A Night In Little Odessa (or going down the rabbit hole)

I’m feeling terribly lazy and happy because I did a whole heap of work yesterday despite feeling squished so I rewarded myself by being geeky and finally adding a nice new sidebar with some links I like. Because I am such a technical genius, my main text has dropped down below all my sidebar stuff, and I have no clue how to fix it. Swearing at the computer, the designer, and blogspot didn’t work, so you’ll all have to live with it.
If any of you are wondering why I don’t put up a sidebar of my friend’s blogs as well, it’s because I fully intend to keep my friend’s blogs private. (If you want me to link you, drop me a line.) Recent events have convinced me that it’s better to keep my friends out of reach, if possible. But on to more palatable matters:

Okay, today’s post deals with race and stereotypes. Anyone who’s easily offended or can’t handle it, please bugger off now.


Eats Flied Lice and Leaves

My cousin’s recent struggle with Australian immigration ("No, I’m not a mail order bride, you ignorant fools!") made me very aware of some very Western misconceptions of Asians. No, we’re not all half-naked natives wearing lallang skirts who live in attap huts and have to hunt for our food. We’re not all slanty-eyed, black-haired wilting flowers who would give their right ovary to marry some ang moh who thinks he’s da bomb because he’s white.

By the same token, we are not all trained in martial arts from the time of birth, and Bruce Lee was not our neighbour (though it would have been way cool if he was). The Boy once told me that walking down the streets in Nottingham, people used to shout, "Hey, Charlie Chan!" And people wanted to pick fights with him simply because he’s a big guy, and hence, bigger than their idea of what Chinese men must be like. (although maybe this is gonadal gender thing rather than a race thing. Because women don’t go around doing stupd-ass things like trying to fight women simply because they have bigger boobs. That would be weird. Although I think men would like it. Especially if there was Jell-o. Okay, focus, focus)

As a popular tourist destination in Asia, you get a lot of ang mohs walking around Singapore, turning a gentle shade of red in the unaccustomed heat and humidity. You also hear a lot of gently patronizing comments, albeit unwittingly so. I’ve heard ang moh in our country say, "Wow, they have the Simpsons!", in a tone which obviously connotes surprise that this teeny little island nation is advanced enough to carry two-dimensional cartoons. Yes, yes, we do have the Simpsons. We, too, are apparently part of the creeping American cultural imperialism. Not that the Simpsons are not cool. The Simpsons rock hard. I’m just saying. (Because if you took away all things American, like CSI, and Jelly Belly jellybeans, and Victoria’s Secrets, Slinky’d cry for weeks)

And people, listen. I know it’s a really hard concept to grasp, but not all Asians come from either China or Japan, okay? Seriously. And no, Singapore is NOT part of China. Or Japan. It’s not even close.

I think the thing that really brought this on is recalling the fact that one of my friends once related an incident to me. She (or he, see, infamous hamster memory at work again) was asked by an extremely ignorant ang moh where she/he came from.

"I’m from Singapore," she/he said.
"Really?" said the ang moh. "I’ve always wanted to know, is it difficult having to climb those coconut trees every morning to get those coconuts for breakfast?"
The worst part of the whole thing was that the ignorant ang moh wasn’t being sarky or sneering at an inferior culture or anything. He genuinely wanted to know.
My friend sighed, "No, we have monkeys to do it for us."
"Oooohhh, I see," ang moh said, nodding head sagely.

This is a TRUE STORY.

I know not everyone thinks like that, and I’m sure I’m guilty of some of the same ignorant stereotypes (see below for example). But there you go. Singaporeans 101 from Slinky’s School of Asian Studies.

To make it up to anyone who feels offended, here’s a little un-PC joke at the chinky little man’s expense.

An Asian man walked into the currency exchange line in a New York bank with 2000 yen, and he walked out with $72. The following week, he walked in with2000 yen, and was handed $66. He asked the teller why he got less money than he had gotten the previous week. The lady said, "Fluctuations." The Asian man stormed out, and just before slamming the door, he turned around and said, "Fluc you Amelicans, too!"


"Talk to camera or I shoot you" - Dinner with the Russian mafioso

On Friday night, The Boy and I were in the mood for something a little different for dinner. So on the recommendation of The Boy’s colleague, we traipsed off to Beach Road in search of a new Russian restaurant which came highly recommended by his colleagues Russian wife. We had tried to make reservations, but the telephone call The Boy endured was puzzling.

The Boy: "Hello? This place serves Russian food, yes?"
Voice: "Errrr, yeah."
The Boy: "You have dinner tonight?"
Voice: "Dinner, yes."
The Boy: "Do I need to make reservations?"
Voice: "No."
The Boy: "So there are tables available?"
Voice: "No, tables all full."
Pause
The Boy: "So all the tables are full?"
Voice: "Yes. But two tables outside free."
Pause again as The Boy tries very hard to make sense of this very White Rabbit, Alice-IN-Wonderland conversation.
The Boy (going very slowly): "So, I can make a reservation?"
Voice: "Any time can make a reservation."

It was with a little trepidation that we went down.

It turned out to be a little place, obviously spanking new, and we were greeted, told that dinner would be ready in about 20 minutes, and that yes, it was a buffet. Ordering drinks was a little bit of a White Rabbit experience again ("what drinks do you have?" "We have all usual" "Do you have a menu?" "No, upstairs"), but we eventually got settled.

