Worry Not Worry Wart click for larger view in flickrWorrywart: What am I going to do now?Optimist: Do? What about? Sounds exciting.Worrywart: All these jobs coming in and design briefs to crack. I'm really worried.Optimist: Wow! It's a good thing, sounds like perhaps it's time you thought about expanding.Worrywart:Expand? I'm not even sure what's going to happen 3 years from now.Optimist: Er, try it for a year first? Worrywart: I'm really worried.Optimist: Aiyah, you're always worried anyway, so it's nothing new that you're worried, so don't worry.Worrywart: But, I've been like this for so long, that's worrying.Optimist:... applause At 陈珊妮Sandee Chan's Esplanade performance (as a friend CT puts it, it's been a more than 10-year wait for fans on our island!), she used the words 認真 to describe how she had selected the songs lined up for last evening's fantastic concert. Most online dictionaries define 認真 as "serious", "earnest" and "to take seriously." The problem with Chinese-English translations is that the word often means all of this and more. 認真 suggests a degree of genuine care that is less removed than seriousness and more calculated than just earnestness.I would like to think that the folks behind Friday night's play Invisibility/Breathing, also at the Esplanade under its HuaYi Festival, were equally 認真. There was a precision and detail in actor Oliver Chong's performance that warranted the adjective. And despite the work's weakness, the same professional dedication was apparent in the set design and construction, the sound and direction.All of this makes the weak applause - particularly at Invisibility/Breathing - rather depressing. Friends, the next time you attend a performance, be it a play, a dance or a concert, if you recognise that what happens on stage is taking place with the utmost of dedication, thought and craft of the performer sustained over an hour or even two, please do not be stingy with your applause. It won't cost you much. not much "There's too much love on this train" is about all I can come up with today. post-it J designed the event's logo this year. :>If large canvases are not your thing, you may want to check this out! In its 3rd edition, Pameran Poskad is, as its name reads, an exhibition of art that fits into postcard-sized plastic sleeves. It's been an interesting "egalitarian" platform so far, with work by really established artists placed next to amateurs from around the world. Started by fine art printmakers Keyakismos (Eitaro and Tamae), this year's exhibition already has close to 150 participants. Even if you don't fancy yourself an artist type, you can go spend some of your Ang Bao money at the show from 17 April to 1 May. Heh. a drifting line Click on each image for a larger viewJasN (B in the above sequence) suggested that we record our experience listening to and queuing for the inspiring Yoshihiro Tatsumi in a single panel drawing. Being less disciplined, we needed fifteen panels instead to mark the start and end of our groupie fanboy/girl days. And of course, the amazing 74 year-old artist wins our respect for his tireless dedication to signing/drawing for the line...Well friends, while we enjoyed our Sunday afternoon pondering the intricacies of whether one should order 10 packets of prawn mee if there was a long queue standing behind, we recommend that your afternoons are better spent reading his short, sharp and shock(ing) stories instead. They have been collected, translated and published by Drawn and Quarterly in three volumes thus far. The manga master's lengthier autobiographical tome A Drifting Life moves at a less punishing pace, but nonetheless leaves you wanting to read more. If so, there's Singaporean film maker Eric Khoo's animated adaptation of A Drifting LIfe (artist Brian Gothong Tan will also work on the project) to look forward to. the interim Picture Tennis: The first serve was the fat caterpillar.J and I played picture tennis just before I went back to work some 6 weeks ago. I've made no drawings and done no writing since. My body is adjusting - and forgetting. But I hope not to forget the lessons of the year out and the possibilities I imagined. Hmm, alright. There should be a proper blogpost soon...or perhaps installment 1.3 of My Life as a Magician's Rabbit. Right now, folks, it's pitch dark in the tophat! forever Don't believe your eyes. The theme this year is not "turtles" or "origami". J has captioned the photos "God is eternal". Well friends, may God's peace be with you this Christmas. But should you be interested to see more of "turtles+origami", check out ampulets design's latest project.And if you are really a fan of turtles, there's supposed to be "The Live Turtle and Tortoise Museum" at the Singapore Chinese Garden! Disclaimer: I've not been there myself so I can't vouch for it. The website claims it has over 50 different species of turtles and tortoises... HERE! THERE! Photo by JenThey are here! Or rather, they are there at the Post-Museum, all wrapped deliciously like roti prata. watch design Video from here. More from the Herb and Dorothy website.A librarian and postal clerk amass lots of art in their tiny New York apartment. Sounds like the premise for a short story? Well, it's one of many films you can watch at the Design Film Festival. I guess there are enough films about architects and designers (and the odd collector) - those folks who create so much of what we live in and live with - that they could constitute a genre of their own. Anyway, J and I are just glad two of our interests are coming together at this festival from 20-30 January at Sinema/Old School. Click here to find out more.Writing this, I am also reminded of designers Charles and Ray Eames and the short films they made as another way to record or communicate their ideas; including the still amazing Powers of 10. Enjoy.Video from this youtube link, but you can also view it from the official website that requires just a simple registration process. better late... than never. Click here for Part (1.2) of My Life as a Magician's Rabbit. t-shirts for a (good) cause Lost without you. This design takes as its starting point Post-Museum's location in busy Little India. One of the Post-Museum’s stated aims is to respond to its location. Wherever we may be, perhaps having a sense of place is part of our sense of community.This design is inspired by the spirit of collaboration behind two simple shop-house spaces, where people get together to create community and culture. 2 is better than 1.The folks at Post-Museum have been raising funds for the work they do. Some time ago they asked if we could design a t-shirt for their fundraising efforts. So we did!Friends, if you must buy presents for Christmas, can't resist another t-shirt (or two), and/or just want to contribute to Post-Museum's work, here's what you can do:(1) Get 2 is better than 1 in XS, S, M, L or XL* for $30 each.(2) Get Lost Without You in XS, S, M, L or XL* for $35 each. This is a limited edition t-shirt...50 I think.