that are hidden within the crevices of Singapore as a dynamic,
cosmopolitan city. The film opens with the Hindu festival of Thaipusam, in which
penitents carry large, heavy kavadis. Covered with holy ash and in a trance, these
kavadi carriers spear their lips, tongue, and other assorted body parts with iron rods,
nails, and metal spikes. Beverly captures the intense gazes of these penitents with
her camera, and in effect, the audience consumes these alien images with both awe
and revulsion. After Beverly returns to her hotel room, she begins to develop the
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pictures she took at the Thaipusam celebration. One picture, saturated with
developing fluids, soon reveals the face of a female Indian penitent with a piece of
metal speared through her mouth. Beverly seems to lock gazes with the eyes that
peer out from the photograph, and in that moment, the Indian woman's visage is
destined to be a commodity doomed to be reproduced, endlessly circulated, and
fetishized in travel magazines
The physical landscape of Singapore suggested by this film further reinforces
the image of Singapore as an enticing blend of rural Asia and modem city. Beverly
begins to hear tales of Daniel, the medium, through her Singaporean contact Alvin,
who is coded as gay. It is Alvin that introduces Beverly to the very intensely sexual
and masculine Daniel. The journey to see Daniel takes Beverly and Alvin on a boat
ride down the Singapore River. Along the journey, Alvin spots the Merlion and tries
to engage Beverly with his self-proclaimed “tourist spiel”, one in which the Merlion
is “...the most famous symbol of Singapore...” Beverly is not impressed with his
official tourist rhetoric, and is instead intent on discovering the dark, organic, ritual
flavor of Singapore. The boat finally lands on a grassy bank and Alvin leads Beverly
to the site of Daniel's medium performance. The site is lit by burning torches and
Daniel, who is bathed within this flickering orange light, is a commanding, sexual
presence. Daniel soon enters a trance, his body shaking with the throes of
possession, a huge spear through his mouth. Anointed with red pigment and
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accompanied by the clashing of cymbals, Daniel becomes infused with the spirit of a
Chinese god. He begins to dispense blessings on pieces of parchment which his
assistants disseminate throughout the crowd.
Daniel is a rare medium, one who channels a multitude of spirits, both from
within Chinese cosmology, and through the figure of Kali, the Hindu Goddess of
Destruction. According to Daniel’s theological philosophy, it is his destiny to unite
all the disparate religions and spiritual beliefs into one theology, a mission that
suggests and parallels the unifying drive of the PAP government.2 9 When Beverly
finally successfully arranges an interview with Daniel at his house, she observes
many religious icons displayed on a variety of shelves. She comments that “...your
religion seems to be as cosmopolitan as your country...Which is your God? Chinese,
Indian, Malay? Or does it come from another source?” Daniel replies sagely with,
“...This altar is but a physical representation of the infinity of God. yet it successfully
combines the various religions in Singapore...” Stilted though the dialogue is, this
exchange again serves to illustrate that the film preaches exotica to entice its viewers
to the wonder and magic of Singapore.
This exotica is taken to excess when Daniel Lee is also portrayed as a
medium of macabre tastes. His lover, Yoke Lin, routinely goes to the doctor in order
to have him draw a vial of her blood. In an orgy of decadence, Yoke Lin pours her
blood into a crystal wineglass and offers it to Daniel, saying, “this is my blood I shed
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for you.” When Daniel’s attention turns increasingly to Beverly, Yoke Lin takes
drastic measures. One evening, in their red lit room, Yoke Lin retrieves a box
containing a razor blade and sits on the bed next to Daniel. She proceeds to cut her
chest with the razor blade and Daniel, with a glint in his eye, laps up her blood with
great zest and passion. Daniel slips further into the macabre when he murders Yoke
Lin’s ex-boyfriend Wilson, who wants to marry Yoke Lin’s 16-year-old sister.
Wilson approaches Yoke Lin at Daniel’s house to beg Yoke Lin to put in a good
word for him with her sister. She refuses and insults Wilson’s ability to perform
sexually. Wilson begins to hit her to which Yoke Lin responds by pushing him. He
accidentally falls down the cement steps and Yoke Lin fears that she has killed him.
Sobbing, Yoke Lin approaches Daniel for help. Daniel gets rid of the body by
placing him on a chair in a room reserved for the worship of Kali. Bathed in a red
glow, Daniel seeks to use Wilson as an offering to Kali and thrusts a machete-like
instrument into Wilson’s chest cavity. Although the camera focuses on Daniel’s
face, the soundtrack is filled with sounds of bones breaking and ribs cracking. After
much maneuvering, Daniel reaches into Wilson’s chest and pulls his heart out. This
mass of pulsing flesh is Daniel’s offering to Kali.
As the police begin their investigation into Wilson’s disappearance, Daniel
realizes that he has run afoul of Kali and has soiled himself through his relationship
with Yoke Lin. It is at this point that Daniel seeks out the two neighborhood
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children, believing that their purity as offerings will restore his position as Kali’s
medium. He orders Yoke Lin, who knows the children, to entice them to his shack,
drug them, and wait for his arrival. Yoke Lin does this with great reluctance. She
returns to the house only to discover that Daniel has murdered her sister, Mei. Mei
grows increasingly suspicious of Daniel’s hold over her sister, and decides to sneak
into Daniel’s house to investigate. She unknowingly discovers the room containing
Kali’s shrine. Daniel is there worshipping Kali and turns to murder her. Unlike the
Adrian Lim ritual murders, Daniel Lee does not kill the children. Instead Yoke Lin,
upon discovering the body of her sister, returns to the shack and stabs Daniel to
death, before stabbing herself. Beverly is there to witness all of this and it is her
figure that is the most problematic element within the film, despite Daniel's macabre
habits and position as a medium.
The film establishes Beverly as a spiritual person very early on, showing her
meditating, in a lotus position, on her hotel room couch. As Beverly continues to
interview Daniel about his spiritual philosophy and eventually becomes his lover,
Daniel invites Beverly to live with him at his ashram. He instructs her in meditation
and both conduct tai chi exercises by the beach. As Beverly’s spiritual instruction
grows, she begins to feel the call of Kali and is compelled to visit the amah who was
Daniel’s spiritual mentor. Beverly spends an intense period of time with this woman
and soon begins to enter into trances and is able to channel the spirit of Kali. It is
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this channeling that binds her psychically with Daniel and leads her to his shack.
She drives at breakneck speed in order to prevent Daniel from murdering the
children. Unbeknownst to Beverly, her speeding attracted a motorcycle cop, who
follows her to the shack and discovers Daniel, Yoke Lin, and the two children. The
film seems to illustrate that Daniel is no longer deserving of Kali's power because he
slipped into decadence and debauchery. Kali's power is instead channeled through
Beverly. The final scene of the movie features Alvin, who leads a group of tourists
to Singapore’s “latest medium.” It is Beverly, sitting postrate, with an orchid in her
hair. Camera clicks sound and the camera reveals a male, Caucasian photojoumalist
capturing her image with enthusiasm and interest.
Beverly arrives to capture the essence of Singapore mysticism, but instead,
she is captured and consumed by it. Although she is shown to be possessed by
spirits and therefore unable to control her own body, it is Beverly as the Caucasian
voyeur that assumed the privileged position of becoming a medium. Like Daniel,
whom she has replaced, Beverly is venerated and worshipped by her Asian spiritual
followers. As a white woman, she gains power and status by appropriating the
spirits of Chinese and Hindu gods and goddesses. This signals the complexities of
the negotiation between the local and the global, between east and west, with the risk
of each dissolving into the other. As tourist exotica, the film would have the
audience believe that Beverly cannot escape the pull of Singapore, with all of its
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ancient spirits. She is compelled as if drawn towards a forbidden opiate and is
consumed by it. This is of course what the producer wished to evoke in its intended
audience.
Medium Rare did not fare well at the box office nor receive rave reviews by
local critics. It instead served as a Singapore Tourist Board advertising product.
Product placement in terms of the Pan Pacific Hotel was designed to overtly entice
potential tourists to Singapore. There were copious long takes of the hotel lobby,
reception desk, swimming pool, and restaurants. In a blatant attempt at self
promotion, one of the hotel restaurants was featured in a dinner scene with Alvin and
Beverly. In it, Alvin raves about the delicious chili crabs and claims that this
restaurant is the only place in Singapore where he could get both Singaporean and
Western cuisine simultaneously. Ultimately the film, through its product placement
and tale of mysticism, perpetuated the illusion that the Singapore Tourist Board was
trying to market at that time. Namely, the vision of Singapore as both a modem and
traditional city, where mediums of Kali and the Monkey God live alongside towering
skyscrapers.
God or Dog: Corrosive Fluids
Arthur Sin is an undertaker figure who is loosely based on Adrian Lim. Two
Chinese women, Nancy and Lin figure as his holy wives. The film depicts the
manner in which Sin usurps his master’s position as a spiritual leader by exposing
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his master’s fraudulent activities. Believing that his power can only be heightened by
the blood and sexual conquest of children, Sin devises a plan to drug, rape, and
murder two children. With the assistance of his holy wives, Sin achieves his
diabolical aims. He is subsequently caught and sent to the gallows.
Rather than dwelling on the sensationalistic violence of the murders, this
filmic representation explores the psychological state of Arthur Sin in an attempt to
understand his transition from mere spiritual leader to child murderer. The motifs of
grilles and louvered windows, as well as the preponderance of fluids begin to reveal
Arthur Sin’s state of mind, the mutability of Sin's moral universe, as well as the
position of the supernatural or Chinese cult beliefs in seemingly modem,
cosmopolitan Singapore. The film frames characters like Sin and his two holy
wives through the use of grilles and louvered windows. They are seen peering
through slits in the windows, standing behind door grilles, or juxtaposed against
shadows cast by these windows and door grilles. The effect seems both to evoke a
sense of claustrophobia or confinement for Sin, and later, as foreshadowing his
impending arrest. An especially poignant scene focuses on Sin as he attempts to
draw some inner peace amidst the pounding of construction in off-screen space. Sin
drowns out the incessant cacophony by closing his ears, as the soundtrack becomes
completely silent. The moment he removes his hands from his ears, the disruption
from the construction outside his flat begins yet again. Trapped literally both within
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the door grilles and louvered windows of his apartment and surrounded by raging
sounds of construction, Sin is metaphorically ensnared in a life with no sense of
purpose. It is not until Sin meets the Master and becomes a Master himself that his
life gains meaning, albeit a perverse one.
The use of fluids like water, coffee, rain and marinade, as well as abject
fluids like blood, sweat, tears, and semen, saturate the diegetic space. Sin couples
with Nancy, his first holy wife, in a dense rainstorm, while in another scene, Sin, in a
bathtub, motions Nancy to straddle him in the bathtub and drink both his fluids and
the bath water from a glass. In a ritual to cement his union wth his holy-wives. Sin
proceeds to bite his own finger hard enough to draw blood. He then applies this
blood to his lips and kisses Nancy on the mouth. The use of fluids as a motif extends
beyond Sin's private universe into his counseling sessions as a spiritual leader.
Despite being situated in modem, cosmopolitan Singapore, the film's opening
montage (in a series of canted angles) assaults us with visions of Amita Buddha, joss
sticks, red banners, and altars. The montage serves to indicate that these cult
practices are popular and permeate through Singapore’s cosmopolitan cracks. Sin’s
followers are Chinese and range in age from the 30s to the 60s. These ardent and
fervent believers gather to hear Sin’s teachings and come to him for spells and
healing charms. Fluids used to concoct these charms and spells range from a glass of
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water with burnt holy paper ash mixed in to the cracking of an egg to discover if evil,
embodied by needles, is present in the egg whites and yolk.
The supernatural in this sense is never questioned within the film. It is,
rather, an accepted fact and part of Singapore's cultural landscape. Even with Sin
removed from his position as a spiritual leader, or as a God in his perception, the
film depicts his followers as gravitating towards a new spiritual medium. The
supernatural plane is further expounded upon through scenes of the murdered child's
ghost, and Sin's death at the gallows. The ghost of the murdered girl disassociates
from her physical body at the time of her murder and she is a silent witness to the
brutality that befalls her. She wanders to sit in the same bathtub used by Sin in an
earlier scene, while her physical body, intercut with the bathtub scene, is viciously
assaulted.
The last scene of the film is perhaps the most poetic and surreal. The police
inspector working on the case, who also happens to be the murdered boy’s father
arrives at the prison after Sin’s death by hanging. Content with Sin’s death, the
police inspector begins to leave when he hears Sin stirring. In a scene lit by a dull
blue light and filled with smoke, the police inspector does battle with Sin who is now
resurrected as a god from hell. Sin and the police inspector engage in an extremely
physical fighting style reminiscent of Hong Kong action films.3 0 Eventually, the
police inspector removes Sin’s pants and begins to beat Sin on the buttocks. In an
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apparently cathartic move, the police inspector metaphorically sodomizes Sin, as Sin
himself had physically sodomized his son. All this while, the police inspector
screams for Sin, that if he is indeed a god, to bring his son back from the dead. Sin
has seemingly granted the inspector’s request because the boy appears in his physical
flesh for the police inspector to gently stroke his head. The final scene of the film
however, shows the police inspector stroking an invisible space. The audience is led
to believe that this is indeed the inspector’s cathartic, surreal fantasy, yet, the film
ends with a tantalizing shot, where a figure, that strongly resembles Sin with his dark
hair, lurks at the comer of the frame, with his back to the camera.
With its profusion of motifs including grilles and fluids, God or Dog recasts
the figure of Adrian Lim as Arthur Sin into a mutable moral universe in which Sin is
able to justify his heinous crimes by claiming to be a god. Taking Chinese cult
beliefs to the extreme, Ng comments on the repercussions of anomie and the sense of
dislocation that Sin feels living in his extremely confined space of his HDB flat and
his purposeless life in a society that thrives on direction, structure, and order. As
with Bugis Street and Forever Fever, God or Dog revels in organic layering, but in
this case, a layering of the supernatural and secular worlds. Without the exotic
fanfare of Medium Rare, God or Dog vividly explores the intersection and
implications of the supernatural and Chinese cult beliefs in a city-space very
different from the modem, sanitized, and cosmopolitan one projected by the
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Government or the vision of Chinatown as artificial kitsch offered by the Singapore
Tourist Board.
Conclusion
These films illustrate that cultural memory in Singapore is heavily contingent
upon economic imperatives issued by the Singapore government. It is this official
history marketed as cultural memory that attempts to construct a Singaporean
identity that manages to remain impervious to the ravages of Western media flows.
Couched within the (other)ed space of cultural memory, Bugis Street, Forever
Fever, Medium Rare, and God or Dog tactically deploy tools of hybridity, queering,
difference, mysticism, and implosion to performatively engage in the production of a
cultural memory that refuses and disavows the imprint of official history. It is a
cultural memory that is vibrant and vital in its articulation and celebration of the
thickness of Singaporean cultural life. It is a cultural memory teeming with slippery
contradictions, conflicts, traumas, fears, and desires.
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154
'Other dilemmas to be balanced include the following: a less stressful life vs. retaining the drive,
needs of senior citizens vs. aspirations of the young, attracting talent vs. looking after Singaporeans,
and consultation and consensus vs. decisiveness and quick action. IPS-NCSS-NTUC-PA-SNEF
Conference Cover Letter, 2 Jul. 1999.
' Marita Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of
Remembering (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) 13.
3 Marita Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of
Remembering (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997) 9.
4 Edwin Thumboo, Ulvsses bv the Merlion (Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books (Asia) Ltd.)
19.
s The Singapore Tourism Board is a powerful player in the dialogue between cultural memory and
official history. It launched a new campaign in 1996, positioning Singapore as a tourism capital.
With approximately 7.29 million visitors to Singapore in 1996 and a revenue of about 11.2 billion
dollars, tourism is a pivotal industry and tourist attractions penetrate the Singapore landscape.
Singapore 1997 (Singapore: Ministry of Information and the Arts, 1997)300.
0 "Too few attractions to draw tourists back to Sentosa,” The Straits Times 12 Mar. 1999: 43.
' "Too few attractions to draw tourists back to Sentosa,” The Straits Times 12 Mar. 1999:43.
* Michael T. H. Lim, “Merlion is fact and legend, not a fishy tale,” The Straits Times 9 Apr. 1999:
49.
‘ ’ Michael T. H. Lim, “Merlion is fact and legend, not a fishy tale,” The Straits Times 9 Apr. 1999:
49.
1 0 Edwin Thumboo, “At Mandai,” Imagining Singapore, eds. Ban Kah Choon, Anne Pakir, and Tong
Chee Kiong (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1992) 363.
“ C. J. W.-L Wee, “Ethnic Identity in Singapore: From Universal to 'Local’ Identity,” ISEAS
Workshop-on ‘Embedding Capitalism in Newer Asian Contexts: Authority Structures, and Local
Cultures and Identities in Southeast Asia. 22-23 Mar. 1999: 18.
1 2 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental City State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 281.
1 3 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 281.
1 4 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental City State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 283.
1 3 Karen Chia, Lee Kah Wee, Dinesh Naidu, and Suen Wee Kwok, Rethinking Chinatown and
Heritage Conservation in Singapore (Singapore: Singapore Heritage Society, 2000) 04.
1 6 Please refer to Karen Chia, Lee Kah Wee, Dinesh Naidu, and Suen Wee Kwok, Rethinking
Chinatown and Heritage Conservation in Singapore (Singapore: Singapore Heritage Society, 2000).
