A Tradition of Small Things

Chapter 9 – A Tradition of Small Things

Changi’s cold air stepped aside at the sliding doors and let the humidity claim him like an elder relative. Aleem’s backpack thumped against his shoulder in the rhythm of a week that had done its job: warehouse audit, trains with posture, a museum where light behaved. Singapore smelled like bread at noon and bus brakes at dusk. He took the East-West line and watched the city accept him without asking for a report.

At home, his mother pretended not to have tracked his flight. “Shoes,” she said, pointing at the mat as if the mat were a contract. Then, softer, “You ate?”

“Konbini,” he said, which in their vocabulary meant Yes, but make me tea anyway. He placed the Hyōgo museum ticket on the shelf beside the white crane and the lightstick. The paper looked like it had learned to stand up straight by being near the crane.

The WhatsApp chimed: Zara – Kopi? Stadium planning? I want to pretend a spreadsheet is a picnic. Kai followed with, I bring curry puffs. I am a man of culture.

At the kopitiam, the ceiling fans clacked like reliable aunties. Zara spread a cloth tote’s worth of sanity on the table: venue maps, last year’s debrief, a tiny stapler that could negotiate peace. “Fourth tour,” she said, gleeful and pragmatic. “We’re not new anymore. We’re tradition.”

Aleem grinned at the word. “Tradition is just repetition with good manners.”

“Exactly.” She tapped the map. “Crew banner block–same central bowl cluster? We keep it A4 to respect sightlines, we coordinate two adjacent sections so it reads on camera but still stays low.”

“Two blocks are okay if ushers are happy,” Aleem said. “Clean type. No waving. Final bow only.”

Kai pointed with a curry puff, dangerously. “And we recruit fresh hands. Last year’s volunteers are now elders; they must pass down sacred knowledge of cable‑management and smiling at ushers until ushers smile back.”

Aleem had already drafted the training post. He opened his laptop, the screen a polite rectangle of work. “Two sign‑in tables at Gates 3 and 5. Stacks of THANK YOU, CREW–English large, Japanese small. We add tiny ‘RECYCLE AFTER’ at the bottom. New volunteers wear discreet stickers so ushers can spot them.”

Zara slid a printout across. “And the pre‑show briefing,” she said. “Tight and kind: ‘Hold cards chest‑height at final bow. Don’t block camera, don’t block auntie. Stack and return. Thank three crew by job title today.’” She wagged her pen. “Specificity breeds sincerity.”

They emailed the duty manager, the promoter, the usual chain. Subject: Crew Appreciation Cards – SG Fourth Tour (Request + Plan). The reply landed that night: Approved with previous conditions. Collection bins at sections 112, 118. Duty manager will introduce ushers to your leads.

“Bless,” Zara wrote. Kai added, I will iron my polite face.

The week bent itself around preparation. Bras Basah aunties raised their eyebrows at the returning customers buying card stock like they were starting a small paper company. A friend at a community center loaned them two collapsible tables; Kai obtained cable ties from an uncle whose closet history was a legend. Aleem wrote the volunteer script on a cue card that fit his palm and would not turn sweaty into sermon.

He also wrote Ms. Lin: White Crane Drive goes live with the SG dates next week. Same rules, direct to Open Door. We’ll keep the counters honest and the posts boring.

Boring is underrated, she replied, attaching a simple thank‑you banner they could use–a white crane watermark so faint it felt like a secret.

The Telegram channel hummed: teenagers volunteering with the ferocity of people who had newly discovered competence; aunties offering to bring wet wipes; a graphic designer sending an alternate “Sing the Bridge Soft” lyric card in Tamil and asking no credit. Aleem pinned three posts and deleted two that were sweet but impractical. Approval, always; he could hear the note in Seung‑ah’s emails even without opening the inbox.

Show day. The bowl of the Singapore Indoor Stadium remembered them. Volunteers checked in with the small bravery of citizens who love rules. Ushers arrived by name–Wati, Elvin, Suresh–and shook hands with the calm of professionals being handed allies rather than incidents. The collection bins waited at 112 and 118 like polite mouths.

At Gate 3, Kai handed out cards and jokes in equal portions. “Only final bow,” he told a boy whose ears had not yet learned to obey. “If itchy, use your hands to clap for crew earlier.”

At Gate 5, Zara introduced herself to a security lead and won him over by asking about break times. “People who ask about breaks go to heaven,” he declared, laughing.

Aleem moved where gaps appeared–stacking, explaining, stepping in when enthusiasm tried to outrun instructions. He thanked ushers by name until his mouth tasted of courtesy and mints. He carried a roll of gaffer tape like a talisman he wouldn’t use without permission.

They were ready by seven. The stacks sat tidy. The table signs read as suggestions written by someone you’d happily disappoint but choose not to. He took his seat in row twelve without saying the words out loud.

The opening VCR threw a curtain of light across the bowl. The cheer rose in the key of we’ve been good all year; please reward us with joy. The nine climbed the night like professionals; the room answered like a choir that had practiced being generous. The first three songs did their job–velocity, glamour, the efficient flirtation of a well‑timed wink.