(3) Get a set of both T-shirts for a discounted $60 only!The t-shirts come with a tag that tells you a little about the design, Post-Museum and ampulets. All proceeds from the sale of these t-shirts go towards Post-Museum's work. To pre-order the t-shirts, email admin@post-museum.org. Hurry hurry! They will also be available for sale at the Post-Museum's Food #03 cafe from mid-December onwards.(For updates and getting your friends onboard, check out the facebook page.)===========*About the Sizes: XS is 36 inches circumference round the chest. S is 38 inches, M is 40 inches, L is 44 inches and XL is 46 inches for men who gym.Close-ups of the designs: to be continued... The week running up to my returning to work, I have:(1) Fallen sick. A friend cleverly suggested the symptoms were all psychosomatic...(2) Met up with friends every night for conversation and a drink (or two).(3) Bought a new TV to numb the brain after work.(4) Downloaded the super addictive Bejewelled on my iPhone, as suggested by J, for the daily commute.(5) Finally started working proper on My Life as a Magician's Rabbit.My Life as a Magician's Rabbit is a 4-part story (for now) that's been in my head for years. To start with, there are no drawings yet and I'm not sure if the text will inspire images eventually. But if you are interested to follow the story, I'm determined (ah, all gung-ho before reporting for work) to post a new installment once a week at this site for the coming months.Otherwise, life goes on. There'll still be random posts on this blog about art, cinema, design and any domestic tourism we indulge in. J will continue bossing it out at ampulets design where he does corporate and commissioned work. In fact, check back here for news about a new T-shirt and possibly an exhibition project that ampulets design will be collaborating with some arty folks on! why not? Ai WeiWei at the Mori Museum, Tokyo - all images by JThree conversations (or rants) about "Why Not?" (1) The "Why Nots" of OldOver a cup of coffee in Katong, a good friend was recalling his years growing up in Toa Payoh. He said, or as I recall him recalling, "everyday I would hear this: don't bother, this is not for you; yes others can do it, but you must understand what you are capable of; you don't have to try so hard, just focus on...When I was much older, I suddenly realise, f*** it, I can do whatever it is I set my mind to do." It's never too late, friends.The devil at the door(2) Art and "Why Not?"After a discussion with some folks about the arts in Singapore and what they want or see in the future, I felt a little depressed but did not know why. Everything I heard was linked, in one way or other, about what we could "realistically hope for". They were not entirely wrong. With limited resources in an absolute sense - finances, talent, physical space, lived heritage - it seems the wise thing to set our sights more "strategically". Tonight, after some sake, I suddenly realised why that conversation was so depressing. Isn't there something about the spirit behind artistic discipline that is about what others would not "realistically hope for", but nonetheless worth believing in and pursuing.Perhaps this is why the artist and the manager will always be at odds. In the best of situations, the tensions and relationship between the two can bring about great work. Of course, I think this is a statement of the hopeful realist. Nature, design by God(3) "Why Not" is not just whimsyJ was telling me about the publicity material for this year's Singapore Design Festival that he had noticed on the MRT trains. The tagline for its campaign was" Why Not?" He remembered one of the train advertisements - "Edible Buildings. Why not?" His complaint: why must art or design always be promoted as a kind of cute, whimsical proposition when it has all the power and ability to change the world for better? His alternatives: "A world without petrol. Why not?" "Cycling lanes in Singapore. Why not?" I can understand his frustration. The whimsical is valuable, but art and design can often be limited by popular perception and even marketing to this one realm.However, don't let this little advertising blip discourage you from checking out the many varied events being organised as part of this year's Singapore Design Festival. Keep an open mind, listen, observe, and there'll always be lots to learn - and question. off I have three two more weeks till the end of my "sabbatical". I place that word in quotation marks because after listening to Stefan Sagmeister (on TED.com, video embedded above) speaking about his year out in Bali, I think I need to use a far more modest term. city of books all images by JNotwithstanding this, J and I do try to explore at least one district that we've never been to each time we visit Tokyo. This year, it was Jimbocho. It's a name I almost feel should be an exclamation. Like "Jimbocho!" or "J-I-M-B-O-C-H-O!" Especially if you love books.The first thing you'll notice is that there's nothing fancy about Jimbocho's bookstores. Its dedication is singular - books. And the folks who trawl Jimbocho's shelves do not need any encouragement from cute merchandise or interiors. They are - as I point out to J - true in their love for books. posters on the wall of a bookstoreNext, you'll find that most of the stores have focused collections. Depending on the store's genre, every possible space is packed with books, magazines or manga. To add, the shelves are meticulously categorised and labelled, and if not, the organisation makes itself obvious, as if in the shopkeeper's own language of association. We had first walked up to a small bookstore on the second-floor focused on the Beat Generation, before stumbling upon a street of shops collecting all printed material related to the cinema and popular culture. According to the entry by Yoshita Haba in Claska's Tokyo by Tokyo, "the stock on the shelves changes depending on the time of the year, so it's best to make regular visits - bookshelves are like living, constantly changing creatures."After all this, you'd walk around wishing you understood some of the Japanese language so that you could access more of these creatures.But with no Japanese, the book that accompanied J and I (we took turns reading/re-reading) throughout our stay instead was Narayan's novel Waiting for the Mahatma. Probably one of the few Narayan stories that dealt with an overtly political context, Waiting for the Mahatma takes Siriam, a characteristically carefree Malguldi resident, and puts him through a coming-of-age experience that is not so much political awakening as an extended schoolboy crush. Guided only by love for Bharati, Siriam finds himself a participant in Gandhi's spiritual reconciliation of India and Chandra Bose's militant independence movement, while the rather benign colonial representatives look on and the Hindu-Muslim conflicts place questions on the nature of India's independence. Waiting is a somewhat atypical of Narayan's Malgudi novels in the