Robert Yeo - "Are You There Singapore": Hua's Pregnancy

This play is the first of "The Singapore Trilogy". It tells the story of an audacious LSE Singaporean girl (first-year student), namely Ang Siew Hua, whose daring escapades eventually result in her unexpected premarital pregnancy. Familiar?

The feature of the play which immediately strikes me is the parallel between the unexpected pregnancy of Ang Siew Hua (which left me nonplussed at first, as I could not figure out why sexual awakening and experimentation of a girl are incorporated in this supposedly political play??) and the national and political landscape of Singapore. After all, what or who else can serve as an appropriate construct to represent Singapore but a Singaporean?

1. Hua's baby is the product of Hua's curiosity and fascination with regards to the Londoners. However, her so-called "experiencing" of Western culture eventually leads to her self-incarceration under the Western value, turning herself into an entitative cultural colony. This is further stressed by Hua's initial frustration over her pregnancy and her baby, which, at first, appear as moral and psychological burdens to her. However, the fanciful fact that Hua's baby is due on Singapore's National Day not only convinces her not to abort her baby, but also suggests the role of her baby as the prime, invisible symbol of Singapore. Without those struggles, those pains and those scars due to involvement with Western country, values and men, Singapore and Hua would not be what they are.

2. Hua's experimentation also broaches the theme of vague concept of nationhood in the play. Singapore right after independence was like a chalice which consists of Eastern values and cultures as the bottom layer and newly poured Western values on top. Unfortunately, the two layers were not readily miscible as testified by the characters' (Hua, Chye and Richard) attitude who generally dichotomize eastern and western cultures. Nonetheless, the baby, the symbolic construct of Singapore, proves that what appears as unlikely assimilations of two vastly different cultures will eventually fuse to give a unique entity, in this case: Singapore and Lisa Ang.

3. At the end of the play, Hua's decision to be a single mother echoes Singapore's independence. Glamorous promises of the Brits (I am guessing here) are as equally empty as Giorgio's saccharine words. At the end, just like Singapore, Hua becomes disillusioned in Giorgio and Western men and start to shift her focus of faith into her origin, her home, her Singapore, and her self as a Singaporean.

4. Last but not least, Hua's vacillation between abortion or giving birth to the baby imposes a somewhat canonical question with respect to the Singapore's status. Should the accumulated western elements be vanquished and abandoned? Or, should we accept them as part of our past and our identity? Hua's final decision obviously tells the audience what mindset to adopt; after all, memories of colonization and post-abortion guilt are so strong they will hardly fade away. It is up to us to turn them from burdens to propelling drives to move forward, as a person and as a country.