Eternity

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Time slipped so fast, a fifty-five week allotment of it here in the tropics. End of financial year. Half year. Four or five weeks time a return expected to the land of Oz. It is going to be a very strange home-coming.
         A surprise to find Abdul Majid back at the Mr. T. T. counter this morning. Or rather to be found by him, his inimitable voice calling out from behind. Absent a month up in Malacca, where he may have a pair of wives. The joke always brings a wide smile to Abdul’s face. (The case remains uncertain. Possibly Abdul lacks the wherewithal for even a single wife.) The relentless twelve hour shifts, thirteen day fortnights had quite worn Abdul out. Returned now.
          The old pavement scribbler here, the hobo-like chap always carting a bag or two, sporting the old embroidered polo that a daughter might have run up on her sewing machine to give dad a better visibility crossing the streets, unexpectedly approached the table this morning while the diary entry was being made. In passing the fish-eye has taken in the stranger many times over the course of the stay. Once there came an abrupt greeting and a smile. Never before this morning anything like a direct approach.
         The man wanted to make his own confirmation on the date. Stopped by the table, he craned his head around to take in the scrawl. Highly unexpected. It was a visitation like that of a bird suddenly alighted from the clouds. Strange but true; confident and direct. The familiarity over such a long course naturally allowed the liberty. Why not? The chap had seen innumerable fellows taking a seat at table; free and easy relations; long conversations. A venture on his part not such a leap perhaps. It is the newcomer who is always required to make the adjustment on his side, and fair enough.
         — Today thirteen, it sounded like.
         In fact he knew precisely where we had arrived. The English should have been a shock. As affable as if we had been exchanging daily pleasantries all the while.
         Tomorrow was "one" too, he knew.
         A couple of times he reiterated the statements for confirmation. The chap had recognised a fellow scribe. After eyeing the scrawl of the date in the notebook he had turned to the newspaper, fortuitously opened on the Opinion page ( — a Yale man outlining the complexities of the continuing Syrian troubles). On the Opinion page the date is always centred and prominent.

         Yes, thirtieth. And tomorrow "one".
         The possibility of the thirty-first must have been the concern.
         The next few days an eye-out needing to be kept on the pavement up at Joo Chiat Road corner, either this side, or Geylang Serai opposite. It was on the Geylang Serai side, on the former Malay Kampung corner, where the chap had last been seen down on the pavement, chalk-stick in hand, smiling and very much engaged in his task. Someone said it was his own name he was scrawling. Someone else that age was releasing memories and reflections. Our local Eternity man at lower Geylang.
         The other morning the chap had knocked back an old, perfectly good pair of jeans that Ahmad had brought out especially for him. Like everyone else, Ahmad makes his choice of deserving beggar. (In fact this Eternity man never begs other than cigarettes, and that only from his own community.) The jeans he could still wear himself, explained Ahmad, a trifle miffed at the rejection. To make matters worse, the Eternity man declined with rather an imperfect grace, waving a hand and abruptly turning on his heels. One quick look at the offering, still within the bag, told him enough. Not for him.
         Feels the cruel slippage himself no doubt.


         (In Sydney after the war a well-known street-scribe had left his Eternity markings on the pavements in a characteristic cursive script, eventually attaining a little local fame for his reminder. Here in Singapore a young artist has recently divided public opinion with her witty street stickers employing a gentle irony in rather amusing S'inglish.)

Sunday Market (Geylang Serai)

.

Clams and cockles selling as fast as the man could fill his bags. A kilo at a time it looked like, one bag after another. Next?
         Two types of the former, one three times more expensive than the other, commoner type ($2/6). Cockles fetched two also. All three of a size.
         The butchers on the other side sliced and chopped astonishingly vibrant red meat. It may be that all colours are brighter and more intense in the tropics. A reminder one is in the territory of the forged steel blade too: the parang and kris. The Chinese chop-chop wasn't a loose piece of blather. At one time it would have made the listener hop well and truly. Men wielding the blade adeptly, fatty strings slung into buckets underneath the bench. For fully five minutes one chap was observed from beside his elbow: not the merest flicker, intent at his task. Sometimes the mat salleh can be the ghost who walks through these halls. Usually not.
         The Tidur, tidur / Sleep, sleep tee — bought in Malacca from a young chap who ran a little eco-Backpacker on the river — has them more often than not agog. The panama, more or less white face, and tidur-tidur. Who/What is this joker? A regular more or less. Wants to be Malay? CIA?....
         The old flower-seller was abashed at the modest size of the pandan and jasmine buds taken for the two dollars.
         — You want one dollar, or two? she asked at the mid-point when the meagreness of the bag was becoming apparent.
         With some added bouquets enfolded in betel leaf she tried to compensate. Likely she recalled the first purchase a few weeks before. Difficult to forget probably.
The leaves on her tray on the counter looked wilted. No good. In the freezer better preserved. On her chair she places the plastic bag from the freezer and begins picking through. Many of these leaves too had lost their lustre. Leafing through like a croupier; like a book-worm seeking the relevant page.
         "Auntie" only fronts at eleven, she explained apologetically. Her own English was nothing as good. Auntie spoke excellent well; she could name each and every flower at her stall. The previous week auntie had been out of sorts, a little unwell. The woman recalled the reference. This mat salleh in the panama buying wedding bouquets calling an old toothless Malay auntie.... The pair were into their late seventies, a couple of years perhaps separating. Sisters was judged right. It was either kaka or a-dek for "auntie" — the former older sister and latter younger. This made the woman blush even more, blush with a little pleasure and delight. And all the more reason to deal fairly. Fresh produce at the least.