tragic undercurrents of its comedy. As if once outside Malgudi, Narayan's fictional paradise, the realities of India cannot but unsettle Narayan. With its last chapter set in New Delhi, Waiting as a love story cannot find its consummation. The title's anticipation therefore gestures at this always-tentative (political) romance.It is a strange novel to read during a vacation in consumerist 21st century Tokyo. But returning to this wonderful novel and discovering a new district in Tokyo has been two of my best experiences in the last week. villagers/creatures of habit The Aosando art fair pairs up artists with shops in the backlanes of Aoyama. A great way to get traffic to the quieter shops, and to get people to notice new artists.On each of our visits to Tokyo, J and I have always ended up going to the same restaurants, museums and retail stores. Today, for instance, we chatted with one of the chefs and walked down our favourite street to the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. But just as we note how Tokyo has changed (or not) each annual or biennial interval, I think we notice how we, too, have changed (or aged!!!) each time. J: I now understand what you mean when you say you sometimes prefer Taipei to Tokyo.Y: You do?J: Yah. It's the language thing. Y: Yes, and with it, the whole thing about accessibility... and alienation (ooh, big word) of cities.J: Yah, for the first time, I can imagine what it is like to be alone and living in Tokyo - the loneliness and the possibilities.Y: No kidding. It's a great place to run away or escape to. But in the same way, cities don't give a shit about you, so if you can't fit in or feel alone, it really hits you. Maybe that's why we always go to the same places in Tokyo, just to connect to this place.J: In comparison, that's why Singapore is so attractive to expatriates, no?Y: Uh-huh. J: It has all the pretences of a big city, but in reality, in essence, it is a -Y: - village.J:Yah, like a village. Everyone more or less speaks some English. The aunties - if you stay in HDB - will talk to you and ask you questions. In no time, you will quickly find friends, know someone who is friends who someone who is also friends with someone...Y: Yah. All the good stuff but also the trappings of a village. Which sometimes makes you want to run away to a real city...hah!Well friends, if you ever feel like running away to Tokyo, there are two places we will not hesitate to recommend in Tokyo:(1) Have a meal at Chopsticks Cafe or the Sora no niwa tofu restaurant. Both are at Shibuya, and for 4000 yen each, you can afford 5 courses of good food and at least 3 rounds of beer/sake/cocktails. Not to mention the great service and ambience.Seasonal tofu starter at Sora No Niwa.(2) Visit Issey Miyake's workThis includse 21-21 Design Sight, a design museum adjacent to the Midtown complex at Roppongi, and his Pleats Please store at Aoyama. The former always has intelligently curated shows while the latter never fails to have pretty (for J's sake) and friendly retail staff who are ever ready to talk about design, no matter how difficult it may be for them in English. Night view of 21-21, architecture by Tadao Ando. J testing his new camera at 3000 ISO tunnel-visioned tokyo Tokyo - that's all we'll be seeing this coming week! And that is plenty because it is going to be the week of the Tokyo Designers Week, 100% Design Tokyo, Design Tide at Midtown, the Emerging Directors' Art Fair, the Aosando Art Fair... But of course, J and I are just looking forward to walking in another city. We'll try and load up the photos here as we go along! Meanwhile design critic J is appalled and depressed by changi airport. finally! J decided to ditch flash and started all over again with plain ol' homemade vanilla html instead. So finally! watching 'em grow My brother E, good citizen him, has three kids. E1 is three, E2 is one and M3 is a month old. Each is their own person.It's been interesting just watching them grow and express their personality. E1 is gentle and agreeable ("You try. It's good. Try.") E2 is observant and a quick storm. M3 is a small parcel that sleeps and poops. So far. And it is easy to imagine the joy associated with parenthood. Brother E's is obvious. A typical conversation in the car as Brother E drives us home after dinner on Sundays goes like this:Bro E: I gotta think using about a different strategy with E2.J&Y: Yah, they are so different!Bro E: With E1, once I smacked him on the backside a little harder. I just wanted to test how far to go. Experiment, haha. And he immediately knows he has done something that has made me more angry than usual.J&Y: Aiyah, he's a softie.Bro E: But with E2, it's different. If I just slap his hand when he does something wrong, he hits me back! It's like monkey see monkey do still.J&Y: Hmm, he's a fierce one. Bro E: ... I must think about it some more, use a different strategy. J&Y:...Bro E: You know, it's nice seeing how E1 has changed in the last 3 weeks. He used to just ignore his little brother. But yesterday, while we we out on a walk, he suddenly just kissed E2 on the head! It's nice, seeing him learn to relate to his little brother and show his love.Awww. But no, we have not changed our minds about not having our own. That's three negatives in one sentence. gone to meet the bookmaker click to view in flickrThe description of Tuas on streetdirectory.com begins "Tuas is Singapore's version of Chernobyl."Comparing Tuas to Chernobyl is way too flippant, but to most of us islanders who don't work in a shipyard or any of the heavy, manufacturing or chemical industries, Tuas will seem somewhat surreal. There is really no distinctive architecture - just these monotone blocks, some of them windowless or clad in metal. There are no high rise buildings. Even the trees are low and overwhelmed by the concrete and steel. The streets are wide. Or perhaps they feel especially wide because the traffic is sparse, save for that roaring truck. There aren't many people hanging or walking about as you drive by. But although the place seems deserted, there is the knowledge that inside those concrete and metal blocks, there is almost non-stop activity. Man operating machines operating the economy operating man.Why were we in Tuas? To visit a bookbinder for one of J's projects. It was fifteen minutes to one o'clock when we arrived. A dog stood by the wide entrance. A group of men were resting by the side. The place was dark - and lazy. Of course, it was their lunch break. We were directed to the back of the cavernous space that was filled with pellets of print and quiet machines which resembled abandoned amusement park train rides. The office was a florescent glow behind a clear curtain of thick plastic. We peeped. On the walls hung portraits of leaders, politicians, gods and celebrities. There was (I think) Osama, Ganesh, Obama, Thaksin, Abdullah Badawi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Old Man himself, Ella from Taiwanese girl-band S.H.E., the Harvard-educated