You Can't Go Home Again ... Can You?
Now that I've turned in my Old English project and my Spenser assignment, I'm almost officially done (save my Old English final paper on the 25th) with this academic year ... which means I'm almost officially done with my current life.
It's a profoundly depressing and distressing thought.
A couple of days ago, I told two people back home which day exactly I'll be back on the island; somehow, that made my impending departure from Welly more ... real.
(I wonder if telling everybody back home I won't be going home would make that come true ...)
I'm not sure whether it's leaving Welly or living in Singapore that's distressing me - or which distresses me more.
My dread of going home doesn't make much - if any - sense at all. I was born and raised in Singapore; I'd spent twenty-one years of my life there, and I'd survived - so what exactly is it that troubles me about returning to that island that is 'home'?
True, I'd spent the months leading up to my departure for NZ eager and impatient to leave, but I think it might've been due to the suicidal weather from February to May that was driving me nuts. Besides, having spent twenty-one years mostly on the island, it definitely had been time for a change of scenery. Still, had I not been homesick for the first couple of days here, even though I was then rooming with Jen?
I wish I would (and could) look forward to flying home - Carrie had. In fact, she'd been so eager to leave Welly she dropped out in the middle of the academic year to continue her degree in NUS. Me, I would (and could) only look forward to flying home if it were just for a couple of months, because, having spent some time away from Singapore, I've realized I can only take Singapore in small doses (and, perhaps, when viewing it through 'foreign' lenses): it is a place that very easily overwhelms a person and their senses. Especially if they have particularly delicate senses.
Sometimes, I think I prefer being a tourist in Singapore to being a citizen. I'd been so much happier, and the island had appealed to me more, when I pretended I was a tourist. (Or was it because I knew I'd leave the island at my vacation's end?)
Last summer, Carrie and I spent one day wandering around Ang Mo Kio Central (by default actually, since we got lost and had to find our way back to the train station). That night as we meandered our way through and around that neighborhood, we kept getting sidetracked by the shops we passed (namely the ones selling food and foodstuffs). Standing right at the center of the town square, we marvelled at how lively it still was at eight or nine in the night, and we concurred that the lights, the colors, the noises, and the smells of the Singaporean heartlands make Welly seem dull and gray in comparison.
I remember I had been wide-eyed with wonderment the first time my Dad took me to Bedok Central and a wet market during my vacation; it had been on my second day back home. In the past, the pain of torture wouldn't have been compelling enough to make me voluntarily visit a wet market, much less be fascinated by it (okay, maybe I'd have been morbidly fascinated by the stink and the filth, but that's not the point). That morning in Bedok Central, however, I was mesmerized: the different vernaculars spoken, the boundless variety of merchandize and their colors and smells, and the almost frenetic rushes of people going about their daily lives - there seemed to an abundance of joie de vivre everywhere, and it was infectious. I'd thought I quite liked it.
But after mulling over it for some time, I decided I'd liked it because it was a change, something quite different to, say, the Sunday markets in Welly. If I'd not gone away to Welly, I'd never have liked the hustle and bustle of the Singaporean heartlands; if I had to face that daily, it would've very quickly overwhelmed me.
And for me, Singapore is just that. It is a country that is, in a sense, very in-your-face. I suppose it's because it's so tiny and so densely populated - which prolly also explains the feted national trait: kiasuism.
I think everybody is afraid to lose because there really isn't much (land and space, among other things) to go around; and the more people there are, the less there will be to share out. Therefore - though I'm not saying that is the reason, or even reason enough) - Singapore (or is it Singaporeans) is nothing if not compulsively competitive. Because it is (has become?) a matter of survival.
Singaporeans seem ungracious and uncivilized in public - shoving their way to get on public transportation, and elbowing their way through crowds - but they're prolly just fighting for their bit of territory. Goddess knows, during the rush hours, personal space in public transportation is a completely alien concept and phenomenon.
Time and space - they're prolly the two most valuable (and contended and sought after) commodities in Singapore.
And I have them in abundance here in Welly.
Less than a month into my vacation in Singapore, I found myself scribbling these three scribbles, and found myself thinking (as a consolation), don't worry, you'll fly home soon.
But I'd also immediately realized I was home - and Welly isn't 'home'. Somehow, I'd started referring to flying back to Welly as "flying home". It was kinda disconcerting, really, and I'd felt totally conflicted as to where my loyalties - or, really, my heart (since the saying goes "Home is where the heart is", not "loyalties") - should lie.
I still do.
:::
It's a profoundly depressing and distressing thought.
A couple of days ago, I told two people back home which day exactly I'll be back on the island; somehow, that made my impending departure from Welly more ... real.
(I wonder if telling everybody back home I won't be going home would make that come true ...)
