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pore, fulfilling Raffles’ predictions and his desire to secure the British
commercial interests in the East against Dutch supremacy.
To be thrown into an alien world with ‘no familiar thing’ is to force the
awakening of an inner self which you didn’t know was there - or run
away from it. Married to a Gurkha, there was no chance of that! With
Taoist wisdom, Val had placed me on the path and allowed me to find
my way, encouraging every step in the right direction. The sounds of
the tropic night you cease to hear, which once had been so deafening.
So all that had upset me ceased to matter. Freed from insularity, I
looked around with curiosity and wonder.
Singapore was a uniquely British city with no influences, Dutch or Por-
tuguese. The grand buildings of government clearly stated that. In
Chinatown the Chinese built long narrow houses in the Canton style.
Their ancestors had come here to make a living, often a fortune, under
the protection of the British flag. They were the first Queen’s Chinese.
Did they also know that Singapore’s
fung shui
aspect was so auspicious
that it could only prosper? In Chinatown, life and death were catered
for with opium dens and death houses and, in between, the chaotic
paraphernalia that is Chinese life. The pavements were crammed with
barbers, letter writers, fortune tellers, matchmakers and singing birds
in cages. Goldsmiths too, glittering with 24-carat, for personal adorn-
ment from teeth to jewellery. It was security and easily transportable
as any refugee would know.
The Indian quarter had its own character, streets full of textiles, gentle
courtesy and an invitation to view vintage batiks in the back room over
a cup of tea.
Malays lived in attap-thatched houses in kampongs, tucked away un-
der palm trees, as they always had done. After all, they were here at
the beginning.
The three races lived amicably together, respecting religious festivals
and rituals. The evolution of the proudly nationalistic Singaporean
was decades away, of whom Lee Kuan Yew would say ‘to be a Singa-
porean is a privilege and not a right’.
