From ‘Trishaw rides’ strange cultural message’, 14 Nov 2010, Your Letters, Sunday Times
(Christopher Liu):… The narrow stretch of road outside the restaurant in Sago Street is part of the route taken by trishaw riders.
They would ride with their foreign tourists on board, with their trishaw lights blinking, accompanied by blasts of Chinese music associated with getai shows.
I am not sure whether our foreign visitors enjoy the music and lights as much as the trishaw riders, and I do not think they are suitable cultural ambassadors for our young nation.
…I found some background information on the trishaw, which is described as a ‘strong icon of our cultural history’. However, blinking lights and strange music hardly serve as an icon of Singapore’s cultural heritage. Imagine a gondolier in Venice belting out the latest Lady Gaga hit while rowing along the Venetian canals.
If Chinese getai music is not part of our cultural heritage, perhaps the complainant would like to suggest a more appropriate soundtrack for a trishaw ride to give our visitors a truly authentic Singaporean experience because I for one, can’t think of any other music emblematic of our ‘young nation’. Isn’t that what the tourists are here for in the first place, to experience ‘strange’ music and customs? As any experienced traveller would tell you, there’s little that is truly authentic about guided tours anymore, whether it’s trishaw riding in the streets of Singapore or canoodling on a gondola listening to the gondolier breaking into a well rehearsed operetta. Like everything else touched by the schmaltzy hand of commercial tourism, trishaw riding is like getting a miniature Merlion at a souvenir shop, or having a watered down Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel because, honestly, what the hell else is there to do in Singapore?
It’s not up to us to determine what foreigners enjoy or don’t enjoy; durian is part of our gastronomical heritage but we don’t selectively cultivate unscented durian just to pander to our tourists do we? Trishaw riders just want to make a living and if we wanted them to be cultural ambassadors we would have made English and history lessons on colonial Singapore lessons compulsory before they could obtain a trishaw licence. How about this for a more useful ‘background search’ on trishaws, that they used to ferry prostitutes in olden days, according to this letter dated 14 Feb 1948, ‘Armbands to stop trishaw parade’. Strong icon of our cultural history indeed.
Filed under: 1940s, 2010, Noise, Tourists Tagged: | getai, Noise, tourism, Tourists, Trishaws
