Raffles

As I bravely traipse out of my hotel for a neighborhood walk through the torpid air, it occurs to me that the restored Raffles Hotel, with its arched walkways and white columns, the Long Bar once frequented by Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, and Somerset Maugham, is almost all that remains as a memory of the seedy elegance of this former British colony. The Sarkie brothers, celebrated hoteliers in Southeast Asia, founded Raffles in the late 19th century. It was a legendary watering spot in the old trading port, a setting for intrigue and romance in many stories and novels, and the home of the Singapore Sling, a sweet pink “women’s drink” made with gin, cherry brandy, fruit juices, Cointreau, Benedictine, and bitters. Raffles is now an international hotel chain. Having subsumed the former Westin property, it bears the awkward name Raffles the Plaza.

The Plaza is connected to a Swissotel and attached to the Raffles City Shopping Center, a five-level mall inhabited by stores like Mont Blanc, Lego World, the Museum of Modern Art Store, Mrs. Fields’ Cookies, Burger King, Orange Julius, a variety of restaurants and food courts and electronics, clothing, and record stores, banquet halls and ballrooms for weddings and other events, even a supermarket in the basement. The air is chilled to a temperature that could keep ice cream at a thick consistency. In one corridor called “Peacock Alley” between the Plaza and the Swissotel, I’m sure I can see my breath as I hurry through, shivering.

Maybe that’s a good thing: Singapore is only 120 miles from the Equator, so the temperature outside averages near 80 year-round, and the humidity is always high. It’s tempting to stay in the hotel and shop and eat in the mall, venturing out into the muggy weather as little as possible.

The weather is almost the only thing that hasn’t changed since my first visit to Singapore in 1975, hired to shooting a travel film for Pacific Delight, a Hong Kong-based tour operator. We followed a group of older American tourists (called “geese” in the travel trade), on their Orient Escapade—a one-month, eight-country trip around the Pacific Rim. One of the tour’s selling points was Singapore’s multicultural society, the residents a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian, and British. Another selling point was the contrast of the old and the new, the phenomenon of a modern city, at that time an independent nation for only a short time, rising amidst an Asian culture with a British colonial overlay. In both cases, these disparate elements seemed to coexist in apparent harmony. We shot scenes on the street of people of various ethnicities, and we juxtaposed images of modern skyscrapers with traditional and colonial buildings during a boat ride on the Singapore River.

Return

I returned to Singapore 18 years later, part of a round-the-world shoot at the manufacturing facilities of a Japanese electronics company. By then, this island city-nation on the tip of the Malay Peninsula had acquired a repressive reputation. Huge signs shouting “Death to Drug Traders” greeted us at the airport, and stories of people being arrested for discarding chewing gum on sidewalks were common. During lunch on our first day, Randy, our director, came back from the restroom amused by a sign that proclaimed “$100 Fine for Failure to Flush Toilet.”

“But how do they know whether you’ve flushed or not?” he asked our local crew.
“They have cameras,” came the reply.

“In all public toilets?”

“Yes, and in building elevators, where it’s illegal to urinate.”

“But that means there must be hundreds, or even thousands of cameras in this city,” said Randy, incredulous. “Who watches all those cameras?” Our friends shrugged and smiled.

We were also perplexed by a group of students who could not answer Randy’s questions about their dreams for the future. “You must understand,” said one student wearing a “Relax-la! Singapore!” T-shirt after we shut off the camera. “In Singapore, we have no dreams. Society is very regimented. We just do as we are told.”

I returned a few years later to shoot a corporate film. In our last hour in the country, our local production manager treated us to a diatribe about conditions in Singapore. Housing was very expensive, cars were subject to a 250 percent import duty, and gasoline cost more than double what it sold for a few miles away in neighboring Malaysia. Singaporeans were stopped on the causeway to the mainland and their gas tanks were checked. If they had less than two-thirds of a tank, they were turned back, to prevent them from filling up in Malaysia. Political dissent was illegal and virtually nonexistent. He told us about the day he participated in a small protest rally, returning home to find the police waiting to bring him in for questioning. This was around the same time that the son of an American diplomat was subjected to a caning for vandalizing a car.

By the time we arrive in Singapore on this trip, forced by full flight schedules to fly a circuitous route, we’re beat. I leave San Francisco on Thursday morning with Jon, our video engineer, and Larry, our producer. We fly to LA for a two-hour layover, then hop on a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok. After eleven hours in the air, we stop in Tokyo, somewhat out of our way, and lay over for two more hours, during which we disembark, walk up one corridor and down another, then pass through Japanese security and x-ray scrutiny.

We follow signs up stairs, down a hallway, and back to a holding area for the same gate we left. Soon we are back on the same plane (with a different crew) for another six-hour flight to Bangkok. Here we land at 11 p.m. local time, pass through Thai customs with only our hand luggage (the rest of our gear was sent through to Singapore), and check into the airport hotel for a shower and four hours sleep. We return to the airport next morning for another three-hour flight to Changi Airport in Singapore, nearly 34 hours and over 9500 air miles after leaving San Francisco. A real butt-burner. Randy and Wayne, our executive producer, arrive the next day by the same route.

