The Catherine Lim Collection (39 page)

It is not only in the field of education
that kiasuism is manifested. The Singaporean on tour provides an extremely
interesting case study. Having paid a large sum of money for the tour, the
Singaporean makes sure that he gets his every cent’s worth, right from the
moment he boards the plane to the moment he sets foot back on Singapore soil. He
carries his pocket calculator with him to satisfy himself that the food,
accommodation, facilities, entertainment, free gifts, etc., which form the tour
package are exactly accounted for.

There is the story of the group of Singapore
tourists who were entertained with a show in their hotel, as part of the
package. Now the show was a performance by a scantily clad and very acrobatic
lady, with a python. There were two types of shows: Type A was ‘Lady with
Python, Python does not touch Lady’, Type B was ‘Lady with Python; Python
touches Lady’. Type B cost $10 more. Now the Singapore tourists were treated to
Type A, but later discovered, through talking to other tourists, that they had
actually paid for Type B. A great quarrel with the tour organiser and the hotel
manager ensued, the Singaporeans demanding that either they be given another
performance, or have the difference of $10 refunded. The tour organiser
explained, with much effort, that the performance they had seen was actually
Type B; it was just that the python had been too sleepy to climb out of its
basket and coil itself around the lady. Apparently, the second drug that had
been administered to it to get it out of the soporific effects of the first, in
time for the Type B performance, was not working well enough. The explanation
did not satisfy the Singaporeans who continued to clamour to see Type B and get
their money’s full worth. In weary resignation, the hotel manager gave in; he
gave instructions for a double dosage of the second drug to be administered to
the python, as a result of which the reptile, suddenly roused to an unwonted
level of energy, slid down from the lady’s torso and down the stage to the
watching Singaporeans, causing pandemonium. The hotel manager was heard to
remark gleefully, “Singaporeans get python; python gets Singaporeans.”

It is often on a tour, when the Singaporean
gets away from his country for a while, that kiasuism is manifested in its most
conspicuous, even bizarre forms. A Singapore tourist was told by his wife that
a fellow Australian tourist had peeped at her while she was in the women’s
bath: She was enjoying herself with the other women in the steaming waters when
she caught sight of the Australian gazing intently at her. He had no right to
go to the women’s section of the bath, but on some pretext of looking for his
wife, had managed to sneak in, and there had indulged his lustful eyes. The
Singapore gentleman, on hearing this complaint from his wife, immediately
experienced the acute pain of losing out; he had lost out to his Australian
counterpart in terms of the pleasures afforded by the tour. Each of them had
paid the same amount of money, but the Australian had got more for his money
for he had had the additional pleasure of gazing upon a woman’s naked beauties.
And since it was his wife’s naked beauties, the Singaporean felt that he had
lost out twice over to the Australian.

Now the Singapore gentleman knew that he
would know no rest till the imbalance had been redressed. And the imbalance
could only be redressed by his looking upon the Australian man’s wife in her
nakedness, in exactly the same length of time that the Australian man had
looked upon his wife, that is, a full minute. So he waited for an opportune
time, and when the lady was in the bath, he made the pretext of going there to
look for his wife, taking care to gaze upon the Australian lady’s nakedness a
full 60 seconds. There the similarity of the two escapades ended, for while the
Australian gentleman had apparently enjoyed his one minute, he, the Singapore
gentleman, forced himself to gaze upon an enormous shapeless bulk thrashing
about in the water. His first impulse upon setting eyes on the amazing bulk had
been to turn around and run away, but kiasuism’s first principle of exactitude
operated more strongly than his aesthetic sense, and he stayed till the full
minute was over.

4. KIASUISM AND THE ‘EAT-ALL-YOU-CAN’ BUFFET

However, the ultimate manifestation of
kiasuism is at the ‘eat-all-you-can’ buffet at which, for a certain price, a
person can help himself to as much food as he likes from a magnificent
selection, sometimes numbering as many as 35 different items. Since this
gastronomic innovation is the rage in Singapore’s big hotels and restaurants,
the national propensity of kiasuism has never had so much opportunity to be
exercised; indeed, it is the belief of many that it is precisely the
‘eat-all-you-can’ buffet that has brought this national propensity into full
flowering.

By now, it is a familiar sight: The
Singaporean with plates of piled-up food from the buffet lunch table staggering
back to his own table, ploughing through the food with great gusto and
merriment, returning to the buffet board for more and still more, and finally
slumping back in his chair with a smile of satisfaction on his face and a
toothpick languidly dangling out of the corner of his mouth, while in front of
him are plates and bowls of unfinished food, or food hardly touched because the
last lap of the binge had proved too difficult, even for him.

