100

image by J in flickr

Sometimes I think about Ma J. I'm not particularly close to her, but at those times, I guess I miss her. I can remember her speaking to us, seated at the rosewood dining room table in her flat, before getting distracted by a string of long distance calls to some relative in her hometown in China or a relative working (always illegally) somewhere in the UK or Japan. I think how nice it would be that she could still be there when we visit. Or harder still to forget the image of Ma J when she was ill. That stare, or the droop of her head - always anger or despair. The whole year she suffered the indignity of her illness.

Today is the 100th day anniversary of Ma J's death.

I was at work but J managed to drop by Pa J's flat to be with him. J pointed out to me the irony that of all his siblings, only his sis and himself - the only Christians in the family - were with his father as he performed the taoist rituals of offering up food, incence and loads of "hellmoney" for Ma J.

J: Wah, such giant notes! [J referring to the large 60cm by 30cm sheets of "hellmoney" in denominations of 1 million!]
Pa J: ...
J: You burn so much money for Ma, you better also burn a bigger paper wallet for her.

Pa J smiled, used to the nonsense from his youngest child. But that afternoon, alone in his flat, I think there were tears.

homebody

J getting some help when he is working from home. click for view in flickr

"Housewife" is a funny kind of word, as if you were married to the house. Perhaps it's meant to be ironic. But I find "homemaker", its more contemporary alternative, even more odd. What makes a home? surely not just a homemaker.

"Housewife" is still allowed for older women - like "my mother's a housewife" - but it's less often used to refer to, say, a Mrs Lim, 32 years old - "She left her job as an accountant with one of the 'Big 4s' to be a homemaker." For the latter, it's as if "housewife" was too crude, suggesting a woman's limited sphere of influence. Plus, I guess "homemaker" is gender neutral. And besides, a homemaker may have nothing, no work, to do with the house (unlike the domestic help, the maid).

But friends, I think there is something about "housewife" that is lost with the "homemaker" replacement.

It's a something else you might understand if you spend an hour or so cleaning the floor with a pail and a piece of cloth, knowing afterwards that almost every square inch of that tiled surface has been examined and bear the mark of your handywork. A relationship is forged, this caring. As with the mosaic-tiled toilet. Or the shelves. Ah - I can't quite describe the relationship, but there is, for me at least, a sense that I can live in this house for the rest of my life! Yes, like some kind of married!

ok, one last push!

photo by J taken of the filmmaker at the official premiere at the NUS Cultural Centre on 19July

As if we cannot plug this film enough, us amps are giving one more shout to anyone who stumbles upon this blog to go buy a ticket to catch Invisible City at the Arts House. For tickets and more information, click here.

different worlds

click for larger view in flickr

The first time J and I stumbled across Haji Lane was many years ago one lazy afternoon. We had wandered to look at the old Istana Kampong Glam and do our bit for domestic tourism. Then, the tourism board's misguided efforts to "revitalise" Arab St and its rows of carpet and textile shops had glaringly failed (thank goodness). When we stepped onto the narrow Haji Lane, with its mostly abandoned hobbit-scale shophouses, there was a ghostly calm. Nothing creepy - but in a cliched sort of way, of time having stopped. And for Singapore, that's saying a lot.

Two years ago, we found ourselves at Haji Lane again. This time, we were lured there by the Commes des Garcons guerilla store, which had just moved there from its first location in Chinatown. It was still mostly deserted, though a record shop (or was it a recording studio) was next door and a little boutique (with a guy who customised chandeliers on the upper floor) was across the street. That was about it. No ghosts, maybe some open secrets thrust upon indifferent listeners - a test.

Just this weekend, having heard that for months now that Haji Lane is all abuzz with new boutiques and stuff, J and I made our third trip to Haji Lane. And so it is. The entire lane is now mostly inhabited by these vintage clothing stores and a few fancy places stocked with pricier imported labels ). It was a just a little like Daikanyama in Tokyo - the sort of place you would want to, but would hesitate eventually from saying it had character (but I confess I happily succumbed to a top from billet doux). It still felt, as it did years ago, like another place, another island - but not another time. Haji Lane today is set squarely in the present, its offerings are of the moment.

