Enemy of The State
If you're feeling a little bored o'er the weekend and you live in Singapore, I've got the perfect activity that you can get involved in. It's free, easy and most of all, fun for the whole family - quite literally. I'd never been for one of these things until I was assigned a job to go and observe one, in the hope of meeting a certain Minister, touted to be the Guest of Honour for the shebang, and getting his views on a certain escaped fugitive. In the end, the Minister was called away to a meeting and so I found myself, at three o' clock in the afternoon, facing the prospect of having to sit through an emergency reenactment of some sort in the middle of the heartlands.
And thank goodness I stayed because it was, hand on heart, one of the most hilarious and entertaining things I'd ever seen in my life.
I'm not new to the concept of an emergency exercise. When my father used to work in the civil service, he was frequently called away in the middle of the night to perform a reenactment involving a fake plane crash or hostage situation, just to test out the response time. At home, when we were little, he would sometimes conduct mini emergency exercises, pretending to faint on the floor and making me or my brothers call our relatives so that we would know just what to say. In school, we would have these whopping great civil defence drills where the whole school would assemble on the field and a giant box of wood and debris was lit till a fire roared a storey high and firemen burst in to put it out.
But this one absolutely took the cake. For one, it was held in a little carpark in the middle of a neighbourhood, behind one of the more populated heartland hubs.
Chairs were set up along the perimeter of the carpark and anybody from the neighbourhood was free to come and watch, which meant that hundreds of elderly people came tottering down excitedly, waving fans and gossiping. They brought food and drink and balanced it on their knees, talking and laughing like it was a picnic while waiting for the action to start.
Several elderly folk in wheelchairs were also curiously hovering around the carpark entrance, which in itself was a fire hazaard, I'm sure. And by three, the place was packed with chattering old people and little children who were jostling to get a better view.
For another, there was the emcee. He was a tall Chinese man dressed in an electric blue shirt with a lurid orange tiger painted across the back, metallic track pants, garish blue and orange track shoes and, get this, yellow framed goggle sunglasses tied around his forehead. When he spoke into the mike, it was in the kind of falsely deep, put-on radio voice that makes it sound like everything is in caps. So when he began his announcements, I knew something good was afoot.
"LADIEZ AND JAUNTEMEN!" He proclaimed over a soundtrack of soothing muzak, "WE ARE ABOUT TO EXPERIENCE THE REHEARSAL OF THE EMERGENCY EXERCISE SO PLEAZ SIT DOWN AND HOLD ON TO YOUR CHILDREN. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE FIRE, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE BOMBS, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE ACTION, LADIEZ AND JAUNTEMEN!"
At this point, a minivan started to trundle slowly across the carpark, led by a neighbourhood volunteer who appeared to be pointing out the route to the driver. A group of elderly volunteers bumped along and looked out eagerly from within, excited to be involved.
"IT IS A NORMAL, SUNNY DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD," emcee intoned. "THREE OF OUR VOLUNTEERS ARE CAREFULLY PATROLLING THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, LOOKING TO SEE IF ANYTHING IS AMISS." Three people dressed in red volunteer shirts started walking slowly across the opposite end of the carpark, looking a little uncertain. To my great surprise, one of them was a little old lady in skinny jeans and crocs shoes who looked like she wouldn't have survived a fire drill let alone a bomb threat.
Suddenly, an awful caterwauling burst out on the sound system involving unidentifiable bangs and screams. "OH NO," emcee read, sounding not in the least shocked. "SUDDENLY THE VAN COMES TO A SUDDEN STOP. IT'S A BOMB!"
The aunties in the audience oohed and aahed appreciatively as the minivan driver applied the breaks, bumping the old folks around inside a little. A thin trail of white smoke started to issue from the underside of the van to the delight of the audience. "OUR VOLUNTEERS RUSH TO THE SCENE!" Emcee bellowed. The three volunteers began to jog to the minivan, the little old lady trailing slightly behind. They reached the van, snapped open the back doors and began pulling elderly people out.
At this point, the violin-laden Psycho soundtrack began screaming over the PA system, making me burst out laughing. "OUR EXPERIENCED VOLUNTEERS KNOW JUST WHAT TO DO. ONE OF OUR VOLUNTEERS CALLS THE POHLEESE!"
Psycho was interrupted and replaced by a crackling recording of what was supposed to be the phone call, vis:
[ring ring ring]
"Hello hello, officer! There's a bomb!"
[click]
Um. I'm not sure if it's exactly a best practise to freak the "poh leese" out by yelling at them over the phone without providing location details. Huh. I wondered if they would make their way to the scene.