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155
1 7 Land area is based on a 1995 figure, while the population and housing resident figures are based on
1994 figures. For more information, please consult: Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh,
Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester John Wiley & Sons, 1997).
'* Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 22.
1 9 “Culture is ‘tenacious’, says BG Yeo,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 26 Jun. 1999: 7.
2 0 This is a significant temporal rupture because the video camera is a contemporary (90s)
technological tool.
2 1 Marsha Kinder, “Documenting the National,” Refiguring Spain: Cinema / Media/ Representation.
ed. Marsha Kinder (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997) 77.
2 2 I want to thank Marsha for suggesting this phrase and idea.
2 3 In a very culturally specific reception practice, for example, we see the cast of characters
viewing the film. Forever Fever, in the neighborhood movie theater. Instead of popcorn which is
standard American movie cuisine, these characters are eating kacang putih (peanuts) wrapped in
white paper.
2 4 There is apparently a domestic and international version of this film. I viewed the international
version which contained this prologue to contextualize Singapore’s cultural and geographical
landscape. The implications of these various versions should be examined further.
2 5 Heritage, a television series on the history and heritage of Singapore was launched in 1998. The
series was criticized because of its attempts at portraying the facts and figures of Singapore history.
According to the review. Heritage would have been more successful if the show could have, “...the
use of the narrators’own personal experiences and dive headlong into an idiosyncratic look at the
nooks and crannies o f the country’s history...”. See, Ong Sor Fem, “Bumpy start for new series on
S’pore heritage.” The Straits Times 12 Mar. 1998.
3 6 Already in post-production in 2000. Pontianak, a horror film based on a Malay vampire legend and
a re-make of the 1960s films Pontianak and Sumpah Pontianak adopts a similar visual trope used in
Bugis Street, that of Singapore’s modem skyline juxtaposed with a seemingly rural past
2 7 “Adrian Lim story to be basis of S1.7m film." The Straits Times 14 Nov. 1990.
2 * “Adrian Lim storv to be basis of SI .7m film.” The Straits Times 14 Nov. 1990.
2 9 I want to thank Marsha for this statement / phrase.
3 0 Hugo Ng, the director and actor who played Sin, made several films in Hong Kong. These include
Fatal Encounter (1994), Island of No Return (1994), and Husband and Wife (1996). For more
information, please see, Jan Uhde and Yvonne Ng Uhde, Latent Images: Film in Singapore
(Singapore: Oxford University Press, 2000) 115.
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Chapter Four: (Other)ed Space / Singlish: Cultural Dialogues of Nationality,
Power and Race
The position of Singlish within Singaporean cultural life has generated much
debate both within the popular press and in Government circles. It is viewed with
great disdain by the Government, which believes Singlish to be a bastardized version
of proper or standard English. This debate speaks to the core of the schizophrenic
nature of Singapore as city-nation of which the dilemma of internationalization and
regionalization vs. Singapore home, outlined in Singapore 21, is key. The
government sees Singlish as being detrimental to economic development, and as
such, Singlish serves to impede Singapore's growth and progress as a world city and
strategic node within the global economic matrix. Unable to reconcile Singlish as a
unique, specifically Singaporean form of cultural expression, the Government has
begun to take measures to regulate and manage this performative play of language
by launching the Speak Good English movement in April 2000.
According to Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, the slogan of the movement
would be: Speak Well. Be Understood. The movement would not impose fines for
Singlish speakers, and according to the chairman of the movement, Colonel (NS)
David Wong, “...We will use a light-hearted approach and hope to make the
movement a fun thing that people will enjoy.”1 7 The movement would incorporate a
week long program including a “...36 hour non-stop public speaking event in
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English...play, The Singlish Patient...to show a foreigner’s exasperation at not being
able to understand Singlish...”. 1 8 The play on the film, The English Patient, as the
vehicle to carry the message of the campaign and the use of the “foreigner” as an
incentive to speak proper English exemplifies the often conflicting relationship that
the Singapore government has to what it terms as the West. Namely, that in matters
of popular culture, especially Hollywood films, the Government is quick to warn
about Western cultural imperialism, while in matters of the “foreigner”, by which I
infer to mean either tourist or businessperson, which represent markers of economic
progress and success, somehow, in this movement, work in concert to speak to the
Singaporean public with the intent of delegitimizing Singlish as an acceptable form
of communication and expression.
The Singlish debate within the public arena and the government was initially
sparked off by a popular television comedy series, Phua Chu Kang. The show
revolved around a Singlish speaking family, with Phua Chu Kang, a contractor as its
head. Its celebration of Singlish was seen as irreverent by the government which was
attempting to encourage the local populace to speak “good English”. Displeased
with the representation of Singlish as an attractive alternative to English within the
space of mass entertainment and popular culture, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong
pointedly advised the creators of the series to move away from Singlish use. As a
result, the series’s main character, Phua Chu Kang, was given a linguistic face-lift
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and instructed to attend the Basic Education for Skills Training class. According to
Gurmit Singh, who plays Phua Chu Kang, '‘...He won’t be saying ‘don’t pray, pray’
or ‘no meh’, but he won’t be speaking like a professor from Oxford. He has only
gone for one module, so you’ve got to give him time to upgrade...”. 1 9
The effectiveness of this campaign has yet to be measured, but substantive
changes in areas of cultural production are already taking place, specifically in
television with the case of Phua Chu Kang. There is therefore an urgent need to
realize, theorize, and examine the play of Singlish within such areas of cultural
production. This chapter contextualizes, in very broad strokes, the emergence of
Singlish and its expression in Singapore literature and theater. It offers a reading of
two films, Army Daze and Off-Centre to argue that it is Singlish, rather than standard
English that acts as a cultural broker in multi-racial, multi-lingual Singapore. It is
Singlish that unites the city-nation in its search for an expression of a Singaporean
culture.
Contextualizing Singlish
The PAP government faced a daunting task with Singapore’s independence
from the Federation of Malaysia in 1965. It had to foster a sense of solidarity and
cohesion among peoples of disparate language, racial, and ethnic groups. The
population of Singapore was mostly comprised of the Chinese, Malays, and Indians,
with the Chinese in the majority. It was evident to the PAP government that
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Singapore did not have any natural resources to draw upon for its economic and
political survival. The government understood that this survival would depend upon
the nurturing of a productive labor force and a body of perceptive government
policies to realize the PAP government’s dream of building Singapore into a world
city and economic power. One such policy centered around managing Singapore's
multi-lingual identity.
This identity is characterized by a dazzling array of language families,
including S ini tic, Malayo-Poiynesian, Indo-European, and Dravidian. The
Singapore Indian population from North India spoke Hindi, Bengali, and Gujerati, all
Indo-Aryan languages, while the Southern Indians spoke such Dravidian languages
as Malayalam, Telugu. and Tamil. The Chinese in Singapore communicated in a
diverse number of dialects such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, and Teochew.2 0 In
order to unite these various ethno-iingual groups under the rubric of a Singapore
national identity, the PAP government declared that English, Malay, Tamil, and
Mandarin, languages that the PAP felt were most representative of the main ethno-
racial groups would be the four official languages in Singapore. The PAP
government faced the daunting challenge of encouraging the dialect speaking
Chinese population to abandon their various dialects and to embrace Mandarin as
their only form of communication within the Chinese community. Indeed, in 1957,
only 0.1% of the Chinese population were speaking Mandarin.2 1 To encourage this
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language shift, the PAP government introduced the Speak Mandarin campaign in
1979 and it has proved to be successful.
In an annual poll measuring the percentage use of Mandarin in the home by
first grade Chinese schoolchildren, 54.1% of these schoolchildren spoke Mandarin in
the home in 1999, as opposed to 25.9% in 1980. Dialect use decreased from 64.4%
in 1980 to 2.5% in 1999.2 2 Although dialect use has decreased, the percentage of
first grade Chinese schoolchildren speaking English in the home has been on the
increase. In 1981, for example, 52.9% spoke dialect, 35.9% spoke Mandarin, and
only 10.7% spoke English. By 2000. however, 2.2% spoke dialect, 53.8% of these
schoolchildren used Mandarin, and 43.2% communicated in English. This dramatic
dialect decrease and English speaking increase illustrates the vagaries involved in
attempting to change language patterns and preferences. Because of the constrained
and small space of the city-nation, the PAP was able to micro-manage language
policies by saturating this space with its Speak Mandarin campaign in order to
successfully eradicate dialect use among the Chinese. However, the PAP could not
have controlled nor predicted, the degree to which English would develop into a
popular language spoken at home by Chinese schoolchildren. In a forum organized
by the Chinese language daily, Lianhe Zaobao, two experts, Professor Tang Yuming
of Zhongshan University and Professor Zhou Changji of Xiamen University,
cautioned that Mandarin could become a foreign language in Singapore in about 30 -
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161
50 years.2 3 Response within the Chinese Singapore community to these academics
proved to be mixed, with some like the Speak Mandarin's first chairman, Mr. Ho
Kah Leong being more optimistic about Mandarin's longevity.2 4
This undulating dialogue between English, Mandarin, and the dialects in
terms of the government’s language policy and the peoples’ living of it illustrates
what Chan and Evers term as decolonized colonialism. This decolonized
colonialism arose out of a crisis faced by westernized elites, who after the departure
of the colonial powers, had to construct a nation state. These newly independent
nation states like Singapore developed much of their identity from their former
colonial powers.2 5 Chan and Evers argue that this decolonized colonialism could
only last for so long before these westernized elites had to build on an identity of
difference. They outline two strategies: regressive and progressive. The regressive
identity serves to link the present with a precolonial state, while the progressive one
posits a radical disjunctive or break between the colonial past and present society.2 6
These two identities can co-exist and compete for dominance within the nation state.
The case of Singapore’s independence introduces what Chan and Evers term as the
third variant. This variant describes the PAP government’s attempt of nation
building as the ideology of pragmatism. To address the multi-lingual population, the
government therefore designated English, a language of the metropole or former
colonial British empire, and Malay, Chinese, and Tamil, as official languages.
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English not only functioned as a language of development, commerce, and
the law, it also served as a broker language that transcended the other official
languages. Chan and Evers contextualized this double identity in terms of a national
identity being rooted in English, while the cultural identity was based on the
respective mother tongues.2 7 This form of bilingualism has been described as an
“English knowing’ ' one in which Singaporeans are proficient in English and one
other official language.2 8 The recent debate about Mandarin and English illustrates
the complexities in negotiating between the language of the metropole and
Mandarin, a mother-tongue. In addition to the dialogue between standard English,
Malay, Mandarin, and Tamil with respect to issues of national and cultural identity,
an English variant began to emerge into Singapore’s lingual landscape. According to
Anne Pakir, in her article on Bilingualism,
...Singapore Standard English (SSE) is used for formal contexts
(Parliament, in law courts, in administration, in classrooms, in
public speeches and serves High functions. Singapore Colloquial
English (SCE) serves Low functions and is reserved for informal
situations - among friends, to semi-strangers, in service encounters,
in informal exchanges in work-places, and at play....2 9
I argue that it is not Singapore Standard English that serves a national
function, it is rather, Singapore Colloquial English, which Anne Pakir has
characterized as “Low”, that acts as the cultural broker among the disparate ethno-
racial and linguistic groups among the population. It is Singapore Colloquial
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English or Singlish that culturally binds Singaporeans together. Both Pakir’s
designation of Singlish as performing a “low” function and the PAP government’s
attempts at eradicating Singlish with the Speak Good English movement, do not
acknowledge the integral role Singlish plays in Singaporean cultural life.
The emergence of Singlish has not been widely nor extensively theorized. It
is clear, however, that Singlish shares common roots with Malaysian English
because Singapore and Malaysia were once part of British Malaya and therefore
enjoyed close socio-political and socio-cultural ties. According to Tan Dawn Wei, in
her article, “No, Singlish please, we are Singaporean,” phrases like “outstation”
which meant “out of town” or “opencountry” to suggest being in West Malaysia,
were used by members of the older generation to reflect this shared experience.3 0
However, Singlish as it evolved after separation from Malaysia and Singapore’s
independence continues to reflect more of Singapore’s Chinese majority population.
For example, imprints of Hokkien dot Singlish’s vocabulary and grammatical
structure, with phrases like “why you so like dat” (What’s wrong with you?) being
verbatim translations of Hokkien into English.3 1 Mandarin and Hokkien grammar
such as the lack of subject-verb relations, past, or future tenses, also infuse spoken
Singlish. Malay words enter the fray that is Singlish as well, with words like
“sotong” (squid) or teruk (terrible). Finally, a word like “blur” (confused) is not
incorrect grammatically and is a popular term in Singlish usage.3 2 When combined
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with the Malay word '‘sotong”, the phrase “blur like sotong” (confused like squid),
serves as an expression of incredulity, frustration, and indignation, very similar to
the Standard English refrain of “how dense / obtuse / confused / you are.”
The position and role of Singlish within areas of cultural production such as
literature, theater, and film has as yet to be adequately explored and theorized.
While these areas hint at the performative richness of Singlish, it would take another
dissertation to comprehend the dialogue of Singlish within and between these art
forms. Instead, I offer a brief discussion of Singlish in literature and theater to
underscore the fact that the use of Singlish as an expression of Singaporean cultural
identity transcends the confines of film, to infuse the other active and prolific arenas
of literature, theater, and television. These alternate spheres of literature and theater
are a primarily verbal medium, and as such, they offer particularly rich sources of
Singlish play.
Spiderboys, a novel by Singaporean Ming Cher, and published by William
Morrow Inc, is the first Singlish novel to be published in an international venue.
Ming Cher abandons any notion of writing in Singapore Standard English and
instead embraces and legitimizes Singlish as a form of art and expression.
Spiderboys is set in 1950s Singapore and chronicles the teeming world of teenage
life that revolves around themes of power, prestige, and sexuality. With phrases like
“...and Yeow who always smile and never laugh, laugh for the first time. He laugh
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and laugh, like a hyena at full moon..” and “...Kwang is living with his spiders.
What for talk about him?..”, Ming Cher captures the raw, rough, and pulsating
staccato beat that pulses in Singlish. A screen adaptation of the novel was in the
works by the producers of Forever Fever, but plans have been set aside for the time
being as the subject of the book, teenage gangs, is not favorably viewed by the PAP
government.
Singapore theater has perhaps been the most active in exploring the nuances
and subtleties of Singlish. Kuo Pao Kun, often called the father of Singapore theater,
tackled the subject of Singlish in his multilingual play, Mama Looking For Her Cat,
in 1988. Pao Kim’s latest work, Sunrise Rise, examines the interplay of Singlish
across generational lines, constructing a space in a retirement home where Malay,
Chinese, and Indian men, attempt to communicate with each other, each deploying
whatever language, whether Malay, Singlish, Chinese, Tamil, Hokkien, or phrase, or
word that would come to mind.
Singapore literature and theater are not the only sources rich in Singlish play.
Films like Army Daze and Off-Centre offer a productive dialogue on the cultural
impact of British English on Singaporean daily life. Singlish, a language with its
own grammar and syntax, evolved organically, without management by the
Government, and serves as a cultural alternative to standard or British English.
Much to the chagrin of the Government, it is Singlish, rather than Standard English,
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that functions as a cultural broker language that mediates between the different races.
It is the development and growth of Singlish that is a performative response to
Singapore’s colonial legacy of British English. Although many of the films released
in Singapore do utilize Singlish, I have selected Army Daze and Off-Centre because
these films engage in a dialogue between Singlish and race.
Contextualizing Race
The representation and exploration of race in both popular culture and within
the press is a highly sensitive issue, subject to much oversight by the PAP
government. It is the contention of the PAP government that in densely packed,
multi-racial Singapore, any pointed political commentary about race should be
rigorously avoided. The concern by the PAP government is rooted in Singapore’s
history of racial riots prior to independence in 1965. The Maria Hertogh riots of
1950, left a particularly indelible impression on members of the PAP government.
Maria Hertogh, a Dutch Eurasian girl, had lost contact with her interned parents
during the Japanese Occupation. She was brought up by a Muslim family and
eventually married a Muslim man. When the Singapore government decided to
return Maria to Holland, the passions of the Malay community were stirred. They
protested voraciously against the decision and rioted to show their displeasure. The
Chinese secret societies were quick to seize the advantage in the ensuing turmoil .3 3
These disturbances were eventually contained. Taking its lessons from this riot and
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other racial disturbances, the PAP government, in its rhetoric, positioned Singapore's
multi-racial population as one of fragile cohesion.
The patriotism and allegiance of the Malay population in Singapore to the
PAP government and the nation is still questioned by the Singapore government.
This stance, unfortunately, seems to be rooted in Singapore’s expulsion from the
Federation of Malaysia in 1963. The PAP government believes that Malay
Singaporeans, if caught within a battle between Singapore and Malaysia, would
confer their loyalties to Malaysia. Indeed, Malay Singaporeans are barred from
holding high military office for this exact reason. In a recent poll conducted by The
Straits Times, Singapore's English language daily, on race relations in Singapore. A
key question in the survey asked, * ‘...If Singapore goes to war with a Muslim
country, can you trust Singapore Malay Muslims to fight for you?...”. The response
was extremely divided, with 46% of the population (non-Malay and non-Muslim)
believing that they could not trust Singapore Malay Muslims to fight for Singapore.
Response to the poll by Singaporeans writing into the newspaper was varied. Some
Malay readers felt outraged that the very nature of the question served to cast a
shadow on the loyalty of the Malay community, while another reader responded to
claims of Chinese chauvinism by Sintercom editor Tan Chong Kee with utter
disbelief.3 4 While there remains a healthy exchange in the forum pages of The
Straits Times, very little has been theorized about the representations of race in the
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168
popular media or the PAP government’s pragmatic ideology of meritocracy.