         Forward and backward with the leaves. Back and forth. Finally she settled on three, brought out the stapler from the drawer, folded the leaf, two staples shot. Pandan, topped with a little crimson rose-head, presented as a tribute. Still the two dollars not off-set of course. High colour in the cheeks blooming still. The other two leaves she would have likewise filled and presented had she not been forestalled.
         Auntie must be a sleepy-head. Tidur, tidur....
         Sometimes one can play-up the message on the tee. Point and draw the finger across the words when it has taken someone's interest. Everyone keenly reads the billboard tees here in Singapore on the approach. Oftentimes the tee can say it so much, much better. A little sociological paper could be written on the subject: a Chinese-Malay community, fisher-folk and coolie servant-class to upper first world in three generations, hacked English foisted upon them by the technocratic elite, living in "bird-cage" flats in the middle of yellow-brown, still largely poor Asia, under the influence of Euro-Ameri cool style.... What to do?...
         Such shame and embarrassment auntie's kaka or a-dek didn't even see the tee. Too old for that kind of identity confusion in any event.
         Two-three days the fragrance holds bed-side and on the dresser, filling the room and perfuming the dreams. A two dollar entree to the market at Geylang Serai.

Trumpet

Old Malay hunched over his plate, black songkok pushed back on his head. Among the Malays these caps are either black or white, the latter associated with the hajj (hard and fast rules do not apply). Back of wardrobe cap this case, one that had lost its lustre. There may be a better, newer donned for formal occasions. The man has popped over to the market and grabbed a quick bite afterward. Clean enough the hat; even the best wife can't work miracles with worn and faded fabric, not under this unforgiving sun. What is lacking in the sheen of fabric here however more than compensated by the trumpet of bright poppy-red flowers pinned to the front rim, a trail of green leaves and stem for fixing. Off-centre to the right, just so. Mid seventies; not out of the question into his eighties. Long-sleeved shirt with sleeves rolled, jeans and shoes. Four large silver rings on the right hand, one for each finger; single only set with stone. On his way out a friend in front detained, botting a cigarette it looked at first. Only then did the left come clearly into view. Two rings were apparent while he sat at table. Two fingers carrying was right, but nothing of the standard form involved here. The fore- and middle fingers of the left hand carried the adornments, two rings each. Four rings. On the latter, the middle, the second ring rode uncomfortably it seemed on the knuckle. The pal doesn't want a fag. Rather and on the contrary, the gypsy sought an ear to chew. One might have guessed, lair like that. The other a straight-man: solid, dependable, quiet and retiring. Not a sparkler of any description; wrist-watch was all. Rattling like an old woman the poseur; tin for tabacci. Can't be put off no matter what signs of impatience and inattention received. Road-noise, the overhead fans, busy Thursday market crowd—rises above it all effortlessly. Deafness isn't going to save his victim. And one final surprise. The right thumb all of a sudden, like a joker from the pack. Almost positively bare earlier. Performer and quick-change artist this chap, employing a range of diversions in order to produce his sleight of hand. Still unlit fag.

Shut-eye

Indian-Malay man. After twelve months some confidence in the identifications. 

Indian usually means southern Tamil in the context of Singapore, certainly for the longer settled. Perhaps one of the parents or grandparents Sumatran, rather than the often heavier set Javanese. It is the latter who predominate here among the Malays—another wide umbrella term that can be quite tricky. 

There is much to be said on the "Malays". Best left to the anthropologists.

This particular man hangs two or three days a week around the front pillar at the tables on the ground floor of Geylang Serai. Hangs almost literally in this case. In that posture an observer can't help feeling the chap is faking it somehow, something untoward in the display, as if the request for coin will follow.

A fellow some years younger has just delivered a teh, unasked it seems.

Chain-link gold watch and band must be a drag on that slim, spare and bony arm. 

Clean white polo with the pocket holding a clutch of pens. Well into his seventies, if not tipped beyond. 

The solicitude of his benefactor was indicative. 

Such a spare, supple frame will hold him in good stead.

