Monday, October 11, 2004
By Janadas Devan
JEAN-JACQUES Rousseau in his Essay On The Origin Of Language cited this parable to illustrate the origin of metaphorical language: 'A primitive man (un homme sauvage), on meeting other men, will first have experienced fright. His fear will make him see these men as larger and stronger than himself; he will give them the name giants.'
The strangers are not really giants, of course. As the primitive grows familiar with them, he 'will discover that the supposed giants are neither larger nor stronger than himself, and that their stature did not correspond to the idea he had originally linked to the word giant'.
'He will then invent another name that he has in common with them, such as, for example, the word man, and will retain the word giant for the false object that impressed him while he was being deluded.'
But why did he call them 'giants' in the first place? As Paul de Man, a literary scholar, noted once: 'The coinage of the word 'giant' simply means 'I am afraid'.'
The primitive calls strangers 'giants', not because they are physically larger than him, but because he fears their familiar exterior may hide an unsuspected ogrish character. His suspicion that they may not be what they seem leads him to make a fearful accusation - 'they are giants'.
That accusation is the result of his fear that appearances may be deceptive, that the apparent may not be the real.
Now, Taiwan Foreign Minister Mark Chen is a sophisticated man, of course, but his recent characterisation of Singapore as 'a tiny country the size of a piece of dried nose shit' shares the same logic as Rousseau's primitive's mistaken accusation of strangers as 'giants'.
As every Singaporean knows now, Mr Chen, speaking in Hokkien, had called Singapore 'bi sai'. The Straits Times, with its accustomed clinical precision, translated that as 'dried nasal mucus'. Reuters offered 'piece of snot' instead, AFP suggested 'booger' (which is American slang for snot), and a colleague of mine came up with 'nose shit'.
The Anglo-Saxon directness of the last seems to me to fit best the spirit of the original Hokkien, so I have chosen to translate Mr Chen's 'bi sai' as 'nose shit'.
It can be added to the fairly long list of familiar insults that have been directed at Singapore's size, including former Indonesian president B. J. Habibie's famous characterisation of the island as no bigger than a tiny 'red dot' on a map.
Naturally, some Singaporeans have taken umbrage at such insults, feeling they are demeaning, but they shouldn't. Read psychologically, Mr Chen's 'bi sai', like Dr Habibie's 'red dot', is not so much an insult as it is a compliment, albeit unintended.
Just as Rousseau's primitive called strangers 'giants' because he feared what was apparent may not be real, Mr Chen called Singapore a 'tiny piece of dried nose shit' because he suspected appearances may be deceptive.
Consider this: Nobody, including Dr Habibie or Mr Chen, would dream of calling, say, Nauru or Palau, both independent island states in the Pacific Ocean, nose shits. Nauru is only 21.2 sq km, far smaller than Singapore, while Palau is only slightly bigger, but only if one combined all of its 200-odd widely scattered islands, only eight of which are inhabited.
Just as one would not insult a dwarf by calling him a dwarf, one would not insult Nauru and Palau by drawing attention to their lack of size. Why call them 'red dots' if they act like 'red dots' - when they are what they seem?
It is only when a red dot doesn't act like a red dot, when a bi sai seems to carry more weight than a bi sai should, that it makes sense to insult a red dot by calling it a red dot, a bi sai a bi sai. Such insults simply signify: 'I fear the bi sai is no bi sai, the red dot is no red dot.'
It is precisely because Singapore isn't what it seems, that it becomes necessary to remind it of what it seems: 'you are a red dot'.
It is precisely because there is a suspected - and sometimes feared - discrepancy between its unimposing physical size and its outsized influence that it becomes necessary to remind it that it should act its size: 'you bi sai'.
The moment the likes of Mr Chen or Dr Habibie feel it unnecessary to draw attention to Singapore's size, Singaporeans would know they are indeed what they seem - small.
Be glad, Singaporeans, that others find it necessary sometimes to remind you of what you seem.
It means you aren't; it means the reality is different.
| posted by clouds at 7:54 AM
