Some ties bind. Others, I’d willingly break.
Tan Shzr Ee recently wrote a column for the Straits Times about Tiong Bahru being “uncle-chic”. The article itself is rather mediocre, but it gives me as good enough an excuse as any to share two Tiong Bahru uncles I photographed when we did an anniversary staycation at the Wangz Hotel last November.
There isn’t much I can say about the passing of Mdm Kwa Geok Choo, the late wife of Lee Kuan Yew, that isn’t already evident from the eulogy he gave her (and for my overseas Singaporean friends reading this who may not have seen the news clips, it’s significantly sadder if you watch him deliver it). But Yaacob Ibrahim (Minister for the Environment) told an anecdote about her in the newspaper coverage of her death that I particularly liked, and since I didn’t know if it would be as readily googleable in the future as her family members’ eulogies were, I saved the snippet:
She asked me about the words to describe when rain is falling down and drops of it sort of splashes through your window. She said you can’t find an English word for it, but there’s a Malay word for it.
I said, the word I remember is tempias. She said yes, see the beauty of the Malay language. You cannot find a translation. So I was a bit surprised.
And she added: “I give you another word – sayang. Can you find an English equivalent?” And it struck me for the first time – I could not.
Rest in peace, Mdm Kwa. We owe you a lot.
Alec: What’s that Hokkien way of describing a business tycoon again? Tau huey? Tau kwa?
Me: Um, I think you mean “towkay”. The other things you’re mentioning are forms of beancurd.
Alec: Ah.
Me: Also, you should be aware that for some reason, if this big boss person is female, they might be called a “towkay neo”. But the term I hear used more these days is “ladyboss”.
Alec: That’s actually quite refined for a Singlish term.
Me: True. If it were left to someone like me I’d probably have come up with “cheebye-E-O”.
Alec: ……
Somehow my attempts to teach Alec Singlish always end up in the same place. I don’t think I’m a very good teacher.
We had a date night. It involved Burger King and Bruno, and so gave rise to numerous jibes from me that we suck at date night. On the way home, we had this conversation:
Alec: I love Hungry Ghosts month. Yesterday when I was walking home with our ta pau [1. Takeaway], the guys at the bike shop were setting up their little altar outside. It had a bike wheel as its centrepiece. The boss was very strict with his employees, very particular about how he wanted the altar set up.
Me: Well of course he was! If the ghosts think you don’t give a fuck then they’ll get fucking pissed off lah!
Alec: Dear, I think maybe the Taoists would have a more sophisticated way of explaining thi…
Me: No lah! I bet if you could just understand what the boss was telling his employees in Hokkien…
Alec: He’d be saying “This altar looks like you pulled it out of your wife’s cunt”?
Me: Your mother’s smelly cunt. [2. Explained in full Hokkien glory here.]
Alec: Oh yah, sorry.
beat
Alec: Okay, you’re right. We really suck at date night.
I’ve wanted to walk the Chek Jawa intertidal wetlands at Pulau Ubin ever since I returned to Singapore after university, and after about six years I finally managed it. This was back in June, but first I was slow about processing the photos, and then Michael Jackson died.
A little background for anyone reading this who isn’t from Singapore: when nature enthusiasts discovered that the government planned to reclaim this area, they conducted a biodiversity survey, submitted a report to the government, and petitioned against the reclamation. They were partially successful – the government agreed to defer its plans until 2012, but after that Chek Jawa’s fate remains unknown. In the meantime, the National Parks Board has had to balance huge public interest in the area against the necessity to preserve the fragile ecosystem. An elevated boardwalk takes you through the wetlands without letting you trample them into oblivion, but if you want to actually set foot on them you have to register for a guided walking tour. These are only available on a handful of dates per quarter, due to the need for suitable tide levels and times and of course in order to control visitor impact, and are so wildly popular that places are snapped up almost as soon as the tour dates are released.
After trying and failing to get on these tours since 2003, I was delighted when my company got a block booking and organized an employee outing. I’d missed the opportunity to join a previous employee outing because all available places were taken as soon as the email advertising it was sent out, but this time they sent out the email quite late on a Friday evening and I was one of the few poor sods still at work. Score, kind of! So here are some pictures of what I waited 6 years to see. I’m a little drained from all the Michael Jackson posts – they’re not easy for me to write – and tonight I enjoyed a change of scene.
The puddled ground of the sandbar shimmered in the morning sun.
Fiddler crabs scurried back and forth on the sand.
Tinier crabs clambered in and out of little assembled sandball piles, their homes. These are dotted everywhere and it’s almost impossible to avoid stepping on one every now and then. Sorry, crabs. :(
Our guide showed us:
Please, Powers That Be, let things remain as they are in this beautiful part of Singapore.
And just for once, let civilization advance no further.
On Saturday, I took this photo of the lazing feet of an Ubin boatman, after alighting at the jetty on the way to Chek Jawa.
Tonight, I am writing this post at 1.31 A.M. at my dining table, elbow deep in legal documents, as a brief insanity-fighting respite before I continue working.
