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MUTHU: “Ah Kow, how is your son doing over at Stamford?”

AH KOW: *slurps noodles* “Oh, brilliant, brilliant.”

MUTHU:  “Have you heard the latest news about our beloved Government? The price of water, my old chap, it’s being raised again!”

“Good gracious. 70% of our native population truly enjoys being sodomized!”

MUTHU: :*clears throat, spits*  “Alas, my good Ah Kow, ALAS! What native population do you speak of? We have been Infiltrated by barbarian HORDES! Truly a travesty, I tell you. Oh, I yearn for the days where all you heard on the trains was Singlish. Dear, dear, Singlish.”

AH KOW: “Is this going to be another goddamn play about censorship, now? Singaporean playwrights have got no bloody creativity, do they?”

MUTHU: “But what would you expect, Ah Kow, it’s been stamped out of them by an oppressive regime.”

AH KOW: “Get your head out of the gutter, Muthu. Thoughtless heterodoxy is no better than blindly following the orthodoxy. Let us not make excuses for what is. Let us build what isn’t.”

MUTHU: “But we are just ah peks, Ah Kow. We are not educated. We are racist, sexist, small-minded, superstitious, afraid, egoistic. What could we possibly do, other than drink Guinness at 2 in the afternoon and shake our fists at our fate?”

AH KOW: “You make me sad, Muthu. You have internalized the myopia of those lesser than you. What happened to your vision, for yourself, for the world? Where’s that fiery, passionate man I was drawn to in my youth?

MUTHU:  “That I do not know, Ah Kow. It seems life has beaten him down, dragged him through fire and shattered glass. The vagaries of everyday living have conquered his soul. I do not wish to think about it. Pour me another glass, please.”