pencil case

'I love you from the bottom of my pencil case...'

theives market

Kan-ni-na!

Me and Mister Sailor went to the sungei road thieves' market today. Here's what i read of it:

More than 30 years old and a fascinating glimpse into Singapore's underbelly. A huge jumble of goods, often sold by grizzled old Chinese "uncles" trying to make the odd 10 bucks from their old record players, battered woks and shirts they wore to a wedding in 1971. There's the occasional amazing find lurking in there somewhere, but even if you don't buy anything, it's an absorbing way to spend an hour or two.

And i found a humongous 'The Magic Faraway Tree' badge, with a big black tree and a splattery colourful background; a 'I'm A SENTOSA Kid' badge (green words on bright yellow background, HA), a beauty and the beast record, and an evil egyptian ring (green crystal on gold band). And i also found a fandi ahmad pencil box, with a striped sharpener enclosed. But i didn't buy it since it's waiting for a fandi ahmad fan to stumble upon it someday and feel like a child discovering something magnificent. And we found old medals, 9 years and under swimming competition at the PA swim club, interschool table-tennis. And bright red jewelled high heels, child-size. Ah Choo, let's go there someday and bargain in hokkien. Siu dua lah. (referring to gargantuan ah-peh rings) And help me choose old chinese records when i get a record player!

If this were ten years ago i might be the child in the story longing for a summer neighbourhood playmate, to sell lemonade with, to go to the swings with, to buy popsicles with, to cycle around the neighbourhood with, to play frisbee at the reservoir with, to run out after dinner with.

When my cousins were on holiday, they came over and we watched cinderella and painted our faces and played pirate and went to the swings. But now, my summer playmate is...my grandmother, we play a game of timing every night. I finish bathing, open the toilet door and she says what she has been waiting to say, 'open the window, let the air in' and i do it, and i quickly adjust the floor mat before she tells me to put it properly. If i do it before she can say it, i win.

Sharpened pencils.

armchair

Why, sit yourself down!


This is the armchair you have been waiting for all your life. Like something from a childhood dream though there never was such an armchair when you were tiny. Maybe all chairs felt big and plush and marvellous because you were small and it felt so fine to just lay back with pillows with your feet sticking out, reading a book after dinner with mummy's room lamp. All those adventures in enid blyton books and fizzy roald dahl stories and tiny facts about dinosaurs and colours. Now there are hard wooden chairs and cloth chairs but nothing warm and safe. This armchair has tiny goldy rusty studs and big arms for you to rest books on and if you lie back hard enough a foot rest pops out. If you fall asleep in it on friday the thirteenth you might wake up somewhere else. Buy this and guard it and one day you will be an old person sitting in it, it will be disgusting and mouldy but it will be the bestest chair in the whole wide world.

bazhang

I tried to wake up at 5 am to film my grandmother making bazhang. This year it occured to me to do that, like growing out of being a child eagerly awaiting, and knowing that this is something precious that might not happen many more times. Anyway, my grandmother's bazhang is my favourite food in the whole wide world. One year I had 7 in a day. When we were young, it was one of the most exciting things that happened only once a year. We'd run down in our pajamas and go into the outside kitchen of our old house (it's still on the same spot of land, but it's not old anymore) and sit at the sticky pseudo-wooden table, but not before wearing slippers because the floor would be oily with bazhang oil, and we would be presented with a bazhang that just came out of the giant tin pot cooking on the glowing charcoal. And when we split it with a fork, steam would flow out and up, and the smell is wonderful! It's a brown bazhang with rice, pork, mushrooms and a big fat chestnut. I remember one year in primary school where my grandfather was in the outside kitchen too, and he was dressed for work with his heavy golden pen and white shirt and black pants, and it was 7 plus am with glowing sunshine, my bazhang just split open, and I felt blissful. My grandmother is an expert at bazhang and it's very hard to make, you have to twist 2 banana leaves in a certain way, scoop and pat rice into it, meat, throw in a chestnut, finish it with rice, twist the leaves, and tie the whole thing to a hanging bunch or bazhangs. Then put it in the giant pot for 2 hours, then fish the bunch out by the strings. This year she made me vegetarian ones, with hae bee hiam (shrimp paste) and strangely they taste nearly like the meat ones. I hope when I'm 64 I'll still remember the taste of her bazhang and sit in my rocking chair looking at my grandchildren but feeling like a child again thinking of the sweet chestnuts and early morning darkness and her knobbly hands patting the rice into the leaves.