The next day, I found a beautiful book of photographs by Guido Mocafico called Medusa - it had these incredibly detailed images of jellyfish. These ancient creatures, their stomachs and often their reproductive organs exposed in their translucent bells, are everywhere in our oceans. As with most beautiful creatures, many jellyfish species are highly venomous. in these photos, they are the loveliest of alien forms, suspended in black, a world onto themselves. I spent the most of Sunday afternoon in that book.

reminder

click for larger view

Melancholic J wrote this on his flickr (from which I stole the above series of photos) - "living in an old district means that you will witness periodic rampant deaths throughout the year". Rampant deaths (sic)! Let me assure you that no such catastrophic thing happens even on the PAP-side of Toa Payoh, though us amps have been noticing the number of wakes held at our block of flats the past year. Almost every other week, someone passes away. Yet every evening when I get home, there would be a group of old ladies chatting loudly by the tables/seats at the void deck - their numbers never falling - where a generous breeze would visit.

J: I tell you something amazing.
Y: Yah...
J: It's amazing, their uniforms!
Y: Er, whose?
J: All these funeral musicians. I've been watching them for weeks now. Today - the group - they had these bright green pants with light pink tops. Wow. The colours were amazing. Really quite stylo.
Y: ...

I remember a video I saw at this year's Venice biennale by Chinese artist Yang Zhenzhong titled "I Will Die".

Projected on several large screens are close-ups of people simply saying "I will die" in their own language. Each screen features the inhabitants of one city. There was Tokyo, Shanghai, Brussels, New York. The camera rests on each of their faces, silent for a second or two. Male, female, young and old. Then the face breaks into a smile - awkward - or a giggle or completely deadpan, delivers this statement: "I will die". Then the camera pulls away slowly. The evidence of our collective denial/admittance of and flirtation/curiosity with death.


link here to youtube upload by designboom, and another edited version here.

marjorie, mortal

the official eflyer with logotype by Mindwasabi. amps made our own unofficial guerilla "world cities" versions below. heh.

As a document, a witness and a consequence of human activity - creative, destructive, acquisitive, criminal - sometimes we think of cities almost as man's gesture at immortality. Well, no different from most human endeavour that's creative, destructivem, acquisitive or criminal, I guess.

Like writing a book. Ensuring a long line of descendents. Amassing an art or any kind of collection. Writing a book (or a blog!). Making a film.



This evening, ampulets went to watch a special "bloggers" preview of Tan Pin Pin's new video Invisible City. A few months ago, we saw an earlier cut and lucky J even got to tag along at a few of the shoots - but there would always be that excitement with watching a film, starting with the opening credits - a visual and aural staccato - that is its own.

I shan't say too much about the film itself. No doubt there'll be many reviews etc (and the film is rich and textured enough to afford long ruminations and reflections). Except this that if you have seen Singapore Gaga, then this is a quieter film, with a premise and references that are less "popular" and familiar (hey, how more popular can you get than Victor Khoo/Charlee and the $1 tissue-paper lady!). Of course, this being Singapore, someone at post-screening dialogues of films set in Singapore always reference the "political" (aiyo, like boiled peas at the university cafeteria!). But for me at least, what I always liked and admired about Tan Pin Pin's videos is the personal. I guess in poetry, it's cadence. An intimacy hidden in the inflections of a voice - silent - but communicative. And it is difficult not to hear the filmmaker's voice (this time, literally, in interviews), curious, open, human.

In this way, what holds the film together is not some abstract notion of memory and cities or Singapore and politics or - but the very existence of stories and lives lived (including Mr Han's here)- even if only barely glimpsed. In fact, as if recognising that a lifetime cannot be summarised and archived - however important and valiant the efforts to etch and record and excavate and (re)tell and document and preserve - the very brevity of each encounter in the film suffices.

