Personal – Page 11

Please Take This Personally

Even as I type this I’m not sure how comfortable I am being so public about it, but a sentiment stronger than my privacy scruples is motivating me to continue.

I had day surgery today, to remove four lumps from one of my breasts. Although one was biopsied last year (needle, boob, OW OW OW) and found to be benign, they said it was best to take them all out for testing, just to be safe.

I don’t know the test results yet, and will only find out on 20 July.

I am only twenty-five years old.

None of this is written to get your pity, although for those of you who pray, I’d be grateful for your prayers. I’m writing this because I’m pretty sure that many of the females who read this blog are around my age, and I want to say to you: please don’t think you are impervious to these problems just because you’re still young. Please learn how to check yourself, and do so regularly. Lumps aren’t at all uncommon in young breasts, and are more than likely to be benign, but you owe it to yourself and everyone who loves you to make sure anyway. I know it’s damn uncomfortable to do, but don’t do it half-heartedly either – I only found one lump on my own, but a thorough scan revealed four.

I’m still quite uncomfortable in writing all this, but this is where I’m coming from: despite anti-breast-cancer messages more than amply publicized both in women’s media and mainstream media, despite all sorts of celebrity campaigns, despite the background awareness most of us have that breast cancer happens to a lot of women and kills some of them, I was still pretty cavalier about it. Irrationally, it took a distant relative’s death from a totally different cancer to get me worried enough to check myself, and then to consult a doctor.

I don’t mean to overestimate the influence my Z-list blog could have on any of you, but it seems from your emails and comments over the years that I have at least influenced some of you in terms of music and reading. And even if I didn’t influence you there, please listen to me here.

Girls: you already know what you should do. Do it.
Guys: do all you can to make sure the women you love take the time and trouble to protect themselves.

[Edit: By the way, I have no objections if any of you link to this post in order to promote its message.]

[Edit: I have received the test results, and thankfully, all is well.]

Genuine Joo Chiat?

Friday night was one of those pleasant surprises the Internet throws my way from time to time. Tony, who runs the Betel Box backpacker hostel in Joo Chiat, organised a dinner outing to PeraMakan for a small bunch of Joo Chiat enthusiasts and well-wishers he had met over the Internet – Jaclyn, who is proud to call herself a Joo Chiat girl, Emilyn her colleague and erstwhile professional pedophile bait (it’s a long story and I probably shouldn’t write about it here), Victor the engineer who spends his free time observing, photographing and filming Chinese temple ceremonies for posterity, Su Yin, another traditional culture enthusiast, and finally, me and The Ayatollah Of Joo Chiat.

PeraMakan was pretty good, but there was a mildly awkward moment during the meal when someone asked me to name my favourite Katong/Joo Chiat eatery and I stage-whispered “Actually, I really like True Blue!”¹ across the table. Despite my lack of social graces, I really liked PeraMakan’s beef rendang, Penang plum sauce pork ribs and ikan chuan chuan, although my plebeian tongue found its MSG-free bakwan kepeting soup a little flavourless. I found its seafood otak a little drier than I would like, but still think it’s a jolly good idea and would try it again. To the general outrage of my family I’m not generally a big fan of ayam buah keluak, chap chye or nangka curry so these dishes didn’t particularly delight me, but I can’t say there was anything wrong with them either. And for quite a feast, we paid only $20 each.

After dinner we walked down Joo Chiat Road for kopitiam Vietnamese drip coffee, and Victor rendered me bug-eyed and fascinated (and also thoroughly endeared by his passion for the subject) with his tales of people going into trances in temple rituals .

Finally, we made our way to the Betel Box, which is a pretty damn awesome hostel for any tourist actually interested in immersing themselves in Singapore. It’s cheap but cheerful, cleaner than most other hostels I’ve stayed in, and Tony takes his guests on food walks, nature walks and cycling tours where all they have to pay is the cost of their food or bike rental.

It’s sad that Tony’s efforts to make a great backpacker hostel in a district so rich with local heritage tend to get hindered by Joo Chiat’s sleazier denizens and bureaucratic red tape. Joo Chiat Road’s lurid signs and equally lurid women are a far cry from Keong Saik Road’s oddly harmonious mix of brothels, boutique hotels and yuppie bars, and an even farther cry from its past. The thing to note here is that removing the sleaze from Joo Chiat wouldn’t be gentrifying it and removing “authentic flavour”, it would be restoring it to its original state as a quiet haven of traditional trades and culture, and making it easier for tourists to choose Joo Chiat as a place to stay and explore in Singapore rather than the tedium of Orchard.

