The Birthday Party from Hell

Literally. Despite the reconnoiter and growing confidence that I knew exactly what I was in for (and having clarified that it was definitely okay to ask lots of questions and take pictures), the event was NOT a birthday party in the classic sense of celebrating someONE's birthday. Sure, there were tables of gifts. Sure there was general merriment, food and drink.

Sure, we DID eventually sing Happy Birthday (me in English, everyone else in Mandarin).

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday God of Hell,
Happy birthday to you!

The seventh lunar month is a time with varied potential for festivals and social events. While it is an inauspicious time to do important things (like get married or make a big business deal or buy a house) what with greedy ghosts wandering around, that doesn't mean that the social side of life need be neglected. Not only are ghosts allowed to leave hell and return to earth for a month, it is also the time for a birthday party for the god of hell. I say, any excuse for the party!

God of hell is apparently a pretty good god (perhaps because he has some role in herding the ghosts back home?--they are due back this Friday). I thought his name was Xie Xie, but realized after thinking about it for a while that partygoers were not addressing him by name, but rather saying thank you, perhaps for his blessings. So I’m not sure what he’s called, other than god of hell, or hell god. He wears black robes, smokes some kind of a pipe, distributes gifts (I got one) and blessings. People generally crowd around him, he's very much the central participant in the party. I asked for a photo with him; he kindly agreed and bestowed a gift. I said Xie Xie!

There were two alters to the god of hell. One can be seen over my left shoulder. Closer up you can see the piles of paper in the front and back corners, fake money to be burned as an offering. Singaporeans are much too sensible to burn real money. The figures in the back of the alter are representations of the god of (or from?) hell, with joss sticks and flags/banners that are typical of such offerings.

Also attending the party (though the party was not exactly in her honor, she was honored too) was a female healer god. While in a trance (I saw this) she chanted and touched, laid on hands, sometimes dabbed water, and waved a staff with a feathery end. The healer god left the party soon after I arrived and before I was brave enough to break out the camera. Besides seeing her perform her ministrations to several people (an older woman with painful legs, a boy of about 10 years old who might have had a mild form of cerebral palsy, and who both seemed to feel better after the encounter), I don’t know much about her. She heals or tries to heal, hers was the small alter, she was dressed in white robes, went into trances, and she had white and red power on her face and squinted her eyes, and seemed attired much like god of hell but for his black robes and face powder.

Anyway, so much for the guests of honor. Despite lacking godlike status (for heaven's sake, I'm ang moh) people went out of their way to be hospitable—offering drinks and food, just generally fussed over me. It was WAY better than being the pariah, although it also had its downside.

For sure, I didn't expect to be part of the evening's entertainment. But I was. The guy in the yellow shirt and the wig hauled me on stage and announced that ang moh gonna sing. I protested: I can't sing. I don't sing. I've never done karaoke before. Perhaps my imperfect command of Singlish interfered with effective communication. Evelyn (in blue) thrust a microphone in my hand.

Being an inadvertent, inappropriate guest at a funeral a day earlier made me especially determined to be a "good" guest whose presence wasn't regretted at the birthday party. After all, how kind it was for neighbors to include a stranger. And (as importantly) when ever will I get another chance to attend the god of hell's birthday party? (I know, some people think I’ll eventually spend lots of time with hell god, and I have to admit, the whole idea of god from hell somehow jives with some of my days and weeks from hell).

The only English karaoke selection I recognized was (heavy groan) "I just called to say I love you"...a song I have loathed from the day I first heard it. But I did know some of the words, which seemed like it might be an important prerequisite, since I wasn't entirely sure how karaoke worked, and it was pretty obvious that I wasn't getting off the stage without singing.

So I sang, with as much gusto and energy as I could muster. Keep in mind my myriad failings as an entertainer: I do not have rhythm. I did not know all the words. I could not follow the karaoke screen. I was standing next to a gorgeous Asian woman. I was clearly not dressed in festive clothes sparkly enough for the occasion. On the plus side: My voice DID seem to have a natural dissonance that I often associate with Asian music. I failed to hit any of the high notes. Mostly, my singing was loud and flat. (Perhaps I'm a natural here). What I lacked in talent, I tried compensate with enthusiasm.