"OH NO. HERE COME THE WHEELCHAIRS!" Our garish friend boomed, startling me.
Two more volunteers came pelting down a nearby slope pushing wheel chairs at full speed. The elderly people who had been pulled out of the minivan were now pretending to be severely injured. An Indian man, whom I'll call Appu for the sake of convenience, was giggling in the chaos as he held his fakely-injured head in one hand.
The little old lady grabbed his shoulders and shoved him into a wheelchair before getting behind it and trundling him across the tarmac as fast as she could. Her skinny-jeaned
legs flashed past me as she pushed him, bumping and rattling over large cracks in the road, to a small canopy set up at the side.
Once there, she flung him into a chair where he sat, still clutching his head, and proceeded to tear violently at swathes of bandage that had been left under the canopy for the express purpose of bandaging Appu up. Shortly afterwards, the other two volunteers pushed their own casualties over to the station and soon everyone was wearing a neat halter of gauze bandage.
The little old lady had a bit of a struggle with Appu who didn't want to let go of his head in his pretence and who was also wearing glasses, so that she wrapped the gauze in several untidy, helmet-like variations before it suddenly stayed, wobbling, on Appu's giggling head.
Back by the minivan, a new fracas was starting. "OH NO. ONE OF OUR VICTIMS CANNOT EVEN WALK!"
Several volunteers had whipped out and unfolded a canvas stretcher and pushed an old, grey-haired lady, who looked to be on her last legs, onto it. They flung a hot wool blanket over her and each of them grabbed a corner and, huffing under her weight, bumped to the other end of the carpark where she lay on the lumpy, bright orange canvas, looking extremely disgruntled.
The soundtrack to Mission Impossible blared loudly, prompting the aunties to jostle closer and fan themselves faster. "Wah!" One proclaimed in excitement. "OH NO. NOW A FIRE HAS STARTED!"
Here is the bit I was looking forward to, the leaping flames, the dramatic fire fight.
Then, two SCDF men ran out from behind the minivan, pushing a trolley. On it was a wok.
A wok.
A kwali full of oil. One of the men pointed a long-nosed lighter at it and slowly, a tiny ring of flames emerged, burgeoning till they were about a foot high. And then.
"HERE COME THE POH-LEESE! THANK GOODNESS."
Huh, guess they found their way after all. The music changed to the James Bond theme and two motorbikes with brightly flashing lights entered the carpark. They were closely followed by a police car, which shrieked in and nearly knocked down the photographer who had been hired for the occasion. As he leaped nimbly aside, avoiding the blazing lights, I worried to myself that some old dude in the audience suffering an epilepsy attack was probably more of a danger right now than the little flambe-ing pot.
Two of the civil defence guys, dressed in heavy fire proof suits and bright orange helmets, approached the flame with cannisters as the music reached a climax.
"WATCH HOW THEY PUT IT OUT WITH JUST ONE MOVE!" Emcee roared, now sitting on the edge of his metaphorical seat as well. All the aunties and uncles leaned forward on creaking chairs, their necks craned tightly as one officer pulled the pin and squeezed the trigger.
As in a case of erectile dysfunction, a thin white dribble of foam spilled from the nozzle.
Everyone looked on in puzzlement as the James Bond theme continued thrumming loudly.
"WATCH HOW THEY PUT IT OUT!" Emcee tried again as the trigger was squeezed again and the same white foam spat forth. Beside me, the auntie was fanning herself more and more quickly.
"WATCH HOW -" Emcee never got to finish his sentence because at that moment, the pressure gave and with a thunderous POW! and a vast umbrella of foam erupted onto the fire.
"Aiyoh!" The aunty beside me yelled in shock, nearly dropping her fan.
It was at this point, nearly choking on my own spit with silent laughter, that I decided it was time to leave. As I got up and snuck past rows and rows of legs towards the carpark entrance, Ella Fitzgerald began to sing "Sunny Side of the Street" and all participants, volunteers, policemen and a still-giggling, still-bandaged Appu alike, came forward for their bows to enthusiastic applause. "So exciting!" I heard one little boy tell his friend.
Then, just when I thought the furore was over, the Emcee grabbed the mike once more and intoned into it, "WUNNERFUL. JUST WUNNERFUL LADIEZ AND JAUNTEMEN! NOW, THAT WAS JUST THE REHEARSAL. SIT BACK, RELAX AND ENJOY AS WE BRING YOU THE REAL THING ONCE MORE! CLAP AGAIN FOR OUR WUNNERFUL PERFORMERS!"
I have to say, it was one of the most entertaining afternoons I've had in a long time. Plus it brought the neighbourhood together in a free, fun activity that related to the whole community.
