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THE SONGBIRDS OF SINGAPORE CHEEP TRILLS FOR EARLY RISERS by Toni Dabbs
 It's Sunday morning in Singapore, and before many of the tourists in the posh Orchard Road hotels have had breakfast, the songbirds have started to gather. Their cages already crowd the ceiling of the Wah Heng coffee shop at the corner of Tiong Bahru and Seng Poh Roads, while their owners cluster around tables below.
The birds -- merboks, China thrushes, white rumped shamas, red whiskered bulbuls and mata putehs (white eyes), some costing hundreds of dollars -- arrive in intricately carved, highly lacquered teak cages with porcelain and ivory fittings and custom-made cloth covers. Owners proudly unveil the cages and move them from hanger to hanger with the strategy of international chess champions, trying to position their birds near those that will encourage them to sing their best. In nature, songbirds try to outperform one another in an attempt to attract the opposite sex.  As the birds warble, their owners chat about their care and feeding between sips of the strong black local coffee. What a bird eats is believed to influence how it sings, so a songbird's carefully controlled diet might include live insects, fruits, hard boiled eggs and baby cereals. Special feeds and cage accessories often are bought and sold on the spot.
The regular Sunday morning gathering, which climaxes between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m., is an informal competition. However, it serves as a practice session for owners who plan to enter their birds in more serious contests. A national competition offers a cash prize of $10,000. Criteria for judging contenders include the following: Physical Appearance - bright eyes, soft and glossy plumage, good posture and no physical deformities. Display - body movements while singing, such as the flicking of tail and quivering of wings. Loudness - volume and clarity of notes. Variety - ability to sing different combinations of notes at different speeds. Stamina - ability to sing continuously with only short pauses. Persuading songbirds to perform to these exacting standards is a fine art. Owners spend hours training potential champions, whistling tunes to them repeatedly or playing recorded bird songs -- and taking them to the Wah Heng coffee shop each Sunday morning. Visitors rarely can find unoccupied seats on the coffee shop's bird terrace unless they arrive by 7:30 a.m. Then, they can sample a typical Singapore breakfast of thick toast spread with kaya (coconut egg jam) or a platter of chee cheong fun (broad rice flour noodles stuffed with chicken, pork or shrimp). Dining al fresco is common in Singapore, because the tiny Asian republic, located just one degree north of the equator, has a year-round average temperature of 85 F. Directions
From the Orchard Road hotel district, take bus No. 123 or the MRT (Mass Rapid Transit underground rail system) to Tiong Bahru Station and walk to the Wah Heng coffee shop. Contact
Singapore Tourism Board, 8484 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 510, Beverly Hills CA 90211, telephone 213-852-1901, fax 213-852-0129. http://www.singapore-usa.com by Toni Dabbs Back to TravelLady Magazine |