I'm not sure whether it's leaving Welly or living in Singapore that's distressing me - or which distresses me more.
My dread of going home doesn't make much - if any - sense at all. I was born and raised in Singapore; I'd spent twenty-one years of my life there, and I'd survived - so what exactly is it that troubles me about returning to that island that is 'home'?
True, I'd spent the months leading up to my departure for NZ eager and impatient to leave, but I think it might've been due to the suicidal weather from February to May that was driving me nuts. Besides, having spent twenty-one years mostly on the island, it definitely had been time for a change of scenery. Still, had I not been homesick for the first couple of days here, even though I was then rooming with Jen?
I wish I would (and could) look forward to flying home - Carrie had. In fact, she'd been so eager to leave Welly she dropped out in the middle of the academic year to continue her degree in NUS. Me, I would (and could) only look forward to flying home if it were just for a couple of months, because, having spent some time away from Singapore, I've realized I can only take Singapore in small doses (and, perhaps, when viewing it through 'foreign' lenses): it is a place that very easily overwhelms a person and their senses. Especially if they have particularly delicate senses.
Sometimes, I think I prefer being a tourist in Singapore to being a citizen. I'd been so much happier, and the island had appealed to me more, when I pretended I was a tourist. (Or was it because I knew I'd leave the island at my vacation's end?)
Last summer, Carrie and I spent one day wandering around Ang Mo Kio Central (by default actually, since we got lost and had to find our way back to the train station). That night as we meandered our way through and around that neighborhood, we kept getting sidetracked by the shops we passed (namely the ones selling food and foodstuffs). Standing right at the center of the town square, we marvelled at how lively it still was at eight or nine in the night, and we concurred that the lights, the colors, the noises, and the smells of the Singaporean heartlands make Welly seem dull and gray in comparison.
I remember I had been wide-eyed with wonderment the first time my Dad took me to Bedok Central and a wet market during my vacation; it had been on my second day back home. In the past, the pain of torture wouldn't have been compelling enough to make me voluntarily visit a wet market, much less be fascinated by it (okay, maybe I'd have been morbidly fascinated by the stink and the filth, but that's not the point). That morning in Bedok Central, however, I was mesmerized: the different vernaculars spoken, the boundless variety of merchandize and their colors and smells, and the almost frenetic rushes of people going about their daily lives - there seemed to an abundance of joie de vivre everywhere, and it was infectious. I'd thought I quite liked it.
But after mulling over it for some time, I decided I'd liked it because it was a change, something quite different to, say, the Sunday markets in Welly. If I'd not gone away to Welly, I'd never have liked the hustle and bustle of the Singaporean heartlands; if I had to face that daily, it would've very quickly overwhelmed me.
And for me, Singapore is just that. It is a country that is, in a sense, very in-your-face. I suppose it's because it's so tiny and so densely populated - which prolly also explains the feted national trait: kiasuism.
I think everybody is afraid to lose because there really isn't much (land and space, among other things) to go around; and the more people there are, the less there will be to share out. Therefore - though I'm not saying that is the reason, or even reason enough) - Singapore (or is it Singaporeans) is nothing if not compulsively competitive. Because it is (has become?) a matter of survival.
Singaporeans seem ungracious and uncivilized in public - shoving their way to get on public transportation, and elbowing their way through crowds - but they're prolly just fighting for their bit of territory. Goddess knows, during the rush hours, personal space in public transportation is a completely alien concept and phenomenon.
Time and space - they're prolly the two most valuable (and contended and sought after) commodities in Singapore.
And I have them in abundance here in Welly.
Less than a month into my vacation in Singapore, I found myself scribbling these three scribbles, and found myself thinking (as a consolation), don't worry, you'll fly home soon.
But I'd also immediately realized I was home - and Welly isn't 'home'. Somehow, I'd started referring to flying back to Welly as "flying home". It was kinda disconcerting, really, and I'd felt totally conflicted as to where my loyalties - or, really, my heart (since the saying goes "Home is where the heart is", not "loyalties") - should lie.
I still do.
LEE (V.O.)
I guess Singaporeans are pretty much a
bunch of survivors. Probably has
something to do with how in our parents’
day, everybody was poorer than a
destitute church-mouse, had to walk ten
kilometers to school barefoot, and rush
home after school to their often plural
after-school jobs or to look after the
football team of siblings, yadda, yadda,
yadda …
Or maybe it came from even earlier days
when our parents’ parents’ parents came
to this island with nothing but the
clothes on their back and an extra pair
of underwear, and had managed to eke
enough of a living to breed a whole new
generation of survivors.
(pause)
Yeah … This probably explains the
competitiveness: it’s all a matter of
survival.
posted by s at 20:28
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