Kopi with Bertha: When it’s not about the food

by Bertha Henson

I HAVE always thought that the heartland hawker centre is what Singapore is about. Until I went to the food court at the Singapore General Hospital. I have had to go to the Kopitiam at Block 5 several times over the past month, elbowing uniformed nurses and stethoscope-wearing doctors for a seat. Of course, there was also much tip-toeing around patients, in their beige or blue colours depending on gender, and navigating around the wheelchair-bound. Then there is the mass of human beings who are not staff nor patients, for whom the food court is simply a place to assuage hunger pangs, because there isn’t much of a choice of places to eat,

There are few teenagers here. No students in uniform. But there was a fair sprinkling of toddlers or at least those of nursery age. There to see grandpa or grandma, I suppose.

I see well-dressed people who would be more comfortable in a cafe. The people in flip-flops, the people in designer shoes, the people in suits, the people in T-shirts which have seen better days.

I wonder who they came to see, which close friend or relative, what illness or whether they were recovering. But truth to tell, I have never overheard any conversation about patients. Lunch is always a hurried affair for most, probably because they have an eye on visiting hours or have to get back to their workplace. Or maybe just the act of visiting someone in hospital isn’t something that encourages loquacity.

You can tell the foreigner and the unfamiliar for whom this activity of buying food was a novelty. You can tell because they take too long ordering and are always fumbling for change. Members of the hoi polloi, on the other hand, are always decisive about what to eat, with wallet at the ready. Orders are crisp. Transaction-efficient. There is no fumbling to fill little saucers with chilli or forgetting to take the utensils.

So there I was one day sitting at a table with two elderly women who looked like they had just stepped out of the beauty salon and nail spa. They were tucking into chendol while I was having my braised duck rice. They told me their chendol, at $2.80 a bowl, was delicious. All I could say was “so expensive’’! They marveled that my duck rice cost $4 and I agreed that it was worthwhile given that there was half an egg and some tau kwa as well. They blinked, wondering what I was about.

I overheard them talking about getting a coffee but it seemed the queue was putting them off. I helpfully said that the queue moved quite fast and that it would cost them less than a buck. So cheap, they said, until I told them my neighbourhood coffeeshop sold coffee for just 80 cents.

I wondered why I kept talking about price when it was clear that they could afford it. In fact, they would have appreciated paying someone to bring the coffee to them! I wondered which ‘A’ class patient they were visiting.

It always makes me feel warm inside to see family members with the patient eating together. It is like dinner at home, but in a hospital. There is no television to distract anyone and the handphone is left to one side. I saw a grandpa lovingly feeding his grand-daughter, while his daughter (or daughter-in-law) was lovingly feeding him. I heard a patient telling her helper to eat, and the helper saying the same to her madam. I caught sight of a young patient in crutches whose mother brought his tray to him and immediately whipped out a packet of tissue from her bag to place on his tray.

Oh, and the other day, I saw an ang moh with a female patient. He was totally at a loss about what to do, probably overwhelmed by the mass of humans. The woman, lithe and with long hair in the peach patient uniform, decided to do the ordering and queuing herself. What a useless man, I thought to myself. And she, the patient!

But there are patients who eat alone, like an elderly man in a wheelchair I spied spooning red bean soup. I wondered how he queued for his desert. Did people make way for him to get to the front?

I look around the foodcourt and I realise that we are there because we have someone whom we care about. Our minds are concentrated on the visit, what to say or what comfort to bring to our loved ones. We come from all over Singapore with one motive. And it’s not the food.

 

Featured image by Natassya Diana.

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- Bertha Henson