Not long after seven pm the salmon pink and baby blue slashes out beyond the monstrosity of the Paya Lebar Post Office and further westward. Pointing it out to the Karaoke King here who lost his Cowboy brother to a stroke a few weeks ago finds a fair degree of appreciation, as one would expect from such a crooner and kampung boy. One could tell it struck him by the look on his face as he cast out in that direction and by the length of observation. That a Westerner was caught in that kind of way might have added to the surprise for the man. A good marriage the chap had you would guess by the way he drew his wife's attention in that direction and their brief sharing of the sight. Always marvelous intro-ing locals to the beauties of their own place.
Architecture in Singapore is a
subject in its own right. Since the famous leap of the last thirty odd years
that famously raised the city-state from Third to First World status, the
construction industry has called upon many of the so-called top global
architects—the starchitects—to do their darndest. What is routinely and
complacently considered the "iconic Singaporean sky-line" is the
result: a canoe or spear topping three clothes peg pillars has drawn most of
the attention in recent years (the Marina Bay Sands hotel-casino complex,
designed by a chap some distance from even the first rank of the conventional
top league table—Moshe Safdie); Liebeskind's curvy eye-trickery for upper
echelon Condo construction in the exclusive Sentosa strip (S$30-40m
apartments); Paul Rudolph's post-modern tiered wedding-cake on Beach Road
beside Little Thailand at the Golden Mile long-haul bus node. The PR and boosterism
involved in all these highly geared commercial projects attained no higher
pitch than for something tagged the “World Architecture Festival” hosted here
late last year, where stake-holders awarded each other garlands and trophies
for the various branches of the enterprise. Ah the blarney! Amazing little
Hollywood production, interviews, photographs, not a blush of shame to be seen
from the Friday night opening until everyone went home on the Sunday (in some
cases around the corner to their condo residences no doubt). One gets the
impression here behind the Can-do imperative the thinking of the masters of the
city-state might take the form, We can always tear down and build again if we
decide a new direction. (With the foreign labour so cheap and the carefully
managed market so hot, it stands to reason.)
The miserable folly of the Paya Lebar P. O. complex perhaps stands near the apex of sci-fi inspired build-and-be-damned outrageousness, doubtless completed in record time and with no second thoughts. Beyond it the arresting blush of dusk most evenings almost throughout the course of the entire year and the year before that too. What a scene it must have been taken through forest branches, the viewer's bare feet touching the soil and the rich humus filling the air. But who would willingly want to return to tigers in the jungle, squatting to defecate, no water on tap nor electricity? Ah me! Ah my!... So goes the conventional argument.
After a printing up on Aljunied Road supper was taken again at the wonderful vegetarian place around the corner beneath the raised MRT line. In the evenings Labu Labi and Mr. T. T. at lower Geylang run thin on their offerings and the usual recourse for months past now has been this vegetarian at Aljunied. Therefore a slightly early dinner in order to leave enough time for a teh halia on home turf facing the grandiose sky-show. The middle-aged Chinese couple who run the Vegetarian stall employ a young, energetic Malaysian cook who single-handedly produces all the dishes from two or three woks on high flame. For many a month the young chap was assumed to be a helper of some sort, with a back-kitchen out of sight behind. Hats off to the lad and three cheers! There are about a dozen dishes from which to choose, many of them presented in the form of meats to help strugglers along. Pork, chicken, mutton, the Servers will reference. Confusing in the beginning for a new-comer.
For some reason a Westerner choosing vegetarian can raise wonder and a question or two from fellow diners. For one thing Westerners are not so common in Geylang, and when they appear they usually flit past such outdoors Eateries. Are you vegetarian? Are you Buddhist? A certain kind of diffidence apparent in the questioner. One has to conclude the projection of cattle farming in the wild West may be responsible; close-up shots of juicy-looking burgers from the well-known villain chains too involved in the assumptions.
As mentioned previously in these pages, S$4.70—about $Aust3.50 currently—for steamed brown rice, three delicious veg. and a choice usually between lotus and water-cress soup. Six o'clock the heat subsided, commuters returning from town, impressive young uniformed school-children in company with their parents, the hardware shop adjacent picking up passing trade. Opposite a rude kind of park later gathers workers in boots down on the grass. (Take-away food in wax-paper being fifty or eighty cents cheaper than sit-down plates, the foreign working lads often take that option. One gets used to the sight. The camaraderie between the lads counter-acting any thoughts of unseemliness and lack of hygiene.) In their heels and low-cut floral dresses, often drawing on four or five inch cigarettes with long filters that might figure Empresses of the past, the more settled China girls can be found with their more dowdy partners at six o'clock at the tables. The old uncle serving the drinks there carries a decent diameter mole underneath his chin that looks initially like some kind of congealed food dribble. Before he barks out to relay the order to the drinks stall in the back corner it's wise to brace oneself, if not actually take cover under the table. TEH O!!! like a remorseless order to open fire. A less avuncular, less neat and orderly type, one who bustles rowdily between the tables—such daunting fellows are legion in these parts—one could understand it. Carrying the plate and bowl over to the wash buckets gets no acknowledgement whatever from the man, though he certainly knows. Occasionally one of the better, more thoughtful, less harried and considerate Buddhists remember to perform the same courtesy. Recently there was the beginning of a campaign here to encourage the practice in diners. The old uncles and aunties employed in the role are getting on and the younger generation of course feel disdain. As in everything else, there is a contrary viewpoint: Do away with these archaic arrangements; introduce ticketing and queuing; stream-line; modernize.
