False Advertising by venitha

After perfect health for eight straight days in Bali, I return home to my normal routine and get sick. Tragically, as much as it seems like it should, tamarind does not cure diarrhea.
Public discussion of diarrhea is frighteningly Singaporean of me. I have not, however, been transformed entirely into a native: I still naively believe I can win the war against the ants.

venitha

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Never Fear, Ladies by venitha

One of the more difficult things for me to come to terms with in third-world countries is the lack of educational opportunities, particularly for girls. At our Lovina resort, I lounged with a foofy drink and read with interest an article in the Jakarta Post about the efforts in small Bali towns to start libraries from tourists' book donations, pleasure reading evicted from suitcases in favor of wood carvings, sarongs, and Bali Arabica coffee.
Having taken only Singapore library books to Bali myself, I had nothing to leave behind; I actually brought home several additional books, purchased happily for an exorbitant price from an Ubud used-book store. This morning in Singapore, as I stacked up my library returns, I thought of the beautiful young girls in Bali and added several of my own books for donation.

Two bus rides later, flushed with the success of tracking down - finally! - some screws for our rooftop chairs, I fed Haruki Murakami and Kiran Desai to a hungry return slot and brightly smiled at a clerk, asking her where I might leave donations. In perfect Singlish, lah, she doused me with an ice water reminder that Singapore is a world away from Bali: the library does not accept donations, and any book "returned" that does not belong to the library will be discarded.

"A library that throws away books." The flames of Fahrenheit 451 reflected in my eyes as I stared hard at this poor woman, who was, after all, only doing her job. I returned the offending and offended Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, and Anna Quindlen to my plastic sack, reused - horrors! - from Cold Storage.

Never fear, ladies, I assured them as I turned to go. You're too good for this place anyway. I thanked God neither I nor these wonderful writers were born here in Singapore.

By the return slot, however, I paused, then smirked down at James Patterson before tossing him to the wolves.

venitha
Carol Shields won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Stone Diaries.
Margaret Atwood won the 2000 Booker Prize for The Blind Assassin.
Anna Quindlen won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for her New York Times column, Public and Private.
James Patterson came up with the slogan "Toys R Us Kid" and has probably sold more books than all three women combined.

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Bali Photo Shoot by venitha

My favorite photos from Bali are actually a hilarious sequence of shots of Sue with a python, but I promised I'd get permission before posting pictures of my intrepid traveling companion and treasured friend, and she's currently somewhere over the Pacific. Please post lots of comments begging for the snake pix, and maybe together we can talk her into going public.

In the meantime, here are the next best of my Bali photos.









I took breaks from the loads of laundry, the piles of mail, and the endless errands today - tragically, as much as this blog may make it seem like it, my life is not endless fun and excitement - and I indulged in decorating my posts from Bali; please page down for a look.

venitha

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Postcards From Lovina by venitha

*****

"I'm going to need chocolate when we get back to Singapore."

"Yeah. Me, too."

We split our nth black rice pudding with coconut milk, this one atop warm bananas. Yum! But, still, it's not chocolate.

*****

We awake in advance of our 5:15am wake-up call, hearing the 5:00 call to prayer from the nearby mosque.

*****

A blue meteor streaks across the morning sky as we are launched in our own private dolphin boat. Mauve fingers trail delicately through the glossy pale blue Bali Sea, and viewing the sunrise on the water is worth the price of admission, we agree.
Minutes later, we are utterly charmed by school after school of dolphins, appearing rhythmically in graceful effortless arcs just above the water. Several dolphins leap clear of the water vertically and spin around. Tuna, too, jump into the air, shimmering in the sunlight and indicating where the dolphins, their predators, will be spotted next.

*****

Yellow needle-nosed fish nibble bread straight from my hand, though I drop the whole slice in fright and nearly choke on my snorkel when a larger fish with sharp teeth comes to feed.

*****

I read aloud from the Jakarta Post, half of page 3 - this is the day before the Java earthquake - devoted to the latest American Idol, as Sue writes postcards. I brave the local liquor, arak, and Sue enjoys the local beer, Bintang. Neither measures up, however, to last night's indulgence, blue coladas. Settled on with disappointment as the understudy for a piña colada, the blue colada completely showed up the star when the bartender chopped fresh coconuts from a branch, performed some behind-the-bar magic, and presented our drinks with aplomb.
*****

venitha

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Postcards From Munduk by venitha

*****

A man splashes along the narrow street, using a banana leaf as an umbrella.