Japanese princess...M finally emerged. After a ten-minute discussion between J and M in the office, we turned around and saw, to our amazement, the entire factory floor transformed! The factory floor was lit, the machines grew noisy one-by-one, and a group of some twenty men and women seemed to have appeared from nowhere and were now industriously carting books, folding covers, pushing buttons and supervising machines. M smiled at our undisguised curiosity. "Come," she offered, "I show you. You never see before, right?"Our tour, however, was interrupted before it really started by our introduction to Mr S, the boss-man, master bookmaker and lunchtime portrait artist."Good good, you must see all the machines, then you designers can understand how it works!" And so began a personal tour of Mr S's $4 million-worth of secondhand German binding machines ("except this machine, this one is from China. The Chinese they copy everything, exactly the same as the German one."). They fold, glue, stitch, cut, separate, make hardback and cloth covers, apply the little ribboned ends to the spines... all the mechanised hands, wheels, presses and rollers."Nowadays, I see the design, aiyah, immediately I can tell: over-designed. They design, don't think about how it can be made. I tell them, this cannot be bound this way. Sometimes simplicity is better." Mr S offered his design advice to J. About Mr S's portrait painting, he credited it to this - "For one year I studied art and book binding in France, in the 70s. Every day the French, they grill you about binding. So many different things to learn, I tell you. There are so many different ways to bind a book. I also study art, art and book binding.""One day I saw this exit sign, then I hang these portraits here because they are, haha, *you know*..." We ended the tour almost an hour later, with Mr S inviting J to organise a study visit for designers to his factory."I am preparing some slides about binding. You can go and organise a small group to come lah. But make it informal, we can walk around then discuss. Good that you designers come and see. Make our job easier also!" He laughs.At two thirty, we walked back out into Tuas' empty streets, thinking about the books that we could possibly make with Mr S's German (and sometimes Chinese) machines. the wake-up bird Several weeks ago, I blogged about the calls of the wake-up bird. It has plagued me since. Not the calls per se, which I enjoy for the way they enter the HDB soundscape of bus stops, chittering mynas, chattering children and the incessant varied noises from the nearby taoist temple. But rather just identifying the bird itself.Not satisfied with mystery, I've since been searching online recordings of bird calls. But with no real clues, it got as desperate as googling "whoo-ooo bird call". At one point, we even thought it could be the frantic call of the monkey that has wandered from the pierce reservoir and spotted hanging around our street.But a monkey it is not. Last afternoon, J finally spotted the creature perched on the top of a tall tree, issuing its loud "woo-ooo" uncharacteristically at noon. Ah, it was a large black bird with a distinctive tail and a beak that did not look like that of a crow's . That helped narrow down the options. From descriptions and photographs in the "Guide to the Common Birds of Singapore", it could either be a house crow, possibly the nightjar or a bulbul, or the greater coucal. The greater coucal is from the cuckoo family. And it seemed to make sense that it was some kind of a cuckoo bird. Unfortunately, after 2 hours of online searching, none of it sounded like our wake-up bird.Just when I was about to abandon the search, one of the random references from "greater coucal" on youtube read "Asian Koel". It was something about the sound of that word "Koel". I clicked - and heard that familiar call. Ah. The wake-up bird. Video by Diana57 in Singapore of a male koel calling out for a mate.Sound of a female koel, by tankavideoAvianweb.com's page on the Asian koel identifies it as a bird in the cuckoo family. It is also known as the "Rainbird" in Australia, while its name "koel" means "nightingale" in India. In Toa Payoh, I think the koel shall remain known as the wake-up bird.======p/s. Here's a video of a mating dance between two koels. The male is black and the female is the brown and white-spotted. island biography Check out this book by tym and Mark Frost about the lives that made our favourite island in the tropics! From the previews so far, the book promises to be a great read. There are 4 things amps recommend that you do:(1) Read the previews/snippets from the book and the writers' posts here.(2) Buy your copy from the bookstores, or pre-order one. Of course, proceed to read it! (3) Attend one or all four of these events where the writers will talk and gamely sign your copy of the book.(4) Buy another copy for a friend. A love supreme time project #14. Turtle and machine.Secretary: Boss, do you know your business has just turned three? Praise God!Boss Amps: Has it? Wow!Secretary: Yah... er, still no time to put up the website proper huh? Boss Amps: Clients' work come first mah.Secretary: Yah, we're man, not machine. Boss Amps: ...Secretary: In the spirit of that, boss, I thought this year's annual report should not be about all that boring stuff. You know, how's work? what are the future plans? what was your favouritest project. Machines are slowly taking over all that. Let's talk about human stuff. Like music. After all, we're made to make music, the sublime stuff. Boss Amps:It would be nice to play a musical instrument. Like after a day's work. Secretary: What musical instrument do you play, boss?Boss Amps: None.Secretary: Ah. But say you could. What would it be?Boss Amps: ...Secretary: The trumpet? Miles Davis style.Boss Amps: Yah, I did think about that years ago. But you know, it'll make my cheeks even puffier. Secretary: ... Boss Amps: Now I've been thinking...the double bass.Secretary: Double bass! Just what I want to play!Boss Amps: It's illegal for short people to play the double bass.Secretary: It's a cool instrument anyway. Boss Amps: Agree. Like the opening double bass in John Coltrane's A Love Supreme.Secretary: Yah, best 4-note motif. Best jazz album ever. So friends, that wraps up the third year for amps' design studio.Watch a short recording of Coltrane's quartet in a 1965 performance below. You can listen to the first "track" of the 33min album here, but depending on your computer's speakers, you may not get much of a bass. So it's best to get the album of the 1964 studio recording with a copy of the original liner notes. In it, there's Coltrane's foreword and his psalm "A Love Supreme" which he "narrates" in music - wordlessly and so perfectly. a thousand years of silence According to this website, turtles in Chinese mythology (or maybe it's Japanaese mythology) get to speak "the language if humans" when they reach a thousand years of age. How is speaking "the language