The right foot down on the yellow seat, over-shooting the edge and curled to give himself good purchase. Left bent across the other's thigh and hand more often than not bracing. Thin and short as he appears, bundled up compactly like this the limbs give an impression of elongation. Some of the contortions in the figures in the Hindu temples spring to mind.

Almost certainly no aircon back home. The nights are getting warm again, durian season upon us, the crowds filling the outdoor tables in upper Geylang that specialise in the fruit, the King, or Sultan of fruits, as the fans have it. 

Here the morning breeze fluting at the Indian-Malay's back gives the old man some relief. Most people at the eatery sit facing the street taking the air on their faces. 

Always clean and closely shaven, a daily ritual. Perhaps there had been a uniform of some kind during his working life.

Chin on sternum, nodding occasionally at a slight shift of weight. The right hand carries two heavy rings set with the usual stones. Resting the other with the watch a factor in the distribution of weight in that posture. 

In all the encounters, all the sightings at Geylang Serai—at Geylang Serai and no-where else—never a once seen this chap with his feet on the ground, never mind ambulatory.

Bouquet (Bunga Rampai)

Three lads sent by their mothers to market for the floral corsages for the wedding guests. (No doubt bride and groom had been separately provisioned earlier.)

Two flower sellers sat in adjacent stalls in one of the middle rows, the second, older woman in her head-wrap had been specified.

Three or four betel leaves were overlapped and shaped into a small vase, almost water-tight when stapled together. The woman had fetched a stapler from a drawer. 

Beside the lady her assistant had been dicing leaves all morning: it was shredded pandan forming the base of the bouquet. Two or three heads of white jasmine, petals broken from stems, for the first topping, followed by small, strongly scented crimson roses.

Each step was carefully shown the lads. Back at the reception the task would fall to them.

The finely shredded pandan goes into plastic sachets of the sort with the string-tie they do take-away teh here. A squirt of some kind of rosewater perhaps produced a saccharine cloud. (The following Sunday when the woman was asked she denied anything so commonplace: perfumed waters from Arabia rather.)

The reception might take place at the base of one of the HDB towers, like the one investigated last year at the Haig Road blocks, where the young bride and groom were found seated on ornate thrones on a raised platform, plush red carpet over the concrete before them strewn with paper money. Kings and queens for a day, the Malays said.

  

                                                                                                Geylang Serai, Singapore

Ah-ma Fallen Ill

Ahma was ill in Ang Moh Kio, meaning a good deal of added work now for Vashti. Ma'am away on assignment in Europe; before that it was South Africa. Winnie was away in Canada recently. (It was uncertain whether she was returned.) Either way Ma'am and her sister could be assured their mother was in good hands. Early morning ahma needed to be taken to the doctor; after that the two kids to school. Usually ahma took the kids to school and picked them up, a pleasurable daily routine. The last few days she had been unable and Vashti deputised. Sir was away in Macau, where he has been based a number of years, returning for NY and recently for his birthday. Few in Macau to celebrate with most likely.) The family arrangement was not unusual in Singapore. There were many business opportunities in the region; many jobs in the admin. sectors at home. Cheap domestic helpers from Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar and the rest numbered about 200,000 in the country. (Around five percent of the population.) Next year employers would need to pay a minimum salary of $450 per month and provide one free rest day weekly. 

Concern had been raised by the new regulations, the Letters section of the newspaper attracting much comment on the issue. Maids falling to their deaths from heights cleaning windows and hanging out washing had been another contentious matter. (Running at two per month at the time.) In order to address the problem a new law passed on window cleaning and washing hanging from anything above the first storey: employers would be required in attendance. Much consternation evident at the impracticalities. In the earlier debate there had been comments on the impossibility of safeguarding maids with limited education and comprehension.

On her return from Canada Winnie had told Vashti she had missed her. It seemed more than politeness. Gifts came from Winnie to Vashti; the woman had become attached to the maid. Vashti joked, You didn't miss your mother or sister, but you missed me!... 

Often children were more attached to their maids than to their mothers and fathers. A well-known phenomenon and unsurprising. All for well under four hundred a month for many years past.

Telling of ahma's illness, Vash explained her added duties. No complaints, just very busy. Helping ahma and the young children Vashti explained helped her feel closer to her own mother and child back in Java.

 

Coolie

Bodily thinness of this order was almost entirely historic. Impossible not to be taken aback (as one would be in the other direction currently in the States by all reports). A challenge beholding the man, observing his preparations; it seemed remarkable that one was permitted to come into his presence, stop before him and share his burden.

Down on his haunches drawing from his bag one item after another. 

The sky-blue square of fabric was not large; either side two of his neighbours much larger, one almost overlapping. 

Three Corona Club baseball caps grey and new the best of his wares. Old navy beret in rear and white push-top pen placed perpendicular in front.

