“Every Singaporean Matters”
–government slogan
The woman at the mouth
of the MRT station
is hard not to notice.
We want to hold her hand,
drift towards her siren-voice
wailing in Hokkien. Her with
the withered white hair,
with crumpled face and clothes.
But we turn away, too
embarrassed to buy her garish
kiddie plastic combs, guarding
faithfully in our heads
the model answer for such people:
That parasite
without money or talent,
without an education,
without the welfare cheque
which we know she would surely abuse,
what good is she to us,
this failure who has robbed the state
of its kindness,
who never grew to become a
useful member of society?
We are the citizens of a regional hub
for excellence in technology and the arts.
*MRT is an acronym for ‘Mass Rapid Transit’, the subway train service in Singapore.
*Hokkein is a Chinese dialect commonly spoken by the old or the uneducated.