So three cheers for our boys in blue, for being so game on a Saturday, kudos to our old heartlanders and a special mention for Appu because baby, dedication like that just cannot be faked.
And thank goodness I stayed because it was, hand on heart, one of the most hilarious and entertaining things I'd ever seen in my life.
I'm not new to the concept of an emergency exercise. When my father used to work in the civil service, he was frequently called away in the middle of the night to perform a reenactment involving a fake plane crash or hostage situation, just to test out the response time. At home, when we were little, he would sometimes conduct mini emergency exercises, pretending to faint on the floor and making me or my brothers call our relatives so that we would know just what to say. In school, we would have these whopping great civil defence drills where the whole school would assemble on the field and a giant box of wood and debris was lit till a fire roared a storey high and firemen burst in to put it out.
But this one absolutely took the cake. For one, it was held in a little carpark in the middle of a neighbourhood, behind one of the more populated heartland hubs.
Chairs were set up along the perimeter of the carpark and anybody from the neighbourhood was free to come and watch, which meant that hundreds of elderly people came tottering down excitedly, waving fans and gossiping. They brought food and drink and balanced it on their knees, talking and laughing like it was a picnic while waiting for the action to start.
Several elderly folk in wheelchairs were also curiously hovering around the carpark entrance, which in itself was a fire hazaard, I'm sure. And by three, the place was packed with chattering old people and little children who were jostling to get a better view.
For another, there was the emcee. He was a tall Chinese man dressed in an electric blue shirt with a lurid orange tiger painted across the back, metallic track pants, garish blue and orange track shoes and, get this, yellow framed goggle sunglasses tied around his forehead. When he spoke into the mike, it was in the kind of falsely deep, put-on radio voice that makes it sound like everything is in caps. So when he began his announcements, I knew something good was afoot.
"LADIEZ AND JAUNTEMEN!" He proclaimed over a soundtrack of soothing muzak, "WE ARE ABOUT TO EXPERIENCE THE REHEARSAL OF THE EMERGENCY EXERCISE SO PLEAZ SIT DOWN AND HOLD ON TO YOUR CHILDREN. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE FIRE, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE BOMBS, WE ARE GOING TO HAVE ACTION, LADIEZ AND JAUNTEMEN!"
At this point, a minivan started to trundle slowly across the carpark, led by a neighbourhood volunteer who appeared to be pointing out the route to the driver. A group of elderly volunteers bumped along and looked out eagerly from within, excited to be involved.
"IT IS A NORMAL, SUNNY DAY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD," emcee intoned. "THREE OF OUR VOLUNTEERS ARE CAREFULLY PATROLLING THE NEIGHBOURHOOD, LOOKING TO SEE IF ANYTHING IS AMISS." Three people dressed in red volunteer shirts started walking slowly across the opposite end of the carpark, looking a little uncertain. To my great surprise, one of them was a little old lady in skinny jeans and crocs shoes who looked like she wouldn't have survived a fire drill let alone a bomb threat.
Suddenly, an awful caterwauling burst out on the sound system involving unidentifiable bangs and screams. "OH NO," emcee read, sounding not in the least shocked. "SUDDENLY THE VAN COMES TO A SUDDEN STOP. IT'S A BOMB!"
The aunties in the audience oohed and aahed appreciatively as the minivan driver applied the breaks, bumping the old folks around inside a little. A thin trail of white smoke started to issue from the underside of the van to the delight of the audience. "OUR VOLUNTEERS RUSH TO THE SCENE!" Emcee bellowed. The three volunteers began to jog to the minivan, the little old lady trailing slightly behind. They reached the van, snapped open the back doors and began pulling elderly people out.
At this point, the violin-laden Psycho soundtrack began screaming over the PA system, making me burst out laughing. "OUR EXPERIENCED VOLUNTEERS KNOW JUST WHAT TO DO. ONE OF OUR VOLUNTEERS CALLS THE POHLEESE!"
Psycho was interrupted and replaced by a crackling recording of what was supposed to be the phone call, vis:
[ring ring ring]
"Hello hello, officer! There's a bomb!"
"All right, miss, we will be there shortly!"
[click]
Um. I'm not sure if it's exactly a best practise to freak the "poh leese" out by yelling at them over the phone without providing location details. Huh. I wondered if they would make their way to the scene.
"OH NO. HERE COME THE WHEELCHAIRS!" Our garish friend boomed, startling me.
Two more volunteers came pelting down a nearby slope pushing wheel chairs at full speed. The elderly people who had been pulled out of the minivan were now pretending to be severely injured. An Indian man, whom I'll call Appu for the sake of convenience, was giggling in the chaos as he held his fakely-injured head in one hand.
