let lemons be angry

I went to Bintan over the weekend. This time I wasn't there in 45 minutes, and wasn't greeted by "indigenous" dancers in glittering costumes beating drums. Our ferry took three hours to bump across choppy seas, and then we took motorized sampans to an offshore island. Four hours, to get to a deeper part of a land I used to only know as a getaway for honeymooning white Koreans and red retirees.

The people we travelled with had been going to the same village for ten years, and so had a routine that visitors like me could follow without thinking how to. They taught English, they distributed milk powder, they visited friends, all very quietly and without much explanation to us, or to the people who were expecting them.

We alighted from the sampan directly into a restaurant on stilts. This was the kelong where the Teochews stayed, a connection of stilt houses linked by a straight concrete path. All the houses are connected. A child can walk into any home, through mostly bare rooms, into kitchens and toilets and house shops. Though most of the houses were made of wooden board, there were also modern construction miracles of steel gates and tiled floors, all above water. They go crazy with house colors, everything weatherproof and brilliant. Pink and blue and purple, often everything awash in the same color: gate, roof, wall, cupboard leaning against wall. Not much furniture, but many colors. All the sewage and rubbish went into the water, but the tides washed in and out and there was no stench.

Deeper into the kelong we saw glimpses of a city within wooden walls: men laughing in a vcd shop, boys with darting eyes playing computer soccer in an arcade, teenagers skulking around pool tables. Stalls with smoking otahs, fishcakes, jellies in eggshells, kueh, raw keropok. And small supplies of imported drinks and sweets; Pocari sweat is everywhere. It was so quiet that every neighbour's chatter would be carried down the lane. I don't think there would be many secrets. But in the quietness there was so much excitement and community life that is missing in bigger, noisier, "exciting" cities. The youths meet after their showers in their pyjamas and wet hair, while here we are boxed up every chance we get. City folk love compartments. The more ways to separate and categorize human beings the better, be it with doors and locks, or tastes in music. But back to the kampung.

We took six motorcycle taxis to the next village, a Malay kampung, where fifty children were waiting for their monthly English lesson to commence. At the sound of our motorcycles coming in, the scattered children streamed in and sat quietly around the edges of their makeshift classroom. The teachers gave out photographs they'd taken of them last month, deadpan portraits of each kid holding a graduation certificate. It took half an hour to get through that and mark the register, but the children remained all eyes and craned necks.

Class began and they sang the alphabet song. Not quite, but a simplified version that solved the problematic  "l-m-n-o-p" speedbump that I had such a problem with as a kid. Then they read aloud a tiny book called "Clifford is too big." I had misgivings about Muslim kids having to read about a big dog called Clifford, but they read it out very seriously and loudly. "The pet show was held in a big tent."

Then we led games. When they knew they would be playing outside, the children chorused a big "yay", the universal word for great fun, and the front yard soon was a cloud of little feet and yellow dust.

Much to say about the very short trip. The fourteen-year-olds there seemed to have skipped the city stage of pseudo-maturity, and picked up a truer form of maturity. The Malays spoke Teochew and the Chinese spoke Bahasa. The children were always friendly. The food was always good.

I am very bad at sailing. I was constantly miserable on both ferry journeys. I still feel my head rocking now as I write this. But even so I don't marvel at the Singapore's team monthly dedication to this kampung. Because I can see now that their heart is in a happier place there, and that one weekend with the people at a time is really not enough at all.