of humans" a reward for 1000 years of peaceful silence? After 1 year of peaceful distance from work, tomorrow I''ll be reporting at my new job for a "visioning exercise." It won't be at least 2 months before I start proper, but reality is starting to s-i-n-k-i-n. So it was with some urgency that I finished this drawing for the turtle/time project. trumpet tree viewing images by JFrom our fifteenth floor flat, we can see the top of trees - their varied shades and flowered crowns. In the month of September, or round about the seventh lunar month, the trumpet tree (I think that's what it is) blooms and rains down its flowers. J: It's our cherry blossom! Y: Yah, like cherry blossoms! Pretty ah.Old woman: [in Hokkien] Super pretty.Y: [in a semblance of Hokkien] Very pretty.Old woman: Every year around this time, these trees are like this. Sometimes all the way until the eighth month. Y: Is it?Old woman: This morning, wah, the ground was all full of flowers. They sweep it away already, But this morning, wah. Super pretty.Y: If you look down from the window, the whole tree top is flowers.Old woman: I can't go to the window ah. [gestures at the wheelchair] My legs are no good, afraid I'll fall.Y: Yah, better to be careful...Old woman: [sits watching the flowers while we walk off] Super pretty. a distraction that is not facebook image by J. Nothing to do with this post. It's just a cool picture of the universe in a glass of iced water.In between writing my dissertation, I've been reading the following books online. But being the bibliophile that I am, they have since appeared on our shelves, save for the rarer Annals. If you need reasons to get Facebook off your computer screen, here are three good ones:Troy Chin's Loti is uploaded by its author regularly on his website. It could be that the stories are nostalgic for most readers. Not the sepia-toned variety, but the household kind - familiar experiences of childhood - primary school tests, a classmate's birthday party, corny jokes, haunted houses in the neighbourhood, visits to the "wet" market. It could be the innocence and naivete of the characters. Of course, it could be Troy Chin's comic timing. Whatever it is, this is one addictive comic. [Volume 1 of Loti is available in print in most bookstores, as is his Resident Tourist.]A 1821 copy of John Leyden's translation of Malay Annals or Sejarah Melayu is available on NLB's digital archive. It has an introduction by the white man Raffles himself, a fascinating read for his critique of Dutch imperialism as justification of the British administration, as well as his characterisation of Southeast Asia's diversity in the "absence of bigotry and inveterate prejudice" (Raffles notes that this trait also makes the region perfect for EIC's moulding, "the humanizing influence of the arts" and the creation of new wants and luxuries!). Anyway, the civil servant introduction aside, the rest of the Malay Annals - a series of stories surrounding the Malaccan sultanate and various noblemen's exploits, including outwitting foreign emissaries and forces. A commissioned work, it is also an example of how the arts have, to varying extent, have served their patrons' vanities and purpose - just as how Leyden's translation, endorsed by Raffles, furthered the British empire's "brand" of imperialism as enlightenment. But don't let this put you off. If not as an historical account of 15th and 16th century, read Malay Annals like any romantic narrative, especially one that begins like this:It happened at a time that Raja Secander, the son of Raja Darab of Rum, of the race of Makaduniah, the name of whose empire was Zulkaneini, wished to see the rising of the sun...I suspect, however, that the manga Pluto may have a less legitimate online presence. So you should either borrow the books from us, buy them, or else ask google - because this series by Naoki Urasawa shares the genius of Osamu Tezuka and is well worth reading. Tezuka, creator of Atom or Astro Boy, has always written works that hit at man's insatiable greed and corruption as the root of war and bigotry. They would have been depressing, moralistic rants if not for how Tezuka inserts such tension into man's redemptive efforts as well.Astro boy, or robots, as an idealised image of man is something Hollywood has appropriated, mostly poorly. But in Pluto, an adaptation and continuation of Tezuka's original Astro Boy manga, the conflicts between the ideal and corrupted often remain unresolved, as with the line between man and technology. For example, when a robot cop is "killed", the robot-detective informs the cop's robot wife and offers to place the cop's memory chip in her processor. This leads to a strange but moving depiction of mourning and loss as a literal "playback" of memories. In a way, it's not unlike the kind of flickr/facebook/blogger archiving we do today - except that it's private and unedited.So friends, on this note, I'll leave you to your facebook-ing reading. to see the world and the living room This being the weekend when Singaporeans are busy booking their year-end packaged holidays at the travel fair, it is apt that J and I overheard bits of this conversation (well, it's more like a monologue) at the Kiliney Road Kopitiam -Woman: Yah, when I was in Hokkaido last year, it was hard to find this ... [Sips her coffee, eats her mee rebus] I really enjoyed Paris. I mean, for me, that was the nicest city. The trip started at Denmark, stayed there for a few days, then the next few days we moved on to... [Sips her coffee, eats her mee rebus] Oh Canada! That was when I went for... [Finishes her mee rebus] But you know, Sengkang, Punggol, Jurong East*, I don't really know these places.Hey, 700 square kilometers is pretty large an island to have to trek around for folks who prefer to lug around a suitcase. Unfortunately, save for our rather obsessive bike rides to this, us amps cannot claim to have contributed much to domestic tourism this year as well. But Saturday evening, we overcame our inertia to find our way to a part of the island we seldom venture to - Bukit Timah. Or to be precise, Upper Bukit Timah.If Katong was our genteel east, where old money built their seaside homes and breathed a little easier, then Bukit Timah is where they eventually landed their wealth. Unlike the east, whose refinement got reclaimed together with the shoreline, Bukit Timah continued to be where their grandchildren (or those aspirational families) continue to populate the bungalows and condominiums and patronise the fancy "specialist" grocers and butcheries. Well, it's therefore not surprising that ever since my junior college days and a brief stint volunteering at the old Salvation Army Store's sorting house, Bukit Timah is a part of the island J and I don't have much reason to frequent. But we found one to warrant a Saturday evening bus ride from Toa Payoh to Upper Bukit Timah Road. random shot off from a cab across the island.We got off bus #157 at the Bukit Timah market and hawker centre. That