*****

Sue and I are captivated by the stunning rice terraces, take at least a million pictures, but Putu, our kind and handsome driver, is upset and saddened.
"I wouldn't have brought you here if I had known," he says, explaining that yesterday's hard rain has beaten down the grain-laden stalks, likely ruining the harvest. To my unknowing eye, the vista is nothing but beautiful.
*****

"We'd have been lost forever."

"Oh, yeah."

Sue and I follow Ketut, our $3/hour trekking guide, as he leads us through winding paths alive with lemongrass, nutmeg, snakefruit, ginger, guava, lemon, avocado, jackfruit, ... the list goes on and on, and ends, of course, with cacao and coffee. Our destination is a majestic waterfall, crashing boisterously with the recent rainfall, and Sue immerses herself boldly in the powerful stream of its cooling wind and mist.
*****

Two bare-chested boys with long switches drive a paddle of ducks down the road toward a rice field stripped bare. "I wonder if it isn't like herding cats."

Men and women in broad-rimmed straw hats work knee-deep in mud, thrashing grains of rice from the yellowed grass.

*****

Four girls climb out from under a tarp draped over a moped as someone's big brother drops them off for their dance class. Yes, that makes 5 passengers and 0 helmets on a moped driving mountain roads in a thundering downpour.
The four-year-old daughter of the instructor mesmerizes and charms us, moving her hands seductively, her head dramatically. "She even dances with her eyes."

*****

venitha

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Postcards From Ubud by venitha

*****

The woman who made frowning, head-shaking eye contact with me upon my initial tenative entrance to the village temple smiles widely at my re-appearance in sarong and sash, beckons me forward to show me the offerings she is fashioning from rice, flowers, and... play-doh?
*****

Village children playing along the rice fields shout to me: "Hello! Hello!" They want to pose for pictures, then giggle and tease each other upon seeing the result.
A beautiful young girl says, "What is your name?" in sing-song English.

"Venitha," I tell her. "Siapa nama anda?" She looks at me in shock before dashing away.

*****

A wily monkey snatches a hard-boiled egg sandwich from Sue's hand at our sunrise breakfast on Gunung Batur. We gasp, and the food has disappeared in the blink of an eye.
*****

"We've come to Mecca." It's a confused metaphor in Hindu Bali, but who cares when chocolate, raw from cacao pods straight from the tree, and coffee, pan-roasted over a fire and pounded by hand into a fine powder, are concerned.
*****

I lie face down on the massage table while Ketut, a Balinese Fabio, straddles my legs, leaning the weight of his body into his large hands as he pushes firmly from my buttocks, up my back, across my shoulders, down my arms. I was so wrong about this not being my speed.
*****

venitha
I promise photos, though, alas, not of Fabio Ketut, once I'm back in Singapore.

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Channeling Robert Frost by venitha

In spite of my continually professed committment to relax on this vacation, my first 24 hours in Bali were a whirlwind of Ubud's highlights. I ate gado-gado drenched in spicy peanut sauce, undulated with the rhythm of a kecak dance, and then slept like a Balinese princess within yards of soft white mosquito netting.
I went for a morning run, a steeplechase through Ubud's busy, sunny streets followed by a dash through the shady, moss-buried monkey forest. I took photos - aren't I a good friend? - as Sue was accosted by banana-greedy monkeys. I wore my lovely blue sarong and sash into a temple where dozens of men and women prepared religious offerings.

Still, as my highly-recommended lunch of white marlin sushi melted like butter in my mouth, I contemplated my stiff shoulders. Ubud bursts with yoga classes, meditation clinics, spa after spa. But these are not my speed, and so far in Bali, my ears hear only a brazen contradiction: the cak cak cak of the kecak dance [pictured] sounds urgent, and even the gamelan's music is frantic.
Shopping is never the answer, and a quick spin through the fine Puri Lukisan museum convinced me that art, particularly art depicting the just punishments meted out in hell, is no solution either. Back on Ubud's main thoroughfare, I mopped my forehead with my handkerchief, torn. I could backtrack a block to a friendly bookshop cum internet café, or I could continue down the road to the countryside and the walk I had mapped out through river valleys and rice paddies.
In spite of the lovely - relative to Singapore - weather, sweat trickled down my back, and Jim's frequent entering-the-apartment mantra echoed through my mind. Air-con, glorious air-con. Before I'd taken a step toward this undoubted bliss, however, a cloud obscured the sun and a cool breeze beckoned.