I sang, loudly, proudly. I sang badly. I will not give up my day job for a blue cocktail dress, honest.
Karaoke is serious business in Singapore, best left to the professionals and adepts. Obviously I was neither and for the second time in 24 hours, I wanted to die on the spot, this time from embarrassment, not shame. But the audience was tolerant. They took LOTS of pictures (heaven knows what they're writing or saying as they pass them along), laughed, and applauded enthusiastically when the song was over (it felt like hours, but I'm sure it was just minutes). The resounding applause could be interpreted either as acknowledgement of being a good sport, or pleasure that the caterwauling had finally ground to a stop. Some of each I expect.

Getting the (unexpected) performance under my belt meant that there were few things left that I could do that would be more embarrassing than the things I'd recently done. How liberating! Now I could now mingle unselfconsciously with my neighbors, and have fun. The table of gifts on the stage turned out to be raffle prizes, tickets drawn over the course of the evening, much to partygoers' delight. Dessert looked awful and was unexpectedly delicious: coconut milk and tapioca, with pieces of mango, cucumber and watermelon (I think) swimming around in it. Several men, happily, overindulged, and no one seemed to mind. Kids drifted back and forth, trying to work up the nerve to talk to me. Some did. I noticed a donation box on one of the tables, with a convenient pile of red envelopes. I happily slipped a S$50 donation into the red envelope and into the box, figuring it would either help pay for the party or go to some good works that the god of hell is responsible for. The auntie who was staffing the table with the donation box nodded with approval; I could tell in the aftermath that the news had travelled around the group. Apparently, that was the right thing to do. Getting something right feels way better than getting it all wrong.

Funny thing about being in Singapore. So much is familiar and Westernized, that it really doesn't feel very much like an alien environment at all...until suddenly it does. Don't really know how to explain that feeling. Everything works, or seems to. Everything is clean and efficient, or seems to be. Virtually everyone speaks English (or more accurately Singlish, thankfully, since I speak no Chinese, Malay or Indian languages). The public transportation puts every other one I've used to shame. "My" stop, on the new Circle Line subway, is especially cool. There's a 24 hour McDonalds, a KFC, and three supermarkets within 5 minutes walk of my flat, which is equipped with all the modern conveniences, washing maching, TV with CNN/BBC, two computers, etc. etc. Then there are alters to ghosts and unfamiliar gods. Funerals and parties. White clothing and red envelopes. The smell of joss sticks in the air. Chicken feet and pig intestines and hundred year old eggs. The food at the hawker centers, generally. The never-ending sounds of the close quarters of HDB living, the overpowering smell of durian, the claustrophibically moist (and now, hazy) air. Singapore is simultaneously familiar and alien, and all that goes along with that.

Stereotypes about ang moh in Singapore, particularly those likely pervasive in a modest neighborhood like mine, would probably have rendered me absolutely inapproachable by most neighbors, at least under "usual" circumstances. Funny to think of ice-breaking in a hot and humid place. I lack opportunity to meet my neighbors at work, or in other social settings--I just live near them, where people jealously safeguard their privacy because they live so close together and where people have very mixed emotions about Westerners. Having crashed a funeral and sung badly at hell god's birthday party, however, I could be incorporated, at least on the edges, into the community. After all, my neighbors now had ample evidence that here, at least, was one ang moh who clearly lacked the stereotypical presumption of superiority over Singaporeans that foreigners often assume (I've seen and heard many examples of that unattractive Western perspective already, so I know it is real)! Me: just an ordinary person, in an unusual place, making mistakes, but learning lessons. Being a guest is way better than being a stranger, and being regarded as approachable and real WAY better than being regarded as just the typical ang moh.

It was a fun and interesting evening. Several additional invitations from birthday partygoers have followed, including one from Clarissa (an adorable 9-year old from building 228) who wants to arrange for me to visit her school on Saturday. It's right behind Boundary Village. We'll see what happens there.