According to the PAP government there was no institutional or naturalized racism in
Singapore and that if each Chinese, Malay, or Indian were only to work hard enough,
that individual could rise up the ranks based on merit alone. The PAP government,
does not of course, realize the contradiction this notion of meritocracy has in the
context of Malay Singaporeans wanting to serve in positions of high military office.
The theorization of race in Singapore and an examination of institutional
racism, are both highly contentious issues, and such research is extremely
challenging to conduct within this pedagogical landscape.3 5 However, as (other)ed
spaces, areas of cultural production like theater, film, and literature can serve to open
up the issue of race representation in Singapore for closer examination. In the case
of film, Army Daze and Off-Centre negotiate the representation of race through
various strategies. Army Daze couches its exploration of race within the seemingly
innocuous genre of the comedy, while Off-Centre frames its discourse through the
medium of digital video and via the alternative exhibition space of the film festival
circuit. Both of these films are adaptations from the theater, with Army Daze based
on a play written by Michael Chiang, who also wrote the movie screenplay, and Off-
Centre, being a loose adaptation of a play by The Necessary Stage. While it is clear
that there is a rich and fruitful dialogue between theater and film circles in
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169
Singapore, it is unclear whether this cross-fertilization is an emerging trend, or one
which has run its course.
Army Daze
Army Daze centers around a rite of passage experienced by every 18 year old
male in Singapore, that of national service. The duration of national service
depends on the individual’s level of education. All males who have successfully
completed their 'A ’ Level results, must serve for 2 1/2 years, while those
Singaporean males who have earned their ‘O’ Level passes, an examination
certificate that ranks below that of the *A' Level certificate, need only serve for 2
years. The recruits of Army Daze celebrate the utopic belief, that yes, Chinese,
Malay, Indian, and Eurasians, teenagers of different races and ethnicities, can indeed
co-exist peacefully. The film reinforces the PAP government’s belief that national
service also functions as a rite of intensification, through which these men emerge as
patriots, Singaporeans willing to defend and die for their land.
Krishna, Johari, Ah Beng, Kenny, and Malcolm are introduced in the opening
credits in the form of caricature, almost reminiscent of the opening credits in Grease.
This opening credit initially suggests that the races will be depicted according to the
Chinese, Malay, Indian, and Other or the CMIO continuum that reproduces the PAP
government’s CMIO census categories. This census category is rooted in
Singapore’s colonial history, a legacy of the British that the PAP government has
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170
integrated into its own census policies. I draw briefly upon Benedict Andersen to
underscore this legacy of decolonized colonialism and to suggest how deeply this
census category is entrenched in Singapore’s ethno-racial public policies and cultural
landscape.
In his chapter, “Census, Map, Museum”, Andersen notes the importance of
the census, map, and museum in shaping the colonial imagination with respect to its
colonies. The census, according to Andersen, became increasingly racial in nature
and subsequently subsumed the religious typology to become the dominant mode of
classification.3 6 The colonial census makers could not abide any sense of liminal or
fluid identifications and these racial classifications were extremely rigid. Play within
these racial categories came under the heading of “Other” and these fell within a
racial sub-type.3 7 This mode of classification enabled the colonial empires to
quantify and regulate their ever expanding colonies. The colonial legacy of census
classification was extremely deep and pervasive because the colonial state,
“...organized the new educational, juridical...police...bureaucracies it was building on
the principle of ethno-racial hierarchies...always understood in terms of parallel
kseries...”. 3 8
According to Andersen, this institutionalization of ethno-racial hierarchies
was retained in certain countries even after independence.3 9 This is very much the
case with Singapore through the CMIO categories. Singapore has reproduced the
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rigidity of the census's ethno-racial classification and has constrained the category of
Other to a separate class altogether. Thus, rather than have some play within the
racial categories by creating Other as a sub-type as the colonial census did,
Singapore has foreclosed any movement within each ethno-racial category. These
CMIO categories are imprinted in the Singapore Identity Card or IC. Each
Singaporean therefore has his or her racial classification visible on the IC. A Straits
Times survey on race and the IC, conducted in March 2000 revealed that of the 1.
114 Singaporeans respondents aged 20 years and above, 72% did not think that race,
as a form of classification on the IC should be removed.4 0 With the CMIO
categories firmly ingrained in Singapore’s cultural landscape, Army Daze offers a
reading that both reaffirms and problematizes these categories through its use of
Singlish.
Army Daze introduces the audience to Krishna, the Indian, Johari, the Malay,
Kenny, the “Other” in this case, a Eurasian, and two Chinese characters that are
differentiated by class: Ah Beng, a lower middle class Chinese, and Malcolm, an
upper middle class Chinese through individual character profiles. Krishna is framed
next to a coconut tree, an icon visible in the dance landscape and locations of many
Indian films from Bollywood. Johari is introduced wearing headphones, an
acknowledgment of actor Sheikh Heikel’s music career and the stereotype of the
Malay “Mat Rocker” or in the parlance of American-English a “heavy rocker dude”.
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Kenny is doubly othered with his position as a Eurasian, the O in CMIO, and his
sexual orientation; he is the campy gay recruit who is introduced through his
reflection in a gilded mirror. Ah Beng is the dialect speaking lower middle class
Chinese whose caricature features the stereotypical accouterments of his class,
namely the cell phone, thick gold necklace, and mug of beer.
For Singaporean audiences, Ah Beng is also a playful pun, where the term Ah
Beng or “bumpkin” is used to denote this very stereotype. Thus, the cast of recruits
constantly tease Ah Beng about his name, incredulous that any Singaporean parent
would name their son with such a term. Finally, Malcolm is introduced, surrounded
by books, with a sticker “I love Legal” in the background. This caricature again
pointedly features the stereotype of the nerdish, bookish, Chinese upper middle class
boy. It is only after each character with its attendant stereotypes are featured
separately, that the final shot brings all of these characters together, suggesting
national service will mold these disparate ethno-racial figures into a cohesive
Singaporean force, dedicated to serving their country irrespective o f the status they
occupy in the CMIO census categories.
The film opens with each recruit preparing to head to the enlistment center
and this sequence solidifies the worlds that initially separate Krishna, Johari, Ah
Beng, Malcolm, and Kenny. The passionate histrionics of the Indian couple Krishna
and Lathi, again reminiscent of the excess in many Indian films, are introduced
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through their frantic attempts at hailing a cab. This excess is parodied when Krishna
and Lathi are surrounded by lush greenery, as they passionately express their love
with expressions like “...moonbeams from the heavens.” With proclamations of
love, the camera pulls back to reveal that what appeared to be a lush garden was
instead a circus or roundabout in urban Singapore. Johari, who is at the bus stop,
waiting for public transportation to take him to the enlistment center, is surrounded
by his relatives and friends, who are there to see him off. Johari responds to this
warm send-off with, “Don’t worry. I’ll be OK. Jangan tension”. This hybridized
English -Malay phrase is meant to allay any worries that his family might have about
him entering national service. Ah Beng, who lives in an HDB flat, who is started by
his screaming Hokkien dialect speaking mother who urges him to wake up. Finally,
Malcolm, true to his upper middle class status, is being driven by his mother in a
Mercedes Benz who lectures him, in Standard English, about taking good care in the
army.
All of the recruits assemble in the Hotel company army barracks, a space in
which Singlish, as a cultural broker, serves to bring these disparate recruits together,
regardless of race or class. Singlish is used to break the tension of these nervous
recruits when Johari for example, says that “If we can help each other along the way,
lagi best!”. Ah Beng uses Singlish to commiserate with his fellow recruits about
their section leader, Corporal Ong. He waxes poetically, with “...don’t know, talk
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cock, than the Corporal Ong ah, so bloody ngiao, buay tahan...”, essentially saying
that Corporal Ong is incredibly strict and that his attitude is extremely unbearable.
Johari chimes in, trying to inject a measure of optimism by observing that “...the
training here is not so teruk, you know?”, meaning that the training is not so bad. As
a cultural broker, Singlish serves to facilitate a measure of cultural exchange
between the recruits. In a conversation with Kenny outside the barracks, Johari
wonders why his family has not arrived for the Family Visit day. He asks, “Eh, pukul
berapa? I wonder why my family belum datang?” Kenny has no answer and Johari
realizes that “...You don’t know, ah? Sunday sure got wedding under void deck..”.
Through this exchange, Johari has shared the fact that Malay weddings generally
take place on Sundays on the ground level of HDB flats. It is a fact that Kenny is
apparently unaware off.
The figure of Kenny is perhaps the most problematic with respect to Singlish
and race. He is, as mentioned earlier, doubly (other)ed. As a minority Eurasian,
Kenny is feminized and his idol is Madonna, whom he mimics with vogue-like poses
and gestures. His ultimate desire after completing basic training is to join the
military Music and Drama Club, to sing and dance. Kenny saunters and prances as
he joins his fellow recruits in basic training. He does offer sarcastic retorts,
especially when he must perform his duty of cleaning the bathroom, stating his wish
to become a “housewife in Hougang.” Malcolm, Johari, Ah Beng, and Krishna
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accept Kenny’s effeminacy, occasionally teasing him about it In the camouflage
exercise, for example, Krishna cautions Kenny not to go too far into the jungle, and
to remember what happened to “Snow White”.4 1 Kenny brushes this tease off and
enters the jungle only to reemerge crowned with brilliantly colored tropical flowers.
He models this camouflage ensemble much to the amusement of his fellow recruits
who emerge from the jungle with plain leaves as their camouflage. When Kenny
enters the communal barrack bathroom clutching his cosmetics and skin care case,
Krishna, Malcolm, Ah Beng, and Johari tease him. Kenny, undaunted and stem,
shoots an impertinent look at them and says haughtily, ,4 what? what? Whole day I
protect my country. At night I cannot protect my face, is it?”. The other recruits
smile and respond with great affection, “can, can also, can”. Although cast in a
feminized light, Kenny routinely admonishes Ah Beng for speaking dialect and
instead reminds him to “Speak Mandarin” in Mandarin. It is a powerful position of
censure, one which carries the mandate of the PAP government’s Speak Mandarin
campaign.
Kenny’s use of Mandarin as a Eurasian signals the fluidity of the CMIO
census category with respect to language. Although Johari inflects his Singlish with
Malay throughout most of the film, he does infuse some Hokkien into his Singlish
with words like “ngiao” meaning strict. At the end of the film, it is Johari, who nags
Ah Beng in Mandarin to “Speak Mandarin.” Kenny as an (Otherjed minority has
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therefore passed the lingual reigns to Johari, a Malay minority. Both minorities are
assigned the task to propagate the “Speak Mandarin” ethos, one which Malcolm, the
other Chinese recruit does not take up. This hints at a Chinese chauvinism which has
seeped through the fragile facade of meritocracy and the privileging of Chinese,
Malay, Tamil, and Standard English as co-eval official languages.
The power of Singlish as broker between the races is most poignantly
illustrated towards the end of the film with Ah Beng talking about his desire to be a
clerk, saying that, “...because clerk can go home everyday, goondu...”. He uses a
“goondu” a Singlish word meaning “stupid” to emphasize his annoyance that Johari
does not understand the kind of perks a clerk can receive. Kenny chimes in which
“bodoh”, a Malay word meaning stupid as well. Thus, by the end of the film, Johari,
a Malay utters a Mandarin phase and begins to integrate Hokkien into his Singlish,
Kenny speaks both Mandarin and inflects Malay into his Singlish, and Ah Beng uses
both Hokkien and Malay in his Singlish with the words “buay tahan” or if correctly
spelled “boleh tahan”.
With its celebration of the richness and complexity of Singlish, Army Daze
was thought to be marketable to the international and regional arena only if subtitles
were added to help non-Singaporean audiences navigate their way through the story.
The subtitles, in Standard English, serve almost as a counterpoint to the untamed
quality of Singlish, and construct an on-going battle between legitimizing Standard
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English, and delegitimizing the raw power of Singlish. When Malcolm’s jewelry
clad mother arrives on the Family Visit day, she comments on the fact that Malcolm
“talks funny” , a biting commentary on Singlish as a bastardized version of English.
This criticism finds its way into the manner in which the subtitles translate key
Singlish phrases.
Rather than capture the essence of a Singlish phrase, the subtitles perform a
second act of translation, transforming Singlish into sterile Standard English. When
Kenny Pereira introduces himself, he says, “I’m Kenny Pereira, Ken also can,” the
subtitles read as “I am Kenny Pereira. But you can call me Ken.” This drains the
flavor out of Kenny’s Singlish and I question the need for subtitles in this instance
when it is clear who Kenny is. Ah Beng consoles Krishna after Lathi. Krishna’s
girlfriend, flirts with an officer, by saying, “...Like people make fried rice, must put
the char siew lah, the egg, the onion, all mixed properly, fire cannot too hot, and
must all the time fry and fry and fry and fry...”. The subtitles reduce the rich
metaphor to, “...Just like fried rice, all the ingredients must be right and stirred
constantly.” I argue that the subtitles in this case, could have included much more of
the Singlish dialogue and in effect, serve to contain the verboseness of Singlish. The
subtitles function in a similar manner when Johari and Kenny commiserate about
Kenny’s forced stay in Singapore to complete his national service while his family
moved to Australia. Johari replies, “...damn teruk, cannot go to Australia but must
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stay back here and do N.S If me ah, I also feel damn fed up, you know...”. The
subtitles alter this dialogue to say, “ I will also be depressed if I'm in the same boat
as you...not able to join your family in Australia...”. I feel that Johan's Singlish need
not be translated to the degree that the subtitles suggest. It is almost as if the
Standard English subtitles offer their own running commentary, seeking to
destabilize Singlish within the diegesis.4 2 While Singlish does indeed serve as the
cultural broker language between the races. Army Daze does not problematize the
utopic vision of national service. It does not address the issue of Malays in the
military to any great extent. Therefore, while the film does destabilize the CMIO
categories with respect to Singlish, it continues to reproduce the ideology of
meritocracy, suggesting that if Kenny or Johari were to train and work hard enough,
a homosexual and a Malay could, in time, earn high military office. While Army
Daze examines Singlish and all members of the CMIO, Off-Centre offers a study of
Singlish and its function as broker between the Malay and Indian components of the
CMIO.
Off-Centre
Off-Centre, a play about two ex-mental patients, an Indian man and a Malay
woman who are coping with schizophrenia and severe depression, had its theatrical
stage debut at the Drama Center in Singapore during the 1 - 6 September, 1993.
Seen by almost 3,000 people, it received rave reviews during its six day run.4 3
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Salleh, who directed the loose screen adaptation, was eighteen when he saw the play,
and according to Salleh in an interview for The Sun, he was " ‘...simply captivated by
the story. The story continued to haunt me for the next four years or so...”.4 4 Salleh
decided to adapt the play on to digital video. Unlike the character of Saloma, who
was suffering from schizophrenia in the play, the Saloma in Salleh's film suffers
from severe mental depression that was sparked off by the death of her fiance. Salleh
encountered much difficulty in making his film because of its topic of mental illness.
Salleh knew that,
...right from the start, we had to face several obstacles and concerns.
We knew that the play’s somewhat controversial storyline would not
help in getting backing from national bodies. We failed to get any
financial support from organisations here... We were even
more disheartened when a local mental health group turned us down
when we requested for support and research 4 5
Salleh’s film, shot on digital video, did make its debut at the 1998 Singapore
International Film Festival to mixed reviews. According to Salleh,
...There are two standard responses. On one hand, viewers who
appreciated the experimental feel and effects actually suggested that
we should have more of that in the second half of the video. On the
other hand, viewers who were more interested in the dialogue would
have preferred us to go easy on the effects 4 6
It is this experimental aesthetic and the subject of mental illness which is coded onto
the bodies of Vinod, an Indian man, and Saloma, a Malay woman, that serve to inject
a measure of disorder onto Singapore’s rigorous pedagogical landscape and CMIO
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categories. The film explores the dysfunction inherent in the PAP government’s
obsession with progress, education, and the pace of life it dictates as being necessary
to achieve economic success as a global city. Furthermore, by changing the nature
of Saloma's mental illness from schizophrenia, a biologically based disease, to a
reaction to a traumatic event, mental illness is transformed into a social construct and
serves as a powerful indictment of the excesses of life within the pressured confines
of the city-nation.4 7
Like Kenny in Army Daze, Vinod and Saloma are doubly (other)ed by their
status as minority races and by the stigma associated with mental illness. The film
itself is shot on digital video and looks towards alternative distribution and
exhibition channels for its exposure and its audience. Off-Centre for example, was
an entry at the 1999 Malaysian Video Awards. Given the ban on overt political
filmmaking in Singapore, I argue that it is only through this displaced (other)ed
space, punctuated by minority characters, mental illness, an experimental aesthetic,
digital video, and alternative distribution channels, that critical commentary about
the pathological impact of the PAP government’s policies onto the Singapore psyche
and cultural landscape are mapped.
Off-Centre begins with a screen saturated with blue-black flashing lights. A
male voice-over asks the audience a set of acute questions and makes a series of
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penetrating observations, underscoring the thin veneer of normalcy and lucidity that
cloaks every Singaporean. He says,
...I guess it’s true, people can tell when someone is mentally ill, but
really, how do you all tell?...I don’t look any different than you...I
can laugh and cry like you...I can stare at you the way you stare at
me...I can speak Singlish at home then complain to the papers that
its bad for the children, like you...Then why am I labeled
mad?...Siow, gila, crazy, mental, psycho, koo koo, and not you?...
