winged things

leaf after a pagoda box worm is done with it -image by J

It became a winged thing imperceptibly, as a maturing face imperceptibly becomes beautiful. And its wings - still feeble, still moist, kept growing and unfolding, and now they were developed to the limit set for them by God, and there, on the wall, instead of a little lump of life, instead of a dark mouse, was a great Attacus moth like those that fly, birdlike, around lamps in the Indian dusk.

And then those thick black wings, with a glazy eyespot on each and a purplish bloom dusting their hooked foretips, took a full breath under the impulse of tender, ravishing, almost human happiness. [From Nabokov's story in Russian "Rozhdestvo", reproduced in Nabokov's Butterflies]

It was actually Facebook that had sent me to find and wipe off the dust from my copy of Nabokov's Butterflies. And as I was reading random parts of the book again, I found the except above. Ah, who else but Nabokov could have written these sentences that seem to take flight, and just when you try to catch you breath, he tries his luck with just that one more word "ravishing". My literary hero.

OK, enough adulation.

The first Facebook link was to this NY Times article on the recent vindication of Nabokov as a lepidopterist. Nabokov's hypothesis was that the Polyommatus Blue evolved and travelled to the New World over millions of years from Asia. This was supposedly dismissed by most professional lepidopterists in his time who perhaps saw his hypothesis as more fiction than a studied possibility. Gene sequencing technology today has proven - finally - that Nabokov was right! Of course, what is fascinating is that a family of butterflies, these slight fragile creatures, had travelled through such enormous distance. Just how many butterflies over how many millions of years would it take?

The second link that led to a blog was left by J's Facebook contact K in response to J's photograph (see above). J had taken of a large leaf he had found that was punctured almost throughout his entire surface. K's link attributed these circular wounds to the appetite of the (pagoda) bagworm.

Bagworm moths are of the Order Lepidoptera, same as the butterflies and family Psychidae. The distinctive feature of bagworms is that their larvae are remarkable architects, building mobile cases made of environmental materials, in this example, the leaves, to hide themselves in. Thus, within each case hides a tiny caterpillar. For the pagoda bagworm, it scrapes the chlorophyll off the leaf before incising cleanly around the area consumed, creating a circular wound. The excised leaf piece is then added to the bagworm’s protective casing.[From the Urban Forest blog]

Images of the pagoda bagworm and other species of the bagworm are quite amazing, their cases looking at times like architecture and at times, almost fluid like a sweeping cloak. And who can resist a name like the "Pagoda Bagworm"! As if a diminutive traveling salesman had renounced the world and retreated, albeit with his bag of samples, into a quiet tower somewhere in Kyoto.

These little discoveries make perfect a rainy Saturday night.

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 tankavideo

Avianweb.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.

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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.

trumpet tree viewing

images by J

From 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.

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.

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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.

look and learn

the water that we (eventually) drink - photo of lower peirce by J

The school holidays are coming to an end. Marianne Suresh* (13) and her cousins, Ignatius (11), Victor (10), Jacinta (8) and Julitta (6) have been spending most of it at their Grandmother's flat at Ang Mo Kio Ave 1, and clearly running out of things to do. Between helping grandma make dinner or her suggestion to Marianne to "bring your cousins to the reservoir and see the monkeys?", the latter won more votes.

The reservoir is not far away. Marianne can see the mass of trees from the 10th floor corridor where her Grandmother pointed out the traffic junction where she would find the road leading to the reservoir.

It was early evening last Friday when J and I bumped into their little excursion as we, too, took our bicycles to the Lower Peirce Reservoir. We cycled on the path along the periphery of the reservoir, until it ended at a little bridge that led to the golf course nearby. The famous five had also gathered there, having a mini-conference in front of a sign with a waterdrop mascot that introduced the reservoir as "millions of drops of water like me".

"Excuse me," Ignatius walked towards J. "Where is the reservoir?"

"Er - This is the reservoir - " J gestured at the large, clear jade body of water we were standing beside, the supposed source of the Kallang River.

Ignatius and, by now, Victor and Marianne looked at us silently with disbelief for some 2 seconds. Behind them was a 20 by 20 metre concrete pool, exposed and dry. Their eyes told us they thought J was trying to pull a fast one.

"This - " J pointed again at the landscape before him, "is the reservoir."

"Thank you..." Ignatius offered blankly.

