Thursday, July 26, 2012

Small Wonders


A handshake to write home about. A meeting of the ages. Such a shake you have not seen in the cinema, unless mimicked in the silent flicks just as it was disappearing out on the streets. It took place in a back corner beside the cash register of the eatery. Out front scores of people were spread over the tables and hundreds passing along the aisle. For the breaking of the fast in the early evening families enjoy the public space down at the eastern end of Geylang, particularly on weekends, often three and sometimes more generations strong. A communal carnival that has a script hundreds of years old, little formal structure and a great deal of vivid colour and the purest of theatre. 
         In the half hour before sun-set it is impossible to get a table at either Mr. T. T. or Labu Labi. Last year's Ramadan was the same. In the couple of hours run-up to dusk the aisles are thronged with families purchasing takeaways. One has to wonder whether through that last of the waiting-out the people are furtively feeding on the sights and thick aromas of the camp kitchens one after another along the footpaths. The communal feasting with their co-religionists naturally bolsters strength and endurance. A fascination to behold, as the hajj would be was it possible to inveigle oneself.
         Labu Labi is almost strictly Malay. Through the rest of the year Mr. T. T. attracted a wider cross-section, though it is also largely Malay. Last night it was only at the former's tables that there was a vacancy. Over the course of the year Labu Labi has been patronised numerous times and going past the tables there are always found numerous friends. Labu Labi translates roughly as something like Delicious (labu is gourd in Malay). In the illuminated signboard above the entry-way, beneath the counter where the two women were brought together last night, a sketch of a fat-faced cook bringing forefinger and thumb to the corner of his mouth underlines the matter. Such a figure once stood at the stove in the back of small restaurants where customers would greet each other in the old fashioned way of these two women at the counter.
         The younger woman has worked at the counter at Labu Labi around six months. Last night there seemed no doubt she had to be either the manager's wife or sister. It was the latter that was the better bet. There was perhaps seven or eight years between the pair; the same slightness, the same sharp features and light colouration, almost southern European in aspect. It turned out not to be. She was from Sumatra and he Sabah on Borneo. No familial connection of any kind. From the airport at Padang on Sumatra the woman had a nine hour bus-ride to the kampung; five hours by taxi. In a straight line on a freeway she would have got to Aceh in half the time. Divorced, the woman had a young teenage daughter with her here in Singapore. Without make-up or adornment, the other guess had been a quiet and shy spinster like Serangoon Yati: dutiful, devoted, content. 
         Beside the cash register she met the older woman, an auntie type in her mid sixties who had come up. The Sumatran did not wear a scarf. For all her devoutness, her ceaseless reading of the Qu'ran, Serangoon Yati did not wear a scarf either. She had not been ready, she explained. Like Serangoon Yati, this woman too lacked nothing in uprightness. The blouse and flower-print skirt just above her ankles was another echo still. The older woman was bundled up in the traditional garb. A food order had been made or was being settled. There was no sense of any particular matter between the two women, no kind of special and unexpected meeting of kith or kin.
         The counter beside the cash register was scaled to these medium-sized Malay people. On either side the two women faced each other. Leaning close they were comfortably within reach. The younger had the elder's hand and forearm closely clasped. The left arm reached above the older woman's wrist and held firmly; the other hand enfolded the old woman's and everything out of proportion there because of the relative slightness of the former. 
         Such a shy, quiet type the Labu Labi waitress seemed, one would have expected her only to receive a speech such as the one she was here making for the older woman on the other side of the counter. As she spoke she raised their arms in high, deliberate pumps. Once, twice, three times. Possibly a fourth time the arms rose and fell onto the counter. The younger woman knew precisely what she wanted to say to the esteemed older woman. This clearly came in rhythm with her hand action. As she pumped she delivered phrases in careful segments.
         — This I want to tell you, my dear good Auntie, you who I have always esteemed.... Three or four clearly defined elements like strophes in a measured lyric received by the older woman, who seemed rather unprepared for the honour.
         The look of the younger was direct and warm; the recipient a little blank more than anything, a trifle overwhelmed. The young woman had spoken well; one could not have guessed she had it in her. 
         A half hour after the greeting at the counter one of the old men who had been seated in company at one of the tables unexpectedly rose and started clearing dishes and glasses roundabout. A venerable old man wearing a hajj cap. Rembrandt had painted suchlike scholars disputing bible passages in dimly lit Dutch interiors. The likeness here was very close. A beautiful old man. One of the ladies of the community who always dressed herself in a striking gypsy style had sat opposite the man with one or two others. The look of affection she held made one conclude the man had to be either her father, or grandfather. Nearly an hour they sat in the same way, the scholar slumped a little in his chair.
          A remarkable little scene to the side of all the movement and noise on the footpath. The makeshift kitchens along the aisle were giving off a great deal of added heat. More than one group had moved from the outer tables when an inner became available. Beside Labu Labi the Chinese convert who sold CD's and traditional Malay attire in his small booth was adding musical accompaniment, at their best heady rhythms perfectly in keeping. The food at the stalls was cheap, if unhealthy. All the movement along the path and at the tables followed a measured rhythm just like the handshake and the accompanying words that had been offered with it. Greetings were being made on all sides, the formal bows and hands brought to the lips and forehead by the younger; woman greeting woman and man man. In the midst of it all the bright-eyed children quiet and patient among the elders, receiving the light of their future days in small, rich measures. In her chair the gypsy woman in all her layers sat directly opposite with unwavering eyes fixed on the old Rembrandt, tilting back her head a little. This kept on for long minutes without any kind of word exchanged between them, the old man indeed seemingly completely oblivious. Adoration of this sort one might see in a grandmother for her grandchild. Still the woman looked on. Often on the street she displayed a tight, troubled countenance.
          After the clearing the old man began sweeping underfoot. A narrow fine beard he worn on his chin. Thin, he was light on his feet and exceedingly nimble for a man of his age. It was not possible he would have been any part short of eighty. More than a single pair of eyes had in fact been trained upon his person. All lightly borne in the way the elderly sometimes indulgently allow their circle. Like a bird the man's look flitted briefly here and there. Later the Sabah manager explained that the old man had no family and did little chores for him for food and drink.
         It is partly the weather that enables this kind of community in Singapore. In the northern hemisphere a fire-side leaves less opportunity. Back in the day, one suspects Lent could never have offered anything similar. There were two special men sitting at the tables of Labu Labi last night, one younger and the other not so. Another was a loner who had experienced some kind of hardship that had left the man stranded. The kind of warm regard given to all three is not a particular feature of Ramadan. In
all the days previous in the quarter the same has been witnessed on numerous occasions.

