imitation goods

"one day, the great wall"


On our way to brunch -

J: Hey look [pointing at a rain tree across the road], that tree looks like a bonsai!
Y: Er, there's something wrong with what you just said...
J: What? Don't you think it looks like a bonsai?
Y: That's a - [pauses to count] 8-storey tall rain tree -
J: So?
Y: So? A bonsai is made to look like a giant tree, you're not supposed to say a tree looks like a bonsai!
J: ...

But I guess trees in Singapore are so regularly pruned, their lower branches sawed off and their crowns shaped, such that they are - like bonsais - bearing the marks of man's imitative art.

I will always remember my sister, then aged 5, asking "cheche, what is rice made of? flour?" And in my head, the picture of a factory line of women, their mouths under a mask and hands in gloves, dutifully shaping the tiny white grains we know as rice from mountains of dough.