Not just for chuckles

The two stories here (in the pale yellow boxes) from the Straits Times would have had little more than chuckle value to most readers. In the first story, we think Metro Manila Development Authority chairman Bayani Fernando's ordinance silly and few will believe that it will make any difference. A few years earlier, we might have thought Thai Prime Minister Thaksin's outburst (see the 2nd story) equally inconsequential, but in the light of his Social Order Campaign, one cannot confidently say that it will come to nought. His Social Order Campaign has brought some disruption, if not much orderliness, to many entertainment places in Thailand.

Me being me, I read rather more from these stories than met the eye.

To me, they illustrated an ongoing process of cultural change, and the tensions it brings. In the long view, there's a steady modernisation going on in Southeast Asian societies.

Modernisation in this epoch often means importing many values and practices from the West. This is not restricted to the latest fads and, more seriously, liberal, green and post-modernist ideas, but also the Western conservative, "establishment" values and habits as well.

The fads have appeal, especially to the younger generation, because they're trendy and rebellious, yet at the same time, usually upscale and aspirational.

The conservative Western values have appeal too -- to a different set of Asians -- because they are seen to have been the bedrock upon which Western economic success is built. For Asians keen to see similar economic success in their part of the world, there's a natural tendency to want to emulate the mainstream values and habits of the Western countries.

Both these cultural imports, while conflicting with each other just as they do in Europe and America, also clash with social practices that are traditional to the respective Asian country. There's a three-way conflict going on.

If we look beyond just dismissing the Fernando's dress code for male Filipinos as unrealistic, we can see two underlying issues.

Firstly, it is completely impractical in the mid-day heat of the Philippines. Some months of the year, it can reach 35 or 40 degrees Celsius in Manila, with humidity in the region of 90%. If you have to do any kind of physical work, such as pushing your foodcart down the street, or delivering a crate of beer, you will be soaked in perspiration within minutes. Working shirtless is the most practical response to the climate.

Does the MMDA chairman not know this? Does this not indicate a lack of empathy between the rulers and the ruled? Indeed, it's often been said that social mobility is very low in the Philippines; politicians often come from privileged dynasties. Perhaps they've never done a day's physical work in their lives, and don't know what it feels like to exert themselves in the sun. Perhaps they live entire lives in airconditioned comfort, far removed from the struggles of the poor trying to make ends meet.

Secondly, Fernando said that only if we're properly dressed, "can we say we're civilised." It's easy for readers to speed past such a remark without pausing to think. But we should, for it's an insidious statement. The moment we think about it, we see that it opens a window to an examination of this process of westernisation or modernisation.

The idea that clothes make a person civilised is a result of European imperialism. European societies evolved in a temperate climate. One had to wear clothes out of necessity. Like all human societies, adornment was a marker of status, and in European societies, adornment often meant adornment of clothing. Finer clothes maketh a finer man.

Since Europeans were the civilised nations, since Europeans wore clothes, therefore wearing clothes is civilised, going about dressed less or differently, is not.

Now that I've pointed it out starkly, you may see how flawed this logic is, but alas, billions of people today have bought into it. 

Christianity also had much to do with this cultural value of covering up. Growing out of tribal societies inhabiting the Near East, Christianity shares with Judaism and Islam, an abhorrence of nakedness, even the human form. This idea is very particular to these three religions, reflecting a social value the prehistoric tribes must have had. If we look around other human cultures and societies, we don't often see the same phobia about the human body and, yes, sex.

Even the founding myth of the Old Testament has Adam and Eve realising, with some shock, that they were naked when they were chased out of Eden. It was a big deal to them, and to all the clerics, missionaries and believers who came after.

These two strands – Christianity's abhorrence of human physicality and the necessary custom of wearing clothes in a temperate climate – merged and reinforced each other, to create the cultural value of covering up. But it's not a universal value. Egyptian Pharoahs, from depictions, were all shirtless, and they were monarchs! Contestants in ancient Greek Olympics, and even today, the Hindu holy men, dispensed with more than shirts.

The colonialists have long left. But the job of spreading Western values (now relabelled "modernisation") continues. It is carried valiantly on by the likes of the MMDA chairman and many others trying either to drive their countries to progress, or at least to mask their lack of progress by getting street vendors to ape angmohs, gwailos, farangs or gaijins.

Prime Minister Thaksin's disapproval of Nivea's marketing gimmick springs from the same impulse. He felt that having a svelte model wear a bikini and douse herself within a shower stall made of frosted acrylic, thereby titillating the public, was immoral and contrary to Thai culture.

Funny, that. It wasn't that long ago that Siamese women would wrap themselves with a light sarong and bathe communally in the nearby river. I'm sure, in many parts of Thailand today, it's still the practice. I'm also sure, through the ages, young Siamese men peeped at, met and seduced their women in such situations.

But now, it's immoral to shower where others might see you, and it certainly isn't Thai!

The thing I found most disturbing was Thaksin saying, "The police should have stopped it. A police weakness is that they wait for policy changes before acting."

Hold on a minute. In the exercise of authority, the police should indeed wait for a clear policy from their political masters, backed by clear legislation, before they act. Once the police begins to use its powers without proper mandate, it's an erosion of citizens' liberties.

Liberties are trampled upon in the name of morality and "civilisation". And news stories that look good for mere chuckles may yet presage shackles on us all.

* * * * *

It may come as a surprise to those who think Singapore unremittingly dour and puritanical to learn that we have had our version of a model taking a shower on the streets. 

A few months back, the bulletin board of sgboy.com, a popular gay website, was all agog over a marketing campaign for a shaver. The shaver company set up a shower stall at 2 places with very high pedestrian traffic – outside Heeren shopping centre along Orchard Road and at Raffles Place. 

The "show", which ran for perhaps a month, featured a hunky male model showering and then shaving himself. He had a skimpy bikini and the shower stall was not frosted like Bangkok's. There were apparently, different models on different days, which doubtlessly led to even more viewer attention.

Presumably, the whole point of the demonstration was to show how smoothly the shaver would shave, and I did wonder if the advertiser might have allowed the spectators to feel the model's chin and perhaps chest, to convince themselves. But alas, I think Singapore hasn't reached that level of sophistication yet.

And no, there was no police reaction. Rather, I'm sure they had a police permit, as such events must require in this bureaucratic place.

© Yawning Bread 

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