Merchant of Singapore

A lot of us did this for “O” levels. It’s a story that a lot of school kids in Singapore know. And you know Singapore is a shipping hub with all those merchants everywhere.

And in the same year I did my “O”s, There was a gang in my class of 3 guys. Now you know my school is famous for being a nerd school (even though the most famous alumnus – LKY – is a gangster), which is why when we have people smoking and cursing in Hokkien in my class I give them a lot of respect.

That’s when it hit me the other day, that a beng version of the Merchant of Venice would be a great idea. Consider the possibilities:-

Shylock is a loanshark. When he makes his plea, he’ll say something like, “you guys are only doing this to me because I’m a beng. Does a beng not have feelings?” But if you are really really brave, you can make him Indian who lapses into Tamil when he gets angry, and you can have the rest of the cast call him a “chao bhayee”. But that would mean the film will never be released in Singapore.

Bassanio is a cheongster. Always going to the hottest nightspots, always spending money like a drunken sailor, vain, narcissistic and always living beyond his means. I never really liked that guy and it’s just sad that in Singapore you can reach out and grab him out of any given crowd.

Antonio would be the rich businessman. Now it’s very unlikely these days that he would be a merchant who needs his goods to be delivered and they don’t arrive because of the weather. So maybe either he’s got credit problems now because his capital is tied up in bio research, or he will only get paid when he delivers a software solution but his programmers have hit a snag.

Now we always suspected that Antonio and Bassanio are gay lovers. There will be no need to speculate anything in this movie. It will be out in the open, completely explicit and unexpurgated.

Portia can be the classic Ah Lian. She will always be skimpily dressed and will have a killer figure. It could be unexpected that she will become an attorney but there’s nothing wrong with Ah Lians being very quick thinkers and being very sharp on their feet.

If the movie really revolves around the Singapore shipping industry we can have most of the dialogue in Hokkien. We can also have Portia lapse into Hokkien while the judge always reminds her to “use channel 5”.