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...
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.
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.
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.
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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