The Other Singapore — Hype and Guff

The opener said it all:
         "On a starry night at the SingTel Singapore Grand Prix, one man glittered above it all...."
         Page one shared with the Bo Xilai verdict and In Brief foreign worker crushed to death and the Hong Kong typhoon.
         In almost one hundred and twenty weeks in Singapore there could not have been more than twenty-five or thirty stars visible through the period. Impossible it has been more. One evening there appeared four or five, two or three in one quarter and some time afterward a sharp-eye at the table pointed out another pasted up in the opposite direction. From long habit, each evening the night sky is scanned here for what little it can offer. The rapid half hour of dusk produces an impressive sky-show occasionally—a range of mostly soft pastels low on the horizon jostling with galleons of blue-grey. Some evenings an Islamic moon and star stand in the west at forty-five degrees as if on request above the Khadijah Mosque up the road. Eighteen months ago young Mintham—Pure Heart in Vietnamese—had remarked on the empty sky in Singapore.
         The drivel continued: ".... David Beckham made a surprise appearance and lent some stardust to the Paddock area and former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra.... Pop star Rihanna rocked the Padang.... Canadian heart-throb Justin.... " Certainly more stars on the ground than above gracing the best F1 production on the Planet.
         Last night Kuching Richard was watching the broadcast on the TV in front of the dining table directly outside the room, volume down. Somehow word has got out about the Westerner's impatience with noise and television. Poor Richard addicted to the day-time soaps, sleep ruined by years of shift-work. The same Carpmael house had been inspected eighteen months before and passed over because of the blaring televisions in the common rooms. $S1100 utilities and wifi included, kitchen, fridge, washing machine was a good deal for a furnished room that size in such a location—about $800 per month cheaper than Four Chain View Hotel. Rather than the F1 a plate of fruit Beechoo offered at the usual Labu Labi table last night. Bee had found duku (Malay; in Chinese it is known as chiki or chiku) at a greengrocer in Marine Parade. About the size of a young fig, light brown in colour, thin skin, soft sweet white segments with small seeds. Ahead Bee promised mata kuching; (Cat's eye in Malay), another fruit named for its outer glitter—almost certainly never tasted by the stars on the red carpet near the finish line last night.
        When it turned its hand to big-note arias the Straits Times invariably achieved unintended parody. Only on the day following was there mention of the coincidence on September 22 of World Car-Free Day. Bernie and the local promoters had achieved a media black-out for race day.

NB. Greengrocer Mr. Lim at his Haig Road stall has delivered corrections on the fruits. The ones offered by Bee on the Sunday night sat in a tray on Mr. Lim's shelf, properly called duku langsat, according to the fruiterer. Chiku was something entirely different. And Mr. Lim suggested mata kuching, available here in the time of his boyhood when his old dad peddled fruit on the island in his trishaw, can no longer be found in present-day Singapore. What the Marine Parade stall-holder offers will be longnan—similar, but not the same as cat's eye.