back from bangkok

just got back from bangkok... read darrr's post and would like to clarify that it is not that I do not blog often, but rather, I'm just not very good at it. Haven't quite gotten the flow of the style etc, and somehow sharing what I think has not always been a strong suit of mine.

And then of course, there are these fat obese fingers of mine, rather unwieldly and not the best to blog with. Have been putting off the posts so that i can change the look of my blog first. too similar for comfort with zuobolan's, a resemblance i assure you was purely coincidental and also mildly troubling in that sense.

Bangkok was great (as usual) but also tiring (also as usual), got myself a new list of restaurants to visit, 3 pairs of pants, a lotus plant and shoes this time round. I might feel the inclination to write about some of the eating places in Bangkok soon but thats for another time. Will have to get around the vow of secrecy I took with theguineapig first, so for now one of those places will have to remain known as the "puki puki cafe and bar" (heres one for the annals of catchy fake place names). Had to watch the spelling of annals, its ones of those words which one does not misspell lightly. Anyway, it is home to the most divine warm chocolate cake ever created. I could show you the place, but then I would have to kill you, either that, or as the potential scandal might go, if there's not already one in place, theguineapig might want to see you in his pen/sty.

Have also a new idea for a restaurant format somewhere so deserted u need a map to find. A true Shangrila in Singapore. But that will probably have to wait till when i have money to burn, an event that is not likely in the near future with the ever increasing movie and fuel prices. On that topic, I believe that government policy is sorely misdirected. You need couples to have more babies and without cheap movies, where will people go to pretend that they are interested in each other as individuals? (as a prelude to whatever it is a prelude to... take the hint policy man). They won't go to NTUc (borrowed from tangoh) for sure, though I hear that there is some even more inexpensive rutting going on thereabouts. Being far from civilisation has its advantageous i suppose.

So we're stuck in a horrible position, higher prices = more revenue for government and a nice sturdy surplus BUT less avenues for the erm "youthful exertions" of an uncreative people and less babies for the Singapore farm. Conflicting policy direction?? I think not and therein lies the rub. Quite simply this is where the injustice lies. My proposition is that raising movie prices is a hidden tax on our primordial instincts. The raising of such prices, and their associated demand inelasticity is a testament of the fact that we cannot help such behavior and as such are putty in the hands of the pricemongers who must really feel like warren buffet when increases here and there send us scampering in either direction.

Like it or not, Humans love to congregate and engage in congress (check the dictionary for the real meaning). And movies are the only means of doing so. I am convinced that this must really be the case. Since somehow, we as a people cannot help but succumb to such hikes without a struggle. Surely we cannot be that rich a people as to stomach such blows with impunity and somehow we have. Other than admitting than we don't have a spine of course, which is of course unacceptable. So there you have it. Caught in such a scenario, we are being punished for behavior that we cannot help, much like punishing the caucasian for being white, the chinese for making money and the indians for setting up mamak stalls among other injustices. Ok, maybe that was stretching it a bit far, everyone knows that it is impossible for a white to be punished for being white, except for Vanilla Ice that is, though Micheal Jackson might not agree, depending on which colour he is feeling.

some things you can't forget

Happened to be at Hougang South interchange earlier this week and got all nostalgic. Its been a long time since I was there and an even longer time from when I was growing up. Though I did not live in Hougang, the place featured regularly in my childhood since I would stay over at my cousin Darren's place at Yimei Garden almost every week. Of all things, I was there to hand some documents over to Xueyun from internal audit. A queer sensation it was being handed a slice of nostalgia under these unlikely circumstances, but yeah... i suppose that's the way the story usually goes.

I would love to talk about Yimei Garden, 3 of my uncles had homes there and growing up there with Darren, Samuel and Daniel was unforgettable. It was there I learned how to swim... sorta... I was aquaphobic till I gain water confidence with my first try at snorkelling. It was also there where we played games in the lobby, lit lanterns during mooncake festival and nintendo'd/Sega'd till we all went short sighted. But I digress and that is story I will leave for another time.

Rui Fa minced pork noodles
You know you are getting old, when you can lay claim to having eaten at a particular hawker stall for more than 15 years. Though not really hungry that day, I decided just for old time's sake to scout around for this minced pork noodle stall that we used to patronise way back in pri sch back when Hougang South was still just good old Hougang. Stall 01 34 at the hawker centre still stands today the same as 15 years ago. I'm not too sure about the name of the stall, I believe it to be Rui Fa Shu Shi, not that there was never a need to remember the name... It is a stall you would know by sight, if for nothing else then by the iconic curry puff uncle who helmed it.

