Tour Guide for the Day

Due to overwhelming response, I have decided to, despite a tight schedule, put in words the passion of 9th November 2005, the day I was mini tour guide to Jap High School students.

It all began when a friend, the drug-supplying Medic, called me up to see if I would be interested in a job he meekly labelled as "social escort". It promised good pay, about 13 dollars per hour, and the job would last from 8am to 8pm. That worked out to more than 130dollars for a day, and all the job entailed was bring the people round Singapore, eat and shop. Sounds easy? Yes... the only catch was that the tourists were Jap students... This means that: 1) I had to be able to communicate in at least itsy-bitsy Japanese, or 2) pray really hard that they could converse in English or do excellent sign language.

Hell, but the Medic assured me that many people doing it did not even know Japanese and could not even tell the difference between sayoonara and ariigatoo. And so, I agreed. 130 bucks for a day ok.... And so that started my decadent life as a social escort to the Japs. I could say quite a few feisty things about the whole thing and them being Japs in Singapore, but urmm.... politics is an unpredictable timebomb which many brave souls have died trying to diffuse. And I'm too young to try...

And so it was on 9th November 2005, 745am, that I arrived at Meritus Mandarin. Mornings at Orchard is actually really beautiful and serene I realised. The cars are quiet, and there were not many of them. The people are silent with their heads lowered, walking along with the usual classic Singaporean overworked stride. To my relief, the happy considerate girlfriend, despite her sleepiness and work, called me at about 730 in the morning and that cheered me up immensely.

At the hotel, things started to get slow and confusing. It appeared the Jap teachers who led the student exchange decided to change and modify plans. And so it was that all prior group assignment were demolished and reassigned. The teachers also wanted the students to try and converse only in English. Which in my opinion... is such as painful task for students on vacation. I realised also that the main problem other people have with understanding Japanese speaking English is that their intonation is too flat. Because of the nature of the Japanese language itself, they have low and mono tones, and that kinda makes their English rather difficult to catch and make sense of.

I was placed in a group with 3 guys and 2 girls, all about the age of 17, or so I guess from their English version of their ages. I brought them to Far East Square in Chinatown where they had wanted to go, and it was a hot long walk there from the Chinatown MRT. Note to whom it may help: Far East Square of Chinatown is actually closer to Raffles Place MRT station okie.

Lunch was chicken rice, yea trusty Singapore Chicken Rice works everytime in capturing the hearts and stomachs of tourists. I suspect that the Singapore Tourism Board should start crediting chicken rice with the deserved percentage it draws tourists to Singapore. It's quite amazing how a simple dish like this could be 25% as alluring as my girlfriend. It's the perfect symbolism of racial harmony in Singapore you know. Everyone can eat that, oh well, except vegetarians but well... I'm not. Singapore mathematicians and economists could go far if they decide to teach and equate all figures in terms of chicken rice. Think of the ease with problem sums for primary school kids. For e.g., Jane's mother gives her $10 to buy 3 packets of chicken rice. Each packet of chicken rice, with no special request of chicken drumstick, would cost $3 and 2 packets of chilli are given. A) How many packets of chilli in all could Jane get? B) How much change would Jane return her mother?

You see? Works wonders. Too crude? Well, not really... it could work equally well on high ends you know. For e.g., assuming a normal price-elastic market, how would a price raise from $2.50 to $3 for a packet of chicken rice affect workers in CBD as compared with workers in heartlands such as Bedok? Ceteris paribus, how would this affect the marginal utility workers could derive from their chicken rice, given that their wages remain constant?

There.

Anyway!!! There was a happy call again from sweet small yuen again during lunch. Happy Happy Happy! When I went back, I was so happy, I decided to be really nice and be hospitable to the Jap students and offered them chicken rice chilli sauce. I told them they should try since it's really "special". Well, the end verdict they came to was that it tasted really great, except it was Especially hot. Yeah well... they didn't ask what... And I did say it was chilli sauce.

During hectic lunch, they found time to peer at the cute ring on my finger and went into one of their tamagotchi pokemon craze. They blabbered words that sound like what a Japapanese Rojak would say to me: sounded like Jap and English all at the same time, sounded like it didn't make sense, at all. Thanks to my minimal knowledge of Japanese, I kinda grasped what they were trying to ask. And after peeking at sweet yuen's picture in my handphone, they came to happy conclusions that my kanojo(girlfriend) was kawaii(cute) and kireii(beautiful). Yup, she is, I would have told them if I knew sufficient Japanese. But I could only nod my head in cheerful, blissful agreement.