The voice-over foreshadows the strategy of mixing Standard English and Singlish to
explore the stigma of mental illness and the ironic clarity it evokes in examining
cultural life in Singapore. The opening images are almost geometric, abstract in
nature which surge past, from right to left, almost reminiscent of film strips or a
rushing train. The soundtrack gives the abstract meaning with the sound of a train
clacking past. The geometric design then dissolves into the first image of Vinod at a
year end party. It is here that Vinod first meets severely depressed Saloma. Salleh
uses the aesthetic fluidity of video by splitting the screen in four shapes, some
rectangular, some more square to capture the conversation between Saloma and
Vinod.
The image rendered on each shape changes in a seemingly random fashion.
In one sequence, a close-up of the guitarist’s fingers chord changing is on the large
rectangle on the left of the frame, while a smaller box with Vinod looking to the left
of him is superimposed on the right lower comer of the box that contains the
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guitarist. Saloma occupies the rectangle on the right of the frame, while a smaller
box, superimposed on the top right of the frame, contains a slightly different image
of Vinod, looking away from Saloma. Action is occurring in each box, although it
is unclear how simultaneous the action taking place is. Meanwhile the soundtrack
reveals Vinod's attempts to engage Saloma in conversation. He infuses his initial
attempts with Malay, asking her if she spoke Malay. Vinod juggles Malay, Standard
English, and Singlish to try and break the ice with Saloma.
Vinod uses such Singlish phrases as “...If you don’t want me to write my
address, just say don’t want”, or when the scar on his wrist is revealed, Vinod tries to
inject humor by saying, “...looks quite garang [fierce], right? People see they think I
gangster...”. With this admission, the split screen changes again. The left rectangle
features Vinod, and the small box, in a slightly different shape, now shows a close-
up of the guitarist’s wrist The right rectangle is filled with a close-up of Vinod’s
scarred, slashed w rist while Saloma is superimposed in a box to the upper right hand
comer of the rectangular box. The split screen, multi-temporal and spatial
dimensions have the effect of not only disorienting the audience by throwing them
off-kilter, or off-centre, but this strategy also effectively evokes the sense of
fragmentation, isolation, and dislocation that both Vinod and Saloma, as mentally ill
individuals, feel. This fractured sensibility not only hints at the dislocated
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subjectivity of Vinod and Saloma, but hint at the malleability and hence, the strength
and subversive potential of the performative mode and aesthetic.4 8
Once again Singlish and Vinod’s grasp of Malay serves as a point of
connection between himself and Saloma. He even tries to recite a pantun, a Malay
poem in order to crack her fragile facade. Salleh does offer subtitles that translate
the Malay pantun into English. However, rather than provide subtitles in Standard
English, Salleh offers a translation in Singlish instead, '‘...the jackfruit outside the
gate, take a pole, go and poke-poke...I just a kid trying to leam...If I wrong, teach me
can or not?”. Vinod successfully obtains Saloma’s number and they eventually
begin to talk to each other over the phone. Vinod again relies on Singlish to develop
a connection with Saloma. When Vinod, for example, jokes with Saloma about a
green stuffed snake that he won at another year end party. He tells Saloma that,
“...It’s quite cute actually. It’s got this long red tongue, it looks really cacat
[retarded]...”. Salleh remains with Vinod throughout this entire conversation and
fragments the moment through a series of rapid cuts. While the visuals are severely
disrupted, the soundtrack offers an almost seamless record of this conversation.
Conversations between Vinod and Saloma about madness and their status as
mentally ill individuals are suffused in Singlish. When Saloma talks about her
mentally ill friend Emily who can read minds, Vinod chides her by saying “eh, your
friend siow ting tong [crazy] or what?” To which Saloma counters with “..You are
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siow ting tong,” Vinod laughs, and corrects her by saying that he is “just ting tong,”.
During other moments of their conversation, Vinod attempts to articulate his feelings
in Standard English only to have Saloma admonish him in Singlish. In this key
scene, Vinod begins his diatribe, “Saloma, we are not off-centre, actually, we are
very center, we are the core, we are right on the target, on the dot, the arrow that
slices the apple...”. Saloma censures him with, “Merepek [blabber] lah, you” to
which Vinod admits, “...Eh, I never merepek ok. Okaylah, sometimes I merepek but
I serious.”. Saloma, in effect, has used Singlish to de-center or throw Standard
English, off-centre, as a means to articulate the very personal and very raw
experience of being mentally ill.
The root causes of their mental illnesses does not emerge until later in the
film. We soon leam that Saloma was spiraled into a severe depression after the
death of her fiance in a traffic accident a week before their wedding. Vinod, was a
star debater in his school, winning many trophies, an achiever by Singapore
standards. However, the pressure imposed on him by himself, his peers, his parents,
and the Singapore education system proved to too much and Vinod suffered a mental
breakdown. His parents were themselves products of the institutional machinery, his
father, a high profile lawyer, his mother, an editor of a local magazine. His parents
are positioned within the film as cold driven, drones, devoid of emotion, unable to
even shower Vinod with a hug. Only his grandmother, a member of the older
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generation, is able to express her love for Vinod.4 9 Both Vinod and Saloma were,
on different occasions admitted to Woodbridge, Singapore’s much stigmatized
mental institution.
Vinod confronts his past and lost future when he visits the National
University of Singapore, an institution he would have entered with his peers had he
did not suffered a mental breakdown. Salleh layers this encounter with visual
density similar to the split screen effect. For this foray into NUS, Salleh uses
lighting paced jump cuts, overlapping, multi layered dialogue, and an industrial
soundtrack rife with a monotone clanging. When Vinod encounters a student asking
him for directions to a lecture hall, Vinod snaps, and the visual style evokes Vinod’s
tension, panic, and dislocation. He screams, through the jump cuts, angrily crying
out,
...Who needs the Singapore education system? Go to the beach, go
for a swim, get your own books and teach yourself. Don’t succumb,
fight against the system. You can do it. Don’t become like another
one of those thousands of moronic graduates who only graduate to
become an expert at photocopying...” and ‘‘...Mental illness is the
direct result of a stressful education system....
Vinod, through his doubly (otherjed status, comments critically on the pressure
cooker that is the Singapore education system. His audience, former friends of his,
are, understandably, dismissive of his wild rants. However, Vinod has touched the
rabid pulse of the dysfunctional education system. 1 A recent Straits Times Weekly
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Edition article, reported that there were 5,600 children seeking psychiatric help in
1990 compared with 20,000 in 1998. In this alarming trend, two thirds of those
seeking help were either in grade school or pre-school. When questioned about their
anxieties, most of the patients expressed their fear of school exams and failure.
According to Dr Tan Chue Tin, consultant psychiatrist at Mount Elizabeth Hospital,
“...the school system is very result-oriented. As a result, parents push their children
to succeed, at times beyond their means....”5 0
Vinod cautions against this result-oriented pedagogy where the goal is to
produce a mindless drone, designed only to absorb, never to question or critique.
Vinod’s call for independent thinking, and this is currently on the PAP government’s
education agenda. The drive for a Knowledge Based Economy (KBE) and the need
for techno-preneurs, has prompted the government to reevaluate its education
policies. It now calls for an interdisciplinary approach to learning and seeks to
produce creative thinkers. Vinod’s credo of “teach yourself’ will be managed and
re-packaged to fulfill the PAP’s vision of a Knowledge Based Economy.
Vinod, in his highly manic state, continues to measure the rabid pulse that not
only beats in Singapore’s education system, but also surges within Singapore’s
psyche and cultural landscape. Vinod positions himself as a rat in a rat race, one of
many pounding the pavements of Singapore’s industrial and economic landscapes.
In a heated conversion with Saloma, Vinod almost faces the camera in a direct
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address when he speaks about the rat race. I have included an excerpt of Vinod and
Saloma’s conversation instead of paraphrasing it because of the powerful play
between Singlish and Standard English in uncovering the dysfunction and
dislocation of the rat race.
[V]: “...I don’t want to run in the rat race any more, but I don't
know how- because I am still a rat - what do you do with a mentally
ill rat?...Everything is changing, everything is moving so fast If I
don’t keep up I might as well not try, right?..”
[S]: “We cannot run, but we can walk. You, you don’t even want
to walk, also...”.
[V]: “...I don’t know how to walk, dammit, I’ve only been taught
how to run. There is no in-between, don’t you see? There is no in-
between...It’s in our blood, materialism - fighting to be the best. It’s
all genetic. We all have a chemical imbalance...”.
In this rather pointed commentary, Vinod unearths what he believes to be the
pathology of Singapore as a city-nation. The pursuit of economic prosperity coupled
with the driving need to be the first and the best at the expense of other qualities of
life, teeters on the verge of insanity. Vinod’s claim of the breakneck speed of change
in both Singapore’s physical and cultural landscapes also echoes the crisis in
Singapore’s cultural memory as outlined in Chapter Three. Taken to excess, as he
believes Singapore has done, these desires produce a shared cultural neurosis, one
which will extend from generation to generation. This genetic imprint has indeed
left its mark on Vinod’s parents, who are so driven that they are incapable of taking
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time to speak openly and warmly with their son. The chemical imbalance extends
even to Vinod who initially measures his self-worth through his performance in the
education system. It is only through his breakdown that Vinod is able to see with
precision and clarity the neurosis swirling within the Singaporean psyche. The film
implicitly indicts the creator of this genetic code, the PAP government, with its
unending quest to be a world-class city.5 1
Vinod continues to grapple with the dysfunction of the rat race in an
illustrated, proverb which features a mousedeer, a very famous icon in Malay
literature and legends, and the rat, as represented by Vinod. The screen is black,
with geometric shapes moving around the screen, occasionally revealing what is
underneath: fragments of the mousedeer, and Vinod in close-ups, long-shots, and
extreme-close ups, all hand-drawn. The ensuing conversation revolves around the
rat trying to make sense of the rat race and the belt of King Solomon that the
mousedeer guards. The mousedeer eventually lets the rat try on the belt and through
the illustrations, the audience sees that the belt is actually a snake that acts as a vise
to choke and immobilize the rat. The voice of Emily enters into the soundtrack and
urges Vinod to find his heart and use it before he forgets how.
With that, Vinod’s face is drawn with great agony, and screams saturate the
soundtrack. The film ends of a rather bleak note. Vinod, as illustrated by the
proverb, is still in a severe depression, while Saloma makes great strides in
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overcoming her depression. They meet again one year later at the same place. Shot
against a black background, the meeting is awkward and strained. We soon learn
that Vinod is on his way to the United States to study, finally succumbing to pressure
exerted by his parents to rejoin the rat race or in their eyes, the road to becoming a
successful and productive member of the Singapore workforce. The film ends with
Saloma, finally comfortable in her own skin, and Vinod lying on the bed in his
bedroom naked. Curled in a fetal position, awaiting the dreadful knock on his door
by his parents, Vinod can no longer avoid the chemical imbalance that threatens to
surge through his naked body.
Madness and mental illness which are coded onto the minority bodies of
Saloma and Vinod serve both to disrupt the ordered CMIO categories and raise
critical questions about the dystopian nature of Singapore cultural life and the
education policies of the Singapore government. Madness is imbued with power and
clarity as psychotherapist RD Laing illustrates,
...Psychotic experience goes beyond the horizons of our common,
that is, our communal, sense...Madness need not be all breakdown.
It may also be breakthrough. It is potentially liberation and renewal
as well as enslavement and existential death....3 2
It is Vinod who addresses the dysfunctionality of Singapore’s education system and
with a spirit of rebellion, refuses to be reabsorbed into this perverse system. While
Salleh utilizes race as an explosive signifier, the film dilutes its oppositional stance
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with respect to the intersection of gender and madness. Saloma is portrayed as the
stereotypical hysterical woman, one who mourns the loss of her fiance and therefore,
her ability to fulfill her traditional role as wife and mother. In this (other)ed space, it
is Saloma who is cured and she re-joins the society and the rat race that Vinod has so
vehemently disavowed.
Wither... Singlish?
It remains to be seen whether the pedagogical arm of the Government will
regulate the representation of Singlish on the big screen. It is ironic that the
Government is choosing to eradicate Singlish which has become the broker language
that transcends race and language in Singapore’s cultural life. This is clearly
demonstrated by both Army Daze and Off-Centre. It is possible for both Standard
English and Singlish to coexist with Standard English remaining as the language of
commerce, trade, finance, and the law, while Singlish continues to grow as
Singapore’s cultural broker language.
Singapore media, most notably television and film, not only face the
challenges of straddling their multi-lingual and multi-racial heritage, but also face
the delicate task of appealing to a wider, more global audience. Pkua Chu Kang
with its celebration of Singlish toppled Under One Roof, a Singapore comedy in
Standard English, in the ratings. Since Phua Chu Kang entered its second season in
March 1999, it averaged an 11% viewership, displacing Under One R o o f as the most
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popular sitcom on TCS 5 by approximately 2 %.3 3 Much of Phua Chu Kang’ s
success lies in its use of Singlish. According to an article by Teo Pau Lin in The
Sunday Times. Under One R oof boasted characters which viewers like Don Cheng, a
systems analyst, felt were unrealistic because they spoke with American accented
English. This, Teo points out, may not have been too unusual because assistant vice-
president for TCS 5’s comedy unit, Andrea Teo, went to the States in order to study
American sitcom techniques before launching Under One Roof Singapore’s first
English language sit-com in 1995.5 4
In a Forum page debate in The Straits Times on the pros and cons of
Standard English usage in Under One R oof and the use of Singlish in Phua Chu
Kang, Nicholas Lee, the actor who portrays Ronnie Tan in Under One R oof
suggested that Under One R oof would be able to be marketed to regional audiences
because of its Standard English.5 3 This again outlines the dilemma faced by
Singapore as a city-nation, that of meeting international and regional demands, while
at the same time trying to cultivate a strong Singaporean identity. Films are not
immune to this dilemma and debate. Forever Fever, for example, purchased by
Miramax and re-released under That’ s the way I like it, was re-dubbed because its
use of Singlish proved to be an insurmountable barrier. It is the challenge of
Singapore films in the coming decade to strike a balance between local demand,
global interest, and the continued examination of Singapore cultural life.
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1 7 M. Nirmala, “PCK is all set to show off his English," The Straits Times Weekly Edition 29 Apr.
2000:3.
1 4 M. Nirmala, “PCK is ail set to show off his English,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 29 Apr.
2000: 3.
1 9 M. Nirmala, “PCK is all set to show off his English,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 29 Apr.
2000: 3.
:o All information on the various language groups came from: Anne Pakir, “Bilingualism”. Imagining
Singapore, eds. Ban Kah Choon, Anne Pakir, and Tong Chee Kiong. Times Academic Press, 1992:
237 - 238.
2 1 Anne Pakir, “Bilingualism”, Imagining Singapore, eds. Ban Kah Choon, Anne Pakir, and Tong
Chee Kiong. Times Academic Press, 1992: 236.
2 2 Leong Weng Kam, “English’s great leap forward,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 21 Oct.
2000: 14.
2 3 Leong Weng Kam, “English’s great leap forward,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 21 Oct.
2000: 14.
2 4 Leong Weng Kam, “English’s great leap forward,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 21 Oct.
2000: 14.
2 5 Chan Heng Chee and Hans-Dieter Evers, “National Identity and Nation Building in Singapore,”
Studies in ASEAN Sociology: Urban Society and Social Change, eds. Peter S. J Chen, and Hans-
Dieter Evers (Singapore: Chopmen Enterprises, 1978) 117 - 129. This again hints at Bhabha’s on
going colonial present. This idea is also explored in the following article by Geoffrey Benjamin, “The
Cultural Logic of Singapore’s ‘Multi-racialism’,” Understanding Singapore Society, eds. Ong Jin
Hui, Tong Chee Kiong, and Tan Em Ser (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1997) 67 - 85.
2 6 Chan and Evers, pp. 118-119.
2 7 Chan and Evers, p. 125.
2 8 Anne Pakir, “Bilingualism”, Imagining Singapore, eds. Ban Kah Choon, Anne Pakir, and Tong
Chee Kiong (Singapore: Times Academic Press, 1992) 234-236.
2 9 Pakir, 250.
3 0 Tan Dawn Wei, “No Singlish please, we are Singaporean,” Singapore Nov. - Dec. 1999: 19.
3 1 This section on Singlish grammar and vocabulary is drawn from Tan Dawn Wei’s article, and
specifically from pg. 19.
3 2 According to the article, “blur” is listed as an entry in the Encarta World English of Dictionary.
3 3 Turnbull, 242.
3 4 Irene Ng, “IC: Big ‘no’ to deleting race,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 11 Mar. 2000: 14.
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193
3 5 See, John Clammer, Race and State in Independent Singapore (1998).
3 6 Andersen, pp. 164 - 165.
3 7 Andersen, p. 166.
3 1 Andersen, pp. 168 - 169.
j9 This brings to mind Bhabha's on-going colonial present where there is no radical disjuncture or
break between colonialism and independence. There is instead a dialogue between them.
4 0 Irene Ng, “IC: B ig‘no’ to deleting race,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 1 1 Mar. 2000: 14.
4 1 I’m still wondering what this exact quote means. Should he be referring instead to Little Red
Riding Hood?
4 2 Some o f the subtitles are needed for international audiences, especially when Ah Beng’s Hokkien
accented Singlish. Most of the subtitles however, were unnecessary.
4 3 Bissme S, “Plight of ex-mental patients,” The Sun 30 Jun. 1999: B 14.
