Engaging kopitiam reading

~ Sarong Party Girls, by Cheryl Li-Lien Tan ~

“Not say the States is very near, you know.” (translation: That is not to say the US is close to Singapore.)

p145

“You see, ang mohs in Asia, step one is for them to look for girls to pok. This one is not hard lah.” (translation: The first thing whites in Asia are looking for is girls to have sex with. This is not difficult.)

p11

“No need to fight unless they try to potong your catch – if they potong then we hantam them one time.” (translation: ‘potong’ – cut; ‘hantam’ – hit)

p13

“You wake up your own head!” (translation: get real!)

p14

“[…] to go to the kopitiam to drink kopi and shake leg” (translation: ‘kopi’ – coffee; ‘tiam’ – shop; ‘shake leg’ – to idly while time away)

p288

“Walao – what kind of toot bar is this?” (translation: ‘walao’ – sometimes written as ‘wah lau’, an exclamation which can indicate being impressed, or just being taken aback and surprised; toot – uncool, geeky)

p298

These are examples of how the protagonist, self-dubbed Jazzy – one Jazeline Lim Boon Huay – talks. She rather endearingly  refers to herself as “guniang here” [translation: ‘guniang’ is a rather quaint, ancient way of saying ‘miss’, or ‘young lady’, similar to the contemporary ‘xiao jie’]. Jazz speaks in a wonderful Singapore slang, or Singlish, complete with Malay, Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien and Teochew words and swear words, as well as slang English all thrown into the mix. It is earthy and direct language, incorporating large handfuls of words and phrases which are direct translations from other languages, and extremely local.

The entire book, just in its syntax let alone its vibrant descriptions of places and peoples, is a charming submersion into the Singaporean landscape. When Jazz goes with her mum to the wet market, she speaks of the favourite fish uncle, second-choice fish uncle, vegetable boy, flower auntie; the very syntax of her sentences becomes deliciously local:

“If you want to go to wet market, you must 6.30 A.M. wake up and fasterly go. 8 A.M. then go marketing? At that hour on a weekday, a lot of market uncles got air also they won’t bother selling to you. They are tired already – time to close shop and balik kampong.” P34. [translation: balik – return; kampong – village]

In the wet market, her mum tries to give her advice of the sort Jazz most resents listening to:

Huay ah, when you buy chicken or duck ah, if the uncle doesn’t kill it in front of you, you must remember to always press the skin a bit – got bounce back then it’s good. Never bounce back then don’t buy. Too old already.

p35

Typically Singaporean, there are also many acronyms thrown in – SPG for sarong party girls, LC for low class, and in Jazz’s particular vocabulary, many choice swear words: ‘chee bye’, ‘kani nah’, ‘lanjiao’, etc. as well as the usual 4 letter words in English.

The novel is about Jazz realising that at 26, she needs to ‘catch’ a husband, and fast. The novel gives a very humorous and yet quite serious run down of Jazz’s – and many Singaporeans of her generation’s – values and social hierarchies. She wants to catch a rich ang moh (white) husband, and have a ‘Chanel baby’ – a mixed race child. She identifies her competition as being China girls (whom she deems desperate, would do anything to escape the longkang (drain/ditch) they came from, and having therefore no standards), Fillipinas (who are ‘already quite ang moh’ and moreover excel in karaoke), other SPGs, and ang moh girls (“This one is actually not so dangerous because they’re all so fat and white-chicken skin type. Some more their hands and legs are usually damned hairy.”)

Jazz considers herself quite ‘chio’, [translation: sexy, good-looking girl], able to get men to ‘steam’; quite the veteran of the happening clubbing scene, knowledgeable about which places to be seen at and which not, and how to get as many free drinks as possible. Together with her friend Imo and Fann, the girls party hard, and miss Sher, the 4^th of their group whom they deem lost to them because she married an Ah Beng (a local Singaporean Chinese man; Ah Lians are the feminine counterparts).

Although the novel does represent the materialism of SPGs, this is a very sympathetic depiction, rendering them rather lovable despite their hard-drinking, hard-partying, one-night-stand lifestyles. Jazz is exceptionally self aware, and understands her world to a nicety. She appreciates her parents and background while fully determine to escape ending up like them, enjoys the local while yearning for the cosmopolitan, and although she acts as cool and hip as she can, she is surprisingly honest and unhypocritical. Her thoughts are wonderfully un-PC:

This kind of attitude very hard for us Singaporean girls to swallow, you know. Especially coming from a Chinese girl from China. Hallo, doesn’t she remember that our ancestors thought China was such a longkang that they risked their lives to jump on boats and sail to Singapore? 

p167

As the novel unfolds, Jazz shows herself to be generous hearted, kindly, level headed, accommodating, and understanding, as well as hilariously impatient of anything lacking street credit and smacking of Ah Beng-ness. She has a lot of self-respect despite being an SPG, and will simply walk away from situations which she finds demeaning, too sleazy, too exploitative, or unacceptable to her. However, Jazz also has a talent for reading the social unsaid, knowing where the invisible leverages and balances of power are, and understanding which lines are safe to cross and which are not. And sometimes, she concedes to social and sexual pressures even when she is not particularly willing to, in the interest of social harmony and longer term peace and gains; in that respect, she departs from the image of the flighty, thoughtless, only-out-for-a-good time, image of sarong party girls. Tan writes us a protagonist that has depth of character, for all her apparently shallow lifestyle. 

So engaging is Jazz’s talk that this review is tempted to quote endlessly from the novel, with its laugh-out-loud observations and beautifully captured representations. This is a little masterpiece in its own right. Tan captures the mood and the social scene with tremendous authenticity and nuance, conveying that particular type of energy and consciousness which immediately identifies the narrative and places it emphatically and unmistakable within its distinctive time space coordinates.  That, surely, is what any ‘atas’ [translation: superior, high class] novel does. As Jazz might put it, I shall ‘confirm’ [translation: definitely] be eagerly awaiting any future work from Tan!