I can take a hint, I thought, and turning my back on Ubud, I proceeded toward the road less travelled, hoping it would make all the difference.

venitha

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Come To Me by venitha

"I can't wait to see what you write about Bali," Sue said as we exited the Singapore Botanic Gardens.
Me neither.

venitha

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Wanton Noodle by venitha

It's somehow appropriate that on this very rare day that I actually spoke in person to my father, a retired English professor who can quote Chaucer so you understand it, I later noticed this sign.

Jim's been torturing me with really bad wanton noodle jokes for what seems like hours, and now he asks, "Are there any good wanton noodle jokes?" Let's hear 'em, folks!

venitha

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Gravity by venitha

"Life's been so much better here since we bought the yacht," Timo told us with an enormous grin.

"Well, yeah," I replied with a laugh. It was impossible not to smile at such unabashed happiness, but for me, it was a hungry smile. Where could I get some of that?

In our taxi ride home from Raffles Marina, I wondered aloud what Jim and I could do in our own lives here to effect such bliss.

"Say money is no object. Nor time."

"Nor gravity," Jim added, helpful as always.

In a bold departure from the positive positive thoughts my Indian fairy godmother, a turbaned lotus-positioned palm reader, blessed me with, all I was capable of was veto power. Not a yacht. Not a weekly shopping spree at Takashimaya. Not monthly trips back to the US. I cast line after line: blue walls? daily massage? religion? a child? Nothing bit, and by the time we reached home, my melancholy had stemmed the tide of Jim's endless jokes.

*****

Weekday mornings, I let Jim go downstairs to the gym before me, not only because of the air-conditioned goodness he jump starts, but also because of the gleeful smile he gives me when, already glistening with sweat, he spots me in the hallway. Sometimes I think it's the elation of this split second that gets us both through the day.

I wonder what my expression is like in return.

In our relationship, it's my job to be the seething gray storm clouds, tempestuous waves crashing into foaming white water. Jim's role is that of clear calm blue skies, cool water lapping rhythmically against the side of the boat. We've joked over the years that the only reason Jim's avoided his genetic predisposition to depression is that he's too busy worrying about me, holding his breath while I walk the plank with precarious balance, inordinately drawn to the depths below.

So I am a gasping floundering fish out of water-- THWUNK! No, I am a stunned, probably dead, fish lying wide-eyed on ice at the Tekka Centre wet market when, as he stirs his morning coffee, Jim tells me he's unhappy here, with his frustrating hyper-stressful job and this pointless aimless treading-water existence. I get up and move behind him, wrap my arms around him tightly, then bend to kiss his cheek, to bite his shoulder, to slurp his earlobe, before gently resting my chin on top of his head. Caught off guard, however, this is all I've got. This is new for us, and in spite of my palm reader's far more accurate blessing of resourcefulness, I have no resources for this.

venitha

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Mother's Day Durian by venitha

It's ba-aack.

One step inside the basement of United Square, and you know: durian season has returned. And just in time for Mother's Day, too!

I wander past stall after stall of tempting holiday goodies in search of the scent that overpowers it all, permeating the entire building. At the end of a row of marinated pork buns, salt-baked chicken, gooey kuehs, and dragon's beard candy [pictured], I find the culprit: durian desserts.
And not just any old durian tasties. These are clearly labeled 100% pure, because God and Mother forbid they taint your durian. On offer: durian puffs, durian pudding, durian cake, durian crepes, durian swiss rolls [pictured], durian pancakes, durian steamed egg cake, and durian muchis [pictured].
Muchis? Hmmm... enquiring minds want to know.

"What are muchis made of?"

"Fra."

"Rice flour?"

"Fra."

"Squishy?"

"Can."

Somehow I managed to resist temptation, though my thoughts turned immediately to durian goodies when we decided to throw a Mother's Day supper party. Fortunately, two different guests somehow read my mind. They offered to bring dessert.

venitha
Happy Mother's Day and a big squishy durian muchi to all the mothers out there, especially Mom, Marilyn, Val, Dawn, Vadrian, and Karen. I love you!

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Vote Early and Often by jima

"What are you up to this weekend?" I asked Whee Cheng in the hall outside the coffee nook.

"I'm voting! For the first time."

I examined her quizzically. I'd thought her roughly my age, certainly in her 30s, and voting is mandatory in Singapore. Had I grossly misjudged her, mistakenly granting years of experience and maturity to a 19-year-old, fresh out of school and unable to drink legally? Not that I know what Singapore's drinking age is.

She wisely read my look and took pity on my confusion, volunteering that this is the first time since she reached voting age that her district has not been a walkover. Not that I know what Singapore's voting age is.