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Rapid Brush Strokes - Straits Times Fri 20 July 2012



Page 1. The prime retail strip on the globe, Orchard Road, to get a new canal and water retention tank to handle the recurrent flooding that mars shopping.
Page 2 - 3. Assault over a parking spot. A Jaguar pictured; old chap hospitalized wearing a shiner. Ferraris, Jaguars, Porsches, Bentleys, Rollers common as orchids here — an inadequate road network to show them to best advantage (as the driver of the Ferrari complained before killing himself running a red-light some months ago).
Foot Page 3 ad from Indigo Collection: thin young long-haired girl in stride chewing the arm of her sunglasses. Nothing exceptional except for the standard choice of white European in such cases. (Comprising 5 - 6% of the population.).
Page 7: $100m cancer machine half the size of a football field due to be built, the most expensive in Asia. The dirt shortage the problem. (Twenty percent of the current land mass of Singapore reclaimed.).
Half of page 9 taken by the blonde in wide-brimmed sun-hat and tight jeans (not a factor in the aircon) closed-eyed in unmistakable orgasmic delight at the thought of Robinsons savings on her Visa card.
In the papers elsewhere the p.10 story revealing half the Taiwanese population is fat might be missing. Opposite Euro louche in suit, open shirt, barefoot and loafers has his own lazy eye on the pickings at Robinsons.
"Liberalism a Threat to Islam", Malay PM Najib, up for re-election shortly, on p. 14.
Airport picture of the suicide bomber with the pack on his back in Sofia from a few days past. (Page 17.)
 Page 27. Sophistication. Street cred. is for the plebs so far as this society hostess is concerned. A brunette. Hand on hip, other on top of a building from the frieze of the iconic city-scape behind. Necklace fit for a queen. The ladies of the island might not be able to own the same skin tone, bone structure, eye-lids and hair, but they can certainly rise up now to the elegance and sophistication at Larry's jewelry.
Chief Op. Ed. a senior editor with the Economist Intelligence Unit; formerly editor of the Starting Well report. "Tackling Preschool Challenges in S'pore": boxed quotation: "Early childhood education contributes to creating the kinds of workforces that are going to be needed in the 21st C."
Page 32, Opinion still: “Become an Asian Intellectual Property Hub? Here's What It Takes”. Thomas Friedman crisp encapsulation.
Nothing on the two industrial foreign worker deaths on one of the new transport hubs from Wednesday. Found later in the Home section: Family entitlement in such cases here "could be... between $57k and $170k." Prominent SG bloggers have thus far raised $2,500 off their own bat—suggesting which end of the government scale might be expected.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Rattan and Rope


$6.15 regular; $6.40 weekends.
NTUC shelf-stacking rates for a mid-forties recovering addict—presumably same for any shelf-stacker. Currently Syed works six days, five hours per diem. Full-timers might earn a trifle less hourly possibly, but then more hours add up. The usual arrangement.
National Trade Union Council supermarkets, the largest chain in Singapore, have recently raised their wage rates even more than the twenty per cent suggested by one of the chief economists here concerned about living standards for the bottom sixth percentile and ultimate social consequences. (In his pondering the man had one eye on the upheaval across the Arab world.)
One cannot blame the Chinese governing cabal or the Union body either (an arm of government here) when the keen as mustard Indon labouring class is on the door-step; the Malay labouring class 800 odd metres across the water; Myanmar labouring class a new bottomless reservoir a few hours distant; the Banglar and Indian masses offering untold legions ready to fly in if only they could. (Picture in the Straits Times today of human oxen ploughing a Gujarat field.) 
Should they so choose, were the island larger, the trade more sizeable, the Thais would be available, the mainland Chinese, Cambodian, Viets... All able to survive on a cup of rice a day and tea bags shared. Spoilt for choice. (local dreamers have looked upon Venice as historical precedent for dirt-challenged empires. SEZ's - Special Economic Zones - in Batam Indonesia and Johor State Malaysia offer scope; the manic run on Myanmar has not left the Singporeans behind either.) 
About twenty per cent of the current land mass of Singapore was reclaimed. Behind the wire in Jurong the engineers and labs were working on problems that were cropping up. (Jurong where the state-owned munition factories and hi-techs were sited).
Fifteen friends, neighbours, school- and cell-mates Syed had seen hung on this island. Clean the last eight years. Doing it tough, but clean. On-call Changi baggage handling prior to the NTUC was $50 flat for twelve hours.
Twenty-four years inside — urine testing responsible for much of it. No violence, no robbery, no dealing or other malfeasance. Just the junk. In Singapore enough for a quarter century lock-up.
A Counsellor friend Mahmod, a few years older, was the first sent to Day Top in New York to bring the program back here. Mahmod served fifteen years in total and had now been clean a similar term again. Started at fourteen when the G.I.'s on Rec. Leave from Vietnam came into town.
The brutality of the prison system here was exposed by a Brit. who ended up inside and wrote a book about it some years ago. Where the rattan was still part of the criminal justice system (current still), the imagination need not work overtime for behind-door practices. Conditions have been considerably improved since the expose, according to reports in the Straits Times.
Three times Syed was sentenced to the rattan. Once eighteen ordered, six at a time, with a month between for healing. The heavily tattooed Indian toughs, the big guys, the king-pins, were the ones who cried out under the rattan. Everyone of course listened out from the cells.
Still thirty-three it may have been Syed said on death-row in Sing. Lad just turned nineteen among them. (Under eighteen no longer permitted. 
Every week the newspapers carry the rattan mentions in the sentencing—always the items ending with a statement of the maximums in the statutes, for the implied leniency.



Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Rubber and Plastic


One does not get an ear bent down low like this too often. Two step: turning the head for the order, then lowering and grimacing. A few minutes before the clouds had opened properly. En route during the bus-ride it had been only drizzle, the lowest speed on the wipers (intermittent likely unavailable on that old model). The chap did not fancy his chances in this communication.
         A Tamil place. Chap spoke a little English. Directly opposite Hotel Mersing, chosen in preference to Hideo's old hang-out the Embassy, largely on the basis of the flimsy interior snib on the lock of the room of the latter. Hideo's mention of the Swede killed at the Embassy some time ago did not inspire confidence either.
         Teh tarik, kurang manis brought a smile. Easy after all. No need for all that anxiety man.
         Good to see the electrifying thunder crack during the earlier food order had the chaps squirming momentarily as much as the newcomer.
         Regular plumbing maintenance needed for downpours of this scale. The dripping electrical wires didn't inspire confidence either. What did inspire confidence was the broad smiling all sides.
         Yes, Tamil speakers at Restoran Al Hamid opposite the hotel. A Madrassi bending the ear. Took a while to establish, but we got there in the end. The panama possibly part to blame; chap had been looking harder than listening.
         Mersing. East coast of Johor State, Malaysia. The eastern side drew much less interest from the Brits, the Dutch, Portuguese and other marauders, peace-deliverers, traders and civilizers. Almost next to nothing known about the place. Some while ago Hideo, staying and writing at the Embassy, had found refuge here at a place he looked back upon as one of the sweetest in the world. (It had changed since apparently.) Quite enough recommendation. A Hokkaido fisherman laying eyes on the river and the old boats moored in the mud tied to trees might have instantly had the heart-strings tugged. The larger craft recalled the Indonesian asylum boats that have been sinking down in the south a number of years now. The Californian Buddhist monk met in Geylang raised Mersing as a worthwhile destination too. Confirmation, if any was needed.
         Most visitors come to Mersing for the ferry to the Tioman Islands — snorkeling, diving, beach resorts. No thanks.  Rawa Island where Shai had worked — Kota Bahru Shai, also met in Geylang — lay even closer. According to Shai, Rawa was a stronger draw on the tourist map, particularly for surfers, Scandinavians a large contingent. Thus far though it has been only Tioman signs calling out on all sides through the streets. On getting down from the bus the driver had asked twice whether Tioman was wanted. The smaller waiting bus must have been the link to the Ferry terminal.
         Two hours out of JB. The sign for the Ponderosa Golf Course and Country Club caught out of the corner of the eye about a half hour out couldn't be trusted on a fleeting glimpse. One of the new housing estates possibly. (Google subsequently proved the case. Had time allowed the clubhouse at the very least ought to have been inspected. Were Pa Cartwright and the lads over the fireplace — or beside the aircon perhaps?) Palm oil plantations again. The Sultan of Johor must have cornered the market in this part of the world.  Surprising the very few settlements visible along the road. The tall, slender trees with a look of olives about them must have been rubber. From Primary School days the memory of pictures of trees holding small cups tied to the trunks.
         The size of the Indian presence in these parts always recalls the British. The Chinese should do the same of course, coolie labour both. The former however was a more specific project tailored to the new plantations, just like in southern Africa.
         Russel Wallace, Darwin's friend and fellow naturalist, who came to similar conclusions on evolution more or less simultaneously, makes fascinating reading on these same parts where he traveled one hundred and fifty years ago. In the recent chapter on Java Wallace reflects on the secret of effective colonial administration, which he credits the Dutch for first developing. The opium recourse to stimulate earnest labour in the natives was nothing like as good as the credit bait, Wallace held. By enslaving the population with the extension of compounding credit you have thereby grasped a goodly stick with which to beat them. Hey presto! a disciplined, reliable workforce. The Malays were inclined to idleness otherwise, Wallace observed. (Dispensing justice and fair-dealing as part of the bargain oils the machinery.) As the old adage suggests, in writing and thinking about the past one always writes and thinks of the present of course.




Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Bringing Food to the Table (Johor Bahru, ML)


Deepest recesses of childhood for something comparable in a woman’s delivery of food to table; the kind of offering made.
         It was not merely the garb—the apron and scarf.
         The plates here came from her hands like finest fruits from her board; with concern how they might be received. Modest home-cook fretting whether she had managed to produce the intended pleasure, whether it had come out right.