Our project this time is for a huge American corporation that makes computer hard drives. We meet our local crew, who perfectly reflect the cultural smorgasbord of the nation: Krishna, our lighting gaffer, grew up in Singapore after his parents emigrated there from Chennai (Madras), India.

R-r-rock and r-r-roll

Malik and Sam, on our lighting crew, are brothers, two of fifteen children of a Thai father and Yemeni mother. Tan, our soundman, is Chinese. Adam, our local production coordinator, is an American from Boston, by way of Hawaii. Randy and I have worked with Krishna and Malik before. Krishna owns a truck full of lights and also works as a cameraman, which makes him a valuable asset. Malik is a bundle of productive energy and good humor.

We remember an earlier incident when Randy was complaining to no one in particular about how bizarre it was to work with corporate executives, middle-aged “suits,” who like to drop hip phrases like “Let’s get it on,” “Awesome!” and “Time to rock and roll.” With a little prodding, we had convinced Malik, at the beginning of a take, to call out in his sing-song voice, “Okay, R-r-randy, let’s r-r-rock and r-r-roll!” It struck Randy speechless with surprise, if only for a moment, but the event stuck with him.

We eat dinner in the mall at the fourth-floor food court and talk about the job. The food court consists of a dozen booths surrounding a large central seating area that sell everything from dim sum to Taiwan food and noodles to Italian pasta. Larry, who lived in Singapore for about a year in the 80s, explains that there are many courts like this, mostly made up of former street food stalls. I wonder if the Satay Club proprietors in their pink plastic bag hats are still selling their wares in a sanitized venue like this somewhere in the city.

We’re here to film production that takes place in sterile cleanrooms, where workers and sanitized machines cut, polish, clean, and assemble parts for hard drives. For one day’s shooting we will have to dress in white “bunny suits” that cover all body parts except the eyes. The specs are quite strict, with an allowable contaminant level less than one part per thousand. I am always surprised that they let riff-raff like us into places like these, even after our equipment is swabbed down with alcohol. We are concerned that the cleanroom administrators may not admit our rolling camera dolly, which has spots of rust and corrosion. If they don’t, all our shots will be static. “No worry, chicken curry,” says Malik, and our crew wraps the dolly in Saran Wrap so it will pass inspection.

My biggest problem with bunny suits in Asia is sizing. On a previous trip, the largest suit available was much too small, and at six feet four inches I couldn’t get it on over my clothes. Jane, our producer, took me aside and advised me to go into the men’s room, remove my jeans, and slip the suit on over my underwear. Her suggestion did make it possible to squeeze in, but it was still tight enough to make me fear gangrene. Randy commented that I looked like a sausage packed into a casing that was too small, “like Nureyev on steroids.” I’m sure even a cursory look would have revealed both my gender and my religion, and the effect—bolstered by a treacherous photo taken by one of my companions—has been a source of amusement to them in the decade since.

Having learned from that earlier problem, we brought several extra-extra-large bunny suits with us from the company’s facilities in California. But our Singaporean friends tell us these are the wrong type for their cleanrooms, and I’ll be forced to wear something too small once again.

On our scout during the first day of work here, I am reminded why I’ve never liked bunny suits. Our heads are covered with hairnets and nylon hoods, our mouths with surgical masks, our feet with nylon booties, and our bodies with nylon jump suits. Rubber gloves complete the ensemble, just in case some ventilation might slip through and the discomfort isn’t total. Even the heavily refrigerated air doesn’t help. I feel like an overcooked kielbasa.

To complete the experience, Adam describes in excruciating detail his unpleasant experience of sneezing in a bunny suit on a previous shoot. Oy. What could be worse than that?

The night before cleanroom day, I encounter something more dreadful to anticipate in a bunny suit than a sneeze: diarrhea. In ultra-clean Singapore, where everyone drinks the water and food is usually safe, I contract the gastrointestinal problem known to international travelers variously as la turista, Bali belly, Montezuma’s revenge, or the trots.

Fortunately, Imodium is a wonder drug, and by morning, I am sufficiently plugged up to avoid disaster in the cleanroom and more years of teasing from Randy and the boys. Unfortunately, I make the mistake of mentioning my affliction to our crew. Malik is sympathetic, saying, “Oh, I hate those wide-angle squirts, man, they’re awful, like chunky peanut butter!”

For the rest of the shoot, I address him as Chunky.

Surprisingly, the suits are less uncomfortable than my worst memories. The booties are at least two sizes too small, but I manage to squeeze my orthotic insoles into them, and that attenuates my discomfort level. We trudge slowly through the factory over the next eight hours, like astronauts on the moon, surrounded by hundreds of similarly attired workers, gradually filming the newest automated robotic equipment. We are familiar with this high-tech environment, similar to many places we have worked in California’s Silicon Valley, Minnesota, Texas, and elsewhere.

