An episode of The Bachelor (Singapore), in which contestants go to the USA to try exotic foods

Photo: Pablo Merchán Montes / Unsplash
Photo: Pablo Merchán Montes / Unsplash

EXT. A PERANAKAN HOUSE ON EMERALD HILL – DAY

INT. A LIVING ROOM ADORNED WITH VARIOUS SINGAPOREAN ORNAMENTS: MERLION STATUES, I HEART SINGAPORE PILLOWS, AND MAIL THAT WAS FOUND DUMPED IN A TRASH BIN.

Emerald Hill. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Emerald Hill. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

A Chua Enlai Type enters the room, and the camera zooms in tightly on him. Dramatic music fades in.

“You’re going to a place where we’ve never actually been in the history of this show,” A Chua Enlai Type addresses the room full of Singaporean ladies — all contestants of The Bachelor (Season 1054). It’s the fourth episode, and the heart they’re all vying to win belongs to John Tan, a CBD finance bro who became a millionaire after some astute investments in Herbalife and WorldVentures.

“Ladies, pack your bags. You’ll be meeting John… in the United States of America.”

The girls jump and scream in unison, their pitch registering beyond human hearing. One of them gets so excited she tears her own arm off. She is booted out of the reality show.

SMASH CUT:

MONTAGE OF JOHN WALKING ABOUT IN AN UNNAMED AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOOD. IN ONE SCENE, HE TAKES A SELFIE AT AN ALT-RIGHT RALLY. IN ANOTHER SCENE, HE LOOKS WISTFULLY INTO THE DISTANCE IN AN EMPTY SUBWAY CABIN, A PILE OF EXCREMENT AND PUKE ARTFULLY HEAPED ON A SEAT NEXT TO HIM. IN THE LAST SCENE, HE BRAVELY GIVES UP HIS WALLET, PHONE AND WATCH TO SOME THUGS MUGGING HIM.

Photo: Chris Barbalis / Unsplash
Photo: Chris Barbalis / Unsplash

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. SOME AMERICAN RESTAURANT. WE KNOW THIS BECAUSE THERE’S AN AMERICAN FLAG HANGING ON THE WALL RIGHT NEXT TO A CAR-SIZED MAGA HAT. COUNTRY-TRAP BEATS PLAY IN THE BACKGROUND.

It is the third day of the trip in the USA, and John has already taken some of the girls out for romantic dates at Tenderloin, San Francisco. He has already made out with one of the girls — a Pan-Asian MTV host type — after an emotional moment navigating through a stretch of used hypodermic needles on the ground. The other girls are jealous and are already thinking of ways to impress him during this big dinner together.

John enters the restaurant and sits down in the middle of the table, exchanging pleasantries with the girls while his eyes stay glued to his phone to monitor cryptocurrency market charts. The food arrives at the table. The horrific and disgusted reactions to the dishes are exaggerated. It makes for good TV.

One girl — a vegan yoga instructor trying to make it as a Micro Influencer — picks up a moist wedge of something dark green and red. It is a Koolickle — pickles brined in Kool-Aid powder. She bites into it and goes into shock.

Another girl sitting right across from John grabs a small battered ball that has powdered sugar drizzled over it. Being the ratchet queen among the contestants, she makes eye contact with John and bites into the appetizer, eyes full of lust. It’s deep-fried butter, and the molten fat within is still scalding hot. This hot liquid squirts from within the ball and into her eyes, blinding her.

Photo: Wikimedia commons
Deep-fried buttah. Photo: Wikimedia commons

“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” the now permanently blind woman chirps in a talking-head interview, recorded after the incident.

Back to the dinner scene: The camera zooms in on a huge platter of… what are those? Chicken… tenders? One horrified girl exclaims: “Oh my God, they’re testicles.”

Another contestant — a travel blogger — wants to appear adventurous to John, and the cameras. She takes a big bite of Rocky Mountain Oysters. John smirks knowingly while the girls around him shout “ew” in an unnaturally prolonged manner.

Deep-fried testicles. Photo: Matt Johnson / Flickr
Yum, testicles. Photo: Matt Johnson / Flickr

The Adventurous Girl excuses herself from the table and the camera follows her to the restroom, where she pukes out the deep-fried bull testicles with melodramatic movements.

The camera goes back to the table, where some of the girls push their jars of pickled pigs’ feet away. Others take spoonfuls of Red-Eye Gravy and pretend to love eating oily fried ham juices mixed with black coffee.

QUICK CUT:

The girls left alive at the table feign laughter at John’s dull anecdote from his days as a recruit in the Singapore Armed Forces. They squeal “Cheers” and clink their glasses of Baskin-Robbins Heath Bar Shake. They all get diabetes overnight.



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