Singapore is a great country for individuals with IBS; there are free public toilets – most of which are clean and functioning – within a short distance of each other. The lavatorial services on offer far surpass advanced economies in the west in accessibility and just sheer logistical convenience. Nearly all of which do not require a key or passcode to enter, which allays the anxiety of those needing relief nearly anywhere, nearly anytime. Knowing that a clean, functioning, and accessible place for personal relief within relative proximity is reassuring for the soul. Which is why I wonder to myself, when out and about, why is it that Singaporeans young and old badger another person in their company – usually young children and elderly individuals – about whether they need to use the loo?
Why do they need to ask insistently, ‘Go toilet?’, ‘you want to go toilet?’, loud enough for passersby, at least loud enough for me to hear. I wonder: maybe these are young and elderly sufferers of IBS, and the nearby loos – and there is often one nearby – and they can be made aware of them, and feel reassured. Sometimes ‘You want to go toilet?’ may be the few scant things exchanged between the younger and older, the only worthy inquiry to raise on a trip out to the shops.
The reader will already notice that the phrasing of ‘Go toilet’ is ungrammatical, but every Singaporean says it this way: ‘Where she go?’ ‘She go toilet’. Socio-linguistically speaking, ‘go toilet’ is local spoken pidgin that taps into the grammatical bone structure of Singaporean Malay and Chinese languages. While not many in Singapore speak and understand Malay, the language nevertheless leaves deep traces in everyday speech. One needs to reverse translate ‘go toilet’ back to Malay to see that it is grammatically sound (‘pergi tandas’). This indicates the virtue of linguistic resourcefulness of Singaporean culture, picking up and adopting different cultural elements and embedding it in the recesses of the collective, multilingual psyche.
I also reasoned that the efficiency and economics of Singaporean life have made their influence on the way people speak; cutting to the chase without needless verbiage let alone the standard grammar and complete syntactical formation. To be linguistically efficient means having to verbally labour, as if it is an exertion, even a kind of expense – as little as possible for the maximum amount of effect.
Singaporeans are not known for their loquaciousness. Their reserved nature can be mistaken for unfriendliness and rudeness. Most will sit in orderly silence on public busses and trains. Silence, or just head down to the phone, is the preferred composure while waiting or in transit. When prompted to speak, many will be pleased if somewhat surprised to engage in conversation with you. They can and will speak in many, connected words and fuller sentences in that vertical Nanyang staccato when they have the chance.
As a non-Singaporean observer of Singaporean everyday speech practices, one cannot help but notice that speech happens – especially among the very young and very old, between child and parent – usually when usefully necessary. Or when it is practical, another virtue that Singaporeans value. In other words, one should make verbal expressions for useful things, like for making things go and going to the toilet. To be practical is to be verbally perfunctory.
Filling the air with words risks stuffing an already densely-packed urban atmosphere of the city state with more seemingly needless words. Singapore life is already crowded, fewer words into its space would make life more bearable for all. Loud and moderate levels of human noises – speech, laughter, whistles, exclamations – sounds that signal the spectrum of life’s feelings are kept to some minimum. But Singaporean society is unlike the megalopolis of Tokyo where speaking on the mobile phone on the train is frowned upon. A commuter in Singapore does not have to think twice about playing video clips loudly on their phones. But these are not really their own sounds or voices, and we don’t hear them the loudest.
Thus, many spoken words, more than ‘necessary’, is impractical. It could be that this linguistic virtue is learned. From a young age, Singaporean children may start life with playful verbosity but this quality and degrees of delight are eventually replaced with laconic adulthood that shrinks further into near-muteness in old age.
Perhaps more concerningly, the question of ‘go toilet?’ between the young and the less young forms the basis of the few meaningful connections left in an atomised society. It harks back to the parental query during pre-potty toddlerhood, a nudge and momentary grasp at care and concern, to avoid discomfort and inconvenient feelings in the bladder and bowels, and perhaps by extension, an anxiety tightly bundled under layers of good and orderly behaviour. It speaks to a particular dislike at being even mildly uncomfortable, that one must need to preempt inconvenient situations by meeting even the slightest of urinary demands. Thus, the preemptive ‘go toilet?’ is primordial, yet most meaningful, as it soothes the child within every Singaporean citizen who hasn’t much to say, but keeping it in much of the time.
Alicia Izharuddin 