4 4 Bissme S, “Plight of ex-mental patients,” The Sun 30 Jun. 1999: B14.
4 5 Bissme S, “Plight of ex-mental patients,” The Sun 30 Jun. 1999: BI4.
4 6 Bissme S. “Plight of ex-mental patients." The Sun 30 Jun. 1999: BI4.
471 want to thank Marsha for this phrase / observation.
411 want to thank Marsha for this phrase / idea.
4 9 His grandmother appears in a hallucination that Vinod experiences.
5 0 Liang Hwee Ting, “More Singapore children seeing psychiatrists,” The Straits Times Weekly
Edition 3 Mar. 2001: 1.
5 1 Vinod’s observation of the need to be the first and the best was, I believe, taken to ridiculous
heights when I visited Singapore in September 2000. The Merlion residing in Sentosa, an off-shore
amusement park island, was hailed as the largest monument in Southeast Asia, while a full-scale
cable-car on display at Cable Car Towers, proudly displayed a sign reading “world’s first lego cable
car”.
5 2 I am grateful to Marsha for this suggestion. See, Beverle Houston and Marsha Kinder, Self and
Cinema: A Transformalist Perspective (New York: Redgrave Publishing Company, 1980) 215.
5 3 Teo Pau Lin, “Singapore’s funniest family,” The Sunday Times 30 May. 1999: 3.
5 4 Teo Pau Lin, “Singapore’s funniest family,” The Sunday Times 30 May. 1999: 3. Other reasons
for this displacement include the departure of Moses Lim, the extremely popular lead actor for Under
One Roof.
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194
5 5 Tan Dawn Wei, Singapore Nov. - Dec. 1999: 22.
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Chapter Five: (Other)ed Space / HDB heartland
Introduction
"...public housing has...been used as a means by which the government hopes to
achieve political legitimation and dominance...”.'
Singapore's small land mass (646.1 square kilometers) and its population of
almost four million residents, features an urban landscape of immense density.2 It is
not surprising that with 86% of the Singaporean population residing in public
housing, that a large body of Singaporean films have devoted themselves to the
exploration and representation of this subject. This chapter examines Mee Pok Man,
12 Stories, Money Not Enough, Where Got Problem and That One No Enough, in
terms of their ruminations on life within these public housing estates. Mediating
between the HDB heartland and the city center, these films offer not only a critique
of the ordered housing landscape of the PAP government, but engage with what it
means to live in a city-nation. It is a city-nation that must balance its cosmopolitan
outlook with its construction of Singapore as a home.
These films imagine what this home is and how it is figured within the
(other)ed place of the heartland. Mee Pok Man and 12 Stories present a dystopian
image of the family unit, while Money No Enough and Where Got Problem offer
biting critiques of the impact of excessive material values on the home. Finally,
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Money No Enough and That One No Enough engage in a vigorous dialogue between
Standard English and class raging within the heartland.
Brief History o f the Housing Development Board (HDB) and Public Housing
(1960- 1996)
To accommodate the increasing populace as well as to improve sanitary and
living conditions of its neophyte population, the PAP established the Housing
Development Board (HDB) in 1960 to replace the Singapore Improvement Trust
(SIT). The Government believed that a well-housed population was a necessary pre
condition for achieving economic success. With that in mind, the HDB announced a
series of Five year plans including the first and second from 1960 - 1965 and 1966 -
1970 respectively, all the way to the 1990s and beyond. The immediate goal of the
HDB in the 1960s was to construct as many units as it could within the five year
period. This vision sparked a massive resettlement drive in order to obtain the land
needed for public housing development. As an incentive to alleviate the
psychological trauma of resettlement, the Home Ownership Scheme was set up in
1964.
The HOS afforded the opportunity for lower middle income Singaporeans to
count these HDB flats as their assets.3 The second Five year plan (1966 - 1970)
further increased the number of units built to approximately 1000 units a month, with
a total figure of 60,000 units. These flats were more than merely utilitarian with the
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HDB beginning to concentrate on the quality of these units by introducing amenities
like car park facilities, recreational spaces, and landscaping. To further soften the
blows of resettlement and in an effort to attract more converts to public housing, the
HDB raised the ceiling of monthly income eligibility for Singaporeans from Si200
in 1969 to $8000 in 1996.4
HDB flat construction in the 1970s soon began to respond to the increasing
expectations and sophisticated sensitivities of both its current and prospective public
housing residents who were no longer merely content with functional or utilitarian
flats. Five room flats were introduced in 1971 and the trend of suburbanization
began to emerge. No longer concentrated near the city center, the HDB estates of
Clementi and Bedok, for example, housed approximately 150,000 to 250,000 people
in a self-sufficient area that offered recreational facilities like jogging tracks,
neighborhood shops, and educational institutions like libraries.3 From a
preoccupation with the architectural and physical landscape, now, in the 1970s,
emerged the HDB’s and ultimately the Government’s social engineering agenda.
With the primary needs of housing met, the HDB sought to focus on and encourage a
sense of community and solidarity. The Residents Committee (RC), established in
1977, as well as the Community Centers (CC) which had already been in existence
since the early 1950s, sought, through a variety of programmes and functions, to
inculcate feelings of community and cohesion.
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During the 1970s, for example, older flats built during the first Five year plan
were demolished in an effort to both discourage feelings of superiority or preference
by those living in the newer, sleeker flats and feelings of alienation by those living in
the more run-down housing estates. The subsequent refiguring of the public housing
landscape was voracious, with 10,976 one room emergency flats or 53 blocks were
tom down in 1978, out of approximately 19,408 units which were built in the early
1960s.6 To tap the middle income bracket of Singaporeans, the Government set up
the Housing and Urban Development Corporation in 1974 which became a
subsidiary of the HDB. Singaporeans who exceeded the income qualifications for
HDB flats but who could not afford private housing, were encouraged to apply for
HUDC dwellings.
Efforts at boosting the morale of people living in housing estates as well as
the attempt to encourage community bonding, were intensified during the 1980s.
Architectural experimentation was encouraged and the Town Councils Act was
passed in 1988. This act enabled the elected Member of Parliament (MP) to head
each town council, and in cases like the Group Representation Constituencies
(GRCs), one member would head the council, while the remaining representatives
would function as town councilors.7 While the Government’s rationale was to
provide a closer link between the Singaporean people and their Government, Perry,
Kong, and Yeoh, in their book Singapore: A Developmental Citv State, claim that
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the housing estates in general and the bureaucratic structure of the councils in
particular, could be viewed as “...containing debate and preventing the appearance in
communities of interest in opposing the state.”8 This argument is especially
persuasive when, in 1996, the PAP controlled Town Councils opted to contract
independent services for general repairs like lift (elevator) maintenance. The HDB
soon followed with its announcement that it would no longer provide such services
to those councils run by the opposition. This could considerably weaken the
opposition's popularity at the polls when issues of comfort of living and savings for
repairs and upgrades were raised. Perhaps the most potent effect of resettlement and
public housing in Singapore has been its management of racial and ethnic diversity.
When the Government realized that ethnic enclaves were forming in different
housing estates, it introduced legislation in 1989 to establish racial quotas for every
housing estate. Each estate was to apportion its units according to the racial
population demographic. It would no longer be possible for a single housing estate
to contain a majority Malay or Indian population, for example.
The 1990s continued the upgrading trend from the 1980s and introduced a
formal upgrading scheme in 1989 to begin in 1991 and last for fifteen years.
According to the Government, approximately 95% of HDB residents would benefit.
The town centers concept was the latest provision of this upgrading scheme. Only
the Ministry of National Development could decide when and what to upgrade. The
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HDB continued to establish incentives to attract more Singaporeans to live in
housing estates and to keep those already in residence, happy. The Transitional
Rental Housing Scheme, afforded an opportunity for first time HDB applicants to
rent a unit while waiting for the completion of their own flat.9 With the startling
penetration of almost 86% of the population by the HDB, the Government has
established a vehicle and mechanism by which to instill its ideology and dominance
within Singapore’s cultural, social, physical, and political landscapes. The public
housing policy upholds the centrality of the family unit as outlined within
Singapore's Shared Values, in which public housing is only available for the
household and not for a single person. This policy was amended in 1991 to allow
two single people over the age of 35 to obtain HDB housing.1 0 The Government
could further, during an election, dangle its carrot of a smoothly run, newly
renovated, and cost effective public housing via its PAP-controlled town councils
and upgrading schemes, while claiming those residents living in opposition-
controlled town councils and housing estates would be at a severe disadvantage.
The socio-cultural landscape envisioned by the Government was one in
which feelings of community and cohesion were strong, and through the racial quota
system, one in which neighbors of the various races would mingle freely. The
Government termed its residents of public housing as the “heartlanders.” This has
evolved into an unanticipated rising class consciousness between these heartlanders,
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and those living within the city center and / or in private housing, the cosmopolitans.
Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, in his 1999 National Day Rally speech, observed
that the chasm between the two classes was on the rise. A survey conducted by the
Feedback Unit, polled approximately 1,019 people who articulated, in an alarming
83% majority, the need to bridge this gap.1 1 The Government seems unwittingly
intent on fostering this perception by differentiating between the HDB estates and
the city center, for example, through its entertainment legislation. No film with an
R(A) rating can be screened in housing estate cinemas. Exhibition and distribution
of these films instead take place in the more urban cinemas. This discursively
constructs the heartlanders both as a populace whose recreational universe must be
subject to regulation and control by the Government, and one whose sensitivities
cannot process themes of explicit sexuality and extreme violence.
Mee Pok Man, 12 Stories, Money Not Enough, and Where Got Problem
articulate the complexities and nuances of HDB life and begin to uncover the
essence of the heartlander. This essence is suffused with the emerging class
consciousness fermenting in the 1990s. As an otherfed) space, the HDB heartland
films offer alternative voices to the pedagogical vision of HDB living and I frame
my discussion of these films within three dominant themes: the mediation between
the heartland and city life, the questioning of Singaporean goals to achieve material
comfort, and the intersection between class and language.
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Representations o f the Heartland and City-Life
Directed by Eric Khoo, Mee Pok Man tells an ill-fated love story tinged with
necrophilia about a prostitute named Bunny and a mee pok man named Cai Hong,
both of whom live in HDB flats. The heartland evoked by Khoo is a gritty, dystopic
wasteland, populated predominantly by Bunny and her prostitute friends, Mike Kor.
her pimp, and Kor’s thugs. Images of the clean, efficient, and modern HDB flats are
nowhere to be found. The void decks and corridors roamed by Bunny and Cai Hong
are empty, decaying, and strewn with graffiti. Cai Hong walks through these
desolate grounds, seemingly all alone, with the only sign of life coming from the
ambient soundtrack where sounds of children and on occasion, crowds are heard.
Far from exhibiting the bonds of community and solidarity, the heartland in which
Bunny and Cai Hong exist, is punctuated with a sense of anomie and dislocation.
Bunny, whose father abandoned the family, leaving her as the sole breadwinner,
turns to prostitution in order to obtain the necessary income. Rather than leaving the
life of prostitution to get a different job, Bunny can only think of leaving Singapore
altogether, placing her faith in her so-called English photographer boyfriend,
Jonathan Reeves. It is her belief that Reeves will eventually take her to England to
live with him. Reeves, however, understands and revels in the power he wields
because he is both white and lives in a private condominium. His modus operandi is
to befriend local, “exotic" girls like Bunny, and to reduce them to objects to be slept
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with and photographed. When Bunny becomes the victim of a car accident, Cai
Hong takes her to his own spartan HDB flat instead of to the hospital.
Elevators, as vehicles of modernity and efficiently, are strikingly absent, as
Cai Hong carries Bunny up several flights of dilapidated stairs to his flat. When
Bunny’s brother looks through her drawers after her disappearance and discovers a
series of tightly flamed shots of black and white school photographs, Khoo hints
that Cai Hong has had an obsession with her ever since they were in school together.
It is not until the end of the film that the audience is given a glimpse of another copy
of the photograph in its entirety, sandwiched between the mirror and its frame in Cai
Hong’s flat. Bunny apparently does not recognize Cai Hong and does not grasp the
depth of his obsession with her. Like Bunny, Cai Hong is an individual trapped and
confined within his life as a noodle or mee pok seller. He gains no pleasure from the
mee pok stall that he inherited from his father, and lives each day with the same
measure of monotony except when he sees Bunny patronize his stall. With Bunny
now unconscious and lying on his sofa, Cai Hong first attempts to call for an
ambulance, but in a burst of nervous energy, disconnects his phone and decides to
care for her himself. Unable to speak, Bunny’s desires and innermost thoughts are
heard as a voice-over on the soundtrack.
Khoo deftly intercuts between scenes of Bunny’s brother who enters her
room and rifles through her possessions to find her diaries, scenes of Bunny lying
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still on the sofa, and Cai Hong’s efforts to care for her, and the sound of Bunny’s
voice as her brother reads excerpts from her various diaries. As Cai Hong rubs the
blood away from the unconscious Bunny, her voice hauntingly pleads that she
wanted someone to take care of her and that with “fame and money, I can fulfill my
dreams...don’t need to make...living from sleazy men...”.
Cai Hong soon transfers Bunny to his sparsely decorated bedroom, where
Bunny subsequently vomits after attempting to swallow some aspirin. As she lies
down, the voice-over begins again, and with great irony, the audience discovers that
Bunny feels most safe when she is in her own room. Sounds of a pager beeping
blend with her voice-over, and Khoo forms a sound bridge with the pager to cut to
Bunny’s bedroom, where her brother is sitting on her bed, reading her private
thoughts, and finding her pager. Mike Kor, Bunny’s pimp continues to page her to
no avail. Unaware of Bunny’s accident, Kor first suspects that she has run off with
Jonathan Reeves. After beating Reeves up, and searching Bunny’s home, Kor then
believes that Cai Hong is responsible for her disappearance. His thugs beat up Cai
Hong, but still do not learn where Bunny is.
Bloodied and bruised, Cai Hong returns to his flat and to Bunny. The voice
over is again an excerpt from Bunny’s diary, where she recalls that she was once
witness to someone being beaten up and she was unable to help. With this voice
over, Khoo strongly illustrates the affinity or bond between Bunny and Cai Hong.
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With no need to speak, Bunny and Cai Hong begin to cement their bond through
sexual intercourse. It is apparently a powerful moment for both; Cai Hong is finally
able to share and express his secret desire for Bunny, while Bunny dies during what
seems to be her little death or potent orgasm. Cai Hong implodes upon learning of
her death. He bangs his head continually on the thin metal door of the bathroom and
holds the dead Bunny in his arms. The stillness of the moment is punctuated again
by the ambient soundtrack of flat and void deck life (children playing, the bustle of
activity). Distraught, Cai Hong looks out, through the HDB flat window, hoping for
solace and finding only grilles and other concrete blocks of stone. Cai Hong, still in
denial about Bunny’s death, covers the windows with white cloth and continues to
have breakfast, converse, and pass time with Bunny’s decaying corpse. He talks to
her about childhood and his parents, all the while crying about the fact that her hair
is coming out in clumps. When Bunny’s flesh finally turns blue. Cai Hong cannot
deny her death and begins the process of mourning. He removes the white cloth
from the windows, and dresses for work, continuing his monotonous existence.
This representation of the heartland as desolate, harsh, and unforgiving for
the souls who reside in the multi-storied flats is juxtaposed with shots of the city in
the thick of Christmas celebrations. Gaudy Christmas decorations, harsh white
lights, and throngs of people saturate this city-scape. It is vibrant, festive, full of
activity, and life. The umbilical cord connecting these spaces, heartland and city, is
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the Mass Rapid Transit system or the subway. Khoo illustrates this passage from
center to periphery with Bunny’s brother (apparently not too concerned about
Bunny’s disappearance) riding the MRT from the center into the heartland, at once a
literal and metaphorical journey, from life to death, from freedom and movement to
inertia and stasis, and from the bustle of activity to a stark and threatening
environment.
12 Stories, Khoo’s next film, is similarly set in the HDB heartland. The
opening shots of the film graphically depict the atmosphere painted in Mee Pok Man.
The brightly lit fluorescent exteriors of HDB flats are almost abstracted against the
stark night sky. Reduced to geometric rectangles, the HDB fiats function to evoke
feelings of fragmentation, isolation, and distance. These feelings form the core of
Khoo’s characters in 12 Stories. Khoo weaves the suicide of a man with three
stories, and the spirit of the dead man is the visual and narrative glue that binds these
three stories together. He visits San San, a morose woman who is coping with verbal
abuse inflicted by her adopted mother, Ah Gu, who must contend with his
disgruntled wife from China, and Meng, a neurotic older brother who is threatened
by his sister’s blatant sexuality while he acts as a de facto head of the household
when his parents are away. Unlike the dark and dank corridors of Mee Pok Man,
Khoo does inject a sense of life into the corridors and space within and around the
HDB block of flats.
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The opening sequences of the film offers shots of Meng jogging along the
provision shops, > 2 void deck, and exercising in the playground. It is within the
playground that Khoo further connects his characters together; Meng occupies the
left side of the frame, while San San stands to the right of the frame. Although both
occupy the same frame, San San and Meng are separated by the slide that bifurcates
the frame. Existing within the same space does not necessarily lead to, in Khoo’s
vision of the heartland, a very personal exchange. Rather than exchange
pleasantries, both characters remain in their respective comers of the frame with no
desire to communicate.