         Arms out-stretched, Please, if you willecho from long ago.
         Late-forties; possibly early-fifties. Prematurely aged. Heavily wrinkled, hollow-cheeked. (Ordinarily she would not have had many remaining teeth, yet there had been a flash in the smile.) Nut brown; not one of the burnt tones.
         Thirty and more years ago a man may have looked at her with desire; her graceful, fulsome manner more than made up. Sheer sky-blue scarf unintentionally matching work apron. Large metal clasp on top and somehow wings created at the sides of her face. The thin bird-like voice had been anticipated.
         It had taken more than a year in these parts to confirm a particular form of hailing for an acquaintance, a waiter or friend. The same had been witnessed a couple of times many months before.
         Here at the JB eatery on Wong Ah Fook just over the Causeway, two instances within a half hour. One of the waiters had been called first; later an unseeing passing pal. Different fellows in either case.
         A smacking of lips brought together tightly and air pulled through against the seaproduced a kissing call. The reverse of a blown kiss, but the sound not dissimilar. Enlarged and extended in this case.
         Courteous, friendly hailing or calling out; only possible within close proximity. Only in a particular social context.
         The finger snap had never made an appearance in these parts.
         And there we had the antidote to all the harshness and grime. The means and hope of endurance.
         David back at Joo Chiat Hotel talked of the violence directed at the Chinese in Malaysia. Not Westerners as much as the Chinese. Resentment and jealousy driven, according to David.
         At one time there had been parity between the currencies. Witness now, David challenged. Malaysia had stalled, was still poor and down-at-heel. On the other side of the Causeway they saw a new project begun virtually monthly. Have you been to the new Gardens by the Bay? asked David.
         There was another side to the matter difficult to convey to David.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Due Diligence: Gardens By The Bay (2)

