Orchids, orchids everywhere! The national flower of Singapore is an orchid - the Vanda Miss Joaquim, to be exact. The National Orchid Garden, located at the highest point in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, displays over 600 species and nearly 500 hybrids. “Orchid” can be found in the name of hotels, corporations, restaurants, streets and residential communities. Orchids are the pride of the nation.
I’ve never been a big fan of orchids. It began when I discovered Raymond Chandler and Damon Runyon at the tender age of 14. (Bear in mind that my mother would not allow me to read any book by Judy Blume.) I was babysitting every Saturday night for the hippest mother in my neighborhood. When I couldn’t watch another episode of Love Boat and Fantasy Island I hit her bookshelf for a “good” read. Chandler’s first, The Big Sleep, was my first too. The dialogue between the dames and dolls, thugs and two-bit players captivated me. I felt a bit naughty reading the thoughts of men, but also wiser for learning the language of the denizens of the underbelly of the cities. It is my pulp fiction favorite partly because of Howard Hawk’s first-rate movie version staring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. In both the book and the movie there is a brief mention of orchids.
The other night I was watching The Big Sleep on TCM again for the first time. My dislike for orchids stems from the following exchange between Philip Marlowe and General Sternwood:
Sternwood: I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider. The orchids are an excuse for the heat. Do you like orchids?
Marlowe: Not particularly.
Sternwood: Nasty things! Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.
Knowing that William Faulkner wrote the screenplay (amazing, right?), I decided to read the same scene from the book. As written by Chandler:
Sternwood: I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider. The orchids are an excuse for the heat. Do you like orchids?
Marlowe: Not particularly.
Sternwood: They are nasty things! Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. And their perfume has the rotten sweetness of a prostitute.
Corruption and prostitutes. Would it be too obvious to compare the city-state to pulp fiction? Is it base to relate the racket of sand smuggling into Singapore with the underground world of Eddie Mars? Is it rotten of me to point out that Miss Singapore wore an elaborate orchid costume during the 2009 Miss Universe pageant? That wouldn’t capture the essence of Singapore now would it?
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