The Yellow School Bus
I was standing in line at 6.30am. The Equatorial air was a mixture of city exhaust and humidity. The latter clung to me in a sheen that was barely wet, just uncompromisingly moist. I scratched at my uniform like a flower girl in lace.
At this time, Singapore has been awake for hours. The early morning song birds cracked the dawn at four am. Their incessant chirping was the backdrop of my waking for years; so much so I depended on them to tell time.
My school uniform was a white sleeveless sheath that was the texture of thin burlap. Five of the same, it was ironed and starched so that its already rough texture chafed at my skin. I was so allergic and heat sensitive, just the warmth of someone’s breath on my skin made me break out in hives. I grew up scratching absently, a habit I resorted to when I was happy, excited, frustrated, irritated, and mad. But most days, just the heat brought on the scratching and the entourage of emotions followed.
The morning was busy already. Between the urgent awakening, my mother’s forced feeding of “the most important meal of the day,” the hurried prayer covering important tests, mean friendships and unsympathetic tutors, my sister and I were hurried into cars and driven frenetically across town. All to make the flag raising ceremony.
At seven-thirty am, Nanyang Girls’ High School was a sea of hundreds of white-garbed students parted into perfectly straight lines.
As a first grader, I remembered my teachers imparting the important skill of lining up. It was an ingenious way of ensuring that six year olds formed impeccably straight lines. "Look right ahead and make sure you only see one head in front of you. If you can see others, then your head is crooked. Fix it so that you see only one."
The problem was I was chronically asymmetric. To me, the world looked better on its side. I could see more. I could see the edge of Peh Tan Ying’s hair clipped in the 2 shades of acceptable blue ribbon. I could see Wei Wei’s face, the class prefect, the only one who had the privilege of turning around and facing the line. I could see her wave her hands impatiently, signaling askewness and directing us to straighten out.
I saw little bits of my friends peeping through. Each attempting to individuate from the short uniform bobs we all had to sport, 3 centimeters below the ear. “We cut our hair to show our commitment to our education,” the principal mandated. “School is not the time to be looking pretty or “seducing boys”. All students seen with fellows of the opposite sex during after school hours in school uniform are a disgrace to the school.” They measured our hair with rulers. Those who failed inspection got the "The Bowl Cut" the principal's special, where she'd put a bowl on the culprit's head and cut off whatever hair was left showing. Pictures of the disobedient girls caught with the boys from our brother school were printed in the school newspaper as shameful sightings. The Chinese proverb "Chastising one and disciplining a hundred" was thoroughly implemented.
Wei Wei finally noticed my crooked head and sent a teacher down to correct me. Mrs. Chen marched down the line, her heels clicking with exasperation against the cement blacktop. “There!” she adjusts my head briskly. The edges of my friends disappear and I am promptly restored to the single view of the back of LiQiLi’s head. Her morning hairdo was carefully smoothed, combed in place, and at the appropriate length.
I have memorized the back of LiQiLI’s head for months. The mole at the back of her neck, how her hair tapers obediently down her neck, how her uniform does not stick to her skin or threaten to house a giant sweat patch in the middle of her back.
When the inspections were done, there was always a pause and a lull before the National Anthem played. The flag raising ceremony then started with three gun-shot military commands. For years, I've often struggled to decipher the words because they were in Malay. Solemn and sharp, they summoned two prefects to military attention and the girls marched importantly over to the flag pole.
As a child, looking at the stern and stoic faces, I figured the National Anthem must not be a very happy song. To this day, I had no idea what it meant. In the language of Singapore's pre-independence - Malay, I figured as long as a third of our country (since we were a third Chinese, Indian, and Malay respectively) understood its patriotic content, it was enough for me to stand in motionless attention.
Without the words, I was left with only the slow and sad cadences of this important song. As the anthem played, the prefects raised the flag with this same gravity, incremental, intentional, and perfectly timed so that at the precise moment when the anthem ended, the flag was hoisted all the way to the top.
Too far to see them, I imagined the prefects with bated breath, their tongues stuck out with concentration, their foreheads moist with sweat, carefully raising the flag so that it ended just as the song did at the top of the pole. It was the one moment in the song that sounded joyful - the last refrain “Majulah Singapura!” the only moment which elicited a faint whiff of a smile as the students stood motionless. We understood those words "Onward Singapore!" and we stood in unified patriotism.
It was at this precise moment that I'd hear it.
A faint rumble from a distance; then discernible words, understandable screams, recognizable squeals of laughter: the unmistakable voices of children.
And then a bus. Big, yellow and clumsy, it was a bona- fide American school bus. An anomaly in Singapore, it stood out almost like a bumble bee - black and yellow. Our local buses were red or black with local advertisements or national campaigns painted on them. Life-sized faces of local celebrities splashed across them lengthwise. The yellow school bus was the closest thing to an American memorabilia sighting here in Singapore.
Down the street from our little slice of preserved Chinese conservatism was the Singapore American School. Serving the expatriate Americans who worked in Singapore - this yellow school bus transported the expatriate children to school every day.
Except these kids were not silent or reverent or standing in lines, they were rambunctious, unbridled and loud. They were bellowing at the top of their lungs, hanging, spilling, waving, lunging -- bursting out of the windows of this vehicle in motion. Jubilant, audacious, and strong, they presented an irreverent counterpoint to the sober patriotic tunes of the Singapore National Anthem.
Unfettered by seat belts and the threat of $400 fines, the children spilled out of every possible opening on the bus. Dangling precariously, they waved frantically as if to make contact across what seemed like a vast expanse of culture between us. Their laughter pierced the patriotic silence after the anthem. The prefects looked on disapprovingly. The sea of white shifted uncomfortably, fighting the urge to look. I turned my head around and stared.
The children howled with such gusto and exuberance it made my heart break. They said all the words I couldn’t say. They screamed for me, they raged for me, they protested on my behalf. I closed my eyes and listened to them put voice and volume to every desire, protest, rage and joy that coursed through me. They waved with all the passion and energy that got bottled up in these tight, crisp white uniforms. Every emotion that I didn’t have the Chinese words to express.
I drank their voices thirstily every morning like wine from a tall long flute. They never failed to plaster the biggest grin on my face. I was always wide-eyed in disbelief. For a couple of minutes, these kids weren’t in a country where one could get reliably fined for not having one’s seatbelt on, or caned for spraying graffiti on a parliament member’s car. They didn’t know that it was $400 fine for spitting or a $300 fine for urinating in the elevator. These kids didn’t know, or rather - they didn’t care.
It was in that moment that I vowed to myself I would leave and go to America. A place where school would be joyous and free; where young children squealed as if on top of roller coasters on their way to school.
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(Excerpt from Singapore Girl)
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