was not the reason for the bus ride (at least not this time), and neither was it the old skool Beauty World Shopping Centre and Bukit Timah Shopping Centre. So we headed past both shopping mall relics classics down Upper Bukit Timah Road until we saw the large neon signboard for Courts. The air-conditioning from Courts was tempting, but we resisted. We continued our walk, away from the bright lights to the soft, residential glow of the condominiums and bungalows nestled against the nature reserve of Bukit Timah Hill. Once we neared the trees, the air seemed to drop a degree - quite naturally this time. Ah, even the air the rich breathe in seem cooler, J envied, even though such air was not reason enough for our visit. Instead, just when the darkness of a nearing nature reserve got us a little worried, we spotted it.The cluster of low-rise buildings that used to be the Bukit Timah Fire Station was turned last year into another one of those hip "lifestyle" places, a la Dempsey and Old School. This one houses several offices, schools that teach stuff like photography and digital arts, a spa, a bistro called *surprise* Fire Station... and our destination - Raw Kitchen. Housed in a single-storey unit in the innermost corner of the whole compound, Raw Kitchen is nothing if not charming. That night, all the chairs in this small, owner-run restaurant were placed in its backyard where Substation's associate artists, collective Mux were giving a performance. For more than an hour, we sat, sans dinner, just relaxing and listening to this group of very young, talented folks:We shot this on the iphone, but you can watch a recording of their performance specially by Common People made in a living room by clicking here. If you want to get out of your living room to Raw Kitchen, it's at 276 Upper Bukit Timah Road. Warning: It's not a live music place, in case you are mistaken.====*Place names in Singapore birdsongs Over the weekend, J and I went with tym to check out the "Curating Lab: 100 objects" project under the Singapore Art Show. The first object was of a series of blown-up 1960s newspaper clippings from artist John Low's collection. Other than sightings of the "Oily Man", "beast in Serangoon Gardens" and ghosts in cabdrivers' backseats, there was a kind of non-article (if there was ever such a thing as non-news, this would be it) about some kampong residents' alarmed sighting of a "death bird" and its call. From its description, the "death bird" sounded just like the common house crow. Perhaps they were less common in the 60s. If so, maybe it is not too difficult to imagine then how a lone crow could possibly alarm a kampong with its aggressive cawing and its seemingly ominous haunting.Round about eight in the morning, a bird in the cluster of trees by our block of flats will issue a series of loud echoey calls - "whoooop whooop". A couple of mornings ago, I woke up hearing just that loud call; and drifting in and out of sleep, all that filled those brief in-between moments was the bird's call. A kind of audio-only dream. How would you describe the calls and songs that birds make? Pigeons coo. Crows caw. Mynahs, those comical birds with their random head shaking and awkward hopping, they make these appropriately untuneful clicks. And hummingbirds hum?It is hard to forget Murakami's description of the "wind-up bird": There was a small stand of trees nearby, and from it you could hear the mechanical cry of a bird that sounded as if it were winding a spring. We called it the wind-up bird. Kumiko gave it the name. We didn't know what it was really called or what it looked like, but that didn't bother the wind-up bird. Every day, it would come to the stand of trees in our neighbourhood and wind the spring of our quiet little world."Then there are the more prosaic but no less curious descriptions in Clive Briffett's A Guide to Common Birds to Singapore (part of this series of pocket-sized books published by the Singapore Science Centre that I am addicted to), such as: ...it issues a monotonous two note whistle "coo-oo" fairly regularly every two seconds and has been likened to a demented hiccupping! (Brown Hawk Owl)Often calls attention to itself using a raucous call followed by a noise resembling a whinnying horse as it sits on overhead wires (White-throated Kingfisher)Frequently issues a noisy shriek resembling a saw grinding against metal (Collared Kingfisher)...listen for the distinctive call of "whats it" or "peepit" issued in flight (Asian Fairy Bluebird)...has a "chwee chewee" call with an alarm note resembling a "tissyip tissyip" (Richards Pipit)I've been listening to online recordings of bird sounds for the past hour, hoping to find the name of my morning alarm clock. But until I recognise it, I think it'll just bear the unflattering name: the wake-up bird.========p/s If you want to listen to an actual bird songs in Singapore, there's actually a CD recording Bird Songs of Singapore at the National Library (Lee Kong Chian Reference section. soft spots screen capture of websiteVoteIf you've time this weekend, make a trip down to the Singapore Art Museum where there's a show of works by Donna Ong, Vertical Submarine, Felicia Low and Twardzik-Chng Chor Leng - the four artists/collective selected to be this year's President's Young Talents. Alternatively, it's probably worthwhile to time your visit with the curator-guided tour, conversations with the artists, or better yet, to observe or participate in one of Felicia Low's workshops.This year's exhibition includes a "People's Choice" segment, where you can vote for the artist whose work you most admire. I must confess that none of the works blew me away, although Donna Ong's sculptural installations are - as always, to me - considered and rigorous in both construction and thinking. But I've always been biased towards artists who have a direct engagement with the society around them, and who have an inclusive approach towards their art and audience. For this reason, my click on the vote button is likely to be next to Felicia Low's name - not just for the exhibition, but the work she seems to do daily. You can view videos of the artists and their work, and submit a vote at this website. *shameless promotion for J* ampulets design did the environmental and communications design! I think it's great, another bias.GiveI've a soft spot for this space. But after 2 years providing its space for artists and various NGOs to meet, collaborate and present their ideas, the Post Museum now needs your contribution! Click here to find out more about how you can give to. For starters, some projects that are easily identifiable include its hosting of the "Green Drinks" project; as well as its organisation of the "Soup Kitchen" project and Singapore Really Really Free Market. Of course, you can also help support the work it does more directly with artists by supporting its residency or exhibition programmes. If all that sounds too daunting for you, you can also have a healthy vegetarian meal at