Gah Men
A Display of Fruits in Singapore. From Photographic Views of Singapore, G. R. Lambert & Co., 1900. “gahmen /gah-mən, ˈgɑmən/ n. [repr. a pronunciation of English: government]”
— www.singlishdictionary.com
The island is forty-two kilometers across and thirty kilometers wide, fringed by waxy green jungle leaking into muddy sea. Between land and water is a rich brown swamp, a thick strip of burping soil. The swamp is filled with mangroves, their roots growing upwards, poking through the dense squelching mud like hundreds of tiny arms reaching towards the sky. A foreigner might compare this scene to that of the rivers of Hell. But to those who live on the island, they are mangrove roots and nothing more, a necessity in wet oxygen-poor earth.
The island has seen its share of foreigners. Nestled in the crook of a much larger country’s arm, strategically placed in the bull’s-eye of crossing trade routes, it has long been a destination for merchants, soldiers, princes, thieves. So while the Gah Men say the island is a sleepy fishing village—has always been, for centuries—this is not entirely true.
The Gah Men wear white shirts and white pants that glimmer blue in the tropical sun. Their shirts are short-sleeved; they carry ballpoint pens in their chest pockets, wear shiny black shoes on neat small feet. The Gah Men’s emblem is a white four-pointed star, splitting a red circle.
Lee Ah Boon, son of Lee Ah Huat, eighteen years old and with the pink pockmarked skin to show it, watches the Gah Men descend upon the mangrove swamp outside his house. They have arrived on bicycles, foreheads slick, shirts translucent with sweat. Ah Boon watches them unroll large sheets of paper crossed with grids and arching lines, point to invisible demarcations in the earth, shield their eyes as they squint at the sky. The sun beats down on oily scalps glistening beneath thin black hair.
One of them shrieks as the ground next to him shifts and makes a loud splash. His colleagues laugh as it is revealed to be a large mudskipper, primeval in shape, evil in eye. They return to work soon enough. The Gah Men are industrious; they have no time to waste on the frivolities of the swamp.
“Ah Boon! Dreaming again! Faster finish your work before I smack your head, boy,” Ma shouts at him from inside the house.
They live in an attap house perched on the edge of the mangroves, where the land is just firm enough to drive wooden stilts deep into the earth. Ah Boon sits outside on a patch of grass. He bends his head down, towards the fishnets he is meant to be untangling, and busies his hands.
But he is still watching the Gah Men, entranced by the starched spotless cloth of their shirts, the decisive way they chop their hands through the air, the red plastic clipboards they carry. They seem an impossible sight against the backdrop of the twisted looming mangroves, the dull grey crash of waves on the sandy shore. From time to time, the wind carries their voices over to where he is sitting. Snatches of deep baritones, unfamiliar vowels.
Undoubtedly, they will be speaking English. It is well known that one cannot be a Gah Man without a strong grasp of English. Ah Boon himself does not speak English well. He attended a Chinese school, one of the many whose students had protested against the Gah Men before it became clear they were here to stay. Ah Boon himself has linked arms with fellow middle school students in front of bus stations and government buildings. He has been knocked to the ground by the powerful water cannons the Gah Men used to disperse such rioting. There is a patch of rough brown skin on his left knee where the punishing asphalt ripped into his skin, revealing raw red flesh beneath.
By all accounts, Ah Boon should hate the Gah Men, as all his friends do. He has performed this hatred for his peers, spitting and cursing, Gah Men are the lapdogs of the Ang Mohs—Ang Mohs being the clip-tongued, fair-skinned redheads who for 150 years ruled the island—Gah Men are corrupt, why else wear all white, must be hiding something; Gah Men only want to take your money, fuck your mother; Gah Men are blood traitors, out to ruin their hardworking brothers and sisters.
But Ah Boon cannot tear his gaze away from the men who cross the swampy ground in front of his home
