Was at the old parliament house two nights ago to catch Tan PinPin’s Singapore Gaga. What better way to begin Transmissions than with a post about the movie.Singapore Gaga is essentially a very sincere presentation/montage of the different frequencies that fill our aural landscape.
The idea of transmitting and frequency is most literal in the vignette where a few uncles and aunties were making news broadcasts in various dialects from a lonely recording room (Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Hainanese, Hakka and Hockchew). They are the last of their kind, transmitting the remnant voices which have been given a concessionary existence after the Speak Mandarin Campaign wiped out dialects from the mainstream media. There is a refreshing quality to hearing the news (in this case, Father Kang has been made to serve time) read in standard/polished dialect; a heartland sing-songy eloquence, elocutionary in a clannish way. Ever wondered why they’ve always fielded a Teochew candidate to face Low Thia Khiang in Hougang? Or why Hole-Gang doesn’t go down as well as Aw-Gung?
The movie engages us by re-tuning our sensory receivers to the frequencies that we had chosen to ignore and now subconsciously reject. Like the Ah-pek busker stomping his clogs and playing the harmonica at Raffles Place station, and the wheelchair-bound hawker’s ‘one dollar, one dollar’ tissue paper ditty. (The latter is a Christian. She sings hymns too, ‘Jesus songs’.)
For better or for worse, our sensory receivers have been tuned by society and the Establishment. James Gomez, Strong Mandate, First World Government just to cite a few examples of this tuning. Yet that Singaporean-ness, still speaks to us. The scene where Khoo Swee Chiow scaled the inflatable Mt Everest *goodness* amid cheering from an entire stadium seems strangely alienating. For all the conditioning by the Establishment on the foreign talent policy and what it means to be Singaporean, the song in the next scene strikes a cord immediately. It goes:
Wasted days and wasted nights
I have left for you behind
For you don’t belong to me
Your heart belongs to somebody else
Why should I keep loving you
When I know that you’re not true
And why should I call your name
When you’re to blame for making me blue
The film has no narration, but the director’s point is clear. When one of the dialect newscasters was asked if anyone listens to his broadcasts, he said "It is a privilege to read in a dialect few speak anymore, we are the last generation and I will continue to do it until they ask me to stop". It is difficult not to sense the dignation with which each of these voices transmits their frequencies, yet in their own ways each of them is still yearning for acceptance into our receiver range.
0 Responses to “First Post”
Leave a Reply