Curry Puff uncle, so known by the brylcreamed do that he keeps was and is to me, the ultimate consumate Hawker showman. A person who takes pride in what he does and his food, it was never just a mechanical pulling of noodles and timing learnt from some franchise manual or a mere dishing of soup. Bowls were tapped and ladles flashed with flourish when curry puff uncle held court. And hold court he did, with his killer herbal tinged soup that accompanied every bowl of dry noodles. And what a discovery it was to a young boy (for there are old ones too), finding this stall and knowing it like close kept secret shared only with friends. I believe that it was Darren or someone in his family who introduced it to me. And in doing so, it went from being one of their "secrets" to being one of mine as well, spreading the joy so to speak. Perhaps this sharing of good things lies at the heart of friendship and kinship and it is through the sharing of experiences that relationships develop a language of their own, a shared memory and piece of history. Maybe that is why I am particularly uncomfortable eating with people I do not like. At the risk of over dramtism, the meal table is no place for hypocrisy.

But I digress again as I am wont to do. Back to the present, to the event which sparked off this reverie. I found curry puff uncle at the stall, his hair styled the same way I remember, his full head of hair a testament to the non abrasiveness of Brylcream and the stall looking like it did in my mind's eye. Though a bit slower, there was still that little flick of the wrist here and when he was cooking. And then it hit me, how everything has changed.

I saw his hands, perhaps not as steady as before, his skin, dotted with the tell tale signs of age.. and most tellingly maybe, the absence of a queue. Ironically, there was a long queue right next to curry puff uncle for noodles as well, helmed by a young guy who might have been curry puff uncle some years ago.

The sauce and the soup were not as fantastic as I remember and on any other day, I might have dismissed this as another stall which is no longer as good as it used to be. But somehow in a world driven by novelty and menus with more foreign words than sense. Lamenting the drop in standards seemed out of place here. And maybe, it was left to me to wonder, whether it was part of the flavour lost, or part of me.

In Transit

On the MRT...

Souls in purgation, drifting between
Periods. Where we don't know what to do.
We Fear... Nothing
Not having a frame of reference, reduced to anonymity
We shift,
into blank forms dreary faces.
Newspaper readers.

old lady and tv

Gave an old lady a ride out today on the way out of school... or at least I had wanted to... she didn't walk too right, holding a pink umbrella the same shade as her shirt, she was walking with a limp. My physiotherapist would have said that her left foot was too pronated, some volunteer type would have commented on society and a minister might have stopped for a photo op. But perhaps thankfully or otherwise for her, today it was just going to be her, an old lady in a pink shirt holding a pink umbrella walking down the slope alone.

And maybe in that split second, there also was me.

Is there a point to any of this? you wonder. I would like to play the sage and speak of the grand plan in the sand and the stars but that is for another time. Random thoughts flitter in and out of our minds the same way we cross each others' paths. Stimuli and reaction. Life is formed of a series of transactions. What did I think of today?

Did I think about my own grandmother deceased? How in her last days, she wasted away while her grandchildren and family extranged looked on. What is one to do in the face of something unfamiliar? Assume the form of something seen on television perhaps? The teary eyes, the awkward silences, don't satisfy me, I've seen it all on channel 8 before, can we change the channel please?

So in many ways I blame TV, it doesn't take much to plunge into existential ennui when the scenes of all of your tragedies and joys look like the replays, the networks well.. replay in the afternoons, just without the killer angles, the attractive people, surround sound and theme music. TIVO takes it one step further. Now you can have your stimuli whenever you want it the way you want it.

And it is no longer safe to be a niche group as well. You can say that "Hey, I'm a fat guy with an embarassing hairdo, surely there is no precedent on TV" but tough luck chum... I'm sure with a large enough satelite dish, I can watch midgets wrestling in siberia, sponsored by Nike no less.

Ok maybe the fat guy with the bad hairdo was an unfair example. I should have mentioned, some people more unique and original, such as the throngs of similarly clad people hanging out at the youth park or the heeren shops expressing their individuality.

Acrimony aside, I paused too long or rather drove too fast, and the "time" between the old lady and me, passed.

I think that if you want to help someone, don't wait too long.