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In the end, Reader, it required a visit. The voices of nature-lovers had been raised at the Mr. T. T. tables. The Supertrees were more than light-poles, it was bruited. Cutting-edge technology from the little red dot was deployed upon them. The towering concrete and steel champagne flutes were in fact trellises carrying greenery four and five storeys high that were the hope of natural insulation for housing towers. A skin of green of such and such thickness, trained over the surface of a housing block, could keep out this unforgiving, ever-stinging tropical sun and lower the internal temp by so many degrees. A green skin. It would look the part too. (Roof-top gardens, both for cooling from the top down and also water catchment, used for the loos etc., seem to be claimed by the little red dot of Singapore as a special advance of their very own laboratories.) It did in all honesty need to be investigated properly. One could not abide the charge of running at the mouth critically without even a look. Grisly old defenders of the Republic had a point. Summary judgments served no one's interest. Down with summary judgments. The planets were luckily all in alignment on the morrow, a blessedly mild and cloudy day in this hottest month of the year.
         The good part of it was, Reader, with the compressed size of this small island, one was in and out, back on more tolerable, almost home turf, within what was little more than an hour and a half. That was foot-slogging from the library, a decent turn of the place, and jumping a bus Russian roulette style on the return. (In the event that the point to date has failed adequately to be made: an excellent public transport system in Singapore. Take your coat and hat — a friendly tip. The aircon can cut the unsuspecting down at the knees.)
         Resisting the tourist map once more, the infernal glory-robbing Google, stumbling and bumbling was the preferred mode. The MBS signpost was more than adequate. Head toward the beached light-ship. Ahoy there! The only question was which side of the river or bay? (Artificial from memory the latter.) Never fear. There would be escalators somewhere in the vicinity. Too true in the event.
         Bumbling by the Queen Liz Bridge at one point commemorating her coronation was rather fitting at this time of the London Olympics and the Diamond Jubliee. (All those prayers for safe-keeping from primary school not going unheard.) The big church, might be St. Andrews. More accurately, big lawn. The church, like all places of worship the world over, reduced to postage stamp size by the towers.
         — "... one of the most beautiful in Singapore... " , the American voice of a guide from the double-decker going by.
         At first it looked like a polo field on the opposite side, the ring of impressive Victorian buildings facing suggestive. Perhaps the English played croquette there. The monument to Our Glorious Dead was another odd reminder of the Great War. (Someone said Afghanis herded from here to the Anatolian beaches to fight their co-religionists rebelled and had to be gunned down by the officers. Though that could not have been them buried there.) The Mandarin Oriental must have been five star, one could tell from the motor-entry. From behind on this pass, the Durian building close-up. On the opposite side of the water the Lotus Flower. (These are local monikers.) The latter pair are twinned opposite each other across the water: grotesquerie, or iconic architecture, as you please. An entirely dark-skinned work-gang laying hot bitumen was another reminder of history only a few generations past. But, ahem! this isn't getting us along the road to the south section of the Gardens By The Bay, opened just a few days ago in Singapore and splashed across numerous world newspapers. Well, it's getting us there, slow-coach carriage.
         A writer isn't worth his salt unless he walks his talk. So said the senior writer at the Mr. T. T. tables the night previous. Well, this may not be the highlands of Kalimantan, Mr. Nameless So-and-so, but never-you-mind about that. Due diligence was duly done.
         Not much to say about the gardens that wasn't said previously. Ordered. Tidy. Patterned. Perhaps too much of a Hollywood make-over one may have said had one wanted to carp. Commissioned factory art-work in the water-ways, in the rock gardens, along the pathways — no doubt hidden educatively within the greenery for treasure hunters with a stronger constitution. Spots of colour everywhere in signage, advertising, notices, prompts that might have out-shone the less evocative powers of dowdy old mother Nat.
         The green, ecological spin-offs? The specialists will judge better. Might it have replaced what percentage of natural forest and jungle could one hazard? Does it bear thinking about?
         The OCBC (a local bank) Skywalk seemed less than enticing, especially since one knew well-heeled swimmers were getting ten times as big a treat in the neighbouring Skypool of the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort. Had the chaps up there wanted they could easily have pissed on the poor unfortunates forlornly hanging on the rails of the lower deck of the Supertree Skywalk. (Someone, a chap from a neighbouring country, or at least one in the region, in town to learn about the spectacular success of Singaporean urban planning and design, a mayor of Taipei, or a former mayor it might have been, made the point that the casino only composed 3% or 5% of the MBS. The remainder was art, culture and less fraught entertainment. The signs showed the way to theatres, conference halls, galleries and the hotel itself of course. Perhaps no need to fret about the perils of gaming given the countervailing. Money is money after all. Why allow the Chinese cabal in Singapore to get away with it unchallenged?)
         What else? The heat. A downpour three hours previous didn't matter a rat's. Totally drenched by the end of it. (A cab would have fixed that, granted. There must have been a helipad on the river for the rollers too.) En route a porky chap on a motor-cycle stopped at lights, a postie, was asked for the best access point. Flyovers went one way and another. Under-roads. Water obstacles. Chap had never heard of the Gardens. Stands to reason on what he earns. The plum-purple light poles afixed to a Supertree could be made out across the lanes of traffic. Poor postie pitied the foot-slogger with the seven or eight hundred metres in front of him. (Might have been a full kilometre given the up and down.)  Coming from the city side nature-lovers were funnelled across a bridge that passed through the casino. On a casual viewing moving at a fair clip, it was not possible to see the roulette wheels. Canny planners, you had to hand it to them, tying in nature and games of chance. Darwin’s Wheel of Fortune. A drink downstairs after the nature-duty in the heat seemed a fair lure. A good number of unhappy chappies trailed wives with cameras in the Gardens. One of the latter was heard berating the former, poor man fetching into his mid seventies: — I'll come alone next time! Little battery operated hand-held fans in yellows and greens were totted along the curly paths by a number of folk. There may have been a stall within the greenery that was missed.
         The fridges housing the exotica of climes north and south where humans had clustered in times past — one was named Cloud Forest and the other Cuckoo Cavern from memory, something like that: an authorial confession: there was a marked line drawn right there faithful and honoured Reader. They wanted $20 or $25 for that privilege. (The Skywalk was $5. Opposite the MBS Skypool was either $20 or $25 — that is a definite. This for a walk around the perimeter fence watching the lucky swimmers and snorkelers and the bikini babes. To dip your toes in the wet started at $525 for a single-bed suite facing away from the water. Something like that. It might have been $450 off-season. Though of course it’s always summer in S’pore, so that might not be right. Anyhow. The thousand year olive that featured in the promotion certainly appealed to a fellow with the Mediterranean in his blood. Even better to have seen them crane it in a few weeks ago before they lowered the fridge roof — too late for that now. In either Cuckoo Land or the Cloud there was a spectacular 60 foot waterfall that looked great in the pictures. That was the one the Straits Times reported as the jaw-dropper, causing the VIP crowd to go — all together — WOW!... Now with YouTube in the offing probably as we speak, for nicks, you need to weight it up. There were enough cameramen even in the hour yours truly traipsed through. The fridges are always there waiting for a change of heart. Sighting the casino, if not the roulette wheel itself, has certainly set the heart racing for a flutter of some kind before one is done here on the equator in Singapore. (The most Liveable and at the same time Economically Advanced/Secure Country on the globe, by a recent measure devised by one of the think-tanks/tourist agencies here that were unhappy with the criteria of other skewed assessments.)
         Were there no consequences for the human species, for civilization, it would not be so bad. As mentioned, currently there are dozens, upon dozens, upon scores of civic luminaries from a hundred countries in town learning from the Singapore success story. Getting bright ideas. Family men and women planning for a cut of the action for their own home-towns. A pic in the paper showed Helen Clarke, former N.Z. PM — wasn't there a whisper she actually had some brains? — photographed smiling clutching what looked like a toy koala in front of the iconic MBS, God help us.

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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Gardens By the Bay


The local answer to NY's Central Park and London's Hyde was launched here yesterday by the PM. It would be open to the public from 5 in the morning. (Sensibly, considering the midday sun, management assumed early morning and late evening patronage.)

Enhancing the tourist precinct on Marina Bay had nothing to do with the $1bil. investment on 101ha of land for the Gardens By the Bay project, the current PM Lee fille made that clear in yesterday's speech. The government might have turned a tidy profit on that prime site had it been so inclined and released the land to developers. No, the new gardens would be the green lungs for the city-state, "aiding emotional well-being and sense of belonging.”

Planted, orderly gardens essentially, with some notable added features and improvements of old, rather oppressive Mother Nature here in the tropics.

The Supertrees were the outstanding addition above all others. Eighteen there would be when the second and third segments of the Gardens were complete in a few years’ time.

Originally the intention had been to have thirty-six of the Supertrees; since that number had been halved. (A basement car-park below the Gardens had also been scotched.)

The Supertrees were tall, thin columns of concrete and steel; light-poles in essence that would act as trellises for creepers. Rather than the standard linear or dotted lights, those wrapping the Supertrees take the form of nature's fronds or webs—squiggly scribbles like a child's drawings.

