THEMES
GROWING PAINS
The story presents the pains of a country growing from a developing economy into an advanced economy. Along the way, due to shifts of economic policy and new global trends, life became shaky for many Singaporeans. Some careers vanished as new ones took their place. As in other top countries, increased wealth went hand in hand with some people losing jobs and sliding backwards and the rich squeezing the poor. This story highlights these aspects of life today.
Zul, for example, “had been a factory engineer with a promising career until several years ago, when he had been retrenched during a ‘corporate restructuring exercise’”(155). Ironically, while the nation grows wealthier, Zul grows poorer. Their nasi padang stall had sustained their growing family, but Zul’s parents “didn’t want [him] to work here.” They had higher expectations for their son. However, jobless, Zul has to rely on the nasi padang stall for his income. Worse, eventually he is forced to give up even that stall and rent a smaller one, with less profits, in order to survive. This is a case of DOWNWARD SOCIAL MOBILITY, where the son’s economic situation is worse than his parents’.
The couple’s bad fortunes are also caused by GREEDY LANDLORDS. In the 21st century, many commercial property owners hiked up the rents of offices, shops and foodstalls as they hoped to cash in on the increasing wealth of the country. They thereby crippled many small businesses or caused them to close down. The story depicts property-owners’ LACK OF CARING FOR FELLOW-SINGAPOREANS and BAD ETHICS. After having agreed to rent them his stall, one landlord calls up the next day to say he has changed his mind because someone else had offered to pay more (158). He is not concerned about keeping his word. Zul’s friends tell him not to rely on the ‘food court operators like Kopitiam or Koufu” as they not only charge rent but also “take a big cut out of your earnings”. Another landlord tries to increase the stated rent as soon as Atiqah expresses interest in his stall. Atiqah raises the issue of JUSTICE when she asks this landlord “to be fair” (161).
LIVING ON THE MARGINS
In a related issue, the story explores how minority communities cope when the economy takes a downturn in the nation.
Earlier in their life, Zul and Atiqah had occupied central positions in the nation—Zul had been a factory engineer in an era when factories were a main source of the country’s wealth and Atiqah had worked for Singapore Airlines, long a recognisable symbol of Singapore's success. The couple had enjoyed a steady income as well as power and prestige.
However, the change in their fortunes forces them to turn to their own Malay community for support, to make their living from selling Malay food. It is their last and only resort. But in this manner, they not only go from a middle-income to a low-income job, they also change places in the country—THEY MOVE FROM THE CENTRE OF SINGAPORE TO THE MARGINS.
THE CONCEPT OF MARGINALISATION—This refers to a person living in a space of unimportance in a society. The marginalised in society are those who are deprived of their equal share, whose opinions count less, and who have little or no cultural or political influence in society. In some societies, women are severely marginalised. Elderly people, the disabled and racial or ethnic minorities are also often the marginalised. You can also be literally marginalised by having to live in the outskirts of a country, out of reach of resources and infrastructure.
Why do I say that the couple are marginalised?
LITERAL MARGINALISATION—In looking for a new stall to rent, Atiqah looked for one near their home, which had good transport links. But as time passes, they “expanded their search to estates that were further away.” At one point, they even travel as far away from the physical centre of Singapore to Pulau Ubin. They finally find a stall that is outside the public transport network.
Another way in which the couple becomes marginalised is that they move from positions of multicultural privilege in the country (as factory engineer and 'Singapore Girl'), signified by Atiqah’s ability to speak “polished England and Malay as well as a little Mandarin and Hokkien” (152) to living within and serving their Malay ethnic minority community.
As small business holders, they are also marginalised in making and selling Malay food. There are fewer stalls set aside for Malay food because most places only need one that serves halal food. New Western food trends popular with the majority, such as specialty coffee and cupcakes, take precedence over halal food that appeals only to a small customer base.
THE AGONY OF DISPLACEMENT
In moving from the centre to the margins, Zul and Atiqah experience the pain of DISPLACEMENT, of being chucked out from a place in which they had felt comfortable.
Although Atiqah had voluntarily quit from SIA for personal reasons, she feels its loss. This is evident in the many flashbacks to her days at SIA. Note the CONTRASTING IMAGERY of Atiqah here. The imagery of her as SIA flight attendant contrasts with her current imagery as stallholder. In her previous life, she would make “small talk about her favourite places in Paris or Los Angeles” (157), wore the SQ uniform with make-up and “neatly shaped” toenails painted in bright red, but now she had “chipped fingernails”, wore a “food-stained Bossini t-shirt”. “comfortable, but hardly fashionable cargo pants,” and not genuine but “imitation Crocs shoes” (155).
The pain is aptly conveyed in the SIMILE of a METAL AIRPLANE MEAL CART being shoved into Atiqah’s ribs (151), forcing Atiqah to focus on “maintaining her balance”. The displacement, first from working in a prestigious airline job to running a food stall and later moving from a big stall to a smaller one, leads her to lose her equilibrium and she has to do whatever she can to steady herself in life, not to be rattled by these changes. The simile also conveys her SHOCK at life’s sudden turns.