The nonchalance with which the residents of the HDB flat view the suicide of
the man hints at the absence of community or genuine feelings of solidarity. When
residents encounter the bleeding body of the suicide victim, no one is in a rush to call
the ambulance. Instead, they peer and dispassionately view the body. When
someone finally calls for help, the crowd continues to linger and eventually dissipate.
Khoo inverts the oft used trope of the coffee shop to signify community within the
HDB heartland films by focusing on a group of men discussing the ramifications of
the suicide. Rather than offering a measure of sympathy, the men instead complain
that the spirit of the suicide victim will not haunt the HDB flat. According to one
man, the higher the jump, the higher the spirit of the man will bounce back. Another
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in the group begins to callously discuss choosing a combination for a lottery number
based upon the floor from which the man jumped and the block number of the flat.
The feelings of callousness feed into the predicament of San San. who must
endure the verbal abuse of her adopted mother. The mother, a cantankerous,
shriveled woman with rotting teeth, squarely faces the camera, and in a direct
address, hurls a continuous stream of insults ranging from accusing San San of being
a pig to a bitch. Khoo intercuts between the close-up of the mother and San San
carrying household chores and cooking. It seems as if San San is confined not only
physically to the spaces of the HDB heartland (void deck, playground, flat), but her
psyche is battered by the verbal onslaught of her mother within the tiny HDB flat
Khoo graphically depicts the distance and loneliness San San feels by never allowing
San San and her mother to occupy the same frame and leaves the connection
between San San and her mother extremely ambiguous. When the audience later
learns that San San's mother has died, the separate framing begins to hint that
perhaps the shots of her mother directly addressing the camera are haunting San
San’s psyche rather than actually physically engaging with her in a conversion.
Indeed, San San never directly responds or addresses her mother, and instead mutely
goes about her chores. Her mother’s abuse seemingly continues even in death.
Meng, the neurotic brother, is similarly unable to gain inner peace. Wearing
a “my block is the cleanest” T-shirt with pride and dutifully performing the chores
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of a good citizen by exercising vigorously, he is tormented by the raw sexuality of
his sister. Meng cannot confront his incestuous feelings and hides behind a facade of
authority and the perceived protectiveness of a brother. He spouts facts and figures
for the dangers of abortion and AIDS, and becomes a government mouthpiece by
wanting his siblings to strive to be members of a gracious society. Meng
interrogates Trixie’s boyfriend and boldly asks whether his sister and Eddy are
having sex. In a later drunken stupor, Meng realizes that Trixie’s promises of
remaining a virgin are lies. In a fit of rage, Meng confronts Trixie after her date and
forces her to reveal her sexual history. While they battle it out, Khoo again relegates
them to separate frames with close-ups. They do not share the same frame until
Meng rushes to grab Trixie and demands that she write, with names and telephone
numbers, the men she has had sex with. Imploding with rage upon learning that
Trixie had been sexually active since age fifteen (she is now eighteen), Meng
dissolves into tears and cries out, '‘what about me”. Rendered ineffectual and unable
to reconcile his feelings for his sister nor the degree to which he sacrificed both
monetarily and socially, to send her to a private school and support his other sibling,
a younger brother, Meng descends upon the playground and begins to self-destruct.
He is subsequently dragged away, screaming, by the police.
The dislocation of these characters suggest the disintegration of the family
unit, the sanctity of which is upheld within HDB ideology and through the policies
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mentioned in the history of the HDB. The man who committed suicide lived with
his parents, but did not communicate with them. Meng’s parents were absent and the
relationships between the siblings clouded in distrust, perversion, and shifting power
dynamics. Rather than enjoying the close bond between mother and daughter, San
San’s relationship with her mother was one of extreme abuse. Meanwhile, Ah Gu,
who married his bride from China, does not enjoy the supportive union possible
between husband and wife. His wife regularly wields her sexual power by denying
him conjugal rights, stating that she has the legal right to refuse intercourse with him.
Unable to bear the thought of losing her, Ah Gu, with no self-esteem left, continues
to endure her ridicules and jibes. Ah Gu makes the ultimate sacrifice to please his
wife when he sends his parents, whom his wife views as an obligation and hence, a
hindrance, to a nursing home. These family units underscore Khoo’s vision of the
heartland as a site of familial dysfunction, where greed, apathy, violence,
intolerance, miscommunication, and perverse sexuality foment and fester.
Unlike Mee Pok Man and 12 Stories, Money Not Enough and Where Got
Problem offer a view of the heartland that is far from desolate or barren. Rather,
these films, and Money Not Enough in particular, present a heartland that is bustling
with activity and camaraderie. Neither film paints as stark a contrast between the
heartland and the city as Khoo does in Mee Pok Man and 12 Stories. The city in
Money Not Enough is viewed as both a site of modernity and a space of alienation,
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while the heartland functions as a sanctuary filled with loyal friends. These films
hint at the growing cultural divide between those living in private housing, the
Cosmopolitans, and those living in the heartland, the heartlanders. It is the anxiety
of this division that that these films map and displace onto their constructions of both
city and heartland.
A key idea outlined in Singapore 21, the millennial vision statement of the
PAP government, is the notion that every Singaporean matters. According to this
idea, the government stressed that, “...We should strive to be the best that we can be,
and everyone who does so is worthy of praise...”.1 3 Where Got Problem, Money
Not Enough, Mee Pok Man, and 12 Stories explore the material excesses of striving
to be the best The pursuit of and the need for obtaining the five Cs of credit card,
condominium, car, and cash, are goals to which many Singaporeans aspire.
The Four Cs: Credit Card, Condominium, Car, and Cash
Money Not Enough and Where Got Problem were made at the height of the
Asian economic crisis. All of the Asian economies were affected, some were on the
verge of collapse. Indonesia, especially experienced extreme inflation and political
instability with the removal of President Suharto. This led to two further changes in
the presidency, the impact of which remains yet to be understood. In his 1999
Chinese New Year address, Prime Goh Chok Tong issued an impassioned message
that as long as Singaporeans maintained their sense of social cohesion, the country
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could weather the brunt of the economic storm. As a response to the economic
climate within the region and in Singapore, the Government was forced to retrench
workers and withdraw the possibilities of wage increases and bonuses. Prime
Minister Goh urged again in his speech that Singapore could survive because,
...in Singapore, family values were strong, and deep inter-racial
understanding and harmony had been nurtured through living
together in the same HDB blocks...these ties...held multi-racial,
multi-religious Singapore together and should not be taken for
granted as bad times could put stress on them....1 4
Both films explored the ramifications of the obsessive pursuit of the four Cs and the
impact of the economic crisis on the family unit through the genre of comedy.
Money Not Enough proved to be popular at the box office, garnering $545,620 in just
five days. Along with Where Got Problem, Money Not Enough offered its audience
an escape from their own economic woes, in essence a cathartic experience where
the audience could laugh and know that no matter what economic hardships would
befall the characters from Money Not Enough and Where Got Problem, perseverance
and ingenuity would prevail and economic success once again achieved.
Money Not Enough opens with a montage of a life in HDB Singapore
permeated with the search for material comfort. Shots of ATM machines, people
buying expensive watches and jewelry, and long queues for Toto or the local lottery
assault the viewer. The trope of the neighborhood coffee shop introduces Keong,
Ong, and Hui, who are the principal characters of the film. One of their friends
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openly comments about a political incident in which a Singaporean flag is burnt
abroad. Outraged, he insists that Singaporeans take action to defend their national
honor. The response around the coffee table is apathetic, with the rationale that if
the Government does not ask that of its citizens, why then should the citizens rise
and act?
Although apathetic about government policies and active citizenship, Keong
and his cronies are very invested in maintaining at least three of the four Cs: credit
card, cash, and a car. Keong lives in an upgraded HDB flat, as close to luxury as he
can achieve in public housing without having to spend an inordinate amount of
money on a private condominium. Filled with pride, Keong conducts a tour of his
home when his friends come over for a lavish family dinner. He regales his friends
with tales of the $30,000 he spent replacing his HDB issued floors with marble ones,
or upgrading his flat at the cost of almost $100,000. Keong’s strategy for survival is
to purchase and pay for everything through installments totaling $5545 a month. He,
in essence, lives beyond his means of $4000 a month in order to keep the three Cs
and the illusion of the fourth C, the condominium. During the dinner, Keong’s
daughter approaches her parents, expressing her disapproval at the piece of food on
her plate. Keong chides his friend Hui, for bringing him a can of non-branded
abalone, stating that his daughter was used to a certain brand, and hence could not
tolerate the inferior taste of the delicacy on her plate. Director Tay Teck Lock
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intercuts this scene with vivid images of children starving in Africa on Keong’s 29
inch television set. His friend chides Keong for spoiling his daughter with abalone,
while children are starving around the world. With this juxtaposition, Tay offers a
biting commentary on the excesses of Singaporean life.
Trouble in the form of Keong’s resignation when he is passed for a
promotion and Ong’s encounters with a loan shark whom he owes almost $40,000,
threaten to tear both friends and family apart. The obsession with maintaining cash
comes to a head when Keong’s wife asks him whether he wants the money that he
asks to borrow from her, or her and her daughter. In a fit of anger, Keong blurts that
he prefers the money to his wife and daughter. Distraught, the wife leaves with his
daughter. Keong attempts to get back on his feet, and with the help of his friends,
Hui and Ong, forms a business partnership to establish a car wash. The capital they
need comes in the handy form of a Family Teletime Match organized on Sentosa, an
off-shore entertainment island. Keong qualified for an entry because his name was
submitted as part of a wide-screen television purchase he made before the
fragmentation of his family. His wife and daughter miraculously appear at Sentosa,
and the family reconcile by winning the match and the $100,000 prize money which
Keong and his business partners, then use to launch their car wash. The cohesion of
the family unit, seems predicated upon and mediated by the surge or absence of cash
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flow, a notion most epitomized by the conflation between family values,
cooperation, and the $100,000 cash prize in the Family Day tele match.
Hui, although not married, finds himself in a similar predicament with his
relations with women. Working as a drinks stall attendant in a coffee shop, Hui, clad
in Merlion T-shirts, is obsessed with money and constantly asks to either borrow
money from his friends or gamble in the local lottery. When he chances upon an
attractive young woman and her friend at the drinks stall, Hui learns from her friend
that the attractive woman will only entertain his advances if Hui has a cell phone.
Equating the possibility of love with a material possession, Hui searches frantically
for a cell phone that he can afford. He mistakenly assumes that the larger the cell
phone, the increasing likelihood that the attractive woman will fall in love with him.
Hui finally gets his large, clunky cell phone and proceeds to woo the attractive
woman when she again appears at the stall he works at. Hui encounters her this time
as a newly established partner in Keong’s car wash business. Dressed in a tacky suit
and burnishing his archaic cell phone, Hui asks the attractive woman to dinner, only
to discover that she is an insurance agent who sees Hui as a vehicle for her to
achieve the four Cs.
Where Got Problem similarly offers a glimpse into the race to attain the four
Cs. The opening sequence offers a montage much in the same vein of Money Not
Enough. Shots o f the HDB coffee shop, HDB flats, cars, the modem skyline and
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consumers shopping for clothes and make-up hint at a culture of spending and
consumption. The film centers around two families, led by breadwinners Ah Huat
and Ah Seng and Ah Shen, a self-made millionaire who rises from the ranks of gas
delivery men to be the proprietor of a successful chain of barbecue pork restaurants.
Ah Huat has inherited the family business from his father, and he, his father, and his
wife and children live in a large, opulent house. His wife, Ah Zhu, was a former
working class fisher woman who now attempts to enter the ranks of high society,
without much success. Her snobby circle of friends constantly disparage her and
threaten her with the label of LC or low class. Ah Seng, a self-made businessman is
married to a former flight attendant, who has reinvented herself by shying away from
her class roots. She erases her former identity as Chun Hua and adopts the moniker.
Coco. Coco is also a member of the same circle of friends as Ah Zhu, and both Ah
Seng and Ah Huat are close friends.
The Ah Huat household revolves heavily around the four Cs, so much so that
these values percolate to their teenage daughter and young son. At the dinner table
one night, the teenage daughter pleads to her parents for a credit card, saying that all
her friends have one, while the eight year old son whines about wanting his own cell
phone. Ah Zhu chimes in with her own request of the need to renovate the house
using a first-class designer recommended by Coco. Ah Huat is so distressed by the
fall in the stock market and the political instability in Indonesia that he suffers from a
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heart attack at the dinner table. At the hospital the family learns that Ah Huat has
lost all his money as a result of the regional economic crisis and as a result, the entire
household must relocate to a smaller HDB flat. With some money coming in from a
life insurance policy, Ah Huat is able to pay his creditors, but he must accept the fact
that the only jobs available are within the lower income bracket of waiting tables.
The relocation signals a transition from private house to public housing, the
HDB flat. The film paints the heartland as a lower class environment and that carries
a stigma. Ah Mei, the teenage daughter complains that her peer group looks down
on her with her move to the HDB flat and her boyfriend leaves her when he leams
her change in residential and class status. Ah Zhu, distraught at the move screams to
her HDB neighbors as they gather to watch the new neighbors, ’‘You've never seen
rich people?”. As a result of her snobbish behavior, she is blackballed by her
neighbors, and for a time, is isolated and alone, with no peer support network of her
own. Ah Seng and Coco do not fare much better.
Ah Seng has to dissolve his business and is hesitant to inform Coco because
she is used to a certain standard of living and, has on occasion, told Ah Seng that she
could not cope if something similar happened to them. Ah Seng struggles to bring in
income as a taxi driver and leads a double life, returning home in a suit and tie, but
changing at a gas station to his casual clothes as a taxi driver. His duplicity is
discovered by Coco's friends and they inform a devastated Coco of her husband’s
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deceit. Unable to trust him and discovering that she is pregnant, Coco leaves in a
torrent of tears. Ah Seng eventually tracks her down at the mother’s home and
pleads with Coco to forgive him and promises that he will always be open with her.
In the meantime, Ah Huat and his family pull together to buy a flour mill (with the
help of a loan from Ah Shen whose success with his own barbecue pork business
would not have been possible without the support and guidance from Uncle Wong).
Ah Zhu runs the mill so successfully that both families invest in a restaurant to be
nm by Ah Seng and Ah Huat. Ah Huat, having learnt valuable cooking skills in his
job at a previous restaurant, assumes the role of chef. With Ah Seng finally
reconciled with his wife, both families celebrate their success with the opening of
their Chinese restaurant, the Noble House and Ah Huat, Ah Zhu and their family
move back into an even more luxurious house.
Ah Zhu, apparently, has learnt a valuable lesson from her sojourn into HDB
living; she retains her HDB friends, inviting them to her housewarming, and refuses
to engage in class snobbery. Ah Zhu is therefore able to maintain the four Cs
without having to engage with the politics of class discourse, able to mix fluidly with
her HDB friends and her high society network. HDB life is therefore constructed as a
utopic space where Ah Zhu rediscovers her humility and the error of her ways and
where the sanctity of the family unit is upheld. Uncle Wong observes that when his
family lived in the larger house, family meals were never community affairs,
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whereas family meals in their HDB flat was communal and filled with love. Using
HDB as a site of recuperation, Where Got Problem offers a vision where the four Cs
can be attained without necessarily having to sacrifice the cohesion of the family unit
or the value of filial piety.
Unlike Money Not Enough and Where Got Problem, 12 Stories and Mee Pok
Man offer a bleak portrait of the dangers inherent when the pursuit of the four Cs are
taken to the extreme. The character of Ah Gu and his China bride in 12 Stories
examines the impact of the four Cs on a marriage. Khoo draws his characters’
motivations from the real-life practice of bride purchase in Singapore. The 21st
Century Foreign Marriage Agency in Singapore is the first such agency to set up
individual and group tours to China in order to match-make couples.1 3 According to
the agency, most men registered with them are Chinese-educated, in their 30s and
40s, and some are widowers or divorced. Although the agency has a list of women
from China residing in Singapore, owner Ms Ng, claims that some of the men are
still intent on traveling to China to find a bride. Her partner, Mr S. K. Tan offered
his own observations, stating that, “...Many of our members look for China brides as
they find local women too caught up with the 4 Cs. They think they’ll have a better
chance if they find someone from China...”.1 6
Ah Gu certainly fits this profile. He is a bachelor, in his late 30s, living in a
small HDB flat, and convinced that a bride from China would make the best spouse.
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Far from a meek bride from China, Ah Gu lives with a woman who is frustrated at
having to live in an HDB flat and married to him. In an especially volatile argument,
Lili, his wife, claims that he misled her into thinking that he was rich and successful.
In a rage, Lili tells Ah Gu that he told her, in China, that she would be the boss’s
wife, and she instead discovers that although Ah Gu owns a food stall, she is a boss’s
wife that must wait on customers. When she confronts Ah Gu about the fact that he
told her he had a Benz, Ah Gu sheepishly justifies his response by stating that he
does indeed have a Benz, albeit a 1972 Benz that constantly breaks down.