Could the man have weighted fully 40kg? Ten or a dozen durians perhaps. 

Loose shorts and open shirt unbuttoned to the navel had him almost completely exposed. 

Sun was not a bother for a man such as this. Chinese, in one or two generations falling short of the roasted coffee of many of his compatriots here. Perhaps he had gone about as far as yellow can into brown. Feet, arms, face and scalp concentrated the black moles.

Undifferentiated straw-hat toiler from the old scrolls, standing in the fields and by the paths.

The panama suggested the beret: a short wave of hand included the caps on the crowded square.

Beside him the extraordinary inky blue-green bubbled birth-mark that covered almost one entire half of this neighbour's face, forehead down to chin. 

This chap had appeared in the middle of the month; absent the few months prior. 

Early-mid forties, usually leaning against the back cyclone-wire straddling the drain. 

Did the man possibly get his neighbour to handle sales? 

His square of fabric was hardly more enticing than the Coolie. 

The painted older ladies in the back parlour-kitchens in the lane behind Desker Road would receive this man along with all other comers, possibly a warm smooch on the kisser into the bargain. One could tell the women in those chairs showing themselves through the doorway had it in them.

A more sprightly Chinaman shortly before came well-equipped with two large brollies rigged and free-standing on the handle of his steel suitcase. A man taking fright at the tropical sun—between the two membranes of his shields there were laid three or four layers of added fabric. 

Hadith (Sayings of Muhammad)

Two specific surprises in the survey. The first is the accent on Knowledge; the high, almost ultimate value placed upon it and its pursuit. Secondly, the strong iteration on another, unexpected virtue. Those of other, non-monotheistic faiths, might find nothing whatever remarkable about it; for those of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the emphasis on good disposition, the caution against ill-temper, comes a surprise. Neither involves a minor, passing mention. There is no mistaking the Prophet's emphasis, at least in the Hadith, the Collected Sayings.

         Not unexpectedly, there seems to be some debate about the extent and authenticity of the various records that make up the Hadith. The small volume presented to the author by Zainuddin Mohamed Ismail — Din for short — a Malay-Indian Singaporean writer and scholar — is issued by the Muslim Missionary Society of Singapore (Jamiyah), from their centre in upper Geylang.

         Just as for Christ and the Buddha, compassion stands as clearly a key characteristic of the Prophet. The feeling and concern for the poor, the orphaned, the beasts, is apparent. A short selection:

 90. Tenderness always lends beauty to one who displays it in one's relations with others. On the other hand, a lack of it lends ugliness

 93. The best form of devotion to God is to seek knowledge. (The absence of an established ecclesiastical order perhaps significant.)

 95. A moment's contemplation is better than seventy years' worship.

 99. He who feels shy or is too proud to seek knowledge, will never gain knowledge.

109. The man of good disposition certainly attains thereby the degree of the man of prayers and fasting.

146. He who lacks goodwill toward others, can never attain piety.

287. .... Truth is tranquility but falsehood is doubt.

323. A man asked the Messenger of God "What practice of Islam is the best one?" He replied "Your giving food (to the needy) and greeting those you know and those you do not know."

The Scarf

The echoes and remembrances, the buried past, emerging in this unlikely, foreign yet familiar place. Despite the heat and language barrier; despite the lack of connection and the high costs. The woman going by just now, possibly Indon, perhaps Malay. From a remove often impossible to discern the distinction. The people share essentially the same language, religion and culture; there have been countless waves of migration between the islands, creating a thorough cross-fertilization (important small, local differences everywhere, to be sure). The woman prompts the unexpected question whether mother ever wore her shoulder length hair tied back like that by a single, simple band. Pins were the usual resort back then; not here. The colouration is about right, both of hair and skin almost. Like her, often these women retain their hair colour well into middle age. Stature and spare frame. Nimbleness. Self-possession. A bicycle might have been locked up around the corner. There was a bag slung over her shoulder from the pasar here at the wonderful market at Geylang Serai (likely the cheapest on the island; Babi would have found it out quick-smart!). Unexpectedly too, we even had the same word for trade or market: from hundreds of years ago the Arabic influence splitting in every-which direction.
         After father died early Babi donned her widows weeds and maintained them longer than the regulatory twelvemonth. (A dreadful fright at the school-ground bringing a forgotten lunch. Panicked shame.) Prior to that and after too, like her mother and all her kin, she had worn a headscarf. These firm matrons here at the eatery tables, their inner strength and large capacity, bring Bab back daily; a comfort and a pleasure. The colours are otherwise, the jewelry and make-up — masking nothing of the correspondence. Bicycles here certainly outnumber cars for the transport of the older generation. The general visibility of the elderly here brings back the past too. (Weather and population density make an enormous difference.) Stout, upright, proud matrons, always ready with a warm smile even for a strange foreigner. The deep well of humour with which they are resourced reminds one of the more tinny and thin laughter on our streets. How dear Bab rollicked and heaved in her mirth, having to cover her face for shame like so many here. Well into her nineties. (The men here too perhaps more so than our own, more open.) With the prohibition of alcohol energies and further possibilities are released, tremendous advantages and safeguards.
         A twelvemonth on Thursday.

