Siow Ling, The Lucky One

Part II

She did not tell anyone except for Teck Meng, the father of her child. She was aided in her deception by the fact that her mother was hardly home. During her pregnancy, she neither visited a gynaecologist nor made preparations for the baby’s arrival. She was 13 and knew next to nothing about pregnancy and delivery. As it turned out, she went into labour without even realising it. She thought it was stomach cramp. Miraculously, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl without any complications.

As Siow Ling was under-aged, the hospital had to notify the authorities who suggested that the baby be put up for adoption. But Siow Ling would have none of it and it was eventually decided that her mother would act as the child’s guardian while the child would carry Siow Ling’s surname.

Siow Ling settled into her role of a mother quickly, learning the skills from her sister-in-law who had given birth around the same time. Parenthood brought a sense of responsibility to the couple who started to take their work at the coffee shop seriously, selling food from 6pm to 6am daily. Everything seemed to be falling into place – until her arrest for dealing in opium one fateful day.

For those who knew Siow Ling’s background, this did not come as a surprise. Her real father was an opium smoker and as a child, Siow Ling was told to buy it either for his consumption or as a prayer item for the altar. She was told that it was a sedative that could alleviate pain. So Siow Ling never saw opium smoking as a vice.

By the time she turned 11, Siow Ling had moved from buying opium for her family to acting as a decoy for an aunt who sold the drug. She would follow this aunt everywhere, little knowing that she was in fact serving as a cover for the drug dealing. By 13, Siow Ling was so familiar with the business that she became an independent courier. She would collect the drug from an uncle, ‘Ah Heng’, and despatched it in smaller quantities to the buyers. It was her boss who arranged her opium transactions with Ah Heng.

Necessity also played a part in Siow Ling’s involvement in the drug business. Her family needed the money. Her mother was a ‘tontine’1 head but while she was serving time for her part in some stolen goods scam, several members of her tontine group ran off with the money. Being the head, she had to make good the loss to the other members. That was when Siow Ling started despatching opium. She wanted to help her mother pay back the tontine money.

The opium she dealt in soon grew in volume and frequency – from weekly transactions to once every two days. The demands of her clients also took a different form. Instead of raw opium, they now asked for cooked opium – a request she readily acceded to because she could earn more money from it. Ironically, she saw very little of the money because her boss collected all of it, leaving her with only the “loose change”.

It was also ironical that when Siow Ling was busted for the drug, it was supposed to be her last transaction. She was quitting because the weariness of cooking and selling the opium was taking a heavy toll on her. As she could only cook the opium at night, she had to stay up till the next morning to complete the cooking. This upset her routine, especially in the caring of her child. The ever-increasing amount of opium that she was made to deal in also frightened her. Her boss was getting ambitious and the fear of getting caught with a large volume of drugs was getting to her.

Although such a scenario had loomed at the back of her mind, her arrest by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) still came as a traumatic shock. She did not know how to react and her mind went completely blank. But her instincts told her to protect her boss at all costs. She simply could not rat on him because that would surely send him to the gallows. She was emotionally too close to him to do that. She would keep mum and protect as many people as she could.

Emotionally, she had no support. She was depressed and it got worse when she finally realised how naive she was in hoping that the boss whom she had protected would do something to help her. Do what? Surrender himself? In the end, she had to accept the fact that she alone was to shoulder the blame.

This was not her only piece of naivety. For some reason, Siow Ling thought she would serve her sentence in Toa Payoh Girls’ Home and could leave as soon as she turned 21. The harsh reality sank in only after she was transferred from the Girls’ Home to Changi Women’s Prison. Even then, she thought it was only for the short term. It did not help that her family members tried to cheer her up by giving her false hope. It was several years later that she came to accept that she would spend the rest of her teenage years – and more – in prison.

For the first two years of her life in prison, she cried herself to sleep every night. She was overwhelmed by a sense of betrayal and hopelessness. She was also struggling to cope with life inside the prison walls. As a way of coping, she deliberately choked off her feelings for the people on the outside, including her daughter. Everything seemed so bleak and hopeless.

But she found a shaft of light at the end of her tunnel in 1994 when she decided to embrace Christianity. She started reading the Bible and through her weekly religious counselling, found strength and hope. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, she decided to make the most of her time in prison. In 1995, she took up studies. She completed her BEST and WISE classes and went on to do her ‘O’ levels where she scored five ‘As’ and a ‘B’, making her Changi Women Prison’s top student for 1998. Her goal is to pursue a degree in Economics or Management.

Siow Ling is determined that her child, Tammy, would not go the same way as her. Even though she is in prison, she takes pains to make the best childcare arrangements for her daughter because she knows the importance of proper supervision and guidance. This is the best that she can do for now. But as she watches Tammy grow up, she will be longing for the day when she can provide her with the motherly care and affection for which she once craved but never received.

Part I

1 Tontine is an illegal group of members who contribute to a pool of funds on a monthly basis. Any member in need of money could bid for the funds and pay back the rest of the members with interest the subsequent months. The head of the Tontine would collect and distribute the money to the members accordingly.

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