sour raindrops

On the bus on the way to work, passing Ang Mo Kio at 8 plus a.m. when golden sunshine is at its most glorious beauty, moving scenes play out as if it is a mini set I watch from the bus window. A long haired dark skinned man smokes on a little hill facing Caltex, his cigarette smoke illuminated against the golden rays. After Caltex, two Chinese men sit on pavement; one looks ahead with his tattered bag in his lap, one opens the day's papers. Moving on at regular speed, a maid pushes a baby on a little pink toy car. Behind is a scene of tall nice HDB flats. Should I think it's perverse or lovely?

At ALB we play with real memories, real people, real feelings. I am reminded of how the real reaches out from all the unreal we seem to be creating, when my father declines to attend the performance. Poor Engineer Mr. Ng is making me feel very emotional these days without realising it himself. Though eldest precious daughter Ng is also always giving dear Papa a lot of grief.

Looking back at looking back

I'm looking back a lot these days. Can't help it. Is this what they call the transition? If I go anywhere I only want it to be a place where I know how to make my dreams come true. Everything is then and now and how I thought life was ___ but it was ___. It's not such a tragedy because it's still wobbly jelly and not a dark hole but it still is a tragedy because now I know that all adults are people who believed in magic and spoke to themselves and played pretend; everyone had that in them, it's just varying degrees of letting go. When I listen to Lovely Rita it's the 17-year-old me in Sgt. Pepper mode, fancy-free at the garden tables. When I listen to Love Minus Zero/No Limit, it's old hot weekday afternoons that no longer are, it's all feelings I can't describe. Maybe that's why synaesthetics are so blessed. THE ONLY MAGIC POWER LEFT? The sages of today, they see things we don't, where are they?

Black-Beetle Bearded Man and Lovely Pirate Olive Oyl

It was the most beautiful dance I ever saw before my eyes.

Today at swing dance, my nervous friend was getting his bearings and consulting his manual of possible moves so I stood there waiting.

Black-Beetle Bearded Man had come from nowhere, an unfamiliar face (but so was I; maybe he is famous to all, unbeknown to me), a tall strong lanky body with a bearded face that somehow had a moustache that curled royally, and twinkling eyes. And she, the founder of the school, in her fifties I reckon, was in her pirate dress- half of it red striped with a qipao collar, the other half deep sea blue. And her red converse shoes as usual. They danced like pure magic. Hopping and swinging and tapping and polkadotting and his legs were like two jumpy grasshoppers and her wrinkles matched her clothes. It was like having googly glowing jelly move through your blood, watching them.

An old pot-bellied caucasian man in a purple shirt and high socks and sport shoes came too- another new face. He spent 15 minutes giving advice to a girl on how to dance, then rested on a chair. Another new face sat quietly on the floor with his backpack and legs wide open, observing everyone seriously. I left early to do office work due tonight and did not get to dance clumsily with any of them.

pineapple calluses

It was the last time I would see him in my life. Going to India meant that. He was my grandfather's elder brother, fourth in line to kong kong's fifth and last. Actually he was the only one remaining of those five, five whom I would like to investigate someday because I see them as some sort of legend in my head, the five brothers, one of whom I've heard was deathly handsome like my grandfather and whose motorcycle-and-mint looks live on in his eldest son, who tries too hard to be charming. The fourth brother would not be thought of as a legend though, the way people imagine legends, because he was soft, and quiet, and kind and simple. I saw him at least once a year, every year of my life, at Chinese New Year (we always had homemade cookies by his daughter-in-law, the kind that is a swirl with a pink dot on top, and yeo's chrysanthemum tea), in his small, neat hdb home that seemed a different world from his younger brother's green marble floors and red carpets. He had a big belly always nestled behind the uncle white cotton singlet. He had calm, sad little eyes, did not want much or need much. He was my father's favourite uncle, and my father once got them a big tv because they couldn't quite splurge on it, and it would make his uncle's days happier at home. My father never told anyone else about it. Sometimes he would come and visit (not at Chinese New Year), sitting around unassumedly, with his oldest nephew (another remarkable man of cigarettes and rough lines) who is incidentally my grandmother's age, and we would all have dinner together. At my grandfather's funeral, my father bought the famous yong tau foo from outside and he slurped up the mucusy gravy before my eyes. This was when the house was still old, and we sat at the sticky outdoor kitchen table, surrounded by fried vegetables in thick translucent gravy and surrounded by the empty smell of funeral incense. The last visit to him was something I'd suggested because I knew it would be the last time. He had some stomach problems or cancer, I don't know anymore, and had a few months left. One Sunday afternoon we trudged there after lunch. When I entered his room, he lay on the bed, emaciated, looking at the ceiling. His big belly was almost no more, his legs were skinny bones and his dark construction skin was yellowish. There was a tube from his nose. The bed was very neat, the sheets smooth, and cotton blankets that had little regular holes in them (my brother had a pink one from childhood that smelt very nice). The room was dark, only light from a window. It was old and dusty but orderly. I started tearing while everyone stood around not knowing what to do. He seemed a bit happy to see us. After they all said something they went out to the living room to sit awkwardly, while my grandmother and I remained. My grandmother asked if he'd eaten and spoke to him very normally. I wondered how she did that. I wondered how he felt lying there everyday, death coming, and if my grandfather came to talk to him. After a while my grandmother went out and I was left alone and he asked me to sit down so I did. I held his hand for my own sake and started crying and he said hoarsely, like he feared the end, 'ah liap, ask her to stop crying or I will cry too....' but my grandmother was outside and couldn't hear him.

