WEP Challenge: Spectacular Settings

Here’s the first part of the challenge for Spectacular Settings

1. Firstly share a paragraph from a novel, or an extract from a poem, or a photograph that stopped your heart with a spectacular setting etc.
2. Describe how your chosen ‘setting’ spoke to you. Why did you like it?

(A still frame from a video clip) Welcome to My Home, Singapore

I was on a study abroad programme to the UK when this National Day Parade was aired. I streamed it live over in London so that I could watch it “with” my family, 8 hours apart, and my breath was literally taken away at the skyline of Singapore. Being in London at the time, I revelled daily in the history and architectural marvels of England, always feeling regretful that Singapore had chosen to rid ourselves of many a heritage marker in order to build the modern city. At that moment, though, the glitz and glamour of our Central Business District (CBD) stopped my heart. The irony of me learning in the land of our (ex-)colonisers was not lost on me – sometimes, decades on, we have yet to lose the flawed perspective that the colonial masters are better, even though we have since proven ourselves to be as capable (or more). This video remains one of my top choices whenever foreign friends ask me for a quick introduction to this mysterious land called Singapore (which is NOT in China, by the way. We are a tiny but proud independent nation.) and it usually takes their breath away too.

* * * * *

Part 2 of the challenge
Then you have the option to:
a) write your own ‘setting’ piece in any genre, or share a ‘setting’ from your WIP, or…
b) write your own poem which highlights ‘setting’, or
c) share a photograph that blows you away every time you look at it and tell us why.
d) share an artwork that shows a ‘setting’ you love and tell us why you love it.
e) write a small playscript which highlights ‘setting’.

This is a supremely incomplete piece for options a&e (hurhurhur) – I was gunning for travel writing, but I also imagined it as a conversation between two people, and thus it became a dialogue-heavy play. Have mercy, and here goes –

For two.
A bare stage, with a backdrop of a forest.
A road-end, during a jog.

Dan: Where to, next?
En: Follow the pony tracks!
Dan: But that goes…into a forest. We are going to a forest?
En: Yes!
Dan: Oh. I didn’t expect that. I thought you said a cemetery.
En: It is the cemetery. Straight ahead, I think.
Dan: I was kinda expecting tombstones, not the woods.
En: This was before they realised that land is scarce in Singapore.
Dan: By the way, Google Maps says we are standing in a random grey patch. Big random grey patch. You’re the boss now.
En: Uh, I’ve only been here twice. I followed wherever the experienced guide went. Hehe.
Dan: Now you tell me! You bring me to a cemetery during the seventh month and you don’t even know the place well!
En: Heehee.
Dan: Wahlau seventh month leh. Other times I don’t care, but this month the spirits are up and about…
En: Don’t worry, just be friendly! After all, these are our forefathers. They won’t harm us. Hehe.
Dan: Oh please, take a look at yourself. They will probably think you are incompetent and destroying their hard work.
En: Ah. Good point. It’s ok. Just don’t step on any incense or food offerings and don’t step on the graves themselves and it should be alright.

* * * * *

Some background information:
I used some Singlish vocabulary and grammar structure in this for authenticity.
The seventh month refers to theHungry Ghost Festival, where the realm between the spirit world and ours is open, and the deceased are believed to visit the living. We are in the eleventh day of the seventh month as I write. Thanks for reading!

Word Count: 669 words
MPA: Minor Points Acceptable

Much Beloved Singapore Buildings and Monuments

I visited one man’s passion project for Singapore today and was enthralled by it. Teo Yu Siang, a designer and an accountant, decided that he didn’t like the self-congratulatory tone of many a government-initiated SG50 project, and decided to create his own birthday card(s) to Singapore.

Here are my personal, sentimental favourites from his website, Building Singapore.

You may want to check out my post on Bukit Brown.

I spent a lovely holiday interning as a docent at the Old Supreme Court before it was shut for renovations. It is now the National Gallery – many local works of art have been transferred here from the collection of the Singapore Art Museum. I loved exploring the Old Supreme Court with my colleagues then – we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves during breaks, and we explored various nooks and crannies, including the dome! The National Gallery opens this year on 24th November and I am looking forward to seeing both the art and the conserved building.

Well, the Esplanade. I guess I chose this for sentimental reasons – the greatest love of my life my ex and I took a walk along the Esplanade waterfront on our first date together. Yes, a complete cliche, and now a bittersweet memory.

But enough of me, now. Do head over to see all the buildings that Teo Yu Siang has painstakingly drawn! The drawings are also available for sale as postcards – this sounds like an interesting gift!

Bukit Brown

I’ve been trying to persuade my colleague to visit the cemetery with me, and while I’ve since won that battle, it seems the harder one is actually finding the time to head over.

Some photographs from earlier visits…

a broken gate to mark the space

nature taking its course, as always.
broken stones in shade, in shadow

‘flatmates’ in life, now forever neighbours after.
or perhaps ‘forever’ spoken too soon, when an expressway threatens their rest.

nevertheless, accompanied in the afterlife by pets, illegally perhaps

but always in style – only pretty tiles, please, for our dearly departed.

guarded by perpetual sentinels, one for the house, another to patrol the grounds

some of whom are not averse to the occasional selfie, or we-fie.

till next time, then.