It was quite a while to wait, and me and The Boy had plenty of time to observe the coming and going of various people. We spoke briefly to the owner, a beautiful, statuesque Russian lady, and discovered that it was their grand opening night. After a while, we realized that a whole lot of people were turning up, and they all seemed to be Russian. Furthermore, they all seemed to know one another. It was a little curious, but we figured that perhaps word had spread through friends. It felt a little strange to be the only non-Russian people there who didn’t know anyone else, though. It made us a little twitchy.

Then something really odd happened. The Voice, which turned out to be an affable looking chap with a shaven head and lovely eyes, gave us the bill for the drinks. We blinked at him, and pointed out that we hadn’t had dinner yet. He shrugged, smiled, said he didn’t know, he was just supposed to collect the bill for the drinks. "So how about dinner?" we asked, perplexed. "How much is that?" He looked bemused, and I think he had the same "How dim are these people?" expression that we had, and said, "Dinner is free tonight."

Maybe it was our deeply inbred Singaporean instincts, but suspicion kicked in immediately. Why, on earth, was dinner free on the grand opening night of a restaurant? Unless….

We began to have deep misgivings about being here. Horrible suspicions began to surface.

Clue #1 - everyone there was Russian. Except us.
Clue #2 - everyone there knew each other. Except us.

Shit. We’d gatecrashed a private function. And these people were too polite to tell us to leave.

We sat there and looked calm, but we were actually freaking out inside our cool corporate suits. We had hissed conversations which went along the lines of, "Oh my god what if we’ve gatecrashed a friend’s private party and they’re all Russian mafia and we’re all going to diiiiieeeeeee." Okay, not really. But we were in a complete haze of impending embarrassment.

Kudos to The Boy, because just as we were reaching critical mass in terms of self-consciousness (I’ve never felt quite so conspicuously asian before in my own country), he screwed up some courage and as the proprietor was trying to usher everyone upstairs for a speech, he asked her discreetly if this was a private event. And to please not shoot us if it was.

She didn’t, and it wasn’t. Phew.

We were ushered upstairs were, still not quite convinced that we belonged there, we perched nervously on the edge of our seats near the stairs, ready to make a run for it if someone even showed so much as a hint of pulling out a Kalashnikov. We were then made to sit through a speech in Russian which could have meant "Thank you all for coming, we are very grateful for your show of support, we hope you like it here," or "See those little Chinese people over there? They would make good slaves back in Mother Russia. I think we should drug their food and ship them in duffel bags." Occasionally some of the Russian men would stare appraisingly at me and then dismiss me as a puny slanty-eyed toothpick with a contemptuous flicker of eyelid. There was only one other table of non-Russians, and they sat there looking as squirmingly self-conscious as we felt.

Shortly after, dinner was served, buffet-style.

I’ve never had Russian food before. It was eye-opening. There was yummy chunks on meat on sticks which had a distinct alcoholic tinge to it (basted in vodka, perhaps? I like meat on sticks. It’s primal and bad for you.) and there were these fabulous deep-fried fish fillets, and some chicken stew, and this glorious milky fluffy bread stuffed with rice and salmon, oh my goooooodddd. There was something I think was chicken stew, and meat-stuffed potatoes, and very spicy cheese-on-tomato-slice finger-food thing, and julienned carrots with some sort of olive oil spice dressing, and something purple which I definitely did not like, and other things which I can’t recall but which I probably ate anyway. It had this fabulous home-cooked taste, but oh my god, I understand why every single person there outweighed me by at least twice my bodyweight. I can usually put food away at a relatively alarming rate, but after two plates of tiny portions, I felt like I had swallowed lead pellets. It’s the kind of food that sticks to your ribs and makes Olgas.

The restaurant itself was really nice though. It had that great homey feel, according to The Boy who has been in his Russian friend’s house before, it smells exactly right. I make no comment on that.

On a trip to get food, I encountered the Camera KGB. She looked Chinese, but when she spoke, it was in a strong Russian accent. Accosting two of the other non-Russians in the line, she pointed a video camera menacingly in their direction and said, in tones of threat rather than question, "Can I ask you question?" (the ‘if say no, I keeeel you" part was silent)

The couple stared at her, weighed up the odds of being able to move onto the food before she took them down and out, and stammered, "Uuuhhh, suuureeee."
"Good!" she snapped. "I ask you, do you like Russian food?" (It came out like "Doo yooo laik Rooshian fud?". The ‘if say no, I make you eat camera" part was silent)
They stared silently at the Scary Camera KGB agent before gabbling, "Yesyes, Russian food is very nice."
"What you think of Russian food?" she barked, wielding the video-camera like a deadly hand-held weapon.
"Uhhh… very…. nice…"
"Okay!" she growled, and did a throat-cutting gesture, signifying the end of the interro.. I mean, interview.

I told The Boy about the Scary Camera KGB agent and he laughed, which was bad karmic value, because on our way out, he was accosted by her. Standing in front of him, she said, "Can I ask you question?"

"Um, yes?"
"Good! Sit down!"

We barely escaped with our lives. But we will come back and brave the Camera Bitch for the food.

This never happens to me when I go out with other people.


The Slinky Cat needs new dining companions to avoid being sold by Russians as a harem girl to some sheik in Arabia. Although camels would be fun.