By chance last night the chap opposite at the Aljunied table directly before the servery happened to have been born in Batu Pahat, two hours up the peninsular in Malaysia, the very town paid a short visit over the weekend. Not only was the man confronting a (fumbling) vegetarian Westerner with Buddhist—or at least Daoist—inclinations, but here was one who had also visited the modest little town in which the man was born. There was only one tourist attraction in Batu Pahat, the chap apologized.
Just turned sixty, the fellow sat with a woman only ten or so years his junior, her floral dress in muted tones and non-smoking. The woman’s scraps of English suggested she was not a Mainlander. A second, good marriage was the look of it. Possibly the pair had kept up this quiet, close understanding from earliest days. The pair was just finishing their meal. Not long into the meal on the other side, during small, friendly and well-disposed conversation, the guess proved correct when the woman began fishing in her hand-bag following something the fellow had said to her in an aside. Up came the tissue pack, handed to the man. From the pack the fellow withdrew a folded sheet and offered it across the table. Despite the usual good table manner, even in Geylang, where they slurp and draw up long hanging noodles from their plates, there must have been a smear of sauce at the corner of the mouth. No embarrassment being shown up like that. The blushing was for other reasons.
Mark you: Three or four minute conversation between complete strangers across an old, weather-beaten timber table almost a metre wide, three diners seated on generic outdoor plastic chairs. A little sticky still. Someone may have forgotten to switch on the outdoor fans. (Aspiring Buddhists-Daoists cope.) Another little hint for a foreigner living in other parts where perhaps such courtesy, such fine warmth and generosity, does not take place every other day—not to say never in a life-time and never in the future no matter the length of the span. A little, small and modest hint. (Not worth remarking upon some would hold, those in favour of stream-lining and automation perhaps).
In the newspaper here this morning, the dear old Straits Times, a brief six or seven column light feature of the usual sort that passes for news and event in these records of our times, concerning a Finishing School modeled on the famous Swiss examples. Always has legs a filler story like that. A perennial. All the more so in this case given the location in Beijing, where this particular school served the new wealthy classes keen to see the world and shy about making a spectacle of their uncouthness. Raking it in this particular institution, such being the demand, such the recognition of how far the Chinese fall short, Lord and all the holy angels help them in the fight ahead. This outfit providing the service knows what it is about too, one of the principals involved married to no less than a bona fide member of the English aristocracy. (The journalist reporting no doubt catching herself catching her breath at the revelation.) Fellow concerned would understand full-well the value of a pass among the tables of the paying customers every once in a while to give them a sight of how high the bar stands. (Only a week gone too since the former Grocer’s daughter, the Iron Lady, passed. Perfect topicality.)
The miserable folly of the Paya Lebar P. O. complex perhaps stands near the apex of sci-fi inspired build-and-be-damned outrageousness, doubtless completed in record time and with no second thoughts. Beyond it the arresting blush of dusk most evenings almost throughout the course of the entire year and the year before that too. What a scene it must have been taken through forest branches, the viewer's bare feet touching the soil and the rich humus filling the air. But who would willingly want to return to tigers in the jungle, squatting to defecate, no water on tap nor electricity? Ah me! Ah my!... So goes the conventional argument.
After a printing up on Aljunied Road supper was taken again at the wonderful vegetarian place around the corner beneath the raised MRT line. In the evenings Labu Labi and Mr. T. T. at lower Geylang run thin on their offerings and the usual recourse for months past now has been this vegetarian at Aljunied. Therefore a slightly early dinner in order to leave enough time for a teh halia on home turf facing the grandiose sky-show. The middle-aged Chinese couple who run the Vegetarian stall employ a young, energetic Malaysian cook who single-handedly produces all the dishes from two or three woks on high flame. For many a month the young chap was assumed to be a helper of some sort, with a back-kitchen out of sight behind. Hats off to the lad and three cheers! There are about a dozen dishes from which to choose, many of them presented in the form of meats to help strugglers along. Pork, chicken, mutton, the Servers will reference. Confusing in the beginning for a new-comer.
