Perchance to dream...

Random thoughts on the dreams of Singaporeans on the 45th anniversary of the birth of this nation. There are universal dreams -- all humans on earth want food and shelter, etc. The dreams of Singaporeans published this past week in the Straits Times are therefore quite unexceptional. They are the dreams of people wallowing in their primeval comfort zones.

Then there are individual, private dreams. For instance, just chancing upon a felicitous turn of phrase -- in a book or newspaper article, in a conversation or even when eavesdropping -- is enough to get the adrenalin pumping for some lucky ones...  And because I'm a leg man, addicted to nubile limbs, for me, dreams of Heaven will always be about shapely legs, preferably long legs ("up to the armpits" is the way they describe the leggy Rockettes in New York's Radio City Music Hall)  and well-turned ankles.

Now, every person has memories of dreams from early years. And only someone like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. can go on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to declare boldly in adult life: "I have a dream!" But for most of us, the early dreams tend to fade -- there are more pressing matters to deal with all the time... 

Let me see, on the morning of December 8, 1941, a couple of weeks before my 14th birthday, when the Japanese landed on Bachok beach in Kelantan, I had only vague ideas that the British Army would have no difficulty defeating the invaders -- if that could be classified as a dream.

From the beginning of World War II, while in school in St. Xavier's Institution in Penang, my allegiance to the British Crown was undeniable. (Strange, but true -- when I queued up to be registered as a Singapore citizen, I swore allegiance to Queen Elizabeth in the presence of Mr Leon Comber, sometime husband of Han Suyin.)  In school, I could draw fairly good pictures of Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighter aircraft and battleships of the Royal Navy.

To my dismay, therefore, a few days after the Japanese landing, I was alarmed to find a motorised column of the British forces in the compound of a Chinese school in Pulai Chondong (about 15-16 miles south of Kota Bharu) obviously heading south to the railhead at Kuala Krai.

My father, graduate of an agricultural college in Kwangtung, was headmaster of that school.  In St. Xavier's I had been a private in the Cadel Corps. Now in the Chinese school compound, I had no difficulty in seeking out a tall hulking major who looked like the senior officer in charge, with bushy moustache and swagger stick cradled in the crook of his arm. "Excuse me, Sir," I ventured, very politely, "are you going south?"  This, from a slender youth who had not begun to shave.

He went: "Harrumph" and nodded ever so perfunctorily. "But, Sir, the enemy is over there," I said -- and with a sweep of my arm I made it clear the Japs were to the north and, in my view, he was going in the wrong direction!

In later years, I would occasionally imagine how much fun it would be to be able to write a short story or film script about this retired major in post-war Surbiton (in the wife-swapping belt south of London) regaling his guests with the story of that impertinent Chinky youth telling him how to be a hero -- in defence of God and country!