Coiffure & Millinery at the Thieves

Survivor absent from his post this afternoon, no-where to be seen. As usual his younger wife sat on the ground, passing some of the clothes through her fingers while half listening to a dark woman leaning against the back fence rattling. Easy to discern the tell-tale signs left behind. The fold-up chair down on the trolley carried a piece of cardboard over the ridge that rose above the seat-hollow. Stretched out there in his usual way, legs up over the rail, the Survivor would have been discomforted down on the tail-bone. All made good with the roughly torn cardboard piece. Sweet.

On the bend the usually seated sister was up on her feet behind her wares, occupied with a couple of Banglas who were keeping her waiting. No eyes this afternoon for passersby. Where could the woman have found that length of peak on a camouflage hat? Attached ear-flaps. The peak must have stretched one foot at a minimum. This on a gal five foot zero in her heels. 

In order to see anything at all it needs to be turned to one side, at an awkward, drunken angle. Presenting a little difficulty for the exchange. Such good ivory in this hawker's case. Most of them here would need to eschew any kind of meat. 

The sun had not been kept out from the beginning with the same vigilance; nor the same as the dental hygiene. No doubt how pretty this one would have been in her youth, even ten years ago. Unlikely she would be married. Unlikelihoods in all directions.

Bike-man was disconsolate, sitting in the gutter beside his wares (more than half of them seat-less). On a white plastic lid of some kind. Bare-headed this afternoon with the sun gone down; over-sized plastic clogs easier on the corns. 

The ragged, bloodied ears have been unmentioned to date. Difficult to guess the reason. Scissoring the sprouts had been the initial thought. 

Often congealed blood was evident, particularly around the ear drum, the left more often (more easily reached with the right). Once or twice before he had also worn a little wad in that ear—something like a bird carrying in its beak. 

Scalp newly shorn, a little toilet brush fringe left and possibly even coloured recently. Jet black, couple of inches in a tight band high on his forehead? How often would Bike-man bring in front of a mirror? 

A tall Indian-Malay man at a guess, near Survivor and on the same side, gets a fortnightly hair-cut that easily wins the crown at the Thieves pageant. The man in his late forties, mainly in athletic gear, large stones and bracelets. Turned entirely white some years ago. His barber gives him razored terraces along both sides about two centimetres in width. Newly done even a cool cat town denizen needs to stop and stare at the man.

All preconceptions fall away turning the corner at the Thieves Market. 

A couple youngsters on the side opposite Survivor, in shirts, trousers and shoes possibly turn a dollar with their trade in rings and jewels. (Inherited from their fathers?) Difficult to see anyone else here making money.

Sun-spots on the scalp either side of Bike’s fringe. A string of old keys had the man a trifle baffled this afternoon. 

Trade slow. In the form of scaredy-cat schoolboys from an age past, the once or twice Bike-man raises his eyes he does so without lifting his chin. 

Earlier on the turning toward Jalan Besar the ice-cream trishaw sold a couple of items, one to a woman who had come down from the neighbouring HDB.

Beside the Bike his own trishaw parked this afternoon, the carriage filled with spare wheels, tyres and tubes. A hard push mounted so high. Bike-man does not ride pushing that load. 

Another trishaw on Jalan Besar Corner had lost one of its red plastic chairs. Chap must have heard it go. A young Malay lad passing with his girl-friend stopped to retrieve it while the man waited in his saddle.

 — Thank you, Arh.

(Classic Sing' construction and rhythm for those of you who know the form.)

This time no second chances. Setting off for his fellows, the chap pushed wearing the furniture as a hat.

 

Letter to Sunday Times: on Friendship

With regard to the email that has disturbed Madam Lee (Sunday June 3, 2012), the portions quoted in today's column might be received by an impartial reader as simple, fundamental insights, not especially cynical or sarcastic. Confucius in his Analects says a number of things about friendship germaine on this topic. The Frenchman Montaigne likewise, who grieves over the indispensable friend in his life taken from him.
That those in positions of authority and power face particular obstacles one would have thought generally recognised and understood.
With respect, an Australian visitor and admirer of this country and its people.

Lee Wei Ling is the daughter of the long-serving PM here, Lee Kwan Yew; the brother and son respectively the current PM. Chief family of the city state.
The lady, director of the National Neuroscience Institute, writes an occasional column in the Sunday Times. A few months ago she wrote about her rewarding friendships across the classes. In today's column of pique at a respondent's uncharitable response she writes of friendship even extending to her father's Security detail. Protesting a bit much, one might think, and rightly pulled up by the respondent.
Perhaps the tone here sufficient to pass the editorial desk. Regular readers will be duly informed. Mailed a couple of minutes ago.

