“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: HOT AND SWEATY INDIANS AND BURMESE AND BOBBY FONG JR.’S BULGING MANILA ENVELOPES

The Singapore Times Exclusive: HOT AND SWEATY INDIANS AND BURMESE: BOBBY FONG JR.’S BULGING MANILA ENVELOPE

Bobby Jr. isn’t such a bad guy at least compared to his mother Madame Fong. I keep saying to myself a mantra “play along until the time is right”.

On our way to lunch I notice road construction everywhere with unskilled workers being Indians and Bangladeshis all very hot and sweaty looking. Come to think of it I recalled at Merlion Park earlier the same ethnicity of workers at a construction site there.

Bobby Jr. pulled off at a roadside construction project where I thought he would expel the vast amounts of Durian juice he was ingesting but instead met two men in suits and ties one of whom handed him a bulging manila envelope.

When Bobby Jr. returned to the car he explained to me thinking, of course, as a dumb dog I didn’t understand that much. “Singapore has the highest standard of living in Southeast Asia and is perceived as the land of milk and honey. So like Somalians flocking to Canada and the United States they believe money will flow their way. Some arrive legally but many sneak into Singapore and work “under the table”. What we do is work with syndicates in poorer Asian countries like Cambodia, Myanmar, Bhutan, Laos etc. who charge their locals for “placement” in Singapore and charge “us” a fee for smuggling them into Singapore. There are also pools of unemployed unskilled foreign labourers whose work permits have expired and “we” scout them out. The unskilled labourers and their employers pay us “a facilitation fee” to bribe immigration and police officials if need be to ensure they remain unmolested by the law. A very profitable business as you may discern from the USD in this manila envelope! Yep, we lose a dozen or so to heat stroke every year but plenty more waiting for the land of milk and honey”

I thought where do I fit into this?

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom” : THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: BOBBY FONG JR. THE FAGAN OF SINGAPORE AND NO WAY I AM TO BE OLIVER TWIST

The Singapore Times Exclusive: BOBBY FONG JR. THE FAGAN OF SINGAPORE AND NO WAY I AM TO BE OLIVER TWIST

Madame Fong’s son Bobby Jr., a fat man with a stomach the size of three Russian Wolfhounds and horrific bad breath attributable to excessive Durian consumption, was ordered by his mother to acclimatize me to Singaporean culture and its climate.

Bobby Jr. drove up to the shop house to pick me up in a huge shiny black Mercedes and tossed me in the front on a booster seat so I had a view of Singapore.

Just waiting for his car for a few minutes outside the shop house was like being hit by a wall of heat and humidity! Did someone say the seasons of Singapore are heat and rain?

Bobby Jr. pointed out this and that site but gosh Singapore is modern, clean and where were the homeless and strung-out drug addicts like in Toronto or Vancouver?

I couldn’t see much character to Singapore as it was looking veery much like a clean Canadian city but every place has its own vibe and culture, and it would take me time to discover it.

Our first stop was Merlion Park with a 28-foot high cool fishy-lion statute shooting water out of its mouth. Bobby Jr. told me Merlion is a mythical creature possessing the body of a fish and a lion. It makes sense as Singapore was once a fishing village. The lion part of Merlion is founded with Sang Nila Utama, a prince of Palembang, who was thrown by a tempest onto the shores of Singapore where he spotted a lion like creature. Hence lion and fish. In Sanskrit “Singapura” means lion city.

The Merlion fountain area was crammed full of tourists many wearing the old fogey Tilley hats that made them look like 85-year-olds! Bobby Jr. snickered and said, “Good for business these FOB tourists. Easy money if you can stand the smell of sunscreen!”

Across the bay was a very cold looking modern casino hotel. Bobby Jr. chipped in, “We launder some of our money there.”

On our way to the car Bobby Jr. sauntered off behind a row of porta potties to meet a few young skinny men all wearing sunglasses. Each one of them handed Bobby Jr. a packet wrapped in brown paper and dispersed quickly in different directions.