The little old lady grabbed his shoulders and shoved him into a wheelchair before getting behind it and trundling him across the tarmac as fast as she could. Her skinny-jeaned
legs flashed past me as she pushed him, bumping and rattling over large cracks in the road, to a small canopy set up at the side.
Once there, she flung him into a chair where he sat, still clutching his head, and proceeded to tear violently at swathes of bandage that had been left under the canopy for the express purpose of bandaging Appu up. Shortly afterwards, the other two volunteers pushed their own casualties over to the station and soon everyone was wearing a neat halter of gauze bandage.
The little old lady had a bit of a struggle with Appu who didn't want to let go of his head in his pretence and who was also wearing glasses, so that she wrapped the gauze in several untidy, helmet-like variations before it suddenly stayed, wobbling, on Appu's giggling head.
Back by the minivan, a new fracas was starting. "OH NO. ONE OF OUR VICTIMS CANNOT EVEN WALK!"
Several volunteers had whipped out and unfolded a canvas stretcher and pushed an old, grey-haired lady, who looked to be on her last legs, onto it. They flung a hot wool blanket over her and each of them grabbed a corner and, huffing under her weight, bumped to the other end of the carpark where she lay on the lumpy, bright orange canvas, looking extremely disgruntled.
The soundtrack to Mission Impossible blared loudly, prompting the aunties to jostle closer and fan themselves faster. "Wah!" One proclaimed in excitement. "OH NO. NOW A FIRE HAS STARTED!"
Here is the bit I was looking forward to, the leaping flames, the dramatic fire fight.
Then, two SCDF men ran out from behind the minivan, pushing a trolley. On it was a wok.
A wok.
A kwali full of oil. One of the men pointed a long-nosed lighter at it and slowly, a tiny ring of flames emerged, burgeoning till they were about a foot high. And then.
"HERE COME THE POH-LEESE! THANK GOODNESS."
Huh, guess they found their way after all. The music changed to the James Bond theme and two motorbikes with brightly flashing lights entered the carpark. They were closely followed by a police car, which shrieked in and nearly knocked down the photographer who had been hired for the occasion. As he leaped nimbly aside, avoiding the blazing lights, I worried to myself that some old dude in the audience suffering an epilepsy attack was probably more of a danger right now than the little flambe-ing pot.
Two of the civil defence guys, dressed in heavy fire proof suits and bright orange helmets, approached the flame with cannisters as the music reached a climax.
"WATCH HOW THEY PUT IT OUT WITH JUST ONE MOVE!" Emcee roared, now sitting on the edge of his metaphorical seat as well. All the aunties and uncles leaned forward on creaking chairs, their necks craned tightly as one officer pulled the pin and squeezed the trigger.
As in a case of erectile dysfunction, a thin white dribble of foam spilled from the nozzle.
Everyone looked on in puzzlement as the James Bond theme continued thrumming loudly.
"WATCH HOW THEY PUT IT OUT!" Emcee tried again as the trigger was squeezed again and the same white foam spat forth. Beside me, the auntie was fanning herself more and more quickly.
"WATCH HOW -" Emcee never got to finish his sentence because at that moment, the pressure gave and with a thunderous POW! and a vast umbrella of foam erupted onto the fire.
"Aiyoh!" The aunty beside me yelled in shock, nearly dropping her fan.
It was at this point, nearly choking on my own spit with silent laughter, that I decided it was time to leave. As I got up and snuck past rows and rows of legs towards the carpark entrance, Ella Fitzgerald began to sing "Sunny Side of the Street" and all participants, volunteers, policemen and a still-giggling, still-bandaged Appu alike, came forward for their bows to enthusiastic applause. "So exciting!" I heard one little boy tell his friend.
Then, just when I thought the furore was over, the Emcee grabbed the mike once more and intoned into it, "WUNNERFUL. JUST WUNNERFUL LADIEZ AND JAUNTEMEN! NOW, THAT WAS JUST THE REHEARSAL. SIT BACK, RELAX AND ENJOY AS WE BRING YOU THE REAL THING ONCE MORE! CLAP AGAIN FOR OUR WUNNERFUL PERFORMERS!"
I have to say, it was one of the most entertaining afternoons I've had in a long time. Plus it brought the neighbourhood together in a free, fun activity that related to the whole community.
So three cheers for our boys in blue, for being so game on a Saturday, kudos to our old heartlanders and a special mention for Appu because baby, dedication like that just cannot be faked.
She said, she said at 9:25 pm
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