For some reason a Westerner choosing vegetarian can raise wonder and a question or two from fellow diners. For one thing Westerners are not so common in Geylang, and when they appear they usually flit past such outdoors Eateries. Are you vegetarian? Are you Buddhist? A certain kind of diffidence apparent in the questioner. One has to conclude the projection of cattle farming in the wild West may be responsible; close-up shots of juicy-looking burgers from the well-known villain chains too involved in the assumptions.
As mentioned previously in these pages, S$4.70—about $Aust3.50 currently—for steamed brown rice, three delicious veg. and a choice usually between lotus and water-cress soup. Six o'clock the heat subsided, commuters returning from town, impressive young uniformed school-children in company with their parents, the hardware shop adjacent picking up passing trade. Opposite a rude kind of park later gathers workers in boots down on the grass. (Take-away food in wax-paper being fifty or eighty cents cheaper than sit-down plates, the foreign working lads often take that option. One gets used to the sight. The camaraderie between the lads counter-acting any thoughts of unseemliness and lack of hygiene.) In their heels and low-cut floral dresses, often drawing on four or five inch cigarettes with long filters that might figure Empresses of the past, the more settled China girls can be found with their more dowdy partners at six o'clock at the tables. The old uncle serving the drinks there carries a decent diameter mole underneath his chin that looks initially like some kind of congealed food dribble. Before he barks out to relay the order to the drinks stall in the back corner it's wise to brace oneself, if not actually take cover under the table. TEH O!!! like a remorseless order to open fire. A less avuncular, less neat and orderly type, one who bustles rowdily between the tables—such daunting fellows are legion in these parts—one could understand it. Carrying the plate and bowl over to the wash buckets gets no acknowledgement whatever from the man, though he certainly knows. Occasionally one of the better, more thoughtful, less harried and considerate Buddhists remember to perform the same courtesy. Recently there was the beginning of a campaign here to encourage the practice in diners. The old uncles and aunties employed in the role are getting on and the younger generation of course feel disdain. As in everything else, there is a contrary viewpoint: Do away with these archaic arrangements; introduce ticketing and queuing; stream-line; modernize.
By chance last night the chap opposite at the Aljunied table directly before the servery happened to have been born in Batu Pahat, two hours up the peninsular in Malaysia, the very town paid a short visit over the weekend. Not only was the man confronting a (fumbling) vegetarian Westerner with Buddhist—or at least Daoist—inclinations, but here was one who had also visited the modest little town in which the man was born. There was only one tourist attraction in Batu Pahat, the chap apologized.
Just turned sixty, the fellow sat with a woman only ten or so years his junior, her floral dress in muted tones and non-smoking. The woman’s scraps of English suggested she was not a Mainlander. A second, good marriage was the look of it. Possibly the pair had kept up this quiet, close understanding from earliest days. The pair was just finishing their meal. Not long into the meal on the other side, during small, friendly and well-disposed conversation, the guess proved correct when the woman began fishing in her hand-bag following something the fellow had said to her in an aside. Up came the tissue pack, handed to the man. From the pack the fellow withdrew a folded sheet and offered it across the table. Despite the usual good table manner, even in Geylang, where they slurp and draw up long hanging noodles from their plates, there must have been a smear of sauce at the corner of the mouth. No embarrassment being shown up like that. The blushing was for other reasons.
Mark you: Three or four minute conversation between complete strangers across an old, weather-beaten timber table almost a metre wide, three diners seated on generic outdoor plastic chairs. A little sticky still. Someone may have forgotten to switch on the outdoor fans. (Aspiring Buddhists-Daoists cope.) Another little hint for a foreigner living in other parts where perhaps such courtesy, such fine warmth and generosity, does not take place every other day—not to say never in a life-time and never in the future no matter the length of the span. A little, small and modest hint. (Not worth remarking upon some would hold, those in favour of stream-lining and automation perhaps).
In the newspaper here this morning, the dear old Straits Times, a brief six or seven column light feature of the usual sort that passes for news and event in these records of our times, concerning a Finishing School modeled on the famous Swiss examples. Always has legs a filler story like that. A perennial. All the more so in this case given the location in Beijing, where this particular school served the new wealthy classes keen to see the world and shy about making a spectacle of their uncouthness. Raking it in this particular institution, such being the demand, such the recognition of how far the Chinese fall short, Lord and all the holy angels help them in the fight ahead. This outfit providing the service knows what it is about too, one of the principals involved married to no less than a bona fide member of the English aristocracy. (The journalist reporting no doubt catching herself catching her breath at the revelation.) Fellow concerned would understand full-well the value of a pass among the tables of the paying customers every once in a while to give them a sight of how high the bar stands. (Only a week gone too since the former Grocer’s daughter, the Iron Lady, passed. Perfect topicality.)
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