William Deng Fei
June 2025, Tanjong Beach, Singapore
The line of cars outside my residence in Sentosa Cove was astoundingly long. My neighbours, I thought, wondering how I'd clear out this traffic obstruction that I hadn't even known about. Encik1 Sulaiman opened the automatic gate and parked my Mercedes neatly under the car porch.
"Thank you, Encik," I said as I did every evening. Today, I was home one hour earlier than usual, which meant he could have a short day too. "Have a good evening and enjoy the time off."
"Thank you, sir," he said, hopping onto his Vespa parked by the gate. And then he was off.
When I opened my front door, I was swarmed by a gaggle of little boys in white short sleeve cotton shirts and navy blue shorts. My son Bennet was standing there by the doorway, collecting a five-dollar note from each one of them.
"What is this?" I asked. "Bennet, are you extorting money from your friends?"
"No," said Bennet with an angelic grin. Sensing my silence to be ominous, he hesitated. "Or yes. What is 'extorting'? Is it a good thing or a bad thing?"
"Bennet gave us Chinese tuition," piped up one of the boys. "It's five dollars for one afternoon."
"And he is more fun than my Chinese tutor," added another boy. "My mummy should pay him instead."
"Bennet, give the money back," I ordered. "Now."
With his lips sticking out in a pout, Bennet handed back one green plastic note to each of the boys. "Never mind," he said. "Next time, I will still give you tuition. Just when my daddy is not around."
"You're not allowed to collect money, OK?" I said to him. "It's ridiculous for you to be giving tuition when you're not even seven yet."
"Is it, really?" said Elizabeth. I hadn't noticed her in the background. "His Chinese teacher says the whole class has a much higher standard than she expected. At least they're speaking Chinese in the proper tones, instead of sounding like white people reading the phonetics as if they were English words." Anglo-Chinese School's reputation as the local rich-boy school went far and wide. So did its notoriety for having a hopelessly low standard of Mandarin, as rich boys tended also to have the greatest access to Western influences (though I wasn't sure if that was really true anymore). With the Caucasian half of Bennet having won out in his appearance, he fit right into the mould in terms of his looks, and I thought I could train him deeply enough in his Chinese roots to overcome any impediments in his Mandarin education. He had barely started primary school, and I apparently had done a good enough job for him to start making bank out of it.
"My mummy is waiting outside," said one boy. "I need to go home. Late already."
"OK," said Bennet cheerfully. "See you on Monday, OK?" Monday would be the start of the June school holidays. There was no way these kids were going to see each other in school. That meant he'd probably invited them over again. I wished I could dis-invite them, but I knew it would be unacceptably churlish of me to do so.
With a chorus of "Me too's" and "Bye-bye's", the flood of boys ran out the front door, each one hopping into a chauffeur- or parent- driven car. Elizabeth smiled and waved to the convoy of cars, guilting me into following suit.
"How can you possibly teach tuition?" I berated when the line of cars had vanished. "You're only in Primary One2. And besides, your friends will make too much noise for Jie Jie3 to concentrate on studying for her PSLE4."
"Actually, Daddy, I don't hear them at all," said my eleven-year-old daughter Joy. "They are always in the game room downstairs, and I just close my door and on the air-con."
"Besides," she continued, "PSLE is easy. I already finished all the RGPS5 sample papers you made me do last year, remember?"
"Sir," said our helper Suryati, "it is good that Di-di6 has so many friends." Bennet certainly took after Elizabeth in that aspect; even from the tender age of two, he had always magnetically attracted other kids. Still, I would be fine if he was merely inviting friends over to play at our house. Claiming to teach his friends, in exchange for money no less, felt too disingenuous to be comfortable.
"Bennet, can you tell me how you teach your friends?" I finally said.
"I tell them all the stories you told us." he replied, "Monkey King, Three Kingdoms and Yang Gui Fei7. Every time, I try to use the words we learned in school."
"Yang Gui Fei?" I was incredulous. "I never told you that story, you're too young to know about concubines."
"I watched it at Nai Nai's8 house when you sent me there last year," came Bennet's cheeky rejoinder. It seemed that I'd have plenty to say to my mom the next time I called her; not least, how terribly she'd corrupted her grandson in the name of educating him in the Chinese classics.
"Surely you know it's not OK for a man to have many wives," I blurted out. "You shouldn't believe everything you watch." Great, now I was encouraging him to disregard the very Chinese classics I'd wanted him to grow up with. Why did everything have to go wrong right at the start of my vacation and the June school holidays?
"I know," said Bennet cheerfully. "It's not OK for normal people, but kings can have many wives."
"Bennet, can you say the Singapore pledge?" interjected Elizabeth. It seemed she had something up her sleeve, and I was silently grateful. She always knew how to get me out of the worst situations.
"We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united nation," recited Bennet. "Regardless of race, language or religion, to build a democratic society, based on justice and equality, so as to achieve happiness, prosperity, and progress for our nation."
"Very good," Elizabeth said in her best proud-mommy voice, "and do you know what a democratic society is?"
"It means there are no kings, only presidents," declared Bennet proudly. "Like Singapore. We don't have a king, but we have a president and a prime minister."
"And why is a democracy good?" continued Elizabeth.
"Because kings can do bad things and nobody can stop them," said Bennet. "And a prime minister cannot. The people can fire him if he does too many bad things."
"I don't need many wives when I'm doing fine with just one," I said, leaning over and giving Elizabeth a kiss, much to the children's chagrin. "Being the king of this family is enough."
"Eeee9!" exclaimed Bennet, puckering up his face. "Daddy, that's so gross!"
"Come," said Joy, grabbing Bennet's hand and leading him toward the stairs going to the basement game room. "Let's play Mario Kart until dinnertime."
If I'd been my normal self, or a normal Singaporean, I would've had a conniption. During this dreaded year of the PSLE, the twelfth year of every Singaporean child's life, all manner of enjoyment is supposed to be verboten. After all, who knew whether that one Playstation game or that one trip to the playground might have made the difference between your child going to the top or the second-best secondary school? But with Elizabeth in the house, that would never be the case for either of our children.
Or for me. Having just one wife never felt like a better idea. And she had it right after all to let the kids have a break now and then, even in spite of the PSLE. We – or maybe Joy – might pay the price if she didn't get into Nanyang Girls' High School, but for now, the stolen moments of privacy that game of Mario Kart afforded us were more than worth it.
1 Encik is Malay for "Mr.", i.e. in this case, Encik Sulaiman means Mr. Sulaiman.
2 Primary One is first grade.
3 Jie Jie is Chinese for "big sister".
4 PSLE is the Primary School Leaving Examination, which kids take at the end of Primary Six (6th grade) to advance into secondary school.
5 RGPS is Raffles Girls' Primary School, the most prestigious primary school for girls in Singapore. Joy in this story is attending Nanyang Primary, the most prestigious Special Assistance Plan (SAP) school in Singapore. SAP schools teach Chinese as a first language (the default is Chinese as a second language) and focus heavily on Chinese culture. That is why William wants Joy to go into the affiliated Nanyang Girls' High School next. It is common for students to drill for the PSLE by doing sample papers from other top schools besides their own.
6 Di-Di is Chinese for "little brother".
7 Yang Gui Fei was the favored consort (not even a concubine) of one of the Tang dynasty emperors.
8 Nai Nai is the Chinese term for addressing / referring to one's maternal grandmother.
9 Westerners say "Ewww", Singaporeans say "Eeeee" with the tone going up at the end. Same thing.