Octoroon

Passing the dinner table tonight chap made you start, choke on your food, confused memory and perception, almost knocked you from your chair into the aisle where delightful old crones rickety on their pins to start with might have been brought tumbling down in a godawful scrum. Foggy streets and back lanes of Collingwood and Fitzroy fifty years ago were dotted with pavement rain trees, yellows and browns, scarves and kebayas. Creeping dark was about right too for closing time, forcing the slow, unsteady retreat back to rooming houses and tenements where stairs needed hoisting. Pigmentation almost perfect, not much more than slight tonal difference involved. Taken together with the features of pug-nose, forehead, jaw and jowls, the rich six o'clock swill bloomed across the capillaries. My oh my! What a life there must have been given his age and class. There was even some sideway rocking on heels like the old timers over the cobblestones. The Jocks and Jimmys would have instantly claimed him as their own. Drab, worn and faded Penguin polo straight from the Two Bob shop. Opening his mouth would have created a problem, though the era provided a certain degree of cover. A true ang moh—carrot-top somewhat faded and grayed now like the shirt. In Collingwood the type would have clung to the pillar lining up the pots on the high shelf where they were safe. Where could he have hidden himself here all this time? Might conceivably have had not a single word of English; broken Hokkien and Malay perhaps. To be engaged by any means possible on any reappearance.

Delicacies

Something different. In place of the standard culinary surveys that are commonly offered in a review of this little red dot - as some journalese has coined it - a small repast of other rich delicacies is now proposed by this author, for those unsatisfied with what they have been served thus far. Rich, spicy, flavoursome fare. The hungriest heavy-weight will be sated after even the sample dishes that follow. Assume your seat ladies and gentlemen, tuck your napkins, allow me to offer for your delectation the following Les entrees:
Jardin
Carmine
Vibes
The Miltonia.
Notice the texture, the subtle bouquet insinuating delight.... &etc. &etc. Verdant high colour underscored by tangy relish to surprise even the most discerning.... &etc. We must move on. Les Plats:
Parkland  
vacanza@eastcoast
Lake Vista
Eight Rivers (Glow with the City/Flow by the River)....
Dear Lord above! That may have inadvertently introduced Les Fromages before time. Jacques!... Jack you little Fucker!... Excuse e moi...
I apologise for that interruption Mesdammes e Monsieurs. Finally, Les Desserts, largely from our northern estates:
River Isles
Manhattan
Lincoln (the dead unable to defend themselves, poets and visionary leaders alike)
Rich Residence (on Richards Road)
StarLiving (Spot of cheating admitted: furniture retailer in this instance.)
Versailles
Sincerity (another cheat: Art Auction House.... )
The Trillion was a beauty in the paper a few days ago. Forgotten, lamentably. It had been given a run some months before. The fung shui or something couldn't have been right. Hadn't cleared the lot. Back again. Trill - ion. For the city-country of Billionairres - largest global per capita number bar none. What could be more fitting?
Likely the cat's outta the bag. You guessed right reader. Concrete and steel in place of shrimps and sharks' fin. A little leg-pulling, tickling the testies... or the rosebud.
Pools fifty feet in the air, over-looking green fringes; MRT stations in proximity; private schools, McDonalds outlets (operating 24x7 preferably) - all highly attractive and sought after. Seventy - seventy-five percent of cases Nicole Kidman (from youth) look-a-likes in evening dresses if not bathing costumes featured in the advertising (if the point has not been overly laboured in these pages this twelvemonth). A feast of colour and luscious presentation. A starving man — the chap collecting scraps from the bins beside the bus-stop on Changi Road opposite Geylang Serai — would hardly hesitate to take a bite from any one of these eye-watering dishes. Sumptuous. Architectural awards aplenty, mostly for hoisting mature trees and bushes fifty metres in the air and catching run-off. Emperors never lived the like.
Just this morning the newest batch, one or two of them unheard of before:
Watercolours — Full page, A41.
An EC in Pasir Ris, out in the western sticks.
Dwellings here designated, in ascending order of opulence and price (out of consideration for sensitivities we omit cardboard spread under alcoves): HDB (Housing Development Board, which make up 85% of dwellings), Apartment, Condo, Exec. Condo, Penthouse, Shop-house, Bungalow. (Mansions are unadvertised, doubtless sold amongst the families.)
Archipelago — next page; the Developers winners of the Priz d'Excellence, the Aga Khan Award.... (Satisfy yourselves properly dear Readers: A42-3, Saturday June 2, 2012 The Straits Times.)
For Oz readers short of a laugh with the Saturday cartoons offering slim pickings today, see Page A45:
One Can1berra.
Premier Riverfront EC.
Not easy to maintain the roll-out of illustrious sought-after global Star havens.
The soft-peach painted Versailles is taken from around the corner from Geylang Road, on Guillemard. Otherwise the remainder from the full page (mostly) spreads in the S. T. Once more, please note: no trickery or falsity involved. We are in all cases within the boundary of the little red dot island, no place else. Not a Mandarin, Malay, Tamil or Hindi name among them. Not one. When one might have expected perhaps The Great Wall, Tiananmen, the Tang. The Sultan and Emperor at a minimum. (The Empress had a short run on Tanjong Katong - Geylang Roads Corner. Since slipped to the rather less august "Katong Regency" in acceptance of the surrounds no doubt. Pre-selling currently.) The Qin you might have justifiably thought (era of the great Dictionary, among other marvels). The Ming. The Taj surely. You will be disappointed yearning in that direction dear Reader, faithful Reader. No, it's all pure white splendour I have to report, from beginning to end. Yellow, copper, coffee and cinamon aint the same aspirational.