Once in the car Bobby Jr. turned to me and said, “Being a dog you don’t understand me, so I’ll give you the skinny. These men are highly skilled pick pockets who “we” recruit from Vietnam. They have honed their skills for generations in Vietnam, particularly in Ho Chi Minh City (once called Saigon) with years of French and American occupation of that part of Vietnam pickings from foreigners could be impressive. Pickpocketing is a generational skill in Ho Chi Minh City. The absolute elite Vietnamese pick pocketers are found in vicinity of the Long Bien bus terminal in Hanoi. They are so good they could remove all your teeth and your wallet, and you wouldn’t feel a thing. In return we provide lodgings, food and protection from Singaporean immigration and police.

If you weren’t such a high priced investment for us you could be out there diverting and distracting rich tourists already distracted by the heat and humidity and our boys would increase their haul!”

Bobby Jr. is beginning to resemble a Fagan and thank goodness I am not a new trainee like Oliver Twist was.

Bobby Jr. then said we should have lunch but first he wanted to pick up a mega sized Durian juice and a bottle of Evian for me.

RKS Literature: The Naked Yogi of Maabar (Marco Polo)

“When other men ask them why they go naked and are not ashamed to show their members, they reply, “We go naked because we want nothing of this world; for we came naked and unclothed into this world. As for not being ashamed to show our members, the fact is that we do not sin with them and therefore have no more shame in them than you have when you show your hand or face or other parts of your body that do not lead you into carnal sin; whereas you use your members to commit sin and lechery, and so you cover them up and are ashamed of them.”

Marco Polo (1254-1324), “Travels in the Land of Serpents and Pearls”

RKS Japanese Literature: The Idiocy of Macaroons (Mieko Kawakami)

“So the day after next, I bought a pile of colourful macaroons at the macaroon shop in the arcade….I placed the box of macaroons and cherries on the coffee table with a polite bow. Thanking me with a smile, she took the two boxes to the kitchen and soon returned with some coffee and the macaroons neatly arranged on a plate. I had half expected to see a maid walk in. I sipped the coffee and took a tiny bite of a macaroon. It’s such a peculiar feeling, buying macaroons. You feel like a complete idiot, and yet that absurdity makes it somehow satisfying. They’re unbearably sweet, and the outer shell never fails to stick to the roof of your mouth, and besides the name is so silly. Its infuriating how overpriced they are, only because people think they are something special. They only remind you that you’ve never once thought they tasted good.”

Mieko Kawakami, “Dreams of Love, Etc.”

RKS Japanese Literature: That 2 p.m. Tokyo Feeling (Mieko Kawakami)

“It was two o’clock in the afternoon-that most vacant time of the day when the laundry is done and the vacuum put away but it’s still too early to go food shopping. The time when you feel most keenly that you are useless and the world is silently laughing at you from afar. No matter how hard you try to inflate your fantasies, mobilizing all the memories, imaginings and gossip you can muster, you just can’t seem to fill up the space.”

Mieko Kawakami, “Dreams of Love, Etc.”

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: TRAPPED IN SINGAPORE IN A BAD WAY: WHAT IS MY STRATEGY?

THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: TRAPPED IN SINGAPORE IN A BAD WAY: WHAT IS MY STRATEGY?

The Singapore Times Exclusive: TRAPPED IN SINGAPORE IN A BAD WAY: WHAT IS MY STRATEGY:

I woke up at noon the following day feeling not so great. Dehydration and jet lag. I was locked in the chewing gum storage area and the smell of mint was driving me around the bend.

So here I was in Singapore stranded without Bob or Fay or for that matter anyone I knew.

There was no Westie godmother to drop from the sky and liberate me.

When I was walking with Bob on trails he often said to me when I faced some obstacle in my way what was my strategy to deal with it. I could slither under it, jump over it or walk around it. Yes, it was incumbent on me here in a Singapore shop house to devise a strategy to deal with my unpleasant situation. A strategy means how, when and where I could address my dilemma.

I ruled out escape as I knew absolutely nothing about Singapore; its ins and outs? Are Singaporeans dog haters who would shoot me on sight or use Egyptian animal control methods and poison me? If escape was in the picture I had watched enough World War Two movies with Bob to realize to escape from a prison you needed to know the lay of the land.

