Singapore Art Museum

I don’t know if I’d rate the Singapore Art Museum particularly highly if I were a foreigner, because it would be full of names I’d never heard of. Even visiting it as a Singaporean, most names apart from Chen Wen Hsi, Georgette Chen and Ng Eng Teng draw a blank with me. But I found myself enjoying the museum’s permanent collection more than the Rodin exhibition we’d primarily gone to see; perhaps I subconsciously prefer painting to sculpture, or modern over classical, or perhaps it was just the familiarity of paintings I’d seen before on previous visits to the museum – I don’t know. It’s three in the morning and stream-of-consciousness is about all I can manage.

I like this museum, always have. I like its retention of the simple beauty it must have had as a school, the spare elegance it still has as an art museum. Today the revelation hit me that my parents walked the same corridors I was walking down, in the days when it was St Joseph’s Institution and they were students there. They met and romanced here. It’s a beautiful place to be able to remember falling in love in, I think.

I was also struck by the thought that this awareness of a personal history can only happen for me in this country. As far as England is concerned, I didn’t exist before 1999.

Afternoon Of Poetry And Music

Saturday was Rafflesian, the morning spent judging quarter-final debates, the afternoon at the Creative Writing Club’s annual Afternoon of Poetry and Music, which I’ve attended for the past seven years or so.

APM had its usual mixed bag of poetry – some I didn’t get or didn’t like, some that could have been good if their authors hadn’t delivered them so badly, some I wished I was a good enough poet to have written, many I knew I would never be a good enough poet to write. Poems by young strangers and old friends. Lee Tzu Pheng’s beautiful and elegiac Falling Into Timelessness, which I must find and read many times more. Alfian Sa’at’s Autobiography, from that second collection I haven’t read nearly as many times as One Fierce Hour and really should sit down with soon. Musical performances which gave me varying degrees of enjoyment depending on the novelty of their repertoire and the skill of the performers. Handel’s The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba arranged for saxophone quartet, well worth watching. Ploddingly and badly played Pachelbel’s Canon, a real waste of time.

Crepes (quality good, quantity bad) at Raffles City (continuity unintended) with Terence, Yi-Sheng, Cheryl and Miss Ho. Wandering, talking, coffeeing later on, conversation that can’t really be alluded to because of the reasonably private nature of most of it, but I suppose the main point here is that I went home from the day happy and remembering why, according to the Myers-Briggs test, I am apparently an extrovert.

Food With Friends

So I finally decided to act like the social being anthropologists tell me I’m meant to be, and got a life.

Friday lunch with Vikram at a Chinese in what I think is now called H20 Zone, where our suspicions that we’d been given a tourist menu (photos accompanying every menu item) were confirmed when we peeked in another menu (which they told us was for “drinks”) and found it photoless and about $2 cheaper across the board. So we ordered our crispy baby squid (another ticked item on the summer food list) and sambal brinjal conspicuously from the photoless menu, and were charged accordingly.

Dinner with the Twins and their parents involved more ticking of the food list once they’d discovered a list existed and insisted on getting me satay and a baby coconut in addition to my chicken rice. We drifted and lounged and chatted around the Raffles Town Club pool, probably well-raisined by the time we got out to do girly things like hair masques and steam-rooms. There was the pleasant feeling of lives that had moved on and developed almost wholly independently of each other but which could still be described out of more than politeness (because we wanted to), and responded to out of more than avoiding awkwardness (because the connections that power conversation were still there). They still refer to me as “hoggie”, short for hedgehog, because I am apparently “prickly but cute.” I would have suggested just “cactus” instead myself, but suppose old friends are allowed to do things like tell me I’m cute without being killed with blunt objects.

Terrapin Therapy

“He’s lost all interest in sex,” my mother confided. Thank God she was talking about my terrapin, and I certainly assumed she was talking about his attitude towards my other terrapin.

She was describing the symptoms of his recent malaise to my cousin, who normally doctors humans, but who’d somehow been pressed into service so we could avoid paying yet another hefty vet bill to a vet who merely gave him multi-vitamin shots and a hygiene spray clearly labelled with “Do not use on iguanas and amphibians”. (I know terrapins are reptiles, but it was hardly encouraging.)

My sister walked in and declaimed “CAN YOU SAVE HIM???!!” My brother described the trends he’d been noticing in his (the terrapin’s) stool. My father sat on the couch and shook his head slowly.

London Levels Of Good

Every time I return to Singapore I am struck down by swollen eyes, streaming nose and horrible hair, and vanity-based gloom manages to depress me quite significantly. At the troughs of depression the flashbacks I get of London are always incredibly simple: me, on a street in London, it doesn’t really matter which street, just feeling good. This is the element of the comparison which stuns me: take a random day, time, place, and state of mind in London, and I am almost always going to be feeling better, whatever combination of those variables you come up with, than I do in Singapore.