Strange as this seems to me and surely to most Americans, most Singaporeans would find nothing odd about Whee Cheng's situation. In fact, her situation turns out to be quite common; my lab manager, who is 10 over years older than I am, has never voted and didn't in the recent election.

Also depressingly common is the electoral freakshow. The media widely portrays opposition candidates as incompetent, bungling idiots, and while my wife is scornfully skeptical, the Singaporeans appear to buy it. Whee Cheng gets to break her voting drought only because the opposition candidate, James Gomez, managed to fill in all the paperwork correctly this time, although he failed to turn some of it in, lied about this, was exposed as a liar (dratted CCTV), was forced to confess to all, and was allowed to run anyway. This all was preferable, apparently, to the last election, when he skipped a field on a form and was thus soundly disqualified.

Is Mr. Gomez some nut-job who has to beg to get his mother to vote for him? Not at all! This is a major opposition candidate, with lots of supporters, enough to make the election relatively close. He lost by a 12% margin and the next day was arrested for "criminal intimidation", having threatened an election official (again with the dratted CCTV).

You couldn't make this stuff up. Or could you? If this is typical of those rare occasions when Singapore actually holds an election, I can see why they require everyone to vote. Surely no one would bother otherwise.

jima
The legal drinking age in Singapore is 18. The legal voting age is 21.
The PAP got 66.6% of the vote in the recent election and holds 82 of 84 government seats.

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Jumping the Queue by venitha

"Jump the queue," the man with the machine gun directs me. No argument here.

Clutching the golden ticket, my US passport, I walk briskly past the snaking sun-drenched lined of visa applicants, relieved not to be one of them on this hot and heartless morning.

Security at Singapore's American embassy is tight, and I briefly regret not carrying my Synthes card. They x-ray everything. And keep it. They return my wallet, and they'll let me bring my knee, but no camera, no phone, and worst of all, for I am under no illusion that the outdoor visa queue is the only long line in this compound, no book.

Up a ramp, round a corner, through an astoundingly heavy door, I arrive at yet another security point, this one manned by a gentleman who may disprove accusations of racial-profiling in the embassy's hiring practices but who decidedly does not make me feel safer.

In the American Citizen Services room, I surrender my passport and take a seat under a blaring basketball game, or rather under blaring basketball game commercials. I tune out the television and turn my attention to a well-read copy of the day's Straits Times. Having already seen the headlines on-line, already rolled my eyes at the gloating over Thailand's government's difficulties, and already shook my head through a depressing India ultrasound-leads-to-abortion piece, I don't fight for the front page but choose Life!, where I learn of the really important news: Halle Berry's intention to adopt and Tom Cruise's plummeting starpower.

Before the unmistakable Mission Impossible theme edges REO Speedwagon's Can't Fight This Feeling (thank you, Cold Storage) out of my head, I've completed my mission and am back outside, thumbing through my passport's crisp new visa pages and awaiting the return of my belongings, aglow with radiation. I look at the unmoving line of visa applicants, stubbornly wilting in the heat, and am embarrassed to recognize a number from my arrival: a group of uniformed schoolgirls, a young couple with two small children, several twenty-somethings with scruffy faces and backpacks. I intend to decorate my new passport pages with visas from Indonesia, Australia, Vietnam, and Cambodia, all countries whose embassies treat visa applicants more kindly, I hope, than my own.

venitha

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Electricity Top Ten by venitha

Top ten eight things to miss when your apartment has no electricity for 18 hours:

• Flashlights Torches. The million and one torches that it took years to accummulate as Christmas gifts from my mother and seconds to decide not to bring to Singapore.
  
• Hot water. Cold water in Singapore is not actually all that cold, so a cold shower isn't as bracing as you might think, but still.
  
• Hair dryer. I am a vision of loveliness today.
  
• Cold water. As an American, I've resisted adopting the Singaporean habit of drinking tepid water, so my fridge is stocked with pretty blue Nalgene bottles of cold, though sadly today not-so-cold, water.
  
• Kitchen appliances. What? No oatmeal? What? No hard-boiled eggs? Drat. I peered into the dark deserted refrigerator in search of something, anything, and Yes! Many many thanks to Brian and Andrea, to whom this post is dedicated, for bringing an astonishingly prescient gift to our candlelit bookclub last night: Brian's world-famous cheery [sic] cherry bran muffins. (Brian's muffins are in the good company of Marilyn's famous chocolate cookies and every black dog I know - Hi, Kiwi! - in that pictures tragically do not do them justice.)Many many thanks to Jim for putting the muffins in the fridge right next to a Lindt dark chocolate bar that I was duty bound to save from sure ruination in our apartment's heatwave. I can't imagine a more orgasmic breakfast combination. At least I'll have air-conditioning to console me tomorrow when I'm back to oatmeal and hard-boiled eggs.
  
