Laura in Singapore: Pigsy, Lust, and Knucklefarkers: Lessons from Haw Par Villa #1

Here in Singapore, we are filled with an unsual, righteous rage! It is due to Pigsy, shown below, and to those who didn't learn his lesson.

Pigsy comes from Haw Par Villa, the best tourist attraction in Singapore, which has just reopened after a year. In this time, we've been lost without it's proverbial and Confucian moralistic teachings!

The Magic Cypress Grove story teaches us the trouble lust can bring. In other words, poor decisions were made in the company of hired women.

As you can see, honey traps don't encourage social distancing.

Hopefully, in addition to lessons about keeping your piggywilly put away, the tale teaches social distancing, gender equality, liberation, and consent, but I digress.

As the story goes, since Pigsy was a knucklefarker, he got encapsulated into a tree. And, trees can engulf entire houses here. In Haw Par Villa, this is happening with the actual tree, making it a stronger message!

Today, the story of Pigsy the Knucklefarker has become our reality (above is Pigsy's actual modern home). Speaking of reality, here are Singapore's recent Covid numbers. Regardless of your views on the pandemic being over and it being time to lick the neighbours, we are a country of 5.7M, with a total of under 40 Covid deaths so far. But the countries around us house 600M people with single digit vaccination rates, meaning our borders remain quite tight.

So when we see this, we demand to know why. Also, Singapore does extensive contact tracing and testing so we ask why, and we get answers.

The answer is this. Despite (or perhaps before) the short-term 2-person/table restaurant limit, our KTV, or private-room Karaoke bars, decided to do their own thing, inviting in "hostesses" to service groups of patrons in private rooms. Perhaps you're not a mathematologist, but if you add jugs of whisky and brandy, underemployed young women, and the aforementioned knucklefarking, then you get the biggest, and most annoying COVID cluster Singapore has had in a year.

Don't be confused, avid reader(s), for Laura and Barry have decided to do some investigative journalism to get you some more facts! Let's start looking!

We circumnavigated hazards. However, we were also confused by this sign telling us that the mall housing one of the cluster establishments, was private property that couldn't be photographed. On the other side of this door was an open grocery store.

But we know how to find our way around.

Also, this is the point at which Barry lost all enthusiasm for my detectiving and got hangry because the neighbourhood has many delicious foods. We didn't actually go INSIDE anything anyway.

Let us investigate the KTV. KTV stands for Karaoke Television, or, as I prefer, Knuckfarkers Taunting Variants.

You rent a room by the hour, get drinks, and with this, you rent a hostess or hostesses of your choosing. It appears that singing and drinking just aren't enough. There are additional services, and these are extra.

During the pandemic, once restaurants were allowed to open, KTV bars later got permission to open as restaurants, subject to the same rules. As you can see, they look like lovely places to dine.

We suspected this one was open.

Our investigative journalism also revealed that most of the bars we viewed at random had new opening hours and our strict entry scanning system, meaning they were open now. Looks like a great place for sushi, or some pasta?

One even had a hygiene certificate from March 2020!

Other nearby businesses haven't been as lucky.

Anyway, we were pretty happy with the way the cases and the vaccines were going here. While we got down to zero daily cases last week, and are now up to 88 new cases today

Now, Singapore is filled with rage. Here is some in Singlish, learn some lingo! Breaking the banana is the way to show rage.

Singapore noted that of the first 88 Knucklefarker cases, only 6 were vaccinated. That's interesting, since 80% of the population is in the vaccine process, and everyone over 12 has had the opportunity to have their first shot by now.

In my favourite irony of the week, this actual cluster location below sells branded masks and hand socks. That is, a sock you wear to protect your arm from the vicious tanning of the sun. It's as useful as wearing a condom on your foot.

So, what would Pigsy advise?

Pigsy, I think, would recommend better hobbies like bubble tea popsicles, or perhaps hanging out a bit more with the Buddha, who advises us to cultivate compassion, if not healthy eating.