Cheryl Tan: Sarong Party Girls

This book is written in Singlish, which is the patois that most Singaporeans speak to one another. It’s a tossed salad of the different languages and Chinese dialects that the country’s multiethnic population speaks—English, Malay, Mandarin, Hokkien, Teochew and more. It’s packed with attitude and humor and often is deliciously vulgar. Despite its allure, it has been the target of the Singapore government’s “Speak Good English” campaigns in the past. Fortunately, Singlish has turned out to be like a weed—it lives on.

Aiyoh, I tell you. If we do nothing, we are confirm getting into bang balls territory. We have to figure out how to make this happen—and we have to do it now.

After all, we’ve wasted enough time already. And we don’t have any more time to waste! We are not young anymore, you know—Fann just turned twenty-seven, my twenty-seventh birthday is two months away and Imo’s is not far behind. If we don’t get married, engaged or even nail down a boyfriend soon—my god, we might as well go ahead and book a room at Singapore Casket because our lives would already be over. In many ways, in Singapore, our kind of age is already considered a bit left on the shelf. Ordinarily, I don’t heck care about such things. Hallo—Jazzy here knows she’s quite power. Usually, unless the guy is blind or stupid or some shit, whatever guy I have my eye on I also can get, even at my age. You ask any bookie out there—my odds are damn good.

But it’s true that Singaporean men are a bit fussy—especially when it comes to older girls. But luckily for us, we still have one big hope: ang moh guys. That’s what we need to be thinking about. These white guys—they really catch no ball about Asian ages. Us twenty-something-year-old Asian girls, if you wear a tight tight dress or short short skirt, these ang mohs will still steam over you. (Some of them even go for the really old ones—thirty-year-old women also have chance!)

Even so, we cannot waste time. And we must be serious, because once you manage to marry a white guy, then you are only one step away from the number one champion status symbol in Singapore—a half ang moh kid. The Chanel of babies! But, how to get an ang moh husband?

I used to think getting an ang moh husband was quite easy to do. I mean—hello, we girls are always out there, meeting ang mohs, letting them buy drinks for us, dance dance rubba rubba a bit, so surely one day we’ll just naturally end up with an ang moh husband, right? At least that was the thinking lah. Recently though, I realized something that started making me nervous about achieving our goal. And it only hit me on that super cock night—the one where we lost Sher.

I tell you, I cannot even talk about that night right now without vomiting blood. Sher is so pretty, so sweet, so thin, has such fair skin. She could have had any guy she wanted!

After that night, I realized that yes, we’ve been quite focused over the years. If you count up all the guys our group has dated since secondary school, most of them are ang mohs. Not always good quality ones—some of them, I have to admit, are the don’t-wear-suits-to-work type—but still, in this small country, to be able to say that most of our boyfriends and flings have come from England or some shit is quite good lah. Most girls here end up with local boyfriends the whole time. What nonsense. I tell you, if an SBS bus runs me over on the street tomorrow, Jazzy here will go up there with no regrets.

Once we lost Sher though, I realized that our ang moh husband strategy was not so good because… we had no strategy! You ask Sun Tzu or Lee Kuan Yew, they confirm will say that every important thing also must have strategy. I tell you—if only we had paid closer attention to all that shit during Chinese proverb classes. If we had, maybe Sher would still be with us today.

So, first things first—must call a meeting. After work: Wala Wala bar at Holland Village. Of the four of us, there were only three left—me, Fann and Imo. Time to get serious.

Long time ago when we were in secondary school, the four of us used to be quite shy about coming to Holland Village. This neighborhood is not say super atas—although the hawker center there is damn bloody expensive. One stupid plate of wanton mee can cost you four dollars and fifty cents! If your family is printing money and you have all the cash in the world to pay American prices for Singaporean food then OK lah, please—you just go ahead. Also, you know how things are around here sometimes. If you are not ang moh and don’t speak good English or wear a school uniform from one of the expat schools or at least one of the right kinds of schools, people will sometimes look at you a bit funny. Like, why are you hanging out here? Don’t you have your own kampong to squat in? That kind of cock attitude.

But once we got a bit older and started going on dates with ang mohs who sometimes brought us to Holland Village, we started to see the bar scene, get to know some of the waiters and bartenders, then OK lah, we started to fit in. Now, at all the tapas bars and happening Irish pubs along there, even if we’re not on dates and it’s just us girls hanging out, we feel more OK about showing our faces in Holland Village.

Since I was the first to arrive after work, judging from all the texts from Fann and Imo about being late, I decided to slowly slowly walk to Wala Wala. Never fun sitting there for too long before your girls show up, after all. If you sit there for too long with your one drink, just waiting and looking, waiting and looking—aiyoh, even if the bartenders don’t think you are pros, I tell you, someone confirm will come and sit down with you and ask “How much?”

Holland V was happening as usual for a Thursday night. Of course it was still a bit early—since our work shift is more normal we can knock off at five o’clock, so we can come out earlier and start our night. I know sometimes if you work for ang moh companies or those British law or banking firms, even if you are a receptionist or assistant, then still must work late. Sometimes my job at the New Times is also like that lah, since I’m assistant to the editor in chief and all. But luckily Albert didn’t keep me too long today, because even that early on a Thursday, the narrow street that most of Holland V was on was already quite packed. The tables outside the bars and restaurants jammed on the pavement were already filled with people drinking and smoking. And I could almost taste the smell of grilled meats coming from some of the fashion-fashion yakitori places on the street.

Because it’s so crowded—and sometimes filled with families and kids, that kind of crap—Holland V is not usually my favorite place to go. But it’s good to check out the scene and be a part of it at least once in a while, show face and all.

When I got to Wala, I ordered their super shiok chicken wings. If the girls are late, it’s their problem. More wings for me. But bang balls, man—Fann and Imo showed up just when Ahmad brought the wings to our table. Fann didn’t even wait to sit down before grabbing one and stuffing it into her mouth. This one, I tell you, if I didn’t know her better I would have said she confirm would end up marrying some lousy Ah Beng squatting by a longkang.

“OK, you all know there was a reason that I called this meeting,” I said, making sure when I paused to stare hard at Imo. This one as usual was not paying attention, searching through her bloody handbag for god knows what.

“This is a meeting? I thought we were just drinking tonight,” Imo said, finally taking out a gold Chanel compact to powder her nose. Fann signaled to Ahmad to bring a round of our usual drinks over. After coming here for so long, Ahmad knows lah—cheap white wine first, good stuff later, especially if by then we have met ang mohs who want to buy us rounds.