its cafe, Food#03. Hokkaido for Ladies with Unladylike Appetites If there is one image that summed up my one-week experience in Hokkaido with Ma Y, it is this: The meals you can have in Hokkaido are reason enough why anyone thinking of taking their mom on a holiday should put Hokkaido on the list of possible destinations. Especially if your mother enjoys her food and cooking as much as mine. Sure, Hokkaido is a tourist trap aimed at both domestic and foreign visitors. But hey, this means that the destinations are mostly accessible and visitor-oriented without losing too much of its authenticity. So if you've scrunched up some savings and have set aside a week from work, here's a fairly typical itinerary for a reasonably-paced tour of the central parts of Hokkaido: Day 1: Starters in Sapporo Start the trip with a leisurely walk in one of Sapporo's many parks*. Without wandering too far from the city centre, there is the Hokudai Shokubutsuen (Botanical Gardens). The park is far from the carefully planned and neat Botanical gardens in Singapore, but it offers some quiet paths and over 40,000 plant varieties. The park also contains some old structures in Sapporo, including Sapporo's 1st museum. When getting to the park entrance at North 3 West 8, stop first at the strikingly red building at N3 W4. The first Municipal Government Building in Hokkaido, its red facade makes for a great first photo! Plus it is also surrounded by a pretty park with two ponds that attracts the Salaryman-on-a-lunchbreak and the Japanese retiree alike. The Shokubutseun entrance is a short walk right behind the Municipal building. At the entrance is also Hokkaido Ainu Association, which has a small display of Ainu culture objects. After the walk, stop for lunch at a cafe as you make your way southward towards the Tozai subway line or the Odori-koen. Odori park is a fairly narrow strip of green that marks the North and South ends of the city. It's another great place to wander around or even sit and people-watch while having a takeaway lunch (the 7-11 or Lawson's have good tasting sandwiches). This is because Odori Park has some fun sculptural pieces that double up as a kind of playground for kids. In summer, the Sapporo Jazz Festival and various beer/wine/cheese festivals also take place in tents set up around the park Take the Tozai line subway from Odori Park (several stations are located alongside the Park) for your first Tourist Trap - the Ishiya Chocolate Factory! Get off at the Miyanosawa Station, which is the western terminus of the Tozai line. Check out the map in the station, which would show the location of the chocolate factory. The walk there should not take you more than 10minutes. Even if you don't spot the tour buses, you can smell the Ishiya chocolate biscuits once you are near the building. Ishiya's oompa-loompas hard at work The Factory, aka the Shiroi Kobito Chocolate Park, is really a glorified shop for the company's products. There, you can wander around the faux-English facades of the buildings, tour its faux-English rose garden and miniature houses (the kids love this), and make a 15-minute visit to its "museum". From the top floor, you can also look through glass windows down at the chocolate making facility - but that's about as close as you'll get. Still, the Park makes for a relaxing time for your mom taking photographs, watching the kids goofing around, and having a cup of coco. (The Ishiya chocolates are available everywhere in Hokkaido and even at the airports. Prices are the same, so you don't really have to make any purchases here) After a short rest at the hotel, head on out to Susikino, Sapporo's party district for dinner! Other than Odori Park, Susikino is another venue for Sapporo's festivities. When we were there, the streets were closed to traffic and were filled instead with hawker stands selling beer, noodles and grilled food, and a traditional drumming competition! The Hokkaido folks sure love to party. *If you have more time to wander further off the city centre, there are more impressive parks. For example, there's the Art Park or the beautiful Maruyama-koen (which has the Hokkaido Jungu temple). Day 2: Start the gluttony already The Nijo Fish Market at S2E2 is perhaps only one tenth the size of Tokyo's famous Tsujiki Fish Market, but Hokkaido's reputation for fresh seafood makes up for its small scale. Start the day with a walk to the Market. If you are walking from the North side of the city, take the chance to stop by the Sapporo Clock Tower at N1W3 for a photograph. It is supposedly the oldest working clock tower in Japan, but a clock tower's just a clock tower. At the Nijo Fish Market, try the Hokkaido hairy crab or snow crab, grilled scallops, and a bowl of rice topped with roe, sea urchin or the fish of your choice. If your mom is, like mine, a glutton lady of appetite, ask for the "Yakoburi-don", aka Glutton's don, topped with a variety of seafood. You can eat at the seafood stalls themselves; most have a table or two. That should settle brunch for the day. Walk off the meal at the Tanuki-Koji arcade, the longest shopping arcade in Sapporo. It starts round the corner from the fish market at S2E1 and ends at S2W8. The shops are mostly souvenir stalls, eateries or rather dowdy boutiques. But it's a pleasant walk away from the sun. If not, exit and walk along W3 or W4 and you will find the Parco departmental store. Your mom will appreciate a toilet or coffee break there. From there, it's a short walk to the Odori station along the Toho line, past the Odori Park. Take the Toho line to the Higashi Kuyakusho-mae stop to get to... the Tourist Trap of the day - the Sapporo Beer Museum and Bier Garten! Since the actual brewery has moved to a modern factory, the visit is not really going to shed much light on the brewing process etc. The museum's collection, however, does include an interesting display of Sapporo poster advertisements through the years while you fill up on the various brews at the museum bar. The grounds of this old brewery also makes for an enjoyable early evening walk. And as you wander around, decide on the setting for your dinner - you can have Hokkaido's famous grilled lamb in the old beer hall (men in suits), open air restaurant (families and couples) or a more modern annex building (groups of college/high school kids). There's an eat-all-you-can option (with a drink-all-you-can add on)... definitely for Ladies with Appetite. Day 3: A Venetian Cuppa Venture out of Sapporo for the day. Otaru is a port town about 30-40 minutes away by train, and touts itself as the "Venice of Japan" (read Major Tourist Trap). It is a scenic train ride. During the 15mins approaching Otaru, the tracks run right beside the coastline, so it feels just like that scene in Spirited Away - a train floating on water. Once at Otaru, take your time to wander through the streets towards the warehouses closer to the coastline. The town is a mix of preserved old warehouse structures (wooden skeletons completely clad