He has been in Singapore for 7 years. He got his university degree here and found quite a good job soon afterwards. Terry realises he's very lucky. Being the only son of a middle-class professional family in Yangon, his parents managed to save enough to send him out of the impoverished, benighted country for a good education and a better future. There was also an uncle here in the early years helping him through, though he didn't tell me much about him.

"I wasn't gay when I was in Burma," he said. "Only after I came to Singapore."

"And after Singapore?" I had to ask.

"I don't know," he said, then stopped. "Maybe there is no 'after Singapore'," he added, with a little thought.

"This is home now?" I ventured.

"Ya, I like Singapore."

Terry never even imagined he was gay before he left Burma. He didn't know anyone gay, he had no idea what homosexuality was. But within a month of arriving in Singapore, he had his first encounter. He was bewildered. It was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

But it wasn't long -- "just 2 or 3 years," he said -- before he declared himself "officially plu".

The last few years have been great. He has money in his pocket, a life of his own, and freedom. However, telling his family about his sexual orientation has not been something he's even dreamed about. It's completely out of the question. In fact, he's been very careful even to avoid any hint of his sexuality when mixing with the Burmese community here, "just in case somebody knows somebody who knows my family."

But now, Terry has a problem. His parents are approaching retirement, and he's more than aware that they're looking to move to Singapore. Terry knows that the very reason they tightened their belts to send him here for an education was to establish a migration beachhead.

How can he say no? He'd be most ungrateful. Being their only child, how can he leave them to grow old alone in Burma?

But if they move over, there'll be no escaping the pressure to get married. There'll be no more gay life!

I tell him plenty of Singaporeans manage somehow. Family and work-wise, they're in the closet, but they still manage to find their way to saunas and into other men's hearts. Terry doesn't fully understand how that can be possible. His only experience of distance from his parents is physical distance; he's never had to juggle double lives with them in the same apartment.

At some point, I mentioned that maybe after they have settled in Singapore, he might move on to Australia or the US, although I realised at once that it was a silly suggestion, since it would do nothing to assuage the "growing old" guilt.

I expected him to throw that answer at me, but he surprised me with another reason.

"Cannot. I like Chinese," he said.

* * * * *

Terry became gay in Singapore, and it is Singaporean gayness that is imprinted on him. He uses terms like "plu" and "A.J." which are local terms that closetted guys here prefer, so that eavesdroppers won't be able to catch what they're saying.

He's acquired a certain ease with what he is and mixes easily in gay circles. Like most Singaporean gays, he doesn't feel under threat from strangers, never having experienced hurtful remarks to his face, let alone gay-bashing, so he's not looking over his shoulder all the time. Since he's a rather recent migrant, he's never experienced police harassment either, this having stopped in the early 90's. (The only situation where he becomes watchful is when his Burmese friends are around, invariably in non-gay circumstances.)

But the most remarkable admission was that he has learnt to see the Chinese male as the object of his desires.

"I don't like Angmoh, I don't like Indian," he stressed, once again using a Singaporean term for Caucasian. He's even picked up the typical Singaporean's race-consciousness.

He looks forward to having a Singaporean Chinese lover and calling this place home.

* * * * *

Last month, Michael Brosowski, the founder of Blue Dragon Children's Foundation, gave a talk in Singapore. Blue Dragon helps street kids stay in school, or go for vocational training. For his talk, Brosowski brought along two 17-year-old boys from Vietnam, to tell the audience how their lives had been changed by the foundation.

They needed a translator and one was found in a Vietnamese university student studying in Singapore.

While she was translating into English what the boys said, my friend Russell leaned over to me to say, "She's acquired a Singapore accent. She's going to go back to Vietnam and everybody's going to think that's the proper way to speak English."

* * * * *

Vietnam, as many of us know, is gradually opening up after a generation of Marxist totalitarianism. A few years ago, Hanoi sent a delegation to Singapore on a study tour, because the government needed to learn how to manage civil society. Vietnam did not have any laws to license and regulate spontaneously-organised groups, since under communist rule, they're all banned. The delegation wanted to learn about our Societies Act and the work of the Registry of Societies.

I suppose the aim was to introduce something similar in Vietnam. Perhaps they saw us as a good example of an orderly, yet relatively democratic society.

Of course, this would be the same Societies Act and the same Registry of Societies that refused to register People Like Us, a gay and lesbian group, on the ground that we jeopardised national security. These would be the same folks who imposed the condition on Roundtable, a neutral political discussion group that hoped to educate Singaporeans politically, that none of their activities should be open to the public. How does one educate the public when the public is forbidden to attend?

Never mind, this is Singapore's area of expertise we can share with fellow-ASEAN member Vietnam.

* * * * *

In the last few years, I've been struck by headlines about Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen suing a well-known opponent for defamation. Then Thai PM Thaksin suing opponents for defamation.

Did they draw inspiration from Singapore's successful use of this to silence difficult opposition figures?

* * * * *

In some ways, Singapore acts as an interface between our neighbouring countries and the Western world. This may be because we are the most English-speaking of the Southeast Asian countries, the most internationally-connected, and also because we give the appearance of modernity.

We shouldn't forget too, that we bring in perhaps thousands of foreign students each year. I am told, for China alone, Singapore gives out 800 scholarships annually. In addition, we are a magnet for migration.

But Western concepts, language, even practices of law and government get coloured when they pass through us. We don't transmit them without adding our own layers to them. The English that comes through Singapore takes on a Singaporean accent. The concepts of law and governance acquire strange twists before they reach Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian governments. And even the very western idea of egalitarian, masculinised gayness imbibe a Chinese flavouring on its way elsewhere.

It tickles Dede Oetomo, the leading Indonesian gay activist every time he thinks about the way "plu" is used. It started as an acronym for People Like Us -- the same society that Singapore's Registry of Societies spurns -- but it is now commonly used as a synonym for "gay". At first, its use was limited to Singaporean gays, but now it is common in Malaysia and Indonesia too. And who knows, perhaps one day in Burma and Vietnam.

Personally, I think it's an ugly word. It takes the English language a notch down, though not as far as politically-inspired defamation suits take law down. Both are Singapore's contributions to our region's shared futures.

© Yawning Bread