singapore snapshots – Page 2

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.

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.

Wakeboard The Blue Sky

Yes, Toto, we’re still in Singapore

Saturday morning was my third wakeboarding outing. I can now heel, toe, move outwards over the wake, and move back in over the wake.

Saturday morning was Russ’s first wakeboarding outing. He can do all of that too. Either I’m a slow learner, or he’s fucking annoying.

Also fucking annoying: his sixpack.

But be not deceived by the attitude I’m faking in order to conceal my innate sappiness. Truth be told, the feeling of wakeboarding past kelongs, seagulls in my peripheral vision and two people I love in my sights, was fucking wonderful.

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”

Labrador Park

Some photos from the weekend. These were taken at Labrador Park.

Barnacles and colours

Lichen life in the ruined fort

Makciks and tankers

(makcik: Malay lady, usually middle-aged or older.)

Give Us This Day Our Daily Beer

Outside the Joo Chiat KTV lounge where Alec was turning tricks last weekend, this humble altar moved us deeply and reminded us of the profound insights we can gain from other religions. We are seriously considering incorporating certain elements of this beautiful offering into our own worship.

Give that god a Tiger!

Happy Easter, everyone!

Nowhere Mall

They don’t make them like Cuppage Plaza any more.

I haven’t met many people who share my penchant for forgotten places and faded glory, which is why I’m so glad I have the Orgers to do things like drink in the Mitre Hotel, explore Potong Pasir, and sing KTV in the saddest, dingiest shopping centre in Orchard Road with.

Don’s picture captures the listless, boarded-up feel of the place better than mine does, but I fell too much in love with the lifts and wanted to make them look beautiful.

The Mitre Experience

It takes a special sort of person to appreciate the Mitre Hotel, which is why the only people I’ve ever taken there have been the Orgers and Alec. Last week a second Orger outing was organized by Don and Yen, who hadn’t had the “Mitre experience” yet but were determined to before the place either got a) more popular or b) razed to the ground by order of the public safety powers that be. And of course, as we knew they would, they loved it. (Read Yen’s love here.)

We perched on the dusty couches, sipped our sub-$4 beers, and talked about ghosts. (Terry and Don had just seen Shutter and were impressed.) At first we were the only ones there. Later, a couple swam into view, apparitions emerging from the black deeps beyond the porch lights. At some point a dog started howling in the distance.

I forgot to bring my camera this time, so these pictures are from when I took Alec there. They’ve been left fairly dark and dingy rather than sexed up too much in Photoshop, but still don’t even come close to evoking the atmosphere of the place – they lack the creepy walk up the driveway, the smell of musty decay, the feel of the brittle upholstery crunching beneath you as you sit down and crane your neck at the gaping holes in the ceiling.

From the bar, looking towards the door

On the wall next to the bar

A close-up of the door grill, including the pack of stray chairs which lurk outside

East Coast Afternoon

The weather’s been moody the past week with sulks and squalls every now and then, and on Saturday in the car on the way to Pasir Ris every drop of rain seemed to think it was a kamikaze pilot seeking final glorious death on the windscreen, but yesterday, yesterday it was breathtakingly sunny, and I got lured outdoors.

The Marine Parade library’s one of the best ways to enjoy a beautiful day – tall glass walls let the light in, but air-conditioning and frappucinos protect you from the heat. On a Monday afternoon you escape the Sunday crowds, but there are just enough people to give it a contented buzz, more than enough comfy chairs to go round, and no queue at the Starbuck’s. I was disciplined and kept my four book limit in mind when scouring the shelves, instead of the way I usually end up staggering around with over ten books, most of which I later have to discard sadly, and settled down happily for the next two hours or so.

Final choices: The Passion (Jeanette Winterson), The Eye In The Door (Pat Barker), and the Lonely Planet guide to Turkey. I still had Let’s Go Greece 2001 on my card from two weeks ago, so that made four.

While waiting for the bus, I took a patriotic picture – the walkway in the public housing estate was festooned with flags in preparation for National Day, which is on 9 August. Lately our public housing estates have been looking more and more like condominiums, but the old building in this one does actually correspond with more typical ideas of “public housing”.

At my bus stop I decided it was still too pretty outside to go home, and walked to Katong Shopping Centre for black economy delights. If you’re Singaporean, you’ll know what I mean by this. If you’re not, let’s just say that in certain stores here they sell lots of flat shiny things with lots of other people’s intellectual/artistic property on them for very low prices. At least, that’s what I go there to buy. I daresay the middle-aged men in certain sections of the shops trying to conceal their salivation and callused right hands were after pleasures neither intellectual nor artistic.

I took the long way home, walking along the entrance to the expressway, and was conveniently informed that when I leave here for London on August 31, it’ll only take me 9 minutes to get to the airport. I love this home, but I still can’t wait to get back to that one.