in heavy stone), Victorian buildings and modern concrete shophouses. Once you reach a stretch of canal lined with warehouses that have converted into eateries, take a couple of photographs (yes, it is picturesque) before filling up on an early lunch. For the rest of the day, visit the many glass studios and shops. You can even try to make your own glass at the K Glass Studio. There's also the Music Box Museum (aka a very large shop) where even if you're not keen to make a purchase, your mom can spend a good hour or so just fiddling around with the various designs. In between, remember to take a break at several dessert and cake shops in Otaru where both of you can have a coffee before your mom fills up the shopping basket. There's the famous Rokkatei, Nii Kuraya and Kitakaro. I won't describe the confectionaries you can find at these places...but they will definitely make you wish later you had left some space for dinner. Sushi is a relatively inexpensive option at the dedicated Sushi Street. If not, wander into the Sun Shopping Arcade on your way back to the train station. Midway through the arcade, there's a little street that has some 5-6 small bars/eateries that are more like the owners' extended kitchen. Either way, your mom is not likely to be disappointed with her meal. Day 4: It's Japan Hour! Hokkaido has many onsen towns. Some are nestled deeper in the nature parks, while others, such as Noboribetsu, are located more accessibly for less adventurous folks. An overnight stay in one of the onsen hotels provides a good break in the middle of your trip for mom to recharge. Noboribetsu is a 1hr train ride away, south of Sapporo. Leave your luggage at the Sapporo Hotel and pack enough for the next 3 days before heading out. We checked into a "Japanese style" room at the popular Daiichi Takimotokan at Noboribetsu, but I'm sure if you make your bookings early enough, there are a lot more options. Try to see if the hotel offers a dine-in option where they will serve the 8 to 10 dishes in your room. Very Japan Hour, no? To work up an appetite for dinner, take a walk around Noboribetsu's "Hell Valley" - the source of its sulphuric heat. If your mom has the stamina, extend the walk by trekking to see the crater lakes or the foot bath. The pre-dinner programme can therefore take anything from 20minutes to 2hours or more. There are, of course, other programme options, if your mom is into visiting the cheesy re-created Edo village or the cruel (and smelly) Beer Park nearby. If not, unwind after your walk with an ice cream at the street of shops leading to the hotels. While at the shops, you can also load up on beer, sake or any other drinks for your dinner (warning: prices in the hotel are at least double). Back in the hotel, spend the next few hours before dinner soaking any tiredness away and warming up your stomach muscles for the stretching it'll get with the dinner! This is just for starters! Day 5: Not for Teetotalers Sufficiently refreshed after the onsen experience, travel by train to central Hokkaido to visit some of Hokkaido's farmlands. We made Asahikawa, Hokkaido's second largest city, our base. Why? Because it is the location of several sake breweries! The train journey from Noboribetsu to Asahikawa will take you right through lunch. Once you've checked into your Asahikawa hotel, you may have 2 hours or so to see at least one of the sake breweries. We went to the popular Otokoyama Sake Brewery via the public bus. It's a 20minute ride on Bus #67, 68, 70, 71 667 from Bus Stop 18 by the Seibu departmental store 5 minutes away from the train station. At the Brewery, there's the usual explanation in Japanese of the brewing process, observation windows into the factory spaces, an outdoor display of the traditional tools, a fountain where you can fill up your bottle with the spring water used in Sake making, and... the tasting room! The ladies in the shop will let you taste most types of Sake, except the priciest ones, and are able to give you some simple explanation in English. Take the same bus back to the city centre. The central pedestrian avenue from the train station is a pleasant pre-dinner walk, sometimes with lively college buskers. There are lots of Izakayas (little bars that serve a wide variety of seafood and grilled meats) in Asahikawa, so as you wander down the Avenue, look out to the streets on your left or right for Izakayas. We had a delicious meal of grilled meats and gyoza with our ice cold beers! *Most visitors to Asahikawa go to the Asahiyama Zoo, supposedly the most popular zoo in Japan. If your mom is interested, you may have to put up for one more night in Asahikawa. Day 6: Fruits of the Land Furano and Biel are 20-60 minute train rides from Asahikawa where you can recreate those postcard shots of Hokkaido - a field of endless lavender, a patchwork of greens, that lone tree against a bright blue sky... You can start the day at Furano, and stop by Biel on your way back to Asahikawa. If you want an even more leisurely look at this side of Hokkaido, it is worth spending an extra day here. Hey, take things slow - it's a holiday! There's even the Norokko Train (literally 慢吞吞) to both places that travel at a pace deserving of the label "slow coach". Furano has several food-themed Tourist Traps destinations. There're hourly buses from the Furano station to most of these: the Cheese Factory, Chateau Furano Winery and Grape Juice Factory. They are fairly disappointing, being no more than retail shops where you catch just a glimpse of the actual process. But your mom will likely be rev-ed up by the food shopping. If you haven't tasted Hokkaido milk, the Cheese Factory retails milk in single serving bottles. The same bus will also take you to Farm Tomita, the most visited Lavender farm. Needless to say, photo opportunities abound. Ma Y was too tired at the end of all this to stop by Biel. But if you make good time at Furano and the weather is pleasant, a 1hour stop at Biel is recommended. If not, head back to Asahikawa for another satisfying Izakaya or Ramen meal. The Asahikawa style of Ramen is supposed to be different from the Sapporo style. I'm not a gourmand enough to tell the difference... but you may be! Day 7: Last Dips We were taking the plane back to Singapore on Day 8, so we made our way back to Sapporo on Day 7. At this stage, you may want to spend the day at any destinations at Furano/Biel/Asahikawa that you had missed in the last couple of days. Ma Y opted to spend the day shopping at Sapporo. This meant that we had the chance to track down any other Hokkaido dishes we had yet to try - Soup Curry (it's not just diluted Japanese Curry) and more Izakaya fare! For food-related souvenirs, the basement food halls of Tokyu and Daimaru around the Sapporo Train Station are one-stop shops. They also present another way to end this trip for Ladies with Appetite - a dinner of little snacks, salads, pickles and other dishes from the Japanese supermarket. ==== More tips for travelling in Hokkaido with Moms