When the ment arrived, the host tested a few local jokes; Singapore obliged, merciful towards comedy that had made the effort to fly. The members thanked the city with the particular mix of sincerity and memorized lines that still counts as sincerity if you let it. Aoi spoke last, the English sentences measured and tidy.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, bowing slightly. “We remember Singapore for… quiet that feels like… kindness.” Not a script line. A small thesis.

The group moved into the middle section: mid‑tempos, the choreography too clean to look effortful. Aleem counted breath without counting. He watched the diagonal pass into the ballad and felt the micro‑delay land like an agreement.

Then the bridge. The stadium inhaled as if told to by a doctor. The mics dropped the way good engineers drop them–by stealth. The lyric cards surfaced here and there like birds that refuse to be owned. The sound that followed was the kind that makes your eyes feel washed: soft, in tune with the willingness of a thousand throats, the melody refusing to be more than it needed to be.

Aoi’s head turned a fraction, not toward the loudest place but the most careful. The camera, respectful, stayed wide. In row twelve, Aleem didn’t sing loudly. He held the pitch and gave back air where the song asked. On the wings, crew watched the decibel meter relax enough to have a cup of tea.

They passed. The chorus returned. The bowl remembered how to roar without making promises it couldn’t keep.

The final ment had mischief in it because someone always wants to make a room laugh before sending it home to catch the last train. “Singapore has traditions,” the host declared. “Satay, chope tissue, and…” He gestured at the middle bowl where the stacks sat under seats like clean thoughts waiting for permission. “Maybe we wait to see?”

The last song landed, the bows began, the line of nine turned into gratitude as a shape. The THANK YOU, CREW cards rose in two neat blocks–chest‑height, no waving, a punctuation mark written by many hands at once. The message read as if drawn with a ruler.

The girls bowed deeper. One member pointed to the side wing and mouthed gomawo toward people in black. A camera close‑up caught a floor manager blinking too fast and immediately cut away as if embarrassed by its own honesty. Aoi’s eyes tracked the blocks the way you track a friend’s child in a crowd–to make sure it is okay, to memorize its height for next year. She dipped her chin once. It was not theatre. It was acknowledgement.

Aleem kept his hands steady. Tradition is consent rehearsed. When the cards went down, he stacked his and slid it along the row for the volunteer to collect. The houselights rose with the benevolence of endings done properly.

Collection felt like tidying after a party hosted by considerate people. Volunteers slid stacks into bins as if they had trained for this, because they had. At 118, an usher named Wati offered her palm for a high‑five with professional restraint. “Your people are neat,” she said. “I like neat fans.”

“Me too,” Aleem said, and meant I like rooms that don’t need heroes to behave.

At 112, Dan–the stagehand with the headlamp necklace and the shrug that looked like an old joke–appeared with a stack he had rescued from a row that would have kept them as souvenirs. “Bring back,” he said, deadpan. “I am gaffer king.” He lifted the roll on his belt like proof of sovereignty.

Aleem laughed and bowed a little because if you are going to bow to anyone at a show, bow to the person who knows which cable is sulking. “Thank you for letting us be helpful.”

“Next year,” Dan said, already turning to chase a cable that had rebelled. It sounded like fact rather than hope.

By the time the crowd had become trains, the bins were full of white cards that would be brown boxes by next week. The duty manager signed off with a scribble that could have been a signature or a drawing of a cloud. “You again,” she said with a weary affection that tasted like trust. “Same next time.”

“Same,” Aleem agreed. He could feel the tradition settling its weight in the building without asking for space it didn’t need.

Outside, the river received the night like a letter. Zara stretched her arms overhead until her shoulder popped in relief. “That was clean,” she said. “No mess, no heroics, yes tears from one floor manager. Perfect ratio.”

Kai handed Aleem a bottle of water that had been upgraded to cold by chance. “The bridge sounded like morning,” he said, because men can be poets after a show if no one catches them.

Aleem checked the channel once–recycling done, ushers thanked by name, a lost scarf reunited, Open Door Line counter nudging upward–and pinned a final note for the night: Thank you for keeping the room kind. Same again tomorrow. Sleep well; drink water. Then he put the phone away. The city hummed like a generator that had decided not to complain.

On the bus, he sat by the window and let the stadium slide across glass like a ship leaving harbor. He thought of Tekong’s watch box and the way breathing had become a skill. He thought of the museum corridor where concrete and light had agreed to behave. He thought of a nod given in public in the middle of a bowl of people who had earned it by not asking for it.

At home, his mother had left the light on because ritual beats technology. “Good?” she asked.

“Good,” he said, and his voice was the sound of something put away properly.

In his room, he opened the locker door. The papers there had formed an ecosystem: Respect. Distance. Gratitude. Keep the music intact. Approval, always. Don’t be the wind. On a fresh square he wrote, neat without being precious: Tradition = kindness repeated. He tucked it behind the others where his knuckles would skim it twice a day.

He placed the show’s ticket stub under the magnet with the bird that looked like it had several lives left. He took the museum ticket in his hand and let the grain of the paper remind him that quiet can be structural, even at scale.

He lay down, turned toward the wall, and borrowed a breath. He returned it with interest.

Outside, the city dimmed the stage and lit the exits. Inside, he kept the room ready.

Respect. Distance. Gratitude.

He slept as if tradition had held the door for him.