Singapore: A Night Out at Orchard Towers

Two conversations I really enjoyed this week:

1) Cabbie: "Where you from, lah?"
Me: "Canada."
Cabbie: "Oh! You English very good!"
Me: "Thank you. So is yours!"
Cabbie: "Of course! I live here whole life!"

2) Leesa Leroy: "I really wish this wasn't a prostitute bar."

Yes, Laura's sister Leesa in town after touring Southeast Asia, so we've taken the responsibility of showing her the sights and sounds of Singapore. What better way to do that than bring her to Orchard Towers: four stories of shopping mall by day, hooker den by night. Each level of the mall has several bars and clubs that start pounding the bass around 8 PM, when the regular shops close up to avoid the rush of drunken sailors, slimy old men and Lady-Boys that emerge from their lairs once the sun goes down.

We ended up in a bar called the "Country Jamboree," a Nashville-themed bar complete with bartenders and waitresses sporting cowboy hats and "Sheriff" stars, as well as walls lined with Western-style memorabilia (including Oklahoma's flag and a series of pictures showcasing the culture and traditions of America's feather-clad Injuns). The bar's DJ treated us to a sampling of Country Music's best, including Alan Jackson, Shania Twain and Garth Brooks, every song sounding exactly the same as the one before it.

Leesa made the comment that she felt as if she was in some random bar in Prince George (a town in Northern BC), which could have been easily believed if not for the fact that we were in a shopping mall and surrounded by gaggles of Asian prostitutes. But Singapore's so squeaky-clean, you're thinking, how can this be? Well, like everything in Singapore, prostitution, just like the sale of ice-cream sandwiches (with real bread!) is heavily controlled. Orchard Towers is just one place in town where illegal activity is suddenly considered legal. As long as it's conducted within certain parameters, it's okay. You gotta love how morally ambiguous even the most moral of states (spitting is bad!) can be.

Naturally, as we sat drinking our beers, the subject of what kind of person goes looking for a prostitute and why came up in our conversation. Leave it to Leesa to find out. As we attempted to dance to white-people music, Leesa befriended a middle-aged Indian man, who for the sake of anonymity, we'll call Raja. When we had met Raja, he was seated near the dance floor with a slim Vietnamese woman snuggled up beside him. Neither of them appeared to be gifted in the art of conversation. After a few words exchanged, Raja had his companion approach Leesa with his business card, accompanied by a wink and a smile when she looked in his direction. Not that that discouraged Leesa in any way.

Not much later, after Raja's companion had mysteriously disappeared, he and Leesa began having a heart to heart. Laura and I decided to back off a bit; we didn't want to ruin the opportunity of hearing a good story once we got into the cab. And sure enough, Leesa delivered. Not being one to skirt an issue, Leesa had gone right to the point and asked him why Raja has sex with prostitutes. Not really getting an answer, Leesa proceeded to point out that he should stop doing it; it's just wrong and nasty and vile. They proceeded to have quite an in depth discussion, covering his family history and his ties to Indian royalty, his reasons for being in Singapore, and the fact that at any time his daughter might walk into a bar and see what he's doing, the entire time Leesa stressing the point that she would not have sex with him (even if he did fly her to India to stay in some palatial estate).

It is quite possible that Leesa changed someone's life that night. Perhaps by forcing Raja to stop and reflect upon his life and what it's all come down to, Leesa helped to breathe a new sense of purpose into this man's life, inspiring him to become a new person.

Either that or he was so depressed he went and paid for sex.