Samsui Woman: Leave the mural AND wall alone

The Urban Redevelopment Authority seemed eager to please as many people as it could in the so-called controversy over the Samsui Woman mural on 297 South Bridge Road.

In the end, I think it just wanted to ensure that its fellow agency, the Ministry of Health, was given some face.

All I can say is: The MOH’s laudable national anti-smoking campaign or policy cannot be so fragile that it can be affected by an innocuous piece of art.

If so, the MOH should rethink its strategy and perhaps even consider totally banning smoking; then, the whole issue of undermining becomes irrelevant.

CNA reported: “According to Sean Dunston (the artist), URA ordered the removal of the cigarette following feedback from a member of the public who found the mural ‘offensive’ and ‘disrespectful’ to samsui women.

URA later clarified that it had asked for the mural to be modified in view of Singapore’s anti-smoking stance, and not because of public feedback.

Dunston wrote in Instagram on Jun 19 that the complainant described the woman in his mural as looking ‘more like a prostitute than a hardworking samsui woman’.”

There were layers of issues and some convoluted and objectionable objections in the immediate and early reactions. She’s young and good-looking, so she’s a call girl.

First, the contempt for the poor women in the world’s oldest profession was undisguised and palpable. Such vehemence for the unfortunate women who had to sell their bodies for survival or perhaps to take care of their families!

Next, young and good-looking girls tend to be prostitutes. Where did that come from?

Then there was the assumption that most, if not all, hardworking samsui women must be ugly. Thus, can women not be both hardworking AND attractive?

Away from all this mala hotpot of clear and unclear biases and misguided attempts to fly the flag for something or the other, what is the big picture here?

The real issue arising from the Samsui Woman mural is the role of URA in ensuring that Singapore does not end up being an over-sanitised city with neither colour nor life, where everything is “guidelined” and micromanaged to death.

We are beginning to show some life, but not enough. I count at least 10 places in Singapore that host street murals of a certain standard.

They include those found in places like Bali Lane, Joo Chiat, Chinatown and Little India. Only the one in Little India, which depicts a smiling old man drinking tea, provokes reactions because there is life in that mural.

And I had to go all the way to one of the walls of the Australian International School in Lorong Chuan to find another spectacular mural – the ponderous face of an Australian of Aboriginal ancestry.

It is obvious the URA may want to do more. It was careful to explain, in a joint statement with MOH, “that the mural is not an advertisement for tobacco, which is against the law, and is largely perceived as an art piece…

We will therefore work with the building owner to find appropriate ways to mitigate any impact that the mural may have in promoting smoking, without modifying the mural itself.”

Take one more important step. Do nothing.

Singapore as a society needs to grow up, accept that life and people are not perfect and should push back very strongly on the idea that everything has to be controlled and regulated.

Let’s leave the Samsui Woman mural on 297 South Bridge Road well alone. Do not do anything, least of all, insert any kind of ugly and incongruous anti-smoking message anywhere on the wall, inside or outside the mural.

Tan Bah Bah is a former senior leader writer with The Straits Times. He was also managing editor of a magazine publishing company