Same Same, Not Different
Not that nothing happened in the last 4 months - work family art life - but nothing quite warranted a blog post until this...
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs7Q6tNM0p44b6D9IBc2oM6ccOZzO_K3GvScSAvaBSdzXwiC5my247CKTehyphenhyphenaZy2eedM6PoE6fnR-iDfZQzLCydsSWMadKFWBqiWEJ3e3V_eJs0DJQ9KP94b2zoGogZjPNj9HB7A/s320/154195_454846017665_645562665_5664822_1244568_n.jpg)
became this.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-WEW6XjeR6zLbUbI9GYb87RWEOejAjXv5cBui1DFM81yw223zAF6JZLQNXafDRHuIDQy2JVI5kaB4cJrkznBnHeWI_qNLdTnwXfovg6c2G7iX6PGf3VF3q6fEtfzN7up03I95FQ/s200/photo.JPG)
Finally.
Although the market is no longer part of Mr Chiam's Potong Pasir and it has lost some of its early 80s charm, J and I are just relieved that after a year away, our old friends at the market have all returned!
There is Wings, who still makes the world's best BBQ wings and more than a dozen hawkers we have grown strangely familiar with and attached to. The fish soup auntie with the most amazing memory; the hokkien mee seller who is like a carbon copy of J's dad; SL the ex-taxi driver who now makes kopi; the lady boss of another kopi store who still sports a fuschia mohawk; the ngor-hiang seller who has a great relationship with his teenage daughter; a couple of Shatec graduates persevering with their western food store...
Ah, our village square has come back to life again.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVKjBHUR8qXX1XNYmH2Lg_t1SVS2wO6CImOflwYgqTMCGhsuiP1bp7VpcJLSWbKj-k2kvT1iMSuupKgBSGsHnJju3zNhVury5ix7aR-7Ce0LN8mxrlhVKu54dgyg8wdOIMFz5LQ/s200/1cd5d81afb2a40238b73aeb7e574768b_7.jpg)
To celebrate, we made Wings a welcome back gift. His own felt, stuffed wing with the mandatory 發 (huat ah) embroidery.
Perhaps I am romanticising the place, its people and the quotidian. Perhaps this kind of parochialism is unhealthy. But I cannot deny the comfort I draw from this community I have maybe constructed. Even so, I like to think I am not alone in this imagination.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs7Q6tNM0p44b6D9IBc2oM6ccOZzO_K3GvScSAvaBSdzXwiC5my247CKTehyphenhyphenaZy2eedM6PoE6fnR-iDfZQzLCydsSWMadKFWBqiWEJ3e3V_eJs0DJQ9KP94b2zoGogZjPNj9HB7A/s320/154195_454846017665_645562665_5664822_1244568_n.jpg)
became this.
Finally.
Although the market is no longer part of Mr Chiam's Potong Pasir and it has lost some of its early 80s charm, J and I are just relieved that after a year away, our old friends at the market have all returned!
There is Wings, who still makes the world's best BBQ wings and more than a dozen hawkers we have grown strangely familiar with and attached to. The fish soup auntie with the most amazing memory; the hokkien mee seller who is like a carbon copy of J's dad; SL the ex-taxi driver who now makes kopi; the lady boss of another kopi store who still sports a fuschia mohawk; the ngor-hiang seller who has a great relationship with his teenage daughter; a couple of Shatec graduates persevering with their western food store...
Ah, our village square has come back to life again.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoVKjBHUR8qXX1XNYmH2Lg_t1SVS2wO6CImOflwYgqTMCGhsuiP1bp7VpcJLSWbKj-k2kvT1iMSuupKgBSGsHnJju3zNhVury5ix7aR-7Ce0LN8mxrlhVKu54dgyg8wdOIMFz5LQ/s200/1cd5d81afb2a40238b73aeb7e574768b_7.jpg)
To celebrate, we made Wings a welcome back gift. His own felt, stuffed wing with the mandatory 發 (huat ah) embroidery.
Perhaps I am romanticising the place, its people and the quotidian. Perhaps this kind of parochialism is unhealthy. But I cannot deny the comfort I draw from this community I have maybe constructed. Even so, I like to think I am not alone in this imagination.
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