More on the Singapore Girl - again. This time, the colonial hang-up.The Sunday Times, Feb 4, 2007
Of Singapore Girls and white men
It is time to get over our colonial hang ups and give the Singapore Girl a break
By Ong Soh Chin
IT IS a commonly held view that flight attendants on Singapore Airlines give preferential treatment to foreigners, especially white males.
So, when the news broke that the fate of the Singapore Girl was hanging in the balance, it was only a matter of time before that familiar grievance was aired again.
Last Sunday, reader Khoo Kah Liang wrote in about the irrelevance of the 'Singapore' Girl today since the airline was hiring more and more attendants from countries such as South Korea, Japan and India to service those particular routes.
The reader added that on Korean flights, the Korean attendants would give better service to fellow Koreans and Caucasians, while on Japanese flights, the Japanese attendants would give better service to the Japanese and the Caucasians... you get the picture.
The coup de grace was the observation that on flights to the United States and Britain, Singaporean attendants would give good service to only Caucasians but not to Singaporeans.
While their gender may have saved them from being tarred with the same brush, my male flight attendant friends reacted with consternation to the injustice they felt had been done to their more high-profile female colleagues.
Said one in exasperation: 'In our training, we are always reminded to be especially attentive to Singaporean passengers because we know they will complain. But despite that, they still complain. Singaporeans have a colonial hang-up.'
What does it mean if we constantly feel every other country looks out for its own except ours? And what does it mean if, in this day and age, we feel every Asian country, including ours, still kowtows to the white man?
Added my flight attendant friend: 'It's not that we ignore Singaporeans, but whenever we greet passengers upon boarding, the ones who won't even bother to acknowledge us or even look us in the eye are invariably Singaporeans. So can they blame us if we appear to be more chatty to a foreign passenger?'
It doesn't help, of course, that the Singapore Girl was created by a white man - British-born, Australian-bred adman Ian Batey - in 1972, forever sealing her fate as a Sarong Party Girl par excellence. Subservient, demure and bound by the feminine constrictions of her sarong kebaya, she promised a feast for the eyes in the skies. No wonder she took off.
But the heart of the controversy goes beyond feminist rhetoric. It strikes deep into the heart of how we view ourselves and how we shape our national identity.
This is not a phenomenon peculiar to Singapore, of course. When the late American-Palestinian scholar Edward Said published Orientalism in 1978, he forever changed the East-West relational zeitgeist and triggered off a renewed nationalistic fervour among former colonies.
But it is high time we moved beyond Orientalist baggage. The world has changed a lot since 1978. Eastern powers such as China and India have become prominent and globalisation has rendered many old structures obsolete.
Still, reader Murali Sharma wrote in last December to question why 'lesser' British colonial officers like Captain Ronald MacPherson and engineer James MacRitchie deserved having streets and landmarks named after them. (Another reader, Shiva Banerjee, later wrote in, in defence of the colonials who had made 'landmark contributions to the development of early Singapore'.)
To a large extent, our colonial ball-and-chain hampers our relationship with Caucasians who are alive and kicking here today.
Westerners who are born and bred Singaporeans and who have served national service have never been factored in as part of modern Singapore's social fabric.
Nation-building posters usually feature Malays, Indians, Chinese and Eurasians, but no white faces. Never mind that our most popular nation-building anthems - Stand Up For Singapore, Count On Me Singapore and We Are Singapore - were composed by a Canadian adman called Hugh Harrison.
Ms Tara Barker, 46, a New Zealand-born magazine editor who has lived here for 10 years and been a permanent resident for five, finds it disappointing that some Singaporeans cannot accept the part that non-Asians played in creating Singapore.
Her parents worked, met and married here in 1958 at the Orchard Road Presbyterian Church. Her mother came after the war as a 20-year-old and worked here for 10 years training local women who later went on to work all over Asia demonstrating and selling accounting machines. Her father worked for the Chartered Bank.
'One of his jobs was to check shipments of rubber. He used to go to the godowns along Boat Quay with a big stick to hit the rats when they shot out of the holds,' she says.
'Neither of my parents were rich colonials. They came here to make a life, just like every other immigrant from China or India.'
But that part of our history has largely been forgotten, or ignored. Instead, it is practically a knee-jerk reaction these days to blame the white man for many of Singapore's ills.
But let's look harder and deeper at our own complicity. The common perception that all Caucasians here, no matter where they come from, are overpaid booze-loving sex maniacs out to plunder our land and steal our women is partially the result of our own colonial panderings in the 1970s, when we willingly played ourselves up as creatures of the exotic East.
While our iconic maidens in sarong kebaya were whispering that they were 'a great way to fly', Singapore itself was luring tourists with brochures and ads of doe-eyed women sitting amid lush vegetation and holding baskets of fruit.
In both cases, the sell was aimed at the white man, then the aspirational exemplar of big business.
Not yet a global entrepolis, we were in the transition stage between island paradise and air-conditioned nation. So we primped our flora and fauna and pimped ourselves. We may not really have liked the white men, but we certainly liked their money.
This, of course, cannot be the case today. Singapore has a lot more to offer and xenophobia is not going to encourage foreigners to sink their roots here and take up citizenship - something Singapore wants and needs.
Last year, the number of non-residents here grew by 9.7 per cent to 875,500, the biggest leap in six years, fuelled mainly by those on student and employment passes.
By comparison, the number of Singaporeans and permanent residents (PRs) grew by 1.8 per cent in the same period, with PRs making up 480,000.
The Government has set up a National Marketing Action Committee to come up with a single, solid brand to grow Singapore's reputation overseas.
But, so far, we have largely pegged our pride on tangible achievements. Growing the intangible software - the lump-in-the-throat patriotism, the values we stand for and the all-inclusive spirit befitting an immigrant nation - is equally, if not more important, and much harder to do.
This is especially so when one considers that, as a society, we have become more fractured today. There are Western-educated English-speaking Singaporeans, Chinese elite Singaporeans, multi-millionaire Singaporeans, heartland Singaporeans and, recently, homeless Singaporeans, low-income Singaporeans and new immigrant Singaporeans.
As we evolve, whether by committee or natural forces, learning and appreciating the past and emphasising shared values will become vital. National policies should always encourage unity, not division.
The colonials may have lorded over us in the past, but it is time for us to get over our insecurities, move on and give credit where credit is due. Singapore, after all, has a history that extends well before 1965.
Also, let's give the Singapore Girl a break. She, too, has flown the flag for the country.
Following current practice, let's not put her out to pasture. Instead, let's upgrade her skills and teach her new things. Rather than gaze at her, let's listen to her.
What are her dreams and aspirations? It will be interesting to find out, especially since her one defining characteristic so far has been her dewy silence.
As someone who has contributed to Singapore's success for 35 years, she deserves to be heard.
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