But that’s just the explanatory prelude to Thursday. It was overcast, and the walk from Parkway Parade to the library left me pleasantly unsticky, except for the drips from my ice-cream. I walked along roads I never realized were so beautifully tree-lined until I remembered London, passed a bus stop that looks like a huge conch shell (my neighbourhood is by the sea), under an overhead bridge brimming with flowers. I was feeling London levels of good.

The library was as wonderful as it’s always been, huge glass windows letting in all the natural light that’s lovely to read by but none of the glare, students on the floor using the benches that line the windows the way I used to do my homework on our coffee table, an old man nodding off in one of the big comfortable chairs, a small earnest bespectacled boy using what must have been three family members’ worth of library cards to cart out a pile of books. I had to get travel guides to help Mum and Dad plan their trip to Ireland and Wales, so that left only two more books for me. I eventually decided on Enduring Love (Ian McEwan) and Felicia’s Journey (William Trevor), which I should be able to finish in a week at most (along with Julian Barnes’ A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters which I’m reading at home).

It finally rained at night, quiet but intense rain, the sort where you look out and see sheets of water moving across vast tracts of Singapore like a purposive entity. I opened the balcony door a crack while I was reading. In the morning the pages of my book were wrinkly.

Eating Agenda

I am slowly working my way along the eating agenda. Yesterday I was able to tick off Alvin’s Claypot (oyster chicken, oldie but goodie on their menu) and Oreo McFlurry (they’ve got a Chocomint one now too! London McPowers That Be, I’m begging you…). Dad’s been spoiling me with expensive durians. Sister has bought two 6-packs of Pokka peppermint green tea. Mum has stocked up on Uncle Toby muesli bars. On the Day Of 14 CDs I had a green apple bubble tea (1997 restaurant in London Chinatown tries to do these too, but they’re a poor, poor substitute). On Sunday I had deep-fried Shanghai dumplings for dinner. All’s well on the food front. Which reminds me, I really must start my fitness regime.

Stop laughing.

Welcomed Home

I walked in the front door and was greeted by our traditional cheesy family banners for returning graduate children – 1ST CLASS MICHELLE! in the hall and WELCOME HOME MICHY! on the door of my room. The first ever banner in the tradition was made 13 years ago by my mother and I, for my sister. While we were making it we rearranged the letters of WELCOME HOME BETHY! to HELCOME BOM WEETHY! (I was 9 and found these things amusing), and ever since then I call her Weethy from time to time.

We went to one of my favourite restaurants on East Coast Road and the salt and pepper squid had fundamentally and disappointingly changed. I would have felt a bit stupid saying “wo3 de jiao1 yan2 sotong mei2 you3 jiao1 yan2!” (literal translation: My “add salt squid” had no added salt!) to the waitress so I contented myself with the Hainanese chicken rice, which was as good as it’s ever been.

Plans for this time at home are mostly unformed. There’s mum’s birthday to celebrate, a cousin’s wedding to attend and play the violin at, a national debating tournament to judge, a multitude of friends to catch up with, a neighbourhood to fall back in love with, a plethora of favourite foods to eat too much of (see below), a Great Singapore Sale to bankrupt myself at, a Singlish accent to enjoy using again.

Slightly less positive features about the next month and a half are that it’s too bloody hot, my eyes have already gone red (I’m having flashbacks to the horrible summer of ’99 where 4 eye doctors couldn’t do anything to lessen my misery), I was reminded right from entering Singapore by the unsmiling passport control officers that random politeness isn’t appreciated here (they were more interested in continuing their conversation in Malay than responding to my hellos or thank yous or even registering my existence beyond the fact that I was a recurring troublesome feature of their job), and I have to find a way of not missing Alec.

—

Michelle’s summer food list:

  • Alvin’s claypot oyster chicken (Parkway Parade food court)
  • Ocean Fish Head Curry (Ceylon Road)
  • Hainanese chicken rice (Ghim Moh hawker centre)
  • Murtabak
  • Chilli kangkung
  • Sambal everything
  • Small crispy fried squid
  • Barbecued stingray
  • Baby octopus
  • Satay
  • Lots of Mum’s dishes that I can’t name but describe as “that chicken in the gravy that stains everything yellow”
  • Bubble tea
  • Luan Qi Ba Zao (explained last summer, scroll down to NoBlogLove post #2)
  • Bee-Bee (does anyone else from Singapore love this, or even remember it? It’s still 10 cents – childhood price – it comes in a small orange packet with a picture of a sparsely-haired plump man savouring something that looks like a gigantic piece of Bee-Bee, and it’s only available from small provision shops and some kacang puteh stands including Orchard Cineplex. I can’t be the only person keeping its sales alive by buying crates of it once a year!)
  • Uncle Toby’s muesli bars
  • McFlurry’s with Oreos (London, get with the program already!)

Home To Home

Getting on a plane tonight, for a month and a half at home in Singapore before I get to come back home to London.