I could play tough guy and be obstinate and snarly but so outnumbered what good would that have done.

I decided to play along. Act dumb like a stupid puppy not knowing its tail from his snout. Bide my time and strike at the right time hoping I was not so deep in the shit there would be no right time.

Being ravenously hungry I enjoyed my strange breakfast of chicken congee and a litre of Evian water.

At 10:00 Madame Fong appeared in the room in a vintage Pierre Cardin suit and an Oleg Cassini scarf smoking a gold tipped Russian cigarette looking like Cruella de Ville.

By her side was Bobby Fong Jr. an enormous man with a stomach the size of three Russian Wolfhounds and bad breath you could smell a kilometre away. He loved his durian fruit!

Madame Fong looked at me and said, “Cuddle Cakes we are going to clean you up and rest you up for a few days. My son Bobby Jr. will be “taking care of you” for the next two days. You need to acclimatize yourself to Singaporean climate and culture so you don’t appear to be a stupid puppy. Then I am taking you on a train trip throughout Malaysia and introduce you to some very important people.”

She then turned to Bobby Jr. and said, “Get your fat ass cracking and if you fuck up you’ll be selling gum in the back alleys of Singapore.”

RKS Literature: Too Lazy to Make His Bed (Kōji Uno)

“Every single day since then he has spent either visiting friends or sleeping. Sanasku’s style of sleeping deserves special mention. His small tatami-matted room has the standard tall, deep closet divided by a sturdy shelf into upper and lower compartments for storing his futon and covers behind a pair of sliding paper doors, but Sanasku long ago decided that it was too much trouble to open the closet door and pull the bedding out every day to spread it on the tatami. Instead he cleared out the upper compartment and now keeps his futon out permanently on the shelf. He sleeps in the closet with the doors open and never has to make his bed.”

Kōji Uno, “Closet LLB”

RKS Literature: The Roustabout Lawyer’s Fantasy (Kōji Uno)

‘I wonder why I never put more of myself into studying the law,’ thought Sanasku. ‘I think of that stiff brained, tongue- tied, unimpressive looking classmate of mine, Kakii: I see in today’s paper they’re calling him one of the up-and-coming hot young lawyers for that stupid case he’s managed to win. The public is so damn easy to fool.’ (Sanasku finds fault only with other people and forgets how hard the public is-and has been-for him to fool.) With my intelligence and eloquence…’ More than once, such thoughts inspired him to resolve to hit the law books and apply to be a judge or public prosecutor, but the inspiration never lasted more than an hour.”

Kōji Uno, “Closet LLB”

RKS Literature: The Importance of Timing for a Hotel Chef (George Orwell)

“Undoubtedly the most workmanlike class, and the least servile, are the cooks. They do not earn quite so much as waiters but their prestige is higher and their employment steadier. The cook does not look upon himself as a servant; he is generally called ‘un ouvrier’ which a waiter never is. He knows his power-knows that he alone makes or mars a restaurant, and that if he is five minutes late everything is out of gear. He despises the whole non-cooking staff, and makes it a point of honour to insult everyone below the head waiter. And he takes a genuine pride in his work, which demands very great skill. It is not the cooking that is so difficult, but the doing everything to time.”

George Orwell, “Down and Out in Paris and London”, 1933.

RKS Japanese Literature: A Dismal Failure Who Believes Himself Superior to All (Kōji Uno)

“As a child, Sanasaku tended to be smug and arrogant, always ready to show off his slightest ability. He was, in a word, vaguely contemptuous of just about everything and everyone. The tendency only increased with age to the point where now he has come to find it somewhat abnormal. His sense of dissatisfaction has increased over the past two or three years such that all works of art- not only fiction but critical essays, dramatic texts, theatrical performances, paintings are remarkable to him only for their innumerable shortcomings. He has come to feel that he is the only one who can perceive their flaws and virtues (if indeed they possess any virtue), that he alone understands them. He has gone so far as to think he should therefore provide models for other writers, write works that would serve to guide them to increasingly greater accomplishments; but in the end nothing has ever materialized.”

Kōji Uno, “Closet LLB”