The languor which spreads over the face and
whole person of the Singaporean as he adjusts his now much distended belly to a
more comfortable position in the chair, belies the meticulous preparations that
he has made prior to the coming for this buffet lunch, preparations made to
ensure that he gets his every cent’s worth. Firstly, he has gone without his
breakfast to ensure maximum stomach capacity for lunch. Secondly, before he
begins the great pile-up, he makes a quick reconnaissance survey of the
selections on the buffet board to identify the choicest and most expensive
items, hence eschewing items such as rice, bread and inexpensive vegetables for
exotic crayfish and oysters and venison. In the unfortunate event of the
waiters coming in with new items after he has already finished his meal, he is
so seized with vexed dismay that he goes up to the waiters and demands to know
why the goodies had not been brought in earlier, or he gets up and struggles to
the buffet board for one last time.

5. KIASUISM: THE SOCIAL, HISTORICAL AND
CULTURAL DIMENSIONS

Since the kia-suer’s behaviour at the
‘eat-all-you-can’ buffet is the best manifestation of kiasuism, this
gastronomic event will be used as the unit of study by which the national
propensity will be considered in its social, cultural and historical
dimensions.

The relevant questions are: Why is kiasuism
best shown at the buffet? Is there any historical or cultural basis for this
manifestation? What implications do these have on Singapore society as a whole?

Certain theories will now be put forward:

5.1 The ‘Hoarding Instinct’ Theory

The frenetic piling up of food on plate well
beyond one’s consumption capacity is a vestige of the hoarding instinct of
peasant ancestors for whom every grain of rice, every stalk of vegetable, every
bit of dung deposited by the water buffalo, was precious and had to be saved
against needy times. Hoarding is no longer necessary in modern and affluent
Singapore, but ancestral instincts die hard, and it has been estimated that the
amount of food piled up on the kia-suer’s plate approximates the amount
required to keep a person alive over a prolonged period of famine.

5.2 The ‘Second Echelon Eaters’ Theory

The open invitation at a buffet to get at the
food the minute it is laid on the board and to wait for no one, harks back to
ancestral times precisely because the opposite was true then: one had always to
wait one’s turn to eat. One had to wait for the gods to have first go, or
temple deities or dead ancestors; only when the food was brought back home from
the temple or the ancestors’ graves could it be consumed. Even then, one had to
wait for the elders in the family to have the best parts of fowl, fish and
herbs before one could finally enjoy the food. Demanding deities, hungry
ghosts, exacting ancestors, dead and alive - these formed the First Echelon
Eaters. By the time the Second Echelon Eaters could have their fill, the feast
had already been much denuded. Now, a modern-day buffet represents the total
lifting of these historical prohibitions, and the eagerness with which the
kia-suer descends upon the food makes up for the old hereditary frustration of
having to hold back.

5.3 The ‘Raiding Instinct’ Theory

One of the most significant features of
kiasuism as manifested at a buffet is the tendency to leave large amounts of
food partially consumed or totally unconsumed on the table. Large slabs of
roast beef, lamb or chicken covered thickly with sauce, but hardly touched;
western salads in sad cohabitation with Asian ‘rojak’ in an abandoned bowl;
delicate little custards, puddings, pies and tarts cruelly defaced by poking,
plunging forks and spoons left sticking there – all give the aspect of a
mindless raid not unlike that of the ancient days, when the people of one
village, in the sinister darkness of night, surged forth to harm those of
another, looting, plundering, despoiling, and laying waste what they could not
take away, such as setting fire to granaries and ripping ripening fruit off
trees.

The attenuating power of education and
affluence has not totally eradicated this ancient raiding instinct, and the
buffet, with all its display of abundance and plenitude, has the effect of
activating it.

What are the implications of kiasuism?

Already, Singaporeans on tour are being
excluded from buffets, or regulations are being devised precisely to keep
Singaporean kiasiusm in check, such as the regulation that any food not eaten
will be charged for. The more tolerant hotels are devising incentives rather
than regulations, such as the incentive of a free meal if proper behaviour is
shown at the previous one. It is clearly not an endearing national trait. The
surprising thing is that every Singaporean cheerfully speaks of kiasuism as a
trait belonging to other Singaporeans, so that kiasuism appears to be some kind
of abstraction, rather like the Cheshire Cat’s grin without the Cheshire Cat.