Lili apparently viewed Ah Gu as a means of escape and a guarantee of
achieving material wealth and comfort. Sacrificing her love in China and her
integrity, Lili’s dreams of cash, car, and a condo are dashed. Confined to the HDB
flat, Lili distastefully claims that “All Singaporeans live like this,” to which Ah Gu
counters with “What’s wrong about HDB?”. Lili responds by claiming that the
twelfth floor is infested with mosquitoes and that the elevator reeks of urine. Ah Gu
pleads with Lili not to insult HDB life, saying that the Government installed urine
detectors in the elevators, to which Lili responds by screaming that now residents
pee in the corridors. She further verbally assaults Ah Gu by insulting his buck teeth,
stating that the Government spent $2 million for a campaign to teach citizens how to
smile and what a wasted effort that was on him. Broken, Ah Gu urges her to leave
the Government and police out of their argument and asks what would make Lili
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happy. She retorts with her desire to obtain a BMW 850. Ah Gu eventually agrees
to increase her monthly allowance, and eventually offers her everything he owns if
she remains with him. The union of Ah Gu and Lili is one mediated and defined by
the expectations of the four Cs. Lili in particular, baits and barters her body to
sustain Ah Gu’s interest and the desires of her other suitors, so that she is guaranteed
a certain financial security. Despite the depression and loss she feels at the way she
has conducted her life, Lili cannot escape from the seductive lure of wealth and cars.
The line between the manner in which Lili and Bunny in Mee Pok Man use
their bodies as sexual objects is an extremely fine one. For Lili, it is the way she can
exert her legal rights to refuse sexual intercourse with her husband, while for Bunny,
her body is the ultimate site of consumption through her position as prostitute.
Seduced by the prospects of fame and money and the responsibility of being the
breadwinner for her family, Bunny finds herself ensnared within the jaws of
prostitution. Her circle of friends are prostitutes and the three men in her life, Mike
Kor her pimp, Jonathan Reeves, her Caucasian boyfriend, and Cai Hong, the
obsessive mee pok man, essentially view her in a similar way: an object to be
consumed and consumable.
Khoo effectively illustrates this with his opening montage where shots of
hanging, dangling meat on silver hooks are juxtaposed with shots of a woman’s
pubic hair and naked buttocks. Khoo expands on this theme in 12 Stories where
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talks of organizing a sex tour to Batam or Tanjung Pinang permeate the coffee table
discussion. Unlike the families in Money Not Enough and Where Got Problem,
individuals like Bunny in Mee Pok Man and Lili in 12 Stories do not find the
possibility of redemption. Khoo offers an indictment of a culture of conspicuous
consumption, where human flesh is finally reduced to an object or carcass to be used,
consumed, and discarded like animal flesh. These films not only attempt to critique
the excesses of Singapore cultural values and offer competing constructions of the
negotiation between city and HDB heartland, they also delve into the complexities of
communication within Singapore's multilingual milieu.
Language: Dialogues o f Class and Identity
Money Not Enough proved to be the first Singapore film to be filmed almost
entirely in the Hokkien dialect. According to Jack Neo, star of Money Not Enough,
“...Hokkien is my language and HDB life is what I know...I think local audience
want to see real Singapore movies, not keh-keh (pretend) made-in-Singapore
Hollywood movie. Look at Eric Khoo - he is Western-educated, he speaks English,
he does not understand a word of Hokkien but 12 Stories is about HDB life...”.1 7
The claims for an authentic representation of HDB life based on th ability to speak a
certain Chinese dialect highlights the problematic project of attempting a study of
Singapore cinema which is linguistically diverse.
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While the previous chapter examined the negotiation between Singlish and
representations of race, these films explore the relationship between Standard
English and class. Standard English as mentioned in the last chapter, was designated
as the language of development, commerce, trade, and law. It is Standard English
that forms the core of the bilingual education policy in Singapore and it is taught
from the first grade on. The ability to speak Standard English affords its speakers
the opportunity to participate, according to the PAP government, in the emerging
Knowledge Based economy. Anne Pakir’s definition of Standard English as
performing a higher function, while Singlish or Singapore Colloquial English
executing a lower function, begins to shade each language with the connotations of
class. According to Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew,
...The better educated can learn two or three varieties of English and
can speak English English to native Englishmen or Americans,
standard English to foreigners who speak standard English and
Singlish to less-educated Singaporeans....Unfortunately if the less
educated half of our people end up learning to speak only Singlish,
they will suffer economically and socially. Those Singaporeans
who speak good English should help to create a good environment
for speaking English rather than advocate, as some do, the use of
Singlish....1 8
It is evident that the PAP government privileges the use of Standard English and
assigns those who speak it to a higher class, while the less-educated, who the PAP
government believes reside in a large portion of the heartland, are coded as either
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working or lower middle class. These films begin to examine the play of Standard
English, Mandarin, and the Cantonese and Hokkien dialects within the heartland.
Where Got Problem utilizes primarily Mandarin, the Hokkien and Cantonese
dialects and a smattering of English words and phrases. Money Not Enough,
however, with its predominant use of the Hokkien dialect, confronts rather
subversively through the genre of comedy, the pervasive hold of the pedagogical
within cultural production in Singapore. Flaunting Hokkien instead of Mandarin, the
official language, Money Not Enough offers a playful alternative to the images on
television and the dialogue over the national airwaves which promote only Mandarin
as the acceptable Chinese language. The strategy for filming in the Hokkien dialect
was apparently a compelling reason for its great success at the box office. For the
first time, the audience was able to see and hear the Hokkien dialect without the
pervasive intrusion of Mandarin. Mandarin only serves as a visible presence in the
form of subtitles. While Where Got Problem and Money Not Enough celebrate the
richness of the Hokkien dialect, Money Not Enough, and That One No Enough, by
the creative team and cast of Money Not Enough, explore the function and place of
Standard English within heartland life.
Keong in Money Not Enough, is a person who does not speak English
fluently. He is hoping for promotion in his firm and is dismayed to discover that
newcomer, Jeremiah Lee, an English educated Chinese man receives the promotion
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instead. On their first meeting, Keong attempts to converse with Jeremiah in
Mandarin and discovers that Jeremiah has been away for such a long time that his
grasp of Mandarin has faltered. Keong jokes that all employees in the Lee firm must
have the surname Lee and therefore will automatically pick up Mandarin regardless
of race. Keong later learns about Jeremiah's promotion during a board meeting.
Angry and disillusioned, Keong confronts his boss to ask why he was passed up for
the promotion. Keong’s boss explains that with the company going public, more
managers with computer skills and fluency in English were required. Upset, Keong
returns home, where his young daughter approaches him to ask him to pronounce an
English word. Keong struggles to no avail and has to listen to his daughter chiding
him about his inability to pronounce the word, while his wife, in a very strong
Chinese accent claims, “English is better. I also go and leam English.”
Frustrated, Keong decides to resign and contact Chen, his Chinese friend who
was a fellow non-English speaker for a job. Keong is devastated to leam that Chen
has indeed leamt English. Sighing, Chen explains that everyone speaks English and
views this as a necessary tool in order to find out if his Caucasian subordinates have
“scolded” him. Unable to get a job from Chen, Keong eventually sets up his car
wash business with the help of his friends, Hui and Ong. In a fun cameo, Malaysian
actor and director Jins Shamsuddin, pulls up in his Mercedes Benz and wants his car
washed. Hui and Ong cannot understand his request, but Keong, who has now leamt
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enough conversational English, is able to meet Shamsuddin’s request. Elated.
Shamsuddin decides to give Keong and his partners his business, delivering almost
100 cars to be washed. Although the film retains its predominant use of Hokkien,
Money Not Enough explores the crucial role of Standard English as a broker
language and the financial consequences that could ensue from not actively
participating within the English speaking dimension of Singapore economic life.
According to Choo Meileen, producer of That One No Enough and chairman
of Cathay Asia films, the film revolved around the “marital relations of the man in
the street” ail of whom live in HDB flats of various sizes. Hao Ren and Min Hui are
a couple whose marriage begins to unravel when Min Hui becomes obsessed with
work. Left on his own and feeling extremely emotionally isolated from his wife,
Hao Ren embarks on an affair with Jenny, Min Hui’s secretary. They eventually
reconcile. Meanwhile, Gao Ren is married to Ah Huay, a rotund woman who
devotes her life to running a household and managing three children. Gao Ren is a
philanderer, one who frequents karaoke bars and engages in what he gleefully terms
as “extra-curricular activities”. His philandering ways are temporarily put on hold
when his wife discovers his affair with a karaoke lounge hostess. Finally, A-Kun is
single and still lives with his mother. He is plagued by his anxiety over his inability
to perform sexually and pursues, rather eagerly, to acquire pom. He succeeds in
obtaining pom both on VCD and via sexroom.com over the Internet. A-Kun falls in
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love with the daughter of his boss, a heartland provision shop owner. All of these
characters, to varying degrees, engage with the implications of speaking Standard
English and the access to the global economy that it affords.
Min Hui is a determined businesswoman who can be reached by her office
twenty-four hours a day, seven days week. She carries a cell phone and has a fax
machine in her HDB flat. Hao Ren’s attempts to make love with his wife are met
with the bleeping of the fax machine, the whining of the home phone, and the shrill
call of the cell phone. Although Min Hui speaks dialect at home, she is able to
strategically switch to the use of Standard English when her American client, Mr.
Stevens calls. Because of her perseverance, Min Hui eventually wins the coveted
1998 Businesswoman of the Year award. Min Hui represents the breed of
Singaporean outlined by Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew. She is able to speak
Mandarin, Hokkien, and switch to Standard English in order to compete in the
international business world. It is this ability to speak Standard English that makes
her a productive member of the new Knowledge Based economy. This success
however, is tempered by the increasing distance between the couple which results in
Hao Ren’s affair with Jenny. The film is therefore quick to caution that there is an
attendant risk in the relentless drive to be the best. That One No Enough warns of
the need to balance between career, marriage, and family.
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The necessity of being able to switch strategically between Standard English,
Singlish, and the dialects is brought to the fore when A-Kun and Gao Ren go to an
electronics store in order to buy a computer for A-Kun. Both of them speak to a
Malay salesgirl in Chinese and are surprised to discover that she does not speak any
Chinese. Gao Ren decides to use some English, proudly stating that he leamt
Standard English in school until the sixth grade. He struggles to remember how to
pronounce the word Internet and initially confuses the salesgirl with 'indiannet”.
Impatient with Gao Ren’s attempts at English, A-Kun decides to ask “how many
money” in order to determine the price of the computer he wishes to buy. The
salesgirl seems incredulous at the quality of his English and Gao Ren steps in to save
his friend. He proceeds to chide A-Kun in Hokkien. saying that nobody says it like
that. Instead Gao Ren asks, “How many dollar?”. The salesgirl corrects his
Standard English with much amusement and says, “how much is it, sir?”. She
begins to sing the virtues of that specific model of computer, speaking about its 64
MB of RAM.
Both Gao Ren and A-Kun seem confused by this computer jargon and Gao
Ren attempts to convey A-Kun’s discomfort by literally translating A-Kun’s
Hokkien into some semblance of English. He counters the salesgirl’s jargon with
“my friend said, you don’t think you called him, Uncle, you want to chop his
vegetable head?” The nature of the conversation then switches to Singlish, a mode
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that Gao Ren seems most comfortable with. He accuses the Malay salesgirl of
“ketuk” or swindling them, to which she emphatically replies, “Oh no, I didn’t.”
All three are getting nowhere in terms of realizing A-Kun’s goal of buying a
computer. Gao Ren slips deeper into Singlish in the hopes of being able to
communicate A-Kun’s desire for the computer. He translates A-Kun’s Hokkien into
Singlish by saying that, “you beautiful, beautiful give him, he also beautiful,
beautiful give you, he shiok, he buy a printer from you.” The subtitles add yet
another level of exchange and Gao Ren’s Singlish is translated as “He said, If you’re
beautiful give him a good deaL.if he’s happy, he'U also buy a printer....”. In essence
Gao Ren attempts to convey the impression that A-Kun will add a printer to the deal
if the salesgirl can give him a good price. The salesgirl seems to understand Gao
Ren’s Singlish initially because she responds with “...but our printer is always very
beautiful..”. A split second later, it is clear that the salesgirl does not comprehend
Gao Ren’s Singlish spiel because she adds that “...What beautiful are you talking
about, Sir?”. Undaunted, Gao Ren tries again. He tells the salesgirl that,
...my friend, he big company boss, cannot tell, right?...He want to
buy computer from you...you give him low price, cheap,cheap, he
shiok, shiok, happy, happy he buy from you. Then your target this
year sales, ah, you no horse run already....
The salesgirl is now in a state of confusion. A-Kun asks Gao Ren whether
“no horse run” is an actual phrase in Standard English. Confident, Gao Ren is
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positive that since Western countries have horse racing, Westerners would
understand that the phrase meant “topnotch”. The salesgirl still does not respond and
Gao Ren’s final foray yields disappointing results. Both A-Kun and Gao Ren leave
the computer store without purchasing a computer. To Gao Ren, Standard English is
therefore equated with all things Western. Unlike Min Hui, Gao Run and A-Kun
cannot access this Western world and products of technology because of their
inability to speak proper Standard English. A-Kun’s dilemma raises the critical issue
of the place of the heartlander within the government’s quest to place Singapore on
the global map. How is the heartlander to participate in world increasingly shut off
from him?
While the government promotes the practice of speaking Standard English,
That One No Enough celebrates the hybridity and fluidity of Singapore’s multi
lingual population. The office gossip scene, where members of Min Hui’s staff
speculate about the details of Hao Ren and Jenny’s affair, problematizes the ordered
bilingual policy espoused by the PAP government. In its vision of this bilingual
policy, Standard English is to serve as the dominant language of communication in
the workplace, while languages like Malay, Tamil, and, to a lesser extent, Mandarin,
should be spoken in the home. This division of space along language lines is
dissolved in the office sequence. Malay, Tamil, Mandarin, Singlish, and Standard
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231
English flow ceaselessly and seamlessly into each other to communicate the torrid
affair of Jenny and Hao Ren.
The first exchange takes place between a Chinese girl and her Indian co
worker. She whispers conspiratorially to her co-worker saying that “....Mrs. Ang's
husband is having an affair with Jenny,” and cautions her Indian co-worker not to
repeat this morsel of information. Her co-worker agrees and then almost
immediately turns to her male Malay co-worker and proceeds to speak in Tamil. He
replies in Malay saying, in effect, that he does not fully understand what she is
saying, to which she replies, “wait, I tell you in English.” She excitedly exclaims
that, “You know, Mrs. Ang’s husband and Jenny? They’re having a sordid love
affair...”. The Malay man asks in Malay if this is true and she replies in English,
“...heard that someone saw them going to the hoteL.and Jenny is so wild in bed.”
She then tells him not to tell anyone and the Malay man swears in Malay that he will
not repeat a word of what she has told him. Not surprisingly, the Malay man turns to
face an Indian man and tells him in Malay that he wants to tell him something and
not to tell anyone else. The Indian man merely stares at him and the Malay man
looks back and says in English, “Do you understand Malay or not?”. The Tamil man
responds in Malay saying that he can only understand a little. Pleased, the Malay
man speaks in a torrent of Malay outlining the amorous details of Mr Nag and
Jenny’s exploits in bed. The Malay man ends his tale by urging the Indian man not
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232
to tell. He asks in Malay “janji”? [promise]?” and the Indian man replies, “janji”.
That One No Enough problematizes the use o f Standard English, underscoring both
its necessity and its play within Malay, Tamil, and Hokkien.
The image of Singapore as home is rendered in both dystopic and utopic
representations, as these films attempt to wrestle with the heartland and its position
within a city-nation. This home is seen as alienating, dislocating, yet warm and
filled with feelings of community and solidarity. These conflicting representations
point to the ambivalent position the heartland occupies in Singapore cultural life in
the 1990s. That One No Enough in particular raises the troubling question of the
place of the heartlander within the Government’s Knowledge Based Economy. The
PAP government is promoting the use of Standard English to achieve this goal.
This zealous pursuit is likely to widen the already existing gap between those who
can use Standard English strategically, and those like Gao Ren and A-Kun, who
cannot. The Government can no longer disavow the growing class consciousness
and divide in the 1990s which threatens to shatter the Government’s hegemonic ideal
of meritocracy.
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233
1 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv Slate (Chichester.
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 247. I realize that a majority of my sources for this discussion come from
the Perry, Kong, and Yeoh book. This is an extremely concise source for my brief historical context.
Please also refer to Beng Huat Chua. Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London:
Routledge, 1995), C, Pugh, “The Political Economy of Public Housing,” Management of Success:
The Moulding of Modem Singapore, eds. K. S Sandhu and Paul Wheatley (Singapore: Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies, 1989) 833 - 59.
2 Land area is based on a 1995 figure, while the population and housing resident figures are based on
1994 figures. For more information, please consult: Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh,
Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester John Wiley & Sons, 1997).
3 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh. Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 231.
4 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester.
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 232.
5 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons. 1997) 233.
Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh. Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester.
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 238.
7 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 237.
8 Martin Perry. Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons. 1997) 237.
9 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh, Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons. 1997) 242.
1 0 Martin Perry, Lily Kong, and Brenda Yeoh. Singapore: A Developmental Citv State (Chichester
John Wiley & Sons, 1997) 246.
" Susan Long, “When Mr Cosmopolitan clashes with Mr heartlander,” The Straits Times Weekly
Edition 15 Jan. 2000: 13.
1 2 The void deck is the ground floor of an HDB block. The mail boxes and seating for games or
conversation are located on the ground floor.
1 3 Conference information sheet on Singapore 21: p. 5.
1 4 “We will win this fight: PM.” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 20 Feb. 1999: I.
1 5 Ho Ai Li, “In search of a China bride,” The Straits Times 2 Mar. 1998: 35.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
1 6 Ho Ai Li, “In search of a China bride,” The Straits Times 2 Mar. 1998: 35.
1 7 Kelvin Tong, “Down and out in HDB heartland,” The Straits Times 7 May. 1991: I - 2.