Having said this, while walking all the way up Joo Chiat Road on the way home after midnight, past bars redolent with alcohol and cheap perfume, “massage parlours” with girls pressed up against their glass walls, and many prospective “couples”, I never felt unsafe or even worried about taking my digital camera out to photograph this rather random collection of junk. I guess that’s Uniquely Singapore for you.

Retro port-a-loo?

¹ A rival restaurant, which serves Peranakan food fit for the gods.

A Tale Of Two Free-Flows

Alley Bar’s “The Great Gatsby” party on Thursday was marketed as simulating the experience of a 20s speakeasy, but even before eleven, typical yuppie bar shite was playing instead of Duke Ellington, and the free-flow alcohol that had been promised was so impossible to lay hands on that the Prohibition experience seemed all too realistic. I had been expecting that we might perhaps have to queue or wait quite long to get drinks, but I guess I shouldn’t have assumed any sort of system existed at all – we ended up squeezed next to the bar for two hours with throngs of other people just trying to order, and only a small fraction of us ever got any drinks.

The whole exercise stank of a cynical attempt to harvest email addresses and mobile phone numbers when people signed up for the free flow, and then to drive up the profits of the other bars on Emerald Hill (almost all of which are owned by the same management) when the same people gave up on the free flow and bought drinks at these other bars instead, so as not to render their evening an utter waste of time.

So as much of a marketing/publicity exercise as I assume this was for Alley Bar, it spectacularly backfired on me. Deciding that we didn’t feel like enriching anyone responsible for such a shitty party, Ja and Ravi brought us to Bar Stop on Killiney Road instead, which I rather liked and will use for all my Orchard-area yuppie bar needs in future. Way to go, Alley Bar – your incompetence drove me into the arms of a rival.

In contrast, Home’s housewarming party on Friday was infinitely better managed, with roving beer servers walking around to replenish empty glasses. As a fairly regular patron, I didn’t feel too guilty about drinking deeply, but I hope some of the people who were just there for the free flow liked it enough to go back in future. It’s a good club and I’d like to see new faces at its various nights instead of the same bunch of us time after time.

House Of Flaming Mitres

[Preface: This is a fake flame. Fake because the author of the target post has since clarified what he meant, and I therefore bear him no hard feelings. But I’ll post this anyway because sometimes flaming is fun! (Right, singaporeslut? :P) He is, of course, totally welcome to fake-flame me right back.]

This makes me laugh. Brandon decided that because I (and a friend of his) like the Mitre Hotel, and because he doesn’t like the look of it (he’s never actually been there), this is a manifestation of “overreaching on the part of Singapore’s fashionably non-conforming youth.” Because “y’all don’t have to hang out in a shithole just cuz you’re sick of Zouk, yo.”

He discusses the issue with his friend.

They feel we fashionably non-conforming youth “duno whats cool”. (My thoughts: No one ever called me fashionable before! YAY!)

They wonder, “are they trying to rebel against the cleanliness of singapore?” (My thoughts: Dude, I’m Singaporean. Rebellion against anything whatsoever is not in my genes.)

His friend vows, “if someone brought me there i’ll kill him/her.” (My thoughts: No need. The roof might collapse and do it for you.)

And finally, “fuck them la. what they know. just sit down at void deck with 4-5 80 yr old uncles spewing stories in hokkien. everywhere oso got lor.” (My thoughts: Can! But got problem. Old uncle tells moving story in Hokkien about how he survived the war by eating cockroach exoskeletons, taught his kids to read with kacang puteh newspaper sheets, and now they are all President’s Scholars and so incredibly virtuous that none of them have even broken bond. Old uncle looks at me expectantly, waiting for me to respond. Speechless with admiration, I fumble for words, since like many young Singaporeans, although I can understand dialects all right, when called upon to speak them the right words don’t come to mind. Finally, I desperately splutter the Hokkien words I am most familiar with – “Uncle…KA NI NA BU CHAO CHEE BYE!”)

So there you have it, the real reason I go to the Mitre Hotel: I’m not welcome anywhere else.

Keeping Up Appearances

Yesterday I went to the opening of a photography exhibition, because I am arty and sophisticated.

Then I accidentally dropped most of my goat’s cheese canape into my glass of red wine, because I am a klutz and a half.

And lastly, I marked this unfortunate occurrence by breaking out uncontrollably into a resounding “FUCK!”, because you really can’t take me anywhere.

Half Empty, Half Full

The idealist in me is overjoyed that the stranger who found Alec’s lost library book returned it to the library, thereby saving him from having to pay the library for it. Very much the proverbial random act of kindness, for which we are both grateful.