Not a bad way to live. Slap me if I ever complain.

Sucking Marrow

Trying to suck the marrow out of my last week at home for the next ten months or so means that entries lately have been sparse, sometimes petulantly idiosyncratic, or catalogues of events that are unlikely to be interesting to anyone but me. But give me a little time, and your patience. Knowing some entries here have been less than perfect doesn’t mean I wish them unmade. They’re parts, albeit itty-bitty, of the mulch that is this blog, and my head.

Summer Days Before Departure

Days in this week before departure (I return to London on Friday night), and how I’m spending them. Actually pretty boring for anyone who isn’t me, but I’m documenting it here just because.

Friday: lunch with friends from debating past at the Taman Serasi hawker centre, which meant that there was shade, and defiant breeziness, and views of mostly green through the gaps in the roofing (and this is always a good thing when the mostly green in question is trees), and satay and chicken rice and soursop juice, and Yuping haranguing Fengyuan (“Non-threatening! That’s what all you guys ultimately want, a girl who’s non-threatening!”), and terrible jokes (“A termite walks into a bar and asks, ‘Is the bartender here?'” – Jolene. “Girl runs into a police station and says ‘I’ve been graped! I’ve been graped!’ Policeman says, ‘Don’t you mean raped?’ ‘No, there were a bunch of them.'” – Yuping. “Girl runs into a police station and says ‘I’ve been reaped! I’ve been reaped!’ Policeman says, ‘Don’t you mean raped?’ ‘No, he used a scythe.'” – Me) and a discussion stemming from Dworkin’s writings on abortion, and all this continued into the gazebo next to the lake in the Botanic Gardens where there was cramming on bench and perching on railings, a fleeing couple and a fleeting swan, and Yuping and otherMichelle and I all agreed that we own way too many strappy tops.

Later, me and Yuping in absolute geekness in front of the big screen at Lido, infra-red-frenzied handhelds and bubble tea on the table, Yuping playing newly-beamed Dope Wars, getting the stares that any conversation about the game gets in public (“Okay, so what’s a good price for heroin?”…”I personally don’t bother with Ecstasy, it’s small potatoes”…”YES!!! COCAINE BUST!!”), and eventually I went home for dinner with family and Return Of The Jedi with Mum.

Saturday: lunch with Kevin, who I hadn’t seen for two and a half years, poetry reading at Kinokuniya by folks from the2ndrule, girlie shopping with Edlyn who blew me away with her knowledge of slingbacks (Note to self: slingbacks=shoes, silverbacks=gorillas, don’t get mixed up) and Italian straps and other fashionista jargon, and home in good time for dinner with family again, which I was glad about, because I do rather love them.

Sunday: a day of relaxed excess. Mass celebrated by an Irish priest whose severe mumbling didn’t prevent my usual reaction of “I have no idea what you’re saying, but damn, it sounds wonderful” to the accent, shopping with wonderful mum who bought me THREE pairs of shoes and lots of other miscellany, and then I decided to cook dinner for everyone (tricolore fusilli with chicken fillet pieces, peppers, onions and sweetcorn in tomatoey-olivey sauce, stir-fried cabbage with freshly ground black pepper and bacon bits), then White Teeth until The Phantom Menace and Bejeweled addiction (damn you, Yuping) till bedtime.

Monday: Lazy comfortable afternoon with Pei Ee, buying each other birthday presents, dinner with Terry at scattered places, a day of long meandering conversations and conversational ranges from ephemeral to weighty, rainy day with skies that reminded me of London but rain that was unmistakably tropical in its intensity and MUAHAHAHAness.

Tuesday: Limbo snoozing for most of the morning, lunch with Luke and Ida, which involved much maligning of Luke’s badminton coach dress sense and hyena laugh, ridiculing of Ida’s rebranding herself as vestal virgin, and some very expensive bubble tea. Dinner with Jacinta and Poonam at the East Coast beach, although in the midst of girlie catching up we never got round to actually going to the beach. We headed home at eleven – it was time for Gilmore Girls.

Wednesday: Futile afternoon trudging on pre-departure errands, dinner with Rafflesian girlfriends Jiawen, May and Gwen at the distinctly untrendy but truly lovely Chomp Chomp hawker centre at Serangoon, barbecued stingray, sambal sotong (loosely translated to chillied squid, but trust me, a lot is lost in translation. Slurp.), chai dao kuey (carrot cake, but not the sort the Western world is used to, this one’s oily and fried and wonderful.) and satay (strips of flame-cooked meat), under stars that were hard to see because of the lights of the estate, getai (cheesy Chinese singing) and auctioneering (both events which take place in housing estates during the Hungry Ghosts Festival, which is nowish) blaring from nearby, but in the midst of all this sensory overload a feeling of happy contentment, dessert in the distinctly trendier Big Apple Cafe where May made pompoms out of shredded serviettes and Jiawen did strange things with the window blinds and Gwen and I sat there and laughed.