Additions to the lights of the Flyer one side and on the other the marooned ship/launch-rocket/out-sized spear that sits atop the casino complex, the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort. On the equator there was nothing to compare. (Unless Dubai a couple thousand kilometres north.)

Supertrees were already a feature in another landmark global city in the region, Tokyo it may have been. Singapore had followed and possibly outdone the forerunner.

Lifts within a couple of the trees fetch up to fine dining restaurants, cafes, merchandise outlets, and also a 128 metre Skywalk.

 

The Supertrees that link the Skywalk stand 42m tall. Presumably the Skywalk stretches some distance below. The Skypool spanning the three towers of the MBS rose fifty metres above ground. From the photographs the Skywalk was appreciably lower. Swimmers splashing almost adjacent to power-walkers starting from 5AM.

It was on the OCBC (local bank) Skywalk, at the head of a long line of dignitaries, that the current PM was photographed yesterday.

On ground  within the greenery two Conservatories were sited that housed a treasure trove of botanica from other regions. This was another element in the ambitious project: conservation and education. The cooling for the Conservatories was to be powered by green waste treatment. (Singapore thought of itself as a leader in techno-eco innovation.)

Most Singaporeans had not visited Central and Hyde Parks, nor seen the exotic plants of temperate climes. The Conservatories would of course also provide welcome refuge for the nature lovers passing through the open air gardens in the heat.

Within the greenery on the ground terracotta, wooden and aluminium fauna has been inserted for treasure-hunting children—horses, elephants and crocodiles &etc. One of the pachyderms pictured had raised its trunk to spout a column of water across a virtual river upon a playmate on the opposite bank.

Luscious pink-flowered garden beds. Real trees with exposed roots—dimocarpus longani palms from Queensland; "drunken trees" from South America—ceiba chodatii. Rock pools housing colourful fish. A weathered rabbit in grey-blue granite with a hole for an eye might have been a touch macabre. (It recalled the inflated white bunny on the lawn in front of the Singapore Art MuseumSAM—on Bras Basah Road, a block behind the National Library, long a favourite site for photographers. One could be forgiven for thinking a part of the civic project in Singapore included the provision of new and enticing photographic platforms for those with quality cameras.)

In boardrooms within the towers of the city family-minded men and women continued to plot a resurgence of traditional communal values in the Republic, seeking means to restore bonds between people, between genders and generations, (a concerning fertility rate, especially for the Chinese), between the ethnic and social groups. Escalators riding hill-parks, well-maintained roadside greenery and flowers, Skywalks, Supertrees, the Conservatories—there has certainly been no want of endeavour.

 

 

 

 

 

2.


In the end it required a proper visit. The voices of nature-lovers had been raised at the Mr. T. T. tables. The Supertrees were more than light-poles, it was suggested. Cutting-edge technology from the little red dot was deployed up there. The towering concrete and steel champagne flutes were in fact trellises carrying greenery four and five storeys high that were the hope of natural insulation for housing towers. A screen of green of such and such thickness, trained over the surface of a housing block, could keep out the unforgiving, broiling tropical sun and lower the internal temp by so many degrees. It would look the part too. (Roof-top gardens, both for cooling from the top down and also water catchment, used for the loos etc., seem to be claimed by the little red dot of Singapore as a special advance of their own laboratories.) 

It did need to be investigated.  Grisly old defenders of the Republic had a point; summary judgments served no one's interest; down with summary judgments. The planets were luckily all in alignment on the morrow, a blessedly mild and cloudy day in this hottest month of the year.

An hour and a half did it. That was foot-slogging from the library, a decent turn of the place and jumping a bus Russian roulette style on the return. (Excellent public transport system in Singapore. Take your hat & coat against the aircon— a friendly tip.)

Resisting the tourist map, stumbling and bumbling managed it. The MBS signpost was more than adequate. Head toward the beached light-ship. Ahoy there! The only question was which side of the river or bay? (Artificial from memory the latter.)

Blunder by the Queen Liz Bridge commemorating her coronation was rather fitting at this time of the London Olympics and Diamond Jubilee. (All those prayers for safe-keeping from primary school not going unheard.) The big church, might be St. Andrews. More accurately, big lawn. The church, like all places of worship now, reduced to postage stamp size by the towers.

"... one of the most beautiful in Singapore... " the American voice of a guide from the double-decker going by.
         At first it looked like a polo field on the opposite side, the ring of impressive Victorian buildings facing suggestive. Perhaps the English played croquette there. 

The monument to Our Glorious Dead was another odd reminder of the Great War. (Someone said Afghanis herded from here to the Anatolian beaches to fight their co-religionists rebelled and had to be gunned down by the officers. Though that could not have been them buried there.) 

The Mandarin Oriental must have been five star, one could tell from the motor-entry. From behind on this pass the Durian building close-up. On the opposite side of the water the Lotus Flower. (Local monikers.) The latter pair were twinned opposite each other across the water: grotesquerie, or iconic architecture, as one pleased. 

An entirely dark-skinned work-gang laying hot bitumen was another reminder of history only a few generations past. But this wasn't getting us along the road to the south section of the Gardens By The Bay, opened just a few days ago and splashed across numerous world newspapers.

A writer needs to walk his talk. So said the senior writer at the Mr. T. T. tables the night previous. Well, this may not be the highlands of Kalimantan, Mr. Nameless So-and-so, but never-you-mind about that. Due diligence was duly done.