2009 has started with lots of small happy things for me, though it’s quite possible that a notable feelgoody achievement for me is a non-issue for someone more active and productive. Writing a letter, as in with a pen, on paper, to be sent in the post! Completing my Chiang Mai photobook only 2.5 years after the relevant holiday! Watching girls viciously beat each other up in a muay thai tournament at Golden Mile, while some of the best fried chicken I’ve had in a while (Diandin Leluk’s) was still travelling to my fat ass!
I wanted to add a photo to this entry to break up the text overload here lately, and with apologies to the boys, it’s not going to be the girl-on-girl action. Instead, here’s my favourite picture from another happy thing I started the year with, a night visit to the Southern Ridges aerial walk:
I spent Saturday night celebrating a good friend’s birthday on the very Brutalist roof of Peace Centre, a bleak expanse of mottled concrete interrupted somewhat haphazardly by a fitness corner, playground, barbecue pit, a scattering of benches and the occasional spindly potted plant, the roar of the F1 engines transmuted into ghostly sirens by the time it wafted up to us on the clear night air, like a distant apocalypse powerless against the forces of beer, black pepper chicken and conversation. It was great.
On the way to the party, this rather endearing hoarding (on either Paradiz Centre or the building just next to it) caught my eye.
I was depressed two Saturdays ago about my DJ classes ending, so I distracted myself from that by revisiting an older hobby – photography. The DJ school is near Tanjong Pagar Plaza, an old public housing building with lots of activity in its communal spaces on a Saturday afternoon, so I went on a little photography expedition there. I generally prefer blog entries with a few well-chosen photos rather than a slagheap of mediocre ones, but at the moment part of trying to get myself back into the photography habit is to be a bit less of a damn perfectionist. (Essentially, I accumulate photos, but procrastinate on processing them or printing them because I make the excuse that they’re still not quite good enough.) So here goes, a bunch of passable but not outstanding photos, which are hopefully still better than posting nothing!
This was taken hurriedly on the way to class so it doesn’t have the best composition, but I still like its odd collection of elements – outer shell of the disused Yan Kit Road swimming complex in the foreground, beautiful old shophouse in the bottom right and the towering half-constructed Pinnacle@Duxton blocks in the background.
The first two floors of Tanjong Pagar Plaza are a mix of little shops, some self-consciously modern and others which look as if they haven’t changed in twenty years.
I just totally loved that illustration on the sign.
The shops enclose a tiled quadrangle full of benches and greenery. Everyone’s down here on a Saturday afternoon, anxious crowds spilling out of the Singapore Pools betting outlet, cooks washing vegetables in huge plastic tubs, middle-aged men shooting the breeze, and one sweaty photographer trying to be as unobtrusive as she can.
In another country I might refrain from this photograph for fear of exploiting the image of a homeless person. But in Singapore, I’m pretty sure he just decided the shaded bench was cooler for napping than the inside of his flat.
Time for a quick poll! Which of the following two photos of the old men playing chess do you prefer, and why? I couldn’t decide, so asked my colleagues and got different, thoughtful answers about each photo. I’d be interested in hearing your views too.
This was a quick snap in very dim lighting so it’s not very sharp and could be better composed, but I processed and posted it to remind myself of what is possible with the Fuji F31fd’s amazing low light capability. If I were using my other camera (the Canon A650IS, also beloved but for different reasons), I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t even be usable.
I had fun taking these photos! Gotta do it more often.
Matt is here for his 3rd visit! Almost exactly a year ago, he helped Alec throw me a surprise birthday party and firmly established himself as my favourite male karaoke singer. Six months later he did us the honour of co-MCing our wedding, and in another karaoke session, gave me the first sign from God (2 more signs soon followed but that’s another blog entry) that I must learn to sing Master of Puppets as the next crucial stage of my karaoke journey.
This visit, I’m really happy we’ve finally been able to relax and have fun with him without needing to juggle lots of other stuff. Also, I love taking photos of Matt because they always come out as great records of good times had. Conversely, when I take photos of myself and/or Alec, our presence manages to suck all life and spontaneity out of the photo, leaving a photogenic void nearly as repulsive as Lemon Blowjob Face girls.
Here is Matt in Singapore’s most ludicrously OTT bar.
They don’t let you take photos unless you’re taking photos of your friends, and my surreptitious photos really didn’t do it justice, but let’s just say the bar at Parkview Square has just earned its place on Michelle’s Tours Of The Singapore Lots Of Tourists Don’t See But Which Is Freaking Hilarious And Way More Fun Than Clarke Quay (estab. 2003 with rave reviews ever since).
Here is an action shot of Matt playing my favourite minigolf. (I WON YAYYYY!)
Here is the squid Matt MADE, which by sheer coincidence happens to be a perfect companion for Ugly. I have named him Squgly. (OK, this isn’t technically a picture of Matt, but Squgly and Ugly are also way more photogenic than Alec and me, so why not.)
Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos during karaoke this time because it was very civilised. But you may enjoy this one instead from last year’s birthday karaoke chaos. (Photo visible only to my Flickr friends i.e. anyone who knows me in real life and adds me as a Flickr friend, because I don’t want people to recognize me through recognizing my husband. Though it is true that in the photo, Alec pretty much looks like Matt’s husband.)