Ciggie-break at the Thieves'

The Thieves' could not be approached now without a certain amount of trepidation. Last part of the walk down, once the canal had been crossed and the first figures on the fringe sighted—the dark men in the gutters along the side-street and the others at the parked vans—a little wave of apprehension arrived. Irrational. A certain attuning and readying. Had the Thieves’ been banished from their place, sent packing overnight and no more about it? At the local by-laws office a ruling issued against the disorder, the litter, the unwelcome display for international visitors in the heart of the city? A stroke of the pen and no more about it.

The authorities lacked nothing in promptness. The market had been moved on a number of times; because of a re-development another removal was due shortly.

            Each time the canal was crossed and the entry approached an underlying panic.

            Once the turn was reached and the Thieves’ and their wares made visible another kind of concern took over. Earlier it had been mixed with the former; now when the position was clarified the other anxiety, reminiscent of that in younger days before a sporting contest, gripped and brought some queasiness.

            There could be no substantial surprises now at the Thieves'. What was in the offing at the Thieves' was well-known. Many of the figures had become familiar; one or two exchanged greetings and the sisters at the turn always smiling warmly.

            The same trepidation each time.

            One walked the gauntlet at the Thieves’ simply passing through the long upper passage. Pace was immediately adjusted and careful treading. The path was perhaps three and a half or four metres in width, the crowd forcing one to pick one's way. Bicycle riders came wheeling slowly, some mounted, elderly stumbling along. The goods heaped-up and scattered as often as arranged spilt onto the pathway.

            Since the first dozen visits there was not enough strength for a survey of the entire market; the main thoroughfare perhaps accounted for a third of the whole. The main thoroughfare was more than enough now.

            Coming again to those regulars and their wares flooded the brain. Too much to receive even in that shortened segment. 

            Neither the Kopi shops nor the buses or streets gathered such a concentration of this particular class and generation, this cast of characters. The past and its radically other ways were presented at the Thieves' Market, and even more ramifying fate and destiny.

           Recalling Tarkovsky through Geoff Dyer's new book on Stalker one wondered whether even the great man himself would have been able to capture what was on display at the Thieves’.

            This was the other side of the trepidation: how to possibly deliver some part of this mostly silent drama? It was a daunting challenge, one that could not be avoided. Inevitably one would fall short however the task was approached. Where to start? How to capture the smallest portion? A good deal of what was delivered here would have escaped even Tarkovsky's favourite cinematographer. Turning the camera on the Thieves and their wares would also ultimately be a film about God, as Dyer quotes Tarkovsky exclaiming on his pass through Monument Valley in the U.S., where he bemoaned the desecration of Westerns filmed in that location. (John Ford included presumably.)

            This afternoon's visit was bookended by a couple of karung guni. Just past the canal on the walk over the first was encountered at some bins along the iron fencing. Aluminium was being mined there. Later her counterpart on Jalan Besar at the other end searched paper. The pair were almost identical in age, size, gender, hair color and cut, both in orange safety vests as it happened, though it was unlikely any kind of co-operation existed between them. 

            Just before the latter was reached after the pass at the Thieves’ a profusely sweating chap was unloading newly washed boxes of green potatoes from the Netherlands. Not much bigger than shoe-size packages holding eight or nine potatoes. In the tropics the potato was a rare sight; that was part of the fascination. After the Thieves’ it was not possible to negligently pass this fellow too in the midst of his labour.

            No doubt the panama struck this man. Working on steadily, however, he didn't seem to mind the observation. Care was taken to ensure there was no overload or imbalance on his trolley. The man was a true son of the Thieves'. Potato-carter, the shapeless vegetable and the Thieves at their daily ritual—the karung guni too—represented the old Singapore that the new had fled as fast as its legs could carry. Famously break-neck speed. Such rapidity had been involved that living fossils still remained in the wake as objects of shame and barely suppressed disgust.