The cynic in me wonders if things would have turned out differently had the book been The Da Vinci Code/The Alchemist/Harry Potter (or any other huge bestseller) instead of Maupassant’s Pierre Et Jean.

The Drool Of Law

2 vignettes from my working life:

I detect a slightly sour smell on the lapels of my jacket.

After some sniffing and recoiling, I come to the conclusion that I must have fallen asleep (at my desk) and drooled on myself at some point earlier in the day. How very embarrassing.
I have a little free time while waiting for a colleague to come give me work, so I start reading this perfectly normal, perfectly innocuous, merely wanky, i.e. totally work-safe (or so I think) “Best Triple Bill You’ve Ever Seen” thread on ILM just to take a break for a few minutes. Then someone posts “Missy Elliot” in reply to the thread title and I choke loudly and messily on my masala tea just as said colleague arrives. How very embarrassing.

Now I have to go to the dry-cleaner’s again. KNN.

Ubin Witch

I took this picture in a Pulau Ubin quarry last Sunday, but only saw the witch’s face later when I viewed the photo on my computer screen. It’s not just me who sees her, right?

* * *

Later, we tried to take photos of ourselves in another quarry and were less than pleased with the results.

Russ, who had long abandoned his shirt: I look so gay!
Me: Well, I guess the nipple doesn’t help.
Russ, noticing his photographed nipple for the first time: Aaagh!
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Russ: STOP LAUGHING AT MY NIPPLE!

It echoed across the calm waters as the sunset bathed everything in gold.

Flea Love #2

My body was the furthest it’s ever been from a wonderland after wakeboarding on Saturday morning, but I was determined to make it to Flea Day that afternoon after my steals the previous time. My progress was slower this time due to my near-inability to return to a standing position after squatting to look at a stall’s wares, but it also meant I looked at stuff more carefully and spotted things I might otherwise have missed.

CD: Curvatia (Spacek), $2
Chunky red stone/bead bracelet, $2
Red and yellow retro Volkswagon pin, $1
Turquoise tee with two robots dancing below the words “No Wave”, which pressed my music geek buttons so seductively that I couldn’t help but buy it even though it’s a little big, $4
Black strappy purple stripey top with elasticized waist and buckles at the straps, am still deciding if it looks funkily retro or as if I have no taste, $4
Emerald green sleeveless tee with old-school superlady comic graphic, $2
Grey Ghostbuster tee! $6

I specialise in girls’ school toilets

CDs I passed up reluctantly because they were $6 each and I think that’s too high for a flea market where I have no guarantee they’ll even work and may never see the stallholder again:

Tri Repetae (Autechre)
Psychic Hearts (Thurston Moore)
The Whitey Album (Ciccone Youth)
Steady Diet Of Nothing (Fugazi)

“There are spots on this one,” I said, pointing to the back of the Tri Repetae disc. “Oh, I think that’s just mould,” the guy said. Fair enough, I understand it’s a flea market and stuff isn’t new, but I’d like to urge any flea market CD sellers reading this to please provide a CD player for testing! A Discman would do, after all. I’m a discerning customer who’s more likely than most to recognize the music you’ve got to offer, but I still won’t pay more than $4 if I can’t be sure I’m not just stocking up on coasters.

Haw Par Villa: Hallucinations, Hell And The Hokey Pokey

Spread the word – Haw Par Villa is the best trip you can have in Singapore without risking a criminal record.

[For non-Singaporean readers: Haw Par Villa is a statue park in the west of Singapore, built in the 1930s by two tycoon brothers who made their fortunes in Chinese medicinal ointment, and it’s full of garish life-size statues commissioned by the brothers to portray stories from Chinese mythology and traditional Chinese values.]

Haw Par Villa’s been terminally uncool ever since that spectacularly failed themeparkesque revamp in the late 80s, but no one seems to have noticed that they’ve since reversed many of the ill-advised changes that led to its downfall. It’s free to get in again these days (apart from the $5 parking charge and the $1 entry fee to Hell), and they’ve removed all those ridiculously kitsch additions like the rides and shows. So now, just the ridiculously kitsch original statues are left.

I took first Alec and recently Russ to it, and I think I wouldn’t be overstating things to say they both left a little changed by the experience. I don’t usually like to post too many photos in an entry, but my words really can’t do justice to the lurid reality of Haw Par Villa on their own, so forgive me if you’re on a slow connection and this entry takes a while to load. As usual, click on the photos for larger versions, and oh, be warned: CONTAINS WEIRD STATUE NUDITY.
Read More “Haw Par Villa: Hallucinations, Hell And The Hokey Pokey”