Monkey’ s brains
Trishaw, China Town, Singapore circa 1980 Photo by Barry Epstein
Mimi’ s Mom Roslyn wanted to take us to Singapore as, according to tradition, I had to meet Mimi’ s sister to get approval to marry Mimi. I had never been to the Orient and I was quite excited about the trip. Many of my friends and family, as well as myself, believed that the Orient was simply made up of China that included Japan and India. We had never heard of countries like Singapore or Malaysia. So I thought that I was going to China. The travel time to Singapore was very long and because of Roslyn, we were seated in the smoking section. To try and get away from this annoying smoke, I walked as far away as possible and stood up for as long as I could in the non-smoking area. We were flying Singapore Airlines on one stint of the trip. I struck up a conversation with one of the stewardess’ s and I told her that this is my first trip to the Orient and I had no idea what to expect.
She told me that in Singapore there were some restaurants that when you walked in there was a cage of monkey’ s and that diners were asked to choose one on arrival. The monkey was then brought out and the table was separated in the middle and the monkey was put in and the table was jammed back to encase the neck and expose the head. The skull was then cracked open and we were to eat the exposed brains with a spoon. I was amazed as she told me that
BARRY STEVEN EPSTEIN- PhotoAutobiography DRAFT 56 of 156