1 8 Tan Dawn Wei, “No Singlish please, we are Singaporean,” Singapore Nov. - Dec. 1999:
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235
Projections
The 1990s marks a vigorous dialogue and, at times, debate between the
pedagogical force of the PAP and performative players operating in arenas such as
the Speaker’s Comer, across spaces like the Internet, and within mediums such as
film production, theater, and literature. Filmmakers, in particular, have challenged
notions of history, heritage, cultural memory, language, and class in order to
articulate and contribute competing constructions o f the complexities and tensions of
being Singaporean and living in a city-nation. Rather than summarizing my main
arguments from the preceding chapters, my conclusion, projections, functions as a
launching pad from which I highlight the emergence of digital video within
Singapore’s cinematic landscape and the ST 21 dilemma of internationalization and
regionalization vs. Singapore as home. It is this central, crystallizing issue which
confronts the development of Singapore cinema in the coming decade.
There seems to be an emerging use of digital video and the Internet as
possible alternative means of production, exhibition, and distribution. Filmmakers
who cannot obtain funding from national agencies or private organizations for their
feature length 16 or 35 mm, have sought out the more affordable medium of digital
video to shoot their films. Singaporean filmmaker Djinn Ong, shot his film Return
to Pontianak on digital video, and through a specialized post production process,
converted his stock to 16mm film. The final product featured a hybrid aesthetic with
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236
the full lush colors of film coupled with the crisp look of video. Stories About Love,
a feature length digital video consisting of three short films exploring the theme of
love, follows the release of the first digital feature in 2000, Stamford Hall, an as yet
unreleased film by a collective of National University of Singapore undergraduates.
Acclaimed director Eric Khoo and Singapore International Film Festival
founder Geoff Malone, respectively produced and executive produced Stories About
Love. Each story was written and directed by 12 Storeys co-screenwriter James Toh,
Abdul Nizam, a freelance filmmakers, and Cheah Chee Kong, MTV executive and
director of Chicken Rice Wars (2000).' According to Geoff Malone,
...We wanted to do something which could be a platform for young
Singapore filmmakers. Digital video proved to be the key...It’s a
liberating science. It allows art to be created more easily and freely.
Most importantly, the technology helped get Stories About Love off
the ground. It looks great and it’s a breakthrough for everyone
involved....”2
Eric Khoo concurs with Malone’s utopic vision of digital video and argues
that,
...Because of the low cost, we could afford to be more experimental
and bold. For instance, we could shoot up to 15 takes of one scene
if we liked because digital tape is so much cheaper than film stock.
It is also reusable....”■ *
The exuberance expressed by Eric Khoo and Geoff Malone about the low
cost benefits of digital video illustrates the very tangible challenges faced by
Singaporean filmmakers to secure any measure of film funding from both the
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237
Singapore Film Commission and other private organizations. Stories About Love cost
approximately $300,000, half of what it would have cost had it been shot on film,
while Remi Salleh’s digital feature, Off-Centre was produced despite Salleh’s
unsuccessful attempts to secure funding from government agencies, especially those
within the mental health sector.
This neophyte foray in 2000 into digital video is supported and encouraged
by the Singapore Film Commission and arts institutions such as The Substation
through their Moving Images Programme. Citing a general aversion in Singapore to
the risky investment of film financing, Dr. Sudderuddin, director of the Singapore
Film Commission, was optimistic that the medium of digital video would afford both
emerging and established Singaporean filmmakers with the ability to produce a
greater variety and quantity of works. Dr. Sudderuddin further discussed the
viability of the Internet to distribute and exhibit these digital works. It remains to be
seen whether Singaporean filmmakers seize upon the Internet as an alternate channel
for potential global distribution and exhibition as this outlet is not subject to the
intense regulations governing distribution and exhibition of films for local
consumption.
The Substation’s Moving Image Programme offered a digital video workshop
from October 29 to November I of 2000. In conjunction with the workshop, the
Moving Image Programme also featured “Making It Digital”, a two day short film
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238
screening highlighting works by American filmmakers Jason Reitman and Tom
Hodges. Kimberly Browning, executive director of the Hollywood Shorts Film
Festival which supported the screening, and Linda O, director of worldwide
acquisitions and festivals at Eveo.com, conducted a talk, “Your films online: what it
can do for you,” on the night of the first screening, while The Source elaborated on
editing using Apple’s Final Cut Pro, on the second night of screenings.4
The encouragement by The Substation and the initial utopic rhetoric
espoused by both filmmakers and those in such institutions as the Singapore Film
Commission, may be infused with strains of technological determinism. However,
the rhetoric surrounding digital video echoes similar sentiments expressed through
the use of video by the CVC and People’s Association in their outreach workshops in
the 1980s. The low cost of video equipment in the 1980s did indeed make it more
affordable for these institutions to introduce video as a form of artistic expression
and cultural production on a mass scale. The competition organized by the CVC and
the People’s Association proved to be a valuable training ground for seminal
Singaporean filmmaker Eric Khoo. The popularity of these competitions further
provided the impetus for the Best Singapore Short Film category at the Singapore
International Film Festival. The short film has been a productive, vital, and still
growing medium within Singapore’s cinematic landscape. It is a domain that the
dissertation does not focus on.
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239
I did make initial attempts to obtain copies of short films submitted to both
the CVC-People’s Association video competition and the Singapore International
Film Festival short film competition. When I approached the People’s Association
for more information about the submitted videos, I was informed that the PA did not
keep any of the videos and it would be almost logistically unfeasible to track down
individual participants over the course of ten years with addresses that were long
outdated. I also approached the Singapore International Film Festival for copies of
their submitted works and was at first told that the Festival was in the process of
compiling films of finalists in the Best Short Film award on DVD. I was later
informed that funding had fallen through and the DVD project was put on hold. The
Best Short Film award continues to draw new and budding filmmakers, some of
whom use the competition as both a training ground and as a means to secure
funding for their feature projects. It is a space rich, fertile, and rife for analysis and it
should be subject to further examination by other scholars of Singaporean film.
The growing trend of co-productions and a rising pan-Asian movement and
aesthetic forces a closer engagement with ST 21’s internationalization and
regionalization vs. Singapore as home. Raintree, the film production subsidiary of
the Television Corporation of Singapore is one of the most active players within the
emerging era of co-productions. In its bid to become a strong force within
Singapore’s media hub, Raintree has looked towards Hong Kong to find a productive
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240
partner for its filmmaking endeavors. Raintree Pictures is currently involved in a
joint venture with Hong Kong’s Media Asia to produce five feature films, the latest
in the creative pipeline being 2000AD, an action film starring Hong Kong pop super
star Aaron Kwok.5 2000AD failed to recoup its $6 million budget.6
Hong Kong’s film industry is still struggling to regain its footing after the
devastating Asian economic crisis of the past three years and the prolific copyright
piracy that has continually plagued the industry. The Hong Kong-Asia Film
Financing Forum was held in April 2000 in Hong Kong, to address the issues of fund
raising, co-productions, and strategies to aid struggling and fledgling Asian film
industries. Raintree Pictures and Cathay Organisation were in attendance, along
with filmmaker Eric Khoo. Mr. Wouter Barendrecht. director of the forum,
recognized that traditional methods of local fund raising were inadequate, stating
that, ’’...You can no longer rely on your grandmother’s credit card or some local
gangster to finance your film.”7 Critically acclaimed and Oscar nominated
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a film by Taiwanese director Ang Lee, is a film
that Mr. Barendrecht draws upon to illustrate his vision of new film financing
opportunities. It features Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun Fat and was jointly financed
by Columbia Tristar and Asian Union Film and Entertainment, co-produced in China
and carried with it a completion bond.8 Mr. Barendrecht calls for, "...A pan-Asian
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241
cinematic culture and distribution system should develop so that movie-makers here
are less dependent on sales to Europe and the United States.”9
This pan-Asian cinematic market seems to be a particularly vital trend. In
1998. Hong Kong's Golden Harvest Entertainment declined to distribute a group of
Japanese films, including The Ring. In her article on this pan-Asian phenomenon for
the Asia Wall Street Journal, Karen Mazurkewich writes that Golden Harvest
Entertainment executive Winnie Tsang formed her own company to distribute the
films. The Ring subsequently became Hong Kong's top-grossing movie in 1999.1 0
This pan-Asian trend continues with Nang Nak, a Thai film performing extremely
well in the Singapore box office and according to Maurkewich, Love Letter, a
Japanese film, broke into the Korean market for the first time.1 1 This pan-Asian box
office success extends to talent as well. For example, the latest fare by Hong Kong's
Wong Kar-Wei, 2046, boasts a cast of Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Japanese actors.1 2
Singapore's Raintree Pictures is becoming an active player within this pan-Asian
financing web with its investment in The Story o f Jun Dora, a Thai film funded by
Applause Pictures, a new Hong Kong production company.1 3
This pan-Asian trend towards an emphasis on regionalization extends beyond
the cinematic landscape into theater. The Practice Performing Arts Schools’ new
Theatre Training and Research Programme was launched in February 2000, with a
maxim of “a theatre of sources and synthesis.''1 4 The full time three year course was
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242
designed not only to incorporate Western acting methods like those of Stanislavski,
but would also examine and include Singapore and Southeast Asian performing arts
practices. The course would devote six months to the rigorous study of the classical
theaters of India, Japan, China, and Indonesia.1 5 It is the hope that the emerging
graduates will develop and synthesize these various Asian art forms according to
their individual sensibilities.
This fusion and reinvention of Southeast and East Asian art forms is taken to
new heights with seminal Singapore theater director Ong Keng Sen. Ong’s
Desdemona staged in 2000 is part of a trilogy which also features Lear which was
produced in 1997. Both productions arose from Theatre Works’ Flying Circus
Project, a theater lab headed by Ong, who is Theatre Works’s artistic director. The
lab featured practitioners from a diverse range of Asian performing arts who would
meet, “...impart, exchange, and integrate....”1 6
Specifically, Ong’s , Desdemona focused on the Moor’s wife and her quest
for autonomy. Lead Singapore actress, Claire Wong, plays both Desdemona and her
alter Ego, Mona, who similarly engages with her battle for autonomy and
emancipation.1 7 Desdemona's exploration of a pan-Asian aesthetic evolves from its
multicultural melange. The script was written by Japanese playwright Rio Kishida,
who also penned Lear. The music was composed by Korean composer Jang Jae
Hyo, while Desdemona’s cast hailed from Korea, Myanmar, India, Singapore and
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243
Indonesia. It featured such performing arts as Myanmar marionette dance,
Yogyanese court dance, and a fusion between musicians and visual artists.1 8
Desdemona’s decidedly abstract and unconventional Bardic adaptation, created a
furor among its Singaporean audience and critics. In response to mixed critical
reviews and occasionally puzzled Singaporean audience members, Ong blithely says
that, “...I'm going to continue making my work. And I do laugh about it sometimes
and say that bad publicity is still publicity....”1 9 Ong perhaps best encapsulates the
essence of Desdemona by arguing for a reception practice in which,
...you cannot start with the presumption that Desdemona is a piece
of literary theatre. I had two very clear things I wanted to do: one,
to work with visual artists, the time-space of Desdemona being that
of a visual arts collaboration. Two, look at process and reinvent the
show for every city. I did state my intentions very clearly - look at
the process not the product.. .2 0
Ong’s desire to focus on the process and the quest of reinvention is illustrated by
Desdemona’s staging strategies. Desdemona exists as a play in Singapore, while at
the Munich Dance Festival in March 2000, audiences saw Desdemona being
rehearsed rather than performed as it was in Singapore. Ong is also intent on
Desdemona serving as an installation piece at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum in
2001. In this vein, Ong remains true to Desdemona’s inception as a malleable and
shifting process. It is through this vehicle of process that Ong strikes a powerful
dialogue between internationalization and regionalization vs. Singapore as home. He
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244
injects a Singaporean sensitivity into a pan-Asian aesthetic to enter the stream of a
global performing arts.
Anthropologist Aijun Appadurai best captures this pan-Asian surge in his
article, “Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy.” His discussion
of mediascapes shatters the notion of a uni-directional transmission of Western and
specifically American cultural imperialism, and instead offers a reading in which
'‘...images and ideas now follow increasingly non-isomorphic paths...the sheer
speed, scale and volume of each of these flows is now so great that the disjunctures
have become central to the politics of global culture..."2 1 It is through these global
cultural flows that the Bard is indigenized and reinscripted with Japanese, Korean,
Indonesian, and Singaporean imprints.
In 2001, Singapore was named as the world's most globalized nation in a
report by Foreign Policy magazine. This report rated 50 developed countries and
while the United States placed 12U l, Singapore was praised for its " ‘...high trade
levels, heavy international telephone traffic, and steady stream of international
travellers...”2 2 The cultural consequences and impact of becoming increasingly
global and having to constantly negotiate between the global, local (Singapore as
home) and the regional (Asia), has precipitated a maelstrom of debate about what it
means to be a Singaporean and the uncertain role of the city-nation within this
nexus. Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo called for the fostering of a
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245
'‘Singaporean Spirit” and urged that, “...we must, therefore, strengthen our bonds as
Singaporeans so that despite the changes, Singaporeans remain self-consciously
Singaporean with a sense of our own destiny...”2 3 This identity crisis looms large
enough to warrant a Feedback Unit dialogue involving 70 Singapore youths who
were charged with the task of defining this elusive and ephemeral Singapore
essence.2 4
Defining and promoting this Singaporean essence or spirit is the next
pedagogical agenda of the PAP government. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong
announced that he would be stepping down as Prime Minister in 2007 and would
appoint former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s son, Brigadier-General Lee Hsien
Loong as his successor. This will prompt the PAP to again raise the specter of the
ideology of survival. This survival, I believe, will be heavily couched in providing
the Singapore populace with a definition of this Singapore essence with the goal of
maintaining a national imaginary of unity, and economic and political stability. It is
at this critical juncture that the voices of Singaporean filmmakers in the coming
decade, who themselves struggle with this dilemma, must be heard. The government
cannot stem the tide of these filmmakers who explore the intricacies, dilemmas, and
thickness of their cultural heritage to offer their potent images of life within this
vibrant city-nation.
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246
1 Kelvin Tong, “Digital shootout hits the mark,” The Straits Times 7 Jul. 2000: 8.
2 Kelvin Tong, “Digital shootout hits the mark,” The Straits Times 7 Jul. 2000: 8.
3 Kelvin Tong, “Digital shootout hits the mark,” The Straits Times 7 Jul. 2000: 8.
* Brochure from the “Moving Images Programme,” The Substation (2000).
5 Kelvin Tong, “They want to blow up a 747,” The Straits Times 16 Sept. 1999: 4.
° Kelvin Tong, “Three film veterans back for another go,” The Straits Times 21 Jun. 2000: no page
number available.
7 Loh Hui Yin, “Hong Kong: Languishing industry looks for revival,” The Straits Times 15 Apr.
2000: 24.
8 Loh Hui Yin, “Hong Kong: Languishing industry looks for revival,” The Straits Times 15 Apr.
2000: 24.
9 Loh Hui Yin, “Hong Kong: Languishing industry looks for revival,” The Straits Times 15 Apr.
2000: 24.
1 0 Karen Mazurkewich, “Reeling in Asia.” The Asian Wall Street Journal 13-15 Oct. 2000: page
number not available.
" Karen Mazurkewich, “Reeling in Asia.” The Asian Wall Street Journal 13-15 Oct. 2000: page
number not available.
1 2 Karen Mazurkewich, “Reeling in Asia." The Asian Wall Street Journal 13-15 Oct. 2000: page
number not available.
1 3 Karen Mazurkewich, “Reeling in Asia." The Asian Wall Street Journal 13-15 Oct. 2000: page
number not available.
M Verena Tay, “A crucible for Singapore theatre,” The Arts Magazine May-Jun. 2000: 6 1.
1 5 Verena Tay, “A crucible for Singapore theatre,” The Arts Magazine May-Jun. 2000: 61.
1 6 Jonathan Lim, “Desdemona: Acts of undressing and rethinking,” The Arts Magazine May-Jun.
2000: 14.
1 7 Jonathan Lim, “Desdemona: Acts o f undressing and rethinking,” The Arts Magazine May-Jun.
2000: 13.
“ Jonathan Lim, “Desdemona: Acts of undressing and rethinking,” The Arts Magazine Mav - Jun.
2000: 13.
1 9 Parvathi Nayar, “Ong Keng Sen speaks his mind,” The Business Times 8 Jul. 2000: EL3.
2 0 Parvathi Navar. “Ong Kena Sen speaks his mind." The Business Times 8 Jul. 2000: EL3.
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247
2 1 Aijun Appadurai, “The Global Cultural Economy.” Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory.
eds. Patrick Williams and Laura Christnan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994) 332.
2 2 Louise Branson, “Singapore the world’s most ’globalised' nation,” The Straits Times Weekly
Edition 13 Jan. 2001: 3.
2 3 Irene Ng, “A decade of 'good progress’ for Singapore,” The Straits Times Weekly Edition 24 Feb.
2001: 3.
2 4 Laurel Teo, “I want to be proud of Singapore... but what about?” The Straits Times Weekly Edition
24 Feb. 2001: 6.
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248
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Asset Metadata

Creator Siddique, Sophia Miriam (author)

Core Title Images of the city -nation: Singapore cinema in the 1990s

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Critical Studies

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Cinema,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Kinder, Marsha (committee chair), James, David (committee member), Simic, Andrei (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-163982

Unique identifier UC11330021

Identifier 3054806.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-163982 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3054806.pdf

Dmrecord 163982

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Siddique, Sophia Miriam

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA