by Hong Lysa

It had been a long day. I had spent three hours that afternoon at a talk for teachers on historiography, which emphasized the importance of time and location in history-writing, both of the event and of the writing of it. How history-writing is not about finding out what really happened — an impossible task — but of recognizing the limits of historical investigation, as well as the purpose of the exercise. The past and the present are not discrete blocks but are entwined in highly complex ways.

So it was quite amusing yet sobering to find, on attending Dim Sum Dollies in The History of Singapore, the Dim Sum Dollies playing on similar ideas, albeit in an indirect and far more enjoyable fashion. For a start, it appeals by making the past the setting for witty commentary on contemporary affairs.

For instance, ‘Captain Jack Swallow’, less lithesome compared to Captain Jack Sparrow from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie trilogy, but just as hearty, announces that he and his left and right hand men will be doubling their salaries, as they carry a heavy burden of ensuring that their takings achieve double-digit growth, which in turn is necessary if the men don’t want to have their wives and daughters working as maids on other ships. While there wasn’t a chance that the audience would have missed the parody, he nevertheless intoned in a deliberate wink-wink fashion that the ‘pirate sector’ had to pay competitively to retain their best people. The pun was just too good to go unuttered.

The relentless tearing down of buildings in en-bloc sales find echos in the elimination of kampongs, reminding us that this is not the first time that the Singapore landscape has been re-made. Distressed by the constant requests to buy her home, the Chinese housewife, laments to her (predictably) Malay and Indian neighbours – friends who eat at one another’s house almost everyday: how will she be able to nap under the coconut tree when the kampung is gone?

The Dollies’ kampung women spoke in Singlish, while in fact historically, it would be Bazaar Malay that would have been used. In what language would three such housewives of today talk to one another, if they do so at all? What language would make their friendship possible?

The language issue surfaces again in a hilarious scene where ‘Gandhi’, walking in tired steps as he marches in defiance of the British imposition of the Salt Tax, meets a strident, confident ‘Mao’ who shouts in huayu to him, insisting that everyone should speak Chinese - “huayu cool”, he pronounces to Gandhi-Hossan Leong, to which the Mahatma politely replies that ‘Mao’ may not have noticed, but he is not speaking to a Chinese person.

While setting current issues in the frame of the past delights the audience when they recognize the clever allusions, and possibly also gives the Dollies (and Hossan) room to make what they call ‘naughty’ comments, the appreciative laughter in the scenes where the past and present are one (rickshaw pullers are equally elusive at peak hours, ‘solly, on call’, ‘ change shift, change shift’) indicates that the past is of interest and meaningful when it is shown to relate to their lives, not as ‘lessons’ but as human experiences.

The present-past congruence however is cleverly disrupted by ‘Gandhi’. As he shuffles along to the March, he tells us that he is trying to get the British out of India. He then hails the audience as Singaporeans, inviting them to consider taking similar take action to get rid of their rulers who tax them so heavily on their hard-earned money. Almost in disbelief, the audience claps and cheers after an awkward pause. ‘Gandhi’ then brings all of us down to earth, “Don’t get so excited! I’m talking of getting rid of the British colonials. This is 1947”. The audience laughs, caught out in their forbidden fantasy. What a naughty trick, yet — what a relief that it was just a trick.

The femininised Dollies’ History allows for complexities to be illuminated. The samsui women’s story of hardy builders of the country wondering if they would be remembered as such is perhaps a little too obligatory; the kampung women’s friendship is bound by the safe and credible theme of cooking and meals.

However, the drooling over Raffles and the white men on the part of three women intent on speaking English ‘proper-y’, and dreaming of love at first sight is perhaps not simply a cheap shot at three airheads, or even the Sarong Party Girls. After all the girls, dressed in white uniforms are to drool again, infatuated this time with not the white men, but the men-in-white, specifically ‘Him’ so intelligent with his high forehead, telling us what to do, what to say, what to think – ‘eternal-Lee’, ‘lucki-Lee’.

The Separation from Malaysia played out via the Singapore beauty queen who finds herself without any competition to fit in is truly inspired. While Singapore leaving Malaysia Cup did not lead to the fulfillment of country’s aim of qualifying for the World Cup, Miss Jalan Besar, Miss Jurong Kechil and Miss Aljunied (gerrymandered into this from being Miss Serangoon) on the other hand belt out a spunky, rousing song about how as Singapore Girls they would make Singapore proud and strong – and end with that inevitable line that so neatly brings the whole patriotic pitch down to business - “You’re a great way to fly”.

Dim Sum Dollies, you’re really delectable citizenhistorians. The history that you tell is like five-star hotel restaurant chee cheong fun: smooth, slippery, drenched in high-class sauce, and the meat is beneath the skin.

The author is a historian who enjoys writing about extra-mural Singapore history.

Tags: Dim Sum Dollies in The History of Singapore, singapore history

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