           At the main thoroughfare of the Thieves’ the familiar faces were found either side. The umbrellas in hand screened some of them. One old chap continued clutching his despite the fact that the sun had passed that point some time before. The first man on the entryway had not been sighted previously; there must have been a low stool beneath him as the squat was wrong. A single sheet of newspaper here held two or three rings and other small, uncertain objects. Late-seventies turning his head bird-like, it was not possible to linger.

           At the crossing the sisters were found in their usual place, the one on her high chair smiling broadly. Close by the old man who chewed his gums. If the chap smoked no longer he certainly had done in the past. Finding this man in his place gave a start on each occasion. 

The tall young special girl with her parents appeared like a character on a stage after a change of scene. That group was in the middle spectrum of half-Chinese/half-Malay, with skin tone according. Opposite the woman who bore the features of the maternal paradigm of the late-fifties found in many corners of the globe among numerous racial groups. Salt and pepper hair pinned in front and hanging to the shoulders, the former beauty plain to see. The panama no doubt aided the woman's recall, her short smile and nod completely uncanny.

           Once the main thoroughfare had been crossed, forty-five metres perhaps, the drink vendor's trishaw stood off the corner. Likely the man’s trade was elsewhere and the Thieves’ a social stop, friends and acquaintances the only patrons there. 

Ten metres further toward Jalan Besar—Big Road—on this particular afternoon, first the potatoes, followed by the second karung guni in the gutter. Immediately behind at the end, the wizened old jockey-sized bicycle vendor was screened by his wheels. Along his portion of the gutter and fence one could cast over the assembled scavenging. An acknowledgement on one of the earlier afternoons suggested the man was not irritated by the attention.

           On his feet that day the Bicycle-man was preoccupied with one of his items behind a parked van. Green cyclone fencing with netting screened heavy pounding machinery; a truck entry manned by a young Indian with a whistle around his neck ten metres on. Voluminous orange-painted cylinders rose high behind. Being after four the shade had descended on the bikes; on earlier visits the rigging of plastic sheeting against the sun was a wonder to behold, here at the Bike-man's station as elsewhere at the Thieves’.

         The bike was the usual old hack destined for one of the foreign workers travelling from dorm to work-site, temple to provision store. A carry-rack on the rear was a welcome addition. (For some reason front baskets were not common in Geylang.) On this particular item of Bike-man's stable a couple of improvised timber pieces had been lashed to the rack and for reasons best known to himself, Bike-man wanted the wood removed. Bright pink twine had been used to tie the slats down. The pieces protruded a foot either side of the rear wheel—dangerous possibly in the bus lanes.

           Knotting tight. A knife had not come to hand. Initially it was unclear what the man was about with his thick, steel cigarette lighter. Was it to soften rubber under the seat, again for reasons best known to himself?

            What was going on behind the van couldn't be made out from a distance. Eventually the striking of the flame and then pulling at the pink twine revealed the intention. 

The lighter was flicked again and again. Hardened fingers were not easily scorched. One needed to move closer to get a proper view. 

            Another observer had witnessed the struggle. The scene had been so gripping that there had been no thought to come to the man's aid. The best one could do was stand and gawk.

            A grey-haired youngster coming up from behind went straight to the trouble and began pulling on the pink ribbon, jerking. The ribbon had been loosened; earlier the flame had done a good part of the work. 

            Even before the first strand of pink came away the old man had pulled at his pocket after replacing his lighter. One of his hands held the bike for his helper. The old man had moved to one side, free hand into his pocket and from a packet presumably somehow a single fag fished out. 

            Only half of the action had been caught; even the white tube of paper was visible in only a glimpse. 

            Just as adeptly as it had been produced from the trousers and slipped into the youngster's hand, the latter collected the cigarette without pausing at his task. Somehow the cigarette was received in the palm while the fingers kept at the knot. 

            How the cigarette appeared and then disappeared from view was impossible to guess; none of the action seemed physically possible. One palm had passed quickly over another; the old had briefly touched the young. Three or four units of action that would have had unpracticed hands fumbling at each point. Card-sharps had not developed better mastery than this pair. 

            The taking of the cigarette and the first loosening of the pink strand followed in quick succession. Once the main knot was undone the rest soon followed, mostly managed by the Bike-man again. The youngster was not needed further. 

            Again the lighter appeared. The youngster came away puffing with a little look of accomplishment on his face. Wordless throughout. The pair certainly knew each other; if anything had been whispered it was inconsequential. One fine gesture met immediately by another equally fine and all executed with exceptional grace and ease. A meeting of men something like a desert encounter at an oasis. Captivating. No camera-man of Tarkovsky's wildest dreams could have captured the event; training a camera there too closely would give a viewer the wrong impression.