I mean, there was the story about the mango. My friend and I were walking along Upper East Coast Road when a) two bats dived out of the tree just in front of us, b) I spotted a huge mango on the road just beside the curb. "A mango!" I squeaked. My friend was nonplussed, although he stopped to look down at it. "Get it!" I squeaked." But then a taxi was coming down the road. "It'll squash the mango --- " "No, it won't. Get it!" And then we had a mango. It's in my friend's fridge, last I heard, so I can't report on how it tastes (you see why this makes a weak story?). I'm still amazed that it fell off the tree just as we were walking by --- thank you, fruit bats!
Then there's the story about wandering through a corner of Chinatown with Wahj on a too-hot Saturday afternoon, during which I introduced him to Global Sounds World Music Cafe, while interjecting every now and then about the Japanese prostitutes that used to inhabit Spring Street and the "death houses" (where the destitute went to die) that used to run down Sago Lane. That's what comes of spending a week reading about the seedy underbelly of 19th-century Singapore. Wahj said I should start running walking tours, but this being Singapore, one needs a pesky government licence for that, plus it's too hot to be walking around that much.
What other stories have I got for you? My uncle had quite a few when we all had dinner over the weekend. He'd just come in from Canada, but from the stories he told, you'd think he'd just returned from a round-the-world expedition. The best story was about taking a public bus between towns in Turkey --- only to have armed policemen muscle aboard with a handcuffed man that they were transporting to prison. Those were the days, I guess ...
Today's sad tale could be of how I had (as usual) too much work and had to (as usual) work after dinner. But instead, let's talk about coriander pesto and how it's totally different from basil pesto, which means that my pasta dinner didn't taste exactly as I'd expected (though it still tasted alright). Coriander always makes me expect a curry flavour. Guess I'll have to go look up a different recipe now ...
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Labels: Domestically challenged, Food for thought, Singapore stories
8 Comments:
You know how if a gun is introduced at the start of a story it has to be fired by the end of it?
If you write about a mango, there better be a report of its consumption!!
Totally irrelevant but is that the vending machine from the National Museum?
Hi, Tym:
I have a question: If I'm looking for information about Singapore right after the Japanese occupation, which books/websites/etc should I be looking at? The timeframe I'm looking at is about two years beginning right after the Japanese surrendered, meaning August/September 1945-1947.
I figured you might know, but thanks regardless.
Uh, to clarify: I'm looking for all kinds of information, but mainly for information about what it was like living in Singapore in that time.
You actually... cooked???!
cour marly > I don't know if my friend has eaten the mango, but if I have a chance at it, I'll let you know!
Deanna > Yup! In the upper floor of the new extension, beside the lockers.
ichiosarius > Funnily enough, someone else asked me a similar question recently. Are you looking for fiction or non-fiction, "history textbook"-type publications or specific areas of social history, political history, etc.?
One place to start is NUS's helpful bibliography on the history of Singapore. They have a list for 1945-1955 and another for 1955-1965 (pre-independence).
LMD > Yes, I did! And do! Occasionally ...
rocket pesto! you fry up chopped-up bacon with shredded brussels sprouts (or just toss in rocket at the end, for wilting), and then toss everything together, with pasta. so yummy!
Uhm... that was green coriander, and not the spice, right? Why does it make you think of curry?
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