My biggest problem is recognizing my colleagues. The factory’s engineers wear blue bunny suits, and the systems technicians wear green. But most of the workers are in white, like us. Few Singaporeans reach my height, so I am easy to distinguish. But to me everyone else is, well, shorter. I learn to identify people by their eyes, brows, and glasses.

The plant is very noisy. We start to tire as the hours drag on, feeling the delayed effects of jet lag. Larry has his hands full, working out the logistics of our shifting schedule, logging shots, and making sure we slate all our scenes accurately. At mid-afternoon, Jon is forced to leave the cleanroom to change his mask, which has become soaked through with the drippings of a bad cold. Randy marches us through from section to section, lining up shots of the disk-making process.

Wrap

We are buoyed by the good cheer and energy of our local crew. Eventually, we finish our work in the cleanroom. Exhausted, I eat a bony chicken and dumpling stew at the food court in the mall, listening to the intermittent cheering of soccer fans. The World Cup in Japan and Korea, the first ever in Asia, is heading into its final rounds while we are in Singapore. This dominates the local media, and everyone is talking about the games. The US team is doing well, but the big surprises are Korea and Senegal, who make it to the quarter-finals.

One night I am watching a match in my room with the door to my balcony open. When Korea scores a goal, I hear cheering from the TV and from outside. About a mile away I see the lights of a stadium, and I realize that thousands of fans are watching a game broadcast there, excited that Korea has progressed further than any Asian team in World Cup history. I search in vain on local television for baseball news from home, but eventually I get my fix on the Web with the Ethernet connection in my hotel room.

In two more days of filming, we document automation being installed in this “factory of the future.” On most international shoots, we do “flavor shots,” exterior filming to provide a visual and cultural context, but not this time. The robots are the story, and the city is bland and flavorless. We try to illustrate Singapore’s multicultural society by featuring workers of various ethnicities.

Some of the Malay women wear Muslim headdresses, and the Indian women have distinctive makeup and jewelry. But most of the workers are Chinese, the dominant group in Singapore both economically and politically, and their dress and attitudes are as Westernized as if they were in California. It’s impossible to avoid the thought that the machines we are featuring in our film will eventually replace many of these folks. Randy and Wayne joke grimly that, from our clients’ point of view, the title of the film is “People bad, robot good.”

Malik amuses us with a naughty joke about a man from China who visits New York. When he tries to order food in a restaurant, the waiter brings him a frankfurter. Confused, he asks, “What is this?”

“Why, that’s a hot dog,” replies the waiter.

“Ah,” he says. “We eat dog, too. But we usually throw that part away.”

On our last day of shooting, we wait hours for the factory engineers to get their new automated machinery working. Bad robot. The day drags on, but we persevere, bolstered by a late afternoon caffeine shot from a local coffee joint. Finally, after less than a week in Singapore, we say goodbye to Krishna, Adam, Malik, Sam, and Tan, and prepare for the trip back home.

That night, our clients treat us to Italian food at Prego, a restaurant in the hotel. I order linguine with marinara sauce and Caesar salad. For dessert, I head down to the supermarket in the Raffles City basement for Haagen Dasz ice cream. I realize as I pack my clothes and my gear that I have hardly been outdoors in seven days in Singapore. Except for my initial walk through the Plaza’s neighborhood, I have not left the air-conditioned cocoon of the hotel, the mall, and the passenger van, which delivers us daily to the sterile factory. Jon and Larry went for a long walk down to Boat Quay one evening, but that was the night I was sick, so I missed the outing. Each evening, we returned tired from work, with little incentive to go out on the town.

Looking around Prego, I wonder: Am I really in Asia? Singapore has become so Westernized and bland—“deflavorized,” to use Randy’s word—that we could be anywhere. Krishna had assured us that vestiges of colonial life like the Padang Cricket Ground and ethnic enclaves like Little India and Arab Street are still intact, and that Chinatown was saved by public outcry when the government proposed tearing it down. I regret not getting out to see these sights again, but my purpose here has been documenting the factory of the future, not sightseeing.

I grit my teeth as we prepare to reverse the same roundabout route back to California. Our group assembles on the curb in front of the Plaza to load 19 equipment boxes and suitcases into our cargo van, and I ask Jon with mock alarm, “Jonny, where’s the 17” monitor? We must have left it at the plant!” I think this will be a harmless joke, because the monitor’s huge shipping case sits on the sidewalk, about a foot from his right leg.

But Jon was up late packing the video gear, and his stunned expression bespeaks a befuddled exhaustion. No worry, I think, chicken curry.

We shuttle back to Changi to check in three hours early. Contrite over my bad joke, I drag Jon to Starbuck’s to treat him to the corporate coffee of his choice.

The clerk greets us, “Hey, guys, what’ll you have?” Iced grande latte and biscotti in hand, it feels like I never left home.