The recognition of an IMBALANCE IN POWER is also evident when Atiqah notes the contrast between “the dimunitive Mr Tan”, her landlord, the one with the power to reduce her earning potential by raising the rent, and her powerless ‘tall and broad-shouldered” husband, Zul (152). The IRONY in the contrast between size and the possession of power suggests Atiqah is haunted by a sense of injustice, that the changes in the couple’s life are unfair. In fact, she voices this pain when she tells a prospective landlord, “I’m just asking you to be fair” (161).
The pain of displacement is also conveyed when Atiqah felt “her stomach twist, as if she’d eaten something bad” on being told that a hawker stall is available at a staff canteen at Changi Airport. The HAWKER STALL AT THE STAFF CANTEEN itself is a SYMBOL of the displacement Atiqah experiences from flying high in the skies to working at a canteen for grounded staff. But we also realise this knowledge of her fall is unpleasant and is compared (SIMILE) to introducing something poisonous into her system.
The SIA “welcome home” message is recited in the story in an IRONIC TONE (160) to convey how displacement feels like homelessness. Atiqah sees an SIA plane and bitterly mouths to herself the message, “And to all Singaporeans and residents of Singapore, welcome home.” But Atiqah has lost her ‘home’, Singapore having become a place which does not cherish her, where she cannot feel comfortable and secure as we usually do in our homes.
What is the significance of that MYSTERIOUS HOSPITAL VISIT?
At least twice Atiqah refers to a hospital visit that obviously had upset her. She calls it a "heartbreaking visit" and, following it, invested all her time and energy into developing the food stall, creating new dishes and rempahs for it.
From the clues given in the story, the most plausible explanation is that Atikah had been pregnant and that she had lost the baby, presumably discovering this at the hospital visit. It can't have been an illness because Atiqah doesn't appear to have health problems and she does refer to her daughter needing "someone to play with".
This loss however is not the reason that Atiqah left SIA. She left before the miscarriage and her husband notes that she had been too tired. Presumably she had wanted instead to be self-employed, wanting the bonus to start a new business. She also seems to have wanted to give more time to being a mother.
Why is the narrator so mysterious about this hospital visit, deliberately withholding information from the reader? Could it be a strategy to make the reader focus on how devastating the loss was for Atiqah?
Since the story is told in third person limited narrative perspective, we are given entry to Atiqah's thoughts. Is it the narrator who does not want to name the cause of Atiqah's misery or is it Atiqah who wants to be silent, indicating her inability to come to grips with her loss?
Certainly this mysterious hospital visit makes the reader aware that this is not just a story about ethnic marginalisation but also about gender disempowerment. Atiqah is after all the iconic "Singapore Girl" who is down on her luck.
The BEGINNING & ENDING of the story
Always pay attention to the way stories begin and end. The beginning usually lays out important themes while the ending tells us if the central conflict is resolved.
The story begins with Atiqah being told by the landlord that the stall rent would be raised due to renovation--the coffee shop was going to be modernised and made more comfortable with new furniture. Since the couple couldn't even afford the discounted rent, they would have to look for another stall to rent. Immediately, some themes are signalled here--DISPLACEMENT, UNEQUAL POWER and SOCIAL JUSTICE.
The TITLE of the story, “WHAT THEY’RE DOING HERE” seems cryptic. It could be a Singlish compression of the question, “What are they doing here?” Such a question suggests that someone is where they don’t belong or ought not to be, or that they’re taking up another person’s rightful place. When applied to this story, it seems to refer to life’s twists and turns, to the moments when events happen that cruelly remove us from the path we had chosen for ourselves and set us on another (undesired) course. It's similar to asking, "How did they end up here?"
The title links to the final scene in the story where the couple are cleaning out their old stall and preparing for the next phase of their life. Zul is depressed as he recounts how both he and his parents had been determined that he should not remain stuck in the hawker business. As the “last burst of water slid out of the hose”, signifying the end of hope for renewal, Zul says, “I don’t know what I’m doing here also” (163), expressing confusion about how he had arrived “here”, at this place of failure.
The OLFACTORY IMAGERY of the fuel odor at the next stall triggers memories for Atiqah
of that peculiar chemical smell inside the airplane cabin just before takeoff, when the plane was sealed and stilled, and she was strapped into her flight attendant’s seat, and it was too late, no matter how tired she was, to get off the plane…it was too late to do anything but to go on.
The story appears to end on a note of closed possibilities in life, of being trapped in a place that was entirely wrong or inappropriate for the couple.
But not so fast. Do take note of the symbolism in the hose that Zul using to clean up the stall. We are told that he
twitched the hose this way and that, with far more reckless liberty than usual, as if he was chasing invisible creatures.
The cleaning could signify the desire for renewal. It could also suggest that the couple no longer want to play the game of being victim of circumstances. They are ready for "liberty". The story ends with them standing together, "waiting until they knew what to do next." It seems that they may not after all continue with the nasi padang business but look for something that better suited their training and talent.