Chinatown 2

Three dozen playing; ten dozen perhaps congregating. Some of the games have a dozen looking on from the sides, two dozen closely focused, attentive eyes. The men soundless and mostly standing, studious in their regard. Within the walls of the nearby temple worshippers are less concentrated. (Reminds one of those mythical books said to so grip a man that he might read it through standing, leaning on a post. The Montenegrins say a person would listen to something truly captivating while rain poured behind their ears.)
         Chinese checkers one side; chess the other. The latter fifty cent-sized flat round disks carrying an identifying character. An inner city square of the usual size. Toward the reconstructed, highly ornate carmine-red temple there stands a stage where a concert was held a couple of weeks ago featuring old songs in a vaudeville-like presentation. On that night there were perhaps a couple of hundred people on plastic seats that had been arranged for the event—families, elderly, lovers, the lot, singing along, clapping, marveling. These board-games took place during the height of the afternoon heat. Middle aged and older men in thongs and tees down from the HDB towers. There were no women, only the occasional passer-by. The large food hall at the base of one of the towers; stalls of various kinds to the side; tourist aisles close-by always thronged. This quiet centre of Chinatown a little oasis.
         On all sides calm, patience, deference to age, a little larking at success and once or twice small gasps at errors. Numerous old leathered grandmasters heavily afflicted by their smoking, taking the habit full term. An outsider moving among them gets no notice whatever, such is the level of interest.
         Nothing comparable, nothing of a similar order imaginable in any Western country for the last how many decades?  

Chinatown  was published in the Hong Kong based Asian Cha Literary Journal, Dec 2013, under the title “Ancient China: Post- (Almost) LKY Singapore”