They ran back to the sign and wandered closer to peer at the empty concrete pool. Two minutes later, having exhausted their interest in the mysterious "reservoir" that was empty, they would continue onto their next task.

"Excuse me uncle." We heard behind us and turned around to find Julitta. "Excuse me uncle, where are the monkeys?"

"You see those trees there?" I pointed at a spot diagonally across the water, while Uncle J was busy looking amused.

"Yah, there?"

"If you walk there, the trees over there - there's a wooden path for you to walk on - maybe you'll see monkeys."

"Thank you!"

Then off they went, hopeful that they would find the very creatures J and I would rather not bump into.

And so we learn, to recognise the things we are already looking at but do not see. And sometimes, we may need to see and experience the thing on our own before we come to recognise it.

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*Their names and context are made up.

plenty

22 March-Turtle Hatchlings and a branch of the Sea Almond

J: [points at a tree] So what's this tree called?
Y: Er, it's...I don't know.
J: [points at a tree] And this?
Y: Eh, I saw it in the book! I think it's...I don't know.
J: [points at a tree] And this tree?
Y: I don't know.
J: [points at a tree] And this tree?
Y: I don't know.
J: [points at a tree] And this tree?
Y: I don't know.

Repeat ad nauseam.

This little book has gotten me looking at trees every time I step out. But I don't seem to quite have a head for botany. A "conical crown" and "compound leaves" are echoes of the Primary School science text book, abstractions that I recognise but cannot translate into what I'm seeing. The lives of the trees when described - some of them indigenous, many are migrants from the Americas, Africas or the immediate region around us - read a little like magical fiction and sometimes, like memory.

I like the Sea Almond. It is supposedly "a common seashore tree of the region, easily recognised by its pagoda shape of radiating branches growing at regular intervals along the stem. The tree sheds its leaves twice a year and before they are shed, the large, simple leaves turn vivid red". The fruits of the sea almond "have a corky layer which helps them float in the sea, this being their normal method of dispersal. The single seed has an edible embryo, tasting rather like almond, thus the common name."

Walking along a short stretch of road leading to my mother's house last evening, I think I came across more than 5 varieties of trees. There is one whose dried and open fruits always provide a satisfying crunch under the foot. There is some sort of palm - that much I know. There is a lone Frangipani on the traffic island at the Y-fork of the road. Then there are the tall, outstretched branches of a tree whose bloom and falling leaves have the same shade of yellow. And a tree whose bark is pale and whose crown is thin, but maybe its roots are deep.

The natural world would always inform and amaze with its abundance of form and colour, the inventiveness and genius of its making; and of course, God its maker.

I am not sure how this is related to nature's plenty, but with a year away from formal work and a global environment marked by economic shake-ups, I am thankful for being able to get back to a more grounded living. Perhaps I mean to say a more plentiful living.

island ecology

Over the weekend at the Natural Sciences shelves of Kinokuniya, I chanced upon over thirty titles of pocket-sized guides published by the Singapore Science Centre from the late 80s- 90s on various aspects of plant and animal life on this island.

Unable to resist, I bought A Guide to the Threatened Animals of Singapore (1st published 1995, reprinted 1998) edited by Peter Ng and A Guide to the Wayside Trees of Singapore (1st published 1989, various reprints since) written by Wee Yeow Chin. They've both been hard to put down.

Imagine these storied names...the Missing Marvelous Katydid, the Silver Forget-Me-Not, the Saint Andrew's Cross Toadlet. Or consider the sad gaze of this stuffed Banded Leaf Monkey at the NUS Raffles Biodiversity Museum, supposedly one of two subspecies of mammals found only here (image from WildSingapore.

Novelty aside, that most of the pages were on threatened reef and mangrove creatures made real for me this city's identity as an island - a reality we exploit through reclamation, and in this way, an identity that we inadvertently erase and rewrite.

That we are in the tropics (damn the humidity and heat!) gives rise to this great sentence in the guide on wayside trees- "Nearly all trees planted in Singapore develop flowers eventually" (italics mine). In the same way, the "garden city" vision would almost appear like destiny if it was not a determined, well-planned outdoing of Raffles and his friend Farquhar, those colonial enlightenment botanists.

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For a complete title list, see this. They are also available at Kinokuniya, Select Books Popular Bookstore and public libraries.