6. CONCLUSIONS

Although no previous study has been done on
kiasuism, there have been a few experiments, the results of which are likely to
be published soon. For instance, there is a study motivated by the discovery
that a Singaporean, after a blood transfusion, lost all traces of kiasuism to
the extent that his behaviour was no longer recognisable by his family and
friends. The Singaporean had been on holiday in Norway where, as a result of a
serious accident, he had undergone major surgery, had had massive transfusions
of Norwegian blood, and had subsequently experienced the drastic behaviour
change. This led to the question: is kiasuism a behavioural trait that is
determined by the presence of some special elements in the blood, in the same
way that, for instance, a certain African tribe is immune to malaria because of
the presence of certain sickle-shaped corpuscles in their blood? An experiment
is at present being conducted in which the blood of a South Sea Islander
volunteer is being replaced by that of a Singaporean, to see if that has any
effect on his disposition. The results may prove that kiasuism has a
physiological basis as well.

The above is but a tentative study of
kiasuism. It is hoped that the study will lead to others that will contribute
to a greater understanding of this very interesting phenomenon.

SHARILYN ZELDA LEE SWEE MEI: Now let’s get
everything very clear from the start, Your Benevolence. I’ve come to get your
advice not because I’m desperate – ha! everyone thinks all women over 35 who
have not found husbands are desperate! Let me repeat, I’m not desperate, I’m simply
being an unwilling participant in an experiment being conducted by the Social
Enhancement Unit, and have been foolish enough to promise full co-operation.
They have been quoting you left and right in their lectures on Marriage and
Love and Family and the Role of Women and what have you. He in particular has
been quoting you at every outing we have been to; the last time he quoted you,
he said something like ‘Confucius he say, woman must walk three paces behind
man, with eyes cast on ground.’ I was tempted to retort, ‘This is because if
man walks three paces behind woman, his eyes will be cast on her behind’, but I
let it pass. I want, once and for all, Your Benevolence, to get it straight
from you. I confess I have not yet read your Analects, though these are
compulsory reading for the SEU Initiation Programme; I was too busy reading
Keats and Byron and Shakespeare. So here I am, part of a ridiculous experiment
– but perhaps, Your Benevolence, I should brief you on the experiment before I
ask your advice.

CONFUCIAN SAGE: The Master he say, always
very good for woman to be brief and go straight for the point.

SHARILYN ZELDA LEE SWEE MEI: Well, as you may
know, Your Benevolence, the SEU is very worried about what they perceive to be
a growing trend among young educated women in Singapore – the trend to stay
unmarried because their expectations of their marriage partners have far
overtaken the reality. Simply put, Your Benevolence, Singaporean women have
become too intelligent, articulate and socially sophisticated for Singaporean
men. Oh, how painful, how traumatic to go on a date with a man who picks his
teeth in public, Your Benevolence, and speaks horrible, ungrammatical English!
The SEU has been trying very hard to persuade us to overlook all these deficiencies
which they say can be corrected after marriage with a little patience and care.
Now it has launched this ludicrous experiment, and before I know anything, I’m
in the centre of it! You see, Your Benevolence, they want to match the most
articulate, sophisticated and idealistic Singaporean female with the least
polished and the least attractive Singaporean male, to prove that it can work!
If these two extremes are seen to be happily matched, then the SEU can turn
around and confidently tell the other couples for whom the gap is less severe:
“You too can make it,” thereby fulfilling its primary function as the nation’s
premier matchmaking institution. For this purpose, I, Sharilyn Zelda Lee Swee
Mei, have been picked by the computer to be paired with a Mr Chow Pock Mook,
and a whole elaborate programme of meetings and outings and cosy tête-à-têtes
has been drawn up for us. The SEU is, needless to say, very anxious for the
experiment to succeed, for they have invested much time and effort and money in
it. But it’s not succeeding! I have told the SEU so, but they keep insisting
that I give it another try and that is why I have come to get advice from you,
the great Sage. As I mentioned earlier, this is a kind of concession to the
partner the computer picked for me, Mr Chow Pock Mook, who has the highest
regard for your teachings. I confess I would be more comfortable seeking advice
from the English bards who were such an inspiration to me in both my
undergraduate and postgraduate years in England, but, as I had earlier
indicated, I am prepared to co-operate fully with the SEU and give this Mr Chow
Pock Mook a last chance.