  Because I know you are all concerned about whether I have eaten, I'll tell you that for lunch I resisted a breakfast redux (I have learned through harsh experience not to eat too many bran muffins in one day, and anyway, we were out of chocolate) and comforted myself with the cold cold air-con and the hot hot popiah of a nearby foodcourt.
  
• Internet access. The free wireless access at my neighborhood McDonald's rules! I almost feel guilty for my recent snarky comments about the fàn-tastic.
  
• Handphone charger. What a pain to have your phone run out of juice just when you're fielding calls from a landlord agent, two building reps, various leak stuffers, an electrician, and, of course, that oh-so-Singaporean requirement, layer upon layer of management for them all.
  
• Air-con. I could not survive in this country without air-conditioning. As soon as they got the electricity back on, I jacked up the A/C and took a good long nap. Air-con, glorious air-con.
  

venitha

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Morning Commute by venitha

Underground at Novena station, commuters stir lethargically, hungover from yesterday's public holiday. Yishun Arrived flashes boldly in red, enthusiastically tempting riders out to the sticks with seats-to-spare. The crowd, however, has made its choice, and the station tilts toward Marina Bay 2 Minutes, stubbornly insisting on downtown Singapore and standing-room-only.

A gorgeous Indian woman draped in a lavish silk salwar kameez primps and preens in the station's reflective doors, fluffs her long thick black hair, and jangles silver ankle bracelets.

A balding yet hard-manned expat in a pink striped business shirt and too too tight jeans moves his backpack to his front, lost in tunes delivered via ubiquitous white earbuds.

A prim and proper girl in a crisp white blouse, pointed shoes worthy of the Wicked Witch of the West, and a French twist so severe it's giving me a headache peers blindly through smart glasses and clutches Prozac Nation to her chest.

A scantily-clad Chinese girl - Hey! Isn't that her in that slimming ad? - with softly flowing bleached-brown curls digs through her Louis Vuitton bag, teeters on stiletto heels, and yawns extravagantly, covering her mouth with a hand careful not to muss her glossy lips.

An aging Singaporean businessman with a bad dye job, high-waisted pants, and sweat-stained armpits grips a tattered briefcase and peers with narrowed eyes at the free Today newspaper.

A freckled American expat in shorts and a plain white t-shirt slings her bag over one shoulder, tucks frizzy red hair behind one ear, and surreptitiously watches Singapore's morning commute.

venitha

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Love, Hate, Name Something You Ate IX by jima

• One thing I love about living in Singapore is...
  …the rain. Hot summer days growing up in Wisconsin, I loved racing out in the huge afternoon thunderstorms, splashing through puddles and getting soaked to the skin, becoming one with the rain. In Singapore, I've experienced that same "drenching rain/warm day/nothing better to do but play in it" joy, and I love getting to be a kid again.
  
  
• One thing I hate about living in Singapore is...
  …the rain. Workday mornings when it's pouring down rain, the last thing any commuter wants is to splash through puddles and get soaked to the skin. That short walk to the building and that brief wait at the bus stop become all hassle and no fun.
  
  
• A new thing I ate recently is...
  …Deepali's palak paneer. This was not actually something new; Deepali is soooo good to me. Paneer is delicious soft Indian cheese, and palak is mostly pureed spinach, hence its incredible color. I asked Venitha what else is in palak besides spinach (she did just watch Deepali make it), and she said onions, tomatoes, chilies, and foot powder.
• Something I recently bought is...
  …a series of Mandarin classes! After talking about this for 11 months, we are finally doing it. Our first lesson concentrated on the different tones and vowel sounds. As expected, we both benefited from having heard so much Mandarin this last year, but who knew that all my college German would finally pay off? I'd thought the endless hours I spent making monkey faces in the mirror as I attempted to pronounce umlauts were wasted, but these same sounds, and plenty of others that are even harder, exist in Mandarin.
  
  
• Singlish o' the day:
  He/she. As Mandarin pronouns apparently don't distinguish gender, conversations with co-workers can lead to entertaining confusion. I've incorrectly assumed more than one co-worker to be homosexual after repeated references to a special someone as he, and I have frightening flashes of my boss in drag every time someone inadvertently(?) refers to him as she.

jima

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