*yuragi*

30 Dec, 31 Dec, 2 Jan, 5 Jan...click on images for flickr view

Regret is not something productive, motivated and generally forward-looking folks are prone to feel. I don't have such ambition, but I don't want to regret wasting the time-off from work that I've been blessed with this year. So for a start, exercising some discipline for a drawing a day when I'm not at class or working on any assignments is the plan. That and spending more time with other folks.

Y: Boss, how about you? How's the new year looking like for you?
J: Must get our website up.
Y: OK.
J: And one or two more good, regular clients.
Y: Wah. Very task-focused.
J Well, as I'm aging...
Y: [aging?!]
J: ...I want to adjust and come to terms with the new rhythm of life.
Y: [what "new rhythm of life"?!]
J: You know, energy levels are down - physically, mentally. I don't want it to be an excuse. Must find the energy to want to do things. Not just exercise or work. But regarding everything.
Y: Er, you mean like motivation?
J: No, [shows irritation, a definite sign of aging] which part about what I said do you not understand!?

Friends, I'm not going to be pedantic about this "rhythm of life" business, but what I did learn about "rhythm" today is that our new KDK fan has this cool-sounding yuragi or more specifically 1/f yuragi function - "1/f Yuragi is a fluctuation pattern that makes people feel comfortable. It exists in the gentle breeze on grassy plain, hypnotic rhythm of rolling waves and even in the classical music."

It is also a patented technology for inter-mingling or weaving yarn by signals having a 1/f fluctuation, giving it supposedly a "natural, comfortable feel". "Yuragi" is also a title for a 1993 dance, an extract of which you can watch here. It can supposedly heal...And if you read Japanese and understand the general workings of biotechnology, check out the Yuragi Project. Ah, science - another universe to explore in 2009.

city day-trippers

Home from a day trip - click for larger view in flickr

A Taiwanese friend in Singapore once asked - "During weekends, which are the "rural/country" places (her phrase: 郊外) that Singaporeans like to go to?" Her question stumped me for a moment. I am not sure what answer I gave her...maybe I had said Botanical Gardens, Sentosa, Pulau Ubin or, if I recovered quick enough, Sungei Buloh.

While us amps are advocates of good ol' domestic tourism, the idea of "郊外" as a regular weekend distraction on this island is still somewhat remote. But not so for the Taiwanese, young or old, and probably especially so for the Taipei city folk who are daily gas-ed by scooter-fumes.

Among the things J and I miss most about Taiwan when we got back to our little island is this "郊外", often a MRT ride just 30min or less from the city where everything slows down. So if you are ever in Taiwan, day-tripping is a good way to see this island the Portuguese had very aptly named Formosa. With the air cool between 15-22C,

If you are ever in Taipei, below are 5 easy day-trips to make:

(1) Yang Ming Shan (From Taipei):


on yang ming shan

The #1 weekend spot for Taipei-ites, Yang Ming Shan is a lush retreat of hot-springs, parks and peaks. If you get there early enough, you can hike up Mount Qi Xing (seven stars), the main peak. The paths are actually mostly paved or staired, so it's do-able in a leisurely way. We saw old folks in twos or small groups walking, but for lazier folk (like us!), there's a mini-bus that leaves from the small terminal which goes to almost all the main sights for a flat NT15 ticket. The bus is in a loop, so you catch the same bus back to the terminal.


J, the Da You Kang, expelling more hot air

If you are taking the mini-bus (see note below), schedule at least an hour for each stop. We stopped by the Xiao You Kang (little oil valley?) where there's a fairly dramatic sulphuric fume from the side of the mountain, some short trails and really photogenic fields.

We tried to visit the Yang Ming Shan Shu Wu, one of fifteen mansions built by Chiang Kai Shek to host foreign dignitaries, preserved with furniture intact. But be warned, you can only tour the large grounds and mansion via the guided tours from the site office, the last of which starts at 3.30pm. We got there late, so had spent the next hour walking the periphery of the mansion's grounds. Paranoid Chiang had painted his mansion army green, camouflaged it with greenery and guarded it on high ground - so we only caught a glimpse from the road 50m away. At one point, we could hear the guide's amplified voice amidst the rustling of leaves and their green. Still, the 1hr walk back to the bus staion via the narrow road was enjoyable and would bring you past a waterfall viewing area and the Yang Ming Shan park where there's a kitschy giant flower clock that plays ching-chong music at the hour.


token sunset shot on the way down Yang Ming Shan

On the way back to Taipei city, stop instead at Shilin (1 station away from Jiantan) and make a dinner of all the Taiwanese junk street food you can eat from the Night Market. Be warned: the buses from Yang Ming Shan back to Jiantan/Shilin MR station gets very crowded in the evenings from 5.30pm onwards as they also ferry kids released from the Yang Ming Shan High Schools - yes, the smell, chatter and squeeze is enough to inspire claustrophobia.