Now I'm back it's odd that he is in an urn in the columbarium and his old flesh is no more. Like a mould that melted into space, disintegrating into tiny little sparkly parts, like a scene from a low-effects space movie. It's a weird thought to get around. I'm glad I wasn't around for his funeral; I would have cried embarrassingly too much and maybe more than his own grandchildren. Everyone dies out and Chinese New Year will never be the same again. Sugus and Van Houten are from the swollen heady past, and now the first thing on Chinese New Year morning are the bright yellow chrysanthemums at my grandfather's grave, twin-decorating the photo my grandmother doesn't like (because of the expression of the mouth) but which I think embodies him perfectly.

floating away on a cloud

"So...have you been dating any boys recently?"

"Nope."

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Nope."

"You must get a boyfriend!!!"

"Give me some advice lah."

"Hmmmm. First you must get a makeover, like put makeup, cover all your pimples...Then must be like, like, very funny, very smart."

"Okay."

"If you don't have long hair it's okay, because in the shows right, short hair also can. Also got boys like. Just that the most important thing is you must be like very funny, very fun."

"What shows?"
"Like those drama lah."

"But those stupid korean dramas are just silly shows."

"Yah I know, but you can also learn from them."

leave me to the abyss

Presenting...

Fishie the Jailfish!

and...

Oliver Paul the Octopus!

mostly created and glued together themselves

Me: "Yay, they can be friends!"

Them: "NO."

they forgot to meet Sharkie!

Pappy

I let him pick me up late from Yio Chu Kang MRT
though he falls asleep during the 9:30 news.
I smell of spice! spice! spice!
(The thought of India is a lovely
exploding cardamom in his ulcer-prone mouth)
He thinks of lice! lies? lice!
And warns me not to burn incense.
"Very smelly leh," he wrinkles his nose,
back hunched in a sheer white pajama-shirt.
Oh, Pappy.

When I went away to India
it was like he threw a kite to the sky
where it roamed tentative but quite, rather free
breathing sky air and kissing wispy cirrus
floating on cirrocumulus and plummeting
through Big Bad Cumulonimbus Storm Cloud;
they don't usually form in his head.
When the kite came back via Arabic wind
he had to rein it in a little for fear
it would get stuck in a tree someday.
There are many in Singapore but only the
wild untamed ones are worth a Singapore Dollar.
Sometimes only trees in a Mexican orchard
streaked with golden rays, delicious mud,
a lightness you don't quite feel here
are pine fresh fun yes yes yes.

So, mister Papa

I will miss you terribly one happy day
I will be so sad I don't know how to breathe, and-
"I love you," mouthed Triton, Ariel's father,
as her red hair flapped in the lashing sea breeze.

hokkien mee and milo monday to sunday

Old military band, upper peirce reservoir

Ivy's kingdom

Eau de Singapour

grandmotherly feet

marilyn with pride

my reading baby

where my dreams wait for me, where that river always flows...?

National Day Weekend

(( * * * * *

my favourite Singapore videos

And for anyone who remembers watching this glorious piece of old television in primary school!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0SCPud1eTY&feature=related

p

pmaybe the past, more than the future, keeps us here.