Not much to say about the gardens that wasn't said previously. Ordered. Tidy. Patterned. Perhaps too much of a Hollywood make-over one may have said had one wanted to carp. Commissioned factory art-work in the water-ways, in the rock gardens, along the pathways. Spots of colour everywhere in signage, advertising, notices, prompts that might have out-shone the less evocative powers of dowdy old mother Nat.

The green, ecological spin-offs? The specialists will judge better. Might it have replaced what percentage of natural forest and jungle? Does it bear thinking about?

The OCBC (local bank) Skywalk seemed less than enticing, especially since one knew well-heeled swimmers were getting ten times as big a treat in the neighbouring Skypool of the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort. Had the chaps up there wanted they could easily have peed on the poor forlorn hanging on the rails of the lower deck of the Supertree Skywalk. (Someone, a chap from a neighbouring country, or at least one in the region, in town to learn about the spectacular success of Singaporean urban planning and design, a mayor of Taipei, or a former mayor it might have been, made the point that the casino only composed 3% or 5% of the MBS. The remainder was art, culture and less fraught entertainment. The signs showed the way to theatres, conference halls, galleries and the hotel itself of course. Perhaps no need to fret about the perils of gaming given the countervailing.

What else? The heat. A downpour three hours previous didn't matter a rat's. En route a porky chap on a motor-cycle stopped at lights, a postie, was asked for the best access point. Flyovers went one way and another. Under-roads. Water obstacles. Chap had never heard of the Gardens. Stands to reason on what he earned. 

The plum-purple light poles afixed to a Supertree could be made out across the lanes of traffic. Poor postie pitied the foot-slogger with the seven or eight hundred metres in front of him. (Might have been a full kilometre given the up and down.)  

Coming from the city side, nature-lovers were funnelled across a bridge that passed through the casino. On a casual viewing moving at a fair clip, it was not possible to see the roulette wheels. Canny planners, you had to hand it to them, tying in nature and games of chance. A drink downstairs after nature in the heat seemed a fair lure. 

A good number of unhappy chappies trailed wives with cameras in the Gardens. One of the latter was heard berating the former, poor man fetching into his mid-seventies: I'll come alone next time! Little battery operated hand-held fans in yellows and greens were totted along the curly paths by a number of folk. There may have been a stall within the greenery that was missed.

The fridges housing the exotica of climes North and South where humans had clustered in times past—one was named Cloud Forest and the other Cuckoo Cavern from memory, something like that. They wanted $20 or $25 for that privilege. (The Skywalk was $5. Opposite the MBS Skypool was either $20 or $25. This for a walk around the perimeter fence watching the lucky swimmers and snorkelers and the bikini babes. To dip your toes in the wet started at $525 for a single-bed suite facing away from the water. Something like that. It might have been $450 off-season. Though of course it’s always summer in S’pore, so that might not be right. Anyhow. 

The thousand year olive that featured in the promotion appealed to a fellow with the Mediterranean in his blood. Even better to have seen them crane it in a few weeks ago before they lowered the fridge roof. 

In either Cuckoo Land or the Cloud there was a spectacular 60 foot waterfall that looked great in the pictures. That was the one the Straits Times reported as the jaw-dropper, causing the VIP crowd to go WOW!... (Now with YouTube in the offing probably as we speak, for nicks, you need to weight it up.)
         Were there no consequences for the human species, for civilisation, it would not be so bad. As mentioned, currently there were dozens, upon dozens, upon scores of civic luminaries from a hundred countries in town learning from the Singapore success story. Getting bright ideas. Family men and women planning for a cut of the action for their own home-towns. A pic in the paper showed Helen Clarke, former N.Z. PM — wasn't there a whisper she actually had some brains?—photographed smiling, clutching what looked like a toy koala in front of the iconic MBS, God help us.

 

 



Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Arrest

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Four Indians. Possibly Bangladeshis. Had their faces been uncovered it might have been possible to tell. (Fine, thin moustaches often a give-away in the case of the former.) One yellow hard-hat between them. Three pairs of boots removed, one retained. Two had their arms covering their faces, the crooks of their elbows keeping out the light. The booted one on the end didn't need eye-cover. Flat on his back he lay, one hand on his chest, the other beside him. The yellow helmet was lying on his side, using for pillow an empty two litre plastic bottle. After-lunch shut-eye, some actual sleep more than likely, despite the particle-board beneath them, the sound of the traffic, the passersby and the rain. Early risers these lads. Often they can be heard under the hotel window passing around 5. The dawn bird-call can be mixed with their voices around that time. Hari Raya is only a couple of weeks away now. The Indian lads have been shimmying the stands here, walking their ladders while perched up high, erecting the tents for the food-stalls. The traditional durian season of June is usually the hottest of the year. Last night and now soon after lunch, heavy downpours. Usually heading out to the library the Indian lads can be seen this time of day under the giant African mahogany on Guillemard corner, that marks the place of the former Police Station of Geylang Serai when the famous gangsters ruled the neighbourhood. Down on the grass the lads sprawl there under the generous canopy. In the back of vans and lorries, either travelling or parked, the fellows can commonly be seen horizontal getting some shut-eye; certainly not pretending. After a twelvemonth one ought to be used to the sight.