(2) Mao Kong:

I ad wanted to visit Mao Kong just for its name - "Cat Space" (impossible to resist!), but Mao Kong proved to be a surprisingly good afternoon trip to a tea house up in the hills where the first Taiwanese Tie Guan Yin tea was grown.

We had started our day late. After a brunch of fantastic Ru Rou Fan (Stewed Prok Rice, our #1 culinary find on this trip, but more on food in another post) and a leisurely coffee in a modestly-furnished cafe that scored "A" for connoirsseurship (the waitress first brought you the freshly ground coffee in a wine glass to sniff, then its brew in a fine-bone China cup, before a cold version in another wine glass!)... we didn't waste anytime waiting for the bus to bring us up to Mao Kong for more caffeine. Instead, from the Taipei Zoo MRT station, a cab brought us to a quiet tea house.



The driver claimed that the teahouse 水仙官 is the one he frequents, and is cheaper and slightly off the more popular Tourist stretch. When we arrived, the only other guests were two groups of middle-aged Taiwanese men in sports jackets or business suits. If the weather is good, sit out in the open or opt for the little pavilions. For NT400 (~S$18) and "water-fee" of NT80 each (~$3.50), we had a small canister of very fragrant Tie Guan Yin that should last through 30 brews.

Mao Kong supposedly gets busy at night, and the 山水客 teahouse at is open 24hours! J and I can only imagine how pretty it must be to watch the city from Mao Kong in a cool summer or spring evening, talk till dawn with friends, and marvel at how tall Taipei 101 really is. Before it got dark, we took a walk round the hillslopes and eventually flagged a mini-bus down to the Taipei Zoo.



If you've not got enough of the city view, take the MRT to the Taipei City Hall stop and walk to Taipei 101 for a fancy dinner at the uppermost floors! Taipei 101 has the usual chain stores. More interesting is the new Eslite nearby which also has cafes and restaurants...of course, and books in a well-designed setting (*it shuts at 10pm instead of the Dunhwa 24hr Eslite).

(3)-(5) Danshui, Beitou and JiuFen
We didn't revisit the seafront, hotspring and ex-mining towns respectively this time, but we had loads of fun in all three places three years ago. If you want to have a sense of how much fun these towns can be for a day-trip, read our accounts of Danshui, Beitou and Jiu Fen!

Both Danshui and Beitou are accessible by MRT on the red line. Danshui is at the end of the line. Jiu Fen is a bit more complex to get to: Take a train from the Taipei Main station to RuiFang, from the Ruifang station, catch a bus to Jiufen. The whole journey is about 1.5-2hrs.

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Note -
>> Getting to Yang Ming Shan:
Get to the Jiantan MRT station. From there, catch any of these buses (#260, #5) for NT15 to Yang MIng Shan main bus station. Just check the Jiantan station map for the location of the bus stops nearby. The bus ends at a small terminal in Yang Ming Shan round about a small cluster of starbucks/7-eleven and the public toilet. Get there early! *In the late autumnal and wintry months, the winds can get quite fierce, so make sure you have a windbreaker or a scarf/hoodie. *If you are spending the day walking or moving round Yang Ming Shan's sites, bring your own water and lunch. Some main sites do sell cup/pot noodles.

>> Getting to Mao Kong:
Get to the Taipei Zoo MRT station on the Muzha line. From there, take a taxi (ask the cab driver for recommendations of tea places) or take the small bus (#15) from across the station which leaves hourly on weekdays and tell the bus driver the name of the tea house. He/she will just drop you off. To get back to the Taipei Zoo station, just flag down the bus any where along the Mao Kong roads. In 2007 a cable-car system was opened that will bring you straight up to Mao Kong from the Taipei Zoo in 20min, but a year later, the system was shut for "maintenance" (soil erosion had supposedly weakened the supports!).