The very briefest of these was Marjorie Dogget. For me, most lovingly shot and moving. She is seen only in her pyjamas, lying on her bed - her face is carved by time, her eyes large marbles rimmed red. Yet her voice is slight, almost shy and careful, girly - betrayed only by a breathlessness. Her tiny hands can barely hold up an old book of published photographs she had taken in 50s Singapore. To the question if she regretted staying on in Singapore all these years, her answer almost disappears into the air- just as her small body threatens to break apart. Perhaps, she says, only now, when she can no longer see or walk that she regrets. Singapore is not a place for growing old, she concedes simply.

Aiyah, I have already said too much.

Go and watch it instead! Catch it for free 19, 20, 21 July at the NUS CFA Theatre (Free tix are all given out!). Or for just $8 a ticket, watch it anyday between 22 July - 12 August at the Arts House at the old Parliament House (Ticketing hotline +65 6332 6919). More updated ticketing information at the film's website here.

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Below are some online articles/reviews of the film so far at:
> Yawning Bread
> Yahoo News
> A Nutshell Review

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Trailer on YouTube here

A one and a two

Filmmaker Edward Yang passed away a couple of days ago.

The last film he made was released about 7 years ago - Yiyi, translated as A One and a Two - just about the time he was diagnosed with cancer. Yiyi was the first film I watched with J. It was at the 14th Singapore Film Festival, I remember. I was just wondering why there's not been a new film from him when wurx sms-ed me the news.

The very first time I watched a film at the Singapore Film Fest, it was in 1991(92?) and it was Edward Yang's 3.5hr film about Taiwan in the 50s, A Brighter Summer Day. Its Chinese title translates more literally as "Gu Ling Street Teenage Murder Incident". The film had music (the schoolkids in the film had formed a band singing Elvis covers, hence also the film's title), comedy, love, a 15 year-old Zhang Zhen (already goodlooking), history and politics (since the film was set in the years of the "White Terror"), family drama, fights and gangs (yes, it's Taiwan!), and a murder.



For me, it was a "perfect" film. There was no fault to be found with the pacing (not even at 3.5hr!), characterisation, score, cinematography, casting. It never descended into a romanticisation of the past - the director's feet planted firmly in the present - yet it allowed the audience those moments of quiet with each character, enough for you to want to care. When J and I went to Taiwan for the first time in 2005, we made it a point to search out Gu Ling Jie/Street. In the 50s, this was supposedly a street known for its bookshops.

Some years later, I attended my first and only media preview of a film - and it was Yang's A Confucian Confusion (its Chinese title translates literally as "The Age of Independence"). Louder, more ascerbic in its satirisation of contemporary Taiwan and cariacatures from its "culture industry" - a maverick Theatre director who rollerblades everywhere and has affairs with all his female leads; an emaciated writer married to a TV talkshow celebrity and lives in the dark, ashamed about his own romantic novels, and acquires a doomsday perspective of life; a rich Tai Ke (Taiwanese version of the Singaporean Beng) who fancies himself a cultural entrepreneur overnight; an earnest Engineer and his equally earnest girlfriend... The film nonetheless allowed for moments of poignancy and almost sympathy for the perverse situations the characters get themselves into.

Many afternoons during my summer holidays back in Singapore from the UK years ago were spent holed up in my parents' TV room watching VCDs (bought from a shop at Shaw Tower before "art films" were commonly distributed on VCD/DVDs) of Taiwanese movies, including Yang's earlier Mahjong and The Terrorisers. When A Brighter Summer Day was screened in London at the ICA, I made it a trip from Cambridge to watch the film and catch a dialogue between Edward Yang and UK critic Tony Rayns.

I'd always always remember reading that Edward Yang never trained as a film maker, but had in fact studied engineering in America, making the switch only later. That's admirable, I had thought.

Rest in peace, Mr Yang - thanks for all the films and memories.

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NYT's obituary here.