Oh I forgot to mention their teachers had planned some sort of an Amazing Race for them thus they needed to have a checkpoint, so being educators, they assumed that the best place to put the checkpoint was at NUS UCC all the way at CLEMENTI, Land of the Hot Wild West. Well, at least... for the umpteen time, thank God I'm not from NTU. After clearing the checkpoint, we headed for Orchard. We did that because, for like the only time in the whole day, we came to a mutual understanding that shopping ought to be done. And so with wild gestures and English and Japanese, I conveyed myself that Orchard Far East was THE place they might like. Off we went. Again. Back to town. Again. Looking at them under the hot sun, for once I felt really happy to be in their company, because the poor kids were paler than me and they were getting toasted under the Smiley Singapore Sun. Their faces were red, lol.... and the their foundations and mascara cracked. And it was thus, I didn't felt ostracized anymore for being a luminous entity, even though there are unconfirmed rumors that the kanojo is actually a prettier, chio-er version of paleness.

At Far East, I left them to their own foray while I went to have a drink and pop a panadol. Yes, they were literally giving me a headache. After that, it was almost time to meet again. Lol yes they only had that little time to shop, not my fault wat, I wasn't the one who put the darn checkpoint THERE. I bought them each a postcard of our prestigious, majestic Merlion who was constantly vomitting with a ludicrous smile, complete with whiskers. And to top it up the Singapore way, yes.. I bought them food. Yakun kaya toast. They were absolutely fascinated with the kaya fragrance taste and smell. Well, but we all know the politeness and exaggeration of the Japanese so we shall not take them too seriously and start investing in Yakun shares in anticipation of incoming Japanese companies takeovers.

They returned to the hotel for rest after that, and I had an hour free. It was then I pranced to Borders and made Frazzlez and RHOS our new companions. Suggestion to Borders: Get smaller plastic carriers also? Not everyone is there to buy big bulky gandalf books okay.

Did I mention? Frazzlez and RHOS are two pink poodles with urmm zany pink hair. I would say they are identical la, but small yuen could kinda tell a difference with the two, namely in the follicles. That would be for the better too, lest evil people decide to kidnap my RHOS or his hair.

Dinner with the Jap students was the last event, before the BIGGEST event of all: getting paid. We were ferried there by coaches, and though the NUS tour guides were all seated in the same coach, I still felt weird. Travelling on the busy streets of Orchard, I suddenly felt alienated. It was as if I was a tourist. Hee... the feeling was quite fun though, and I would have pretended to be a tourist and waved at the Singaporeans on the streets if not for the techno-throbbing headache. We need someting more lethal than panadols, maybe cyanide.

Dinner was not what I thought. Whatever happened to "eating together with your student groups" and "polite Japanese"? We were the last bus to arrive and it was raining, so by the time we made our way to the restaurant inside the zoo, they were almost done eating already. Right, thanks. After that, the person holding to our pay was nowhere to be found. And I waited and waited but we could not find her. So, in the end, I told the Medic I had to go, and he was to collect my pay for me. He agreed. Whew, thank God he was in a good mood. Lol~~

As so all alone, I bravely stepped out from the restaurant after bidding the lonely NUS students all huddled together in the now-quiet restaurant farewell. It was 720pm and it was a sea of black out there already. I stood there calm and cool for a while with my back facing them. Brooding and thinking. After a dramatic pause of precisely 3 seconds, I turned back to them and muttered under my breath, "urmm which out to the main door ar?" After the mad laughter, fingers pointed in multiple directions. Are these orang-utans really NUS students, pride and joy of our country, one wonders. And being the calm and composed Brad-Pitt figure I was, I decided to give a cool smile and waved goodbye then walked towards restaurant staff, whom I supposed should know the way out since they might need to make their way out from the restaurant at some point of time. Well, at least this time the point of direction was in unison. Finally, I stepped out again, in the right direction. After a few steps away from the restaurant, I began to wish I was back in the restaurant. I'd never been in the zoo when it was this dark before. It felt eerie and exciting, like the woods in Harry Potter. Oh well, I comforted myself that at least it didn't give me the feeling it was the woods of LOTR. Ogres and orks brandishing axes, snorting at me was the last thing I would like to see. I'm Brad... not Aragon. But that long walk was really memorable because I have never seen the zoo at this time, and it smells different and refreshing with that amount of thick forestry. For all you know, there might be lost lions or giraffes that the zookeeper forgot about wandering around.

When I waded back to civilisation, I took a cab down to yes.... NUS lol... but for a dfferent, infinitely happier purpose... To pounce on the cute girlfriend!! She looked exhausted, but I thought I saw for a slight moment, a similar glint of joy in her eyes when she saw me, as I had when I caught sight of her beside the Monster that Emits Green Light. That night, we left for home, tired but happy. Seeing her is indeed a big joy, at least for me... =)