The Malay Mother





It was no one but her. Yet in her figure she was taller and in feature altered. A tall, elderly, blanched embodiment. Scarfed and with a suggestion of the kebaya, the Malaya blouse from these parts. Pleading of course she never indulged in, or almost never. In the last year or so she would plead a little for this or that little thing; or in order to avoid this or that little thing, such as bathing, or right near the end, her bitter pills, which became harder and harder to swallow. From earliest childhood she had been taught never to plead, the same as she taught when she later, unexpectedly, became a mother. Enduring without was one of her great principles and lessons. This morning in the second course of sleep it was herself and no one else. Standing on a little rise perhaps, it seemed a front lawn or footpath; clearly an Australian street scene, the wide, flat Australian light. On her way somewhere she was caught, as if a neighbour stopped for an acquaintance and making a little request. What she requested was impossible for mother. Rarely had a single drop of alcohol passed mother's lips, rather like these stout and upright good Muslim matrons hereabout. In the last ten years or so of her life she liked to take a bevanda with her meals, a half-and-half of water and wine. The full, undiluted strong drink was too much for a teetotaler such as herself. A nip of the really strong stuff, the 45% proof sljivovica or rakija, grappa could almost never be pressed on her. A drop in the cap of the bottle merely to taste the quality on her tongue might occasionally be successfully ventured, very occasionally. In this particular emanation she had a tummy ache. As she said, almost never did she suffer from a tummy ache. On the footpath, slightly browned grass behind her, she explained as if to a listener who did not know her thoroughly, that she almost never had a tummy ache. Her hand passed over her midriff to exemplify. Mother was the original iron-guts, a good inheritance to have received. Again, moderation, the Friday fasting — which in the case of the Montenegrin coast-dwellers simply meant no meat or dairy products, which she maintained throughout her life — the simplicity of her food, the plain fare, stood her in good stead. Yet here she was with a tummy ache. And up and about somewhere when perhaps she ought to be resting. Further still, unaccountably, for relief she was asking for a nip of rakija. The resulting bewilderment was raised by it a notch further still. As in the case of the plea to avoid her medication in the last days, she had been declined, sent on her way almost, as if she were one of the street beggars here who have worn out their welcome. She who never ceased giving and striving, who attained such limitless strength and integrity from the power of her self-denial, was this morning turned away and denied.


Monday, July 2, 2012

Getaway

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The lovely plate-collector at Mr. T. T. recently took what must have been a short holiday on the Malaysian resort island of Langkawi, up in the north west of Kedah State. Possibly she was away three or four days; it could not have been longer. In the holiday pics she was keen to show, the full wrap of traditional clothing, with scarf and sun-glasses added, made recognition a little tricky.
         Not unexpectedly, the plate-collector took fright at the camera being pointed in her direction. Even protected as she was with all her covering, the resistance is perfectly evident. In one picture where she is caught in motion, crossing a car-park, the smile comes of itself. In all the other shots the lips are often widened a little, but remain very much firmly pursed. A "native" kind of person the plate-collector, defensive, wary and resolute.
         At work among the tables at Mr. T. T. the same tightness is often evident. Yet of course when her button is pressed in the right way, some sly piece of trickery ventured - like tapping her on the wrong shoulder going by - the plate-collector will open up like the best of them, wider and more gleeful than most. Normally a traditional Malay woman would not be touched by a male, would not have her hand shaken, could not be patted. An almost-Italian finds that constricting. But that's the way it is around Geylang Serai. (The Indon gals are something else again. Nothing like the same applies to them, not even some of the Achehnese.) Contrary to all this, better watch out for a poke in the ribs when you're least expecting from the plate-collector.
         The Langkawi Fair Shopping Mall takes the water-fall in its region as a cue for one of its features within doors, rock carvings added in this case, as well as a coconut palm and a kind of fully stretched eagle that seems to be the chief totem of the town. A larger-scale bird of the same form and colour hovers over the waterfront promenade and car-park.
         The Flamingo restaurant is featured in other photographs, decorated with potted plants of long-branched stalks holding plum-like pink flowers. A shopping-mall kind of place, highly unlikely to have impressed the day-shift plate-collector of Mr. Teh Tarik in Geylang. But then she wasn't the photographer. One of the youngsters did these duties, the youngest sister alternating with the chap who must have been either her boy-friend or husband. The birds received a good deal of attention; the water-front; and then the Flamingo and other mall highlights. A real waterfall away from the mall also drew the tourists. It led to a good number of unstaged photos as people were caught wading into the water, the women in their full-length body-cover. The plate-collector's group were not so venturesome, the youngsters probably inhibited by their elders.
         The pretty young girl in the photos was identified by the plate-collector as an adek—younger sister. With the twenty and more year age difference that seemed unlikely. In fact the explanation was adoption. (This came later through the good offices of Zainuddin acting as translator. The shared two dozen words was insufficient to get this kind of particular from the plate-collector unaided.) Certainly a sister, but step. The distinction only elicited because of the questioning. The Malay love of children often led to the adoption of orphans and excess, unwanted children, daughters usually, most often from the Chinese community. Many an older, clearly Han face can be seen under a traditional Malay scarf around Geylang Serai and in Malaysia proper. It takes a while to realize what is going on. The reverse — the Chinese adoption of Malays, certainly in the earlier era — was apparently extremely rare, not to say non-existent. In Singapore and Malaysia one might be tempted to draw a general conclusion on racial characteristics from such practices.
         The kaka, the older sister of the plate-collector, has ensured she stays well out of shot of the camera. In only one photograph does she appear, standing determinedly side-on, like a prisoner in a mug-shot. A surly, un-co-operative prisoner, refusing to submit to the authority.
         The thought occurs: like the plate-collector, never once have these traditional Malay women around Geylang Serai removed their scarves to reveal their hair. Women who have been hailed, greeted, engaged in conversation almost from day one fifty-five weeks ago. Resolute characters without exception.

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