#sg lit

[welovebooksactually-blog]

Like all of us, Loans has good days and bad days. At his lowest, Jee mindlessly (but entertainingly) repeats the litany of his love “curling dumbbells to his chest” (April 10, Sunday), and waxes poetic about an “Elliptical, EFX546” (April 11, Monday). “April 13, Wednesday,” is a particularly dark day: unlike any poem in Singlish, it was both banned by the Singapore government for promoting the homosexual lifestyle, and attacked by lesbians decrying its anti-woman rhetoric. Love it or loathe it, “Come on, straight boy, and make gay love to me” is one of the more memorable lines of the collection.

Tse Hao Guang on Jee Leong Koh's Payday Loans

[welovebooksactually-blog]

There is a crash course in theories concerning particles, gravity, parallel universes, entanglement (my personal favourite), Schrondinger’s cat, etc. It happens all very quickly and efficiently but the star is most certainly the drawings of Pao and his various predicaments, which are often peculiar, sparse and always funnily executed. Just like in quantum physics, little is certain and thus little can be known with absolute measure. As such, the joy is in the little discoveries, the speculative analyses and fantasies, and their impact on the ultimate nature of truth and reality (as understood by all of us).

Cyril Wong on Ng Su-Jin's Phenomenon No. II: an analysis by X

[tiedtoskies]

mid-autumn by tan hwee hwee

never thought that a story i read in secondary school would resonate so much now.

"My daughter thinks she can take poverty. What does she know about poverty, when I always give her nice food?

Remember what I ordered for her graduation celebration dinner at Ah Kow’s - shark’s fin, braised beef, almond jelly. When I won a book prize for being best in progress in Primary Six, my father brought me to Ah Kow’s coffee shop and ordered a slice of bread and butter. When I was young, we only ate kaya with bread for breakfast, so butter was special. That Speech Day morning, Ah Kow brought out Cold Storage butter fresh from the freezer. My father sliced an inch of butter, slapped it on white bread and sprinkled sugar on top. He poured my Ovaltine into the saucer, and cooled the coffee with his breath. I crunched my teeth on the frozen butter and sugar. I washed it down with Ovaltine. That was my biggest treat.

My daughter eats butter whenever she likes. She even eats, don’t know what - Gourmet Swiss Alpen muesli with milk. Dairy Farms Fresh Virtually Fat-Free milk. In my time, Nestle powdered milk was unaffordable.

…

When my parents told me to do something, I obeyed. They said, “Go university for what? Waste money. Get a job.” I became a teacher. I know my daughter is not like me - she has her degree, she’s not married. But what else could I say?

I gripped the chair. “I forbid you.”

"I need to do this," she said. "It’s a calling from God. It’s a fire in my bones. If I don’t go, I’ll just burn and die."

I turned my head. A blouse swayed on the pole outside the window.

The splinters pierced my palm as I tightened my grip on the chair. “I forbid you.”My jaw was numb.

My daughter left me, went to her room and shut the door behind her. The ceiling fan whirred overhead. I rubbed the clench out of my hands.

…

Two months later, I woke up and she was gone. I went to school to teach the monkeys. The money I earned went into the joint account, and my husband spent it on Guinness, mahjong and the lottery. When I was home, I fried noodles for two and brewed the bird’s nest soup for him. I did the laundry. I stuck out the washing pole. The flapping shirts rumbled, spraying droplets in the wind. Many nights ago, when she was ten, my daughter begged me to stay. Now I could not ask her to return; God called, and she obeyed.

…

I taught those monkeys every day so my daughter could be free. But now she is poorer than me. So gek sim. She spreads her scarred hands in the photo she sent me. The scrawl behind the postcard says, “Built brick kiln for hospital. Hands cut. Performed operation. Poured antiseptic on hands. Ask God why? Talibe (native nurse) said normally, I’m in white coat, so clean, so far from her. When building kiln, hands cut like hers, she feels close to me. God works good through all our pain. Hectic. Will write again.”

…….

Once, I wanted to run away. My daughter was ten. We had moved into the new HDB government flat in Bedok that I bought. My husband didn’t pay a cent. I had finished teaching, but when I came home, I had to mark exercise books, ring the parents of children who played truant, cook, mop the floor, and wash the clothes.

I hung the washing on the pole. I stuck the pole int the holder outside the window. Overhead, my neighbours had their washing poles out. The water from their clothes dripped on mine.

My husband told me what he did with our new flat.

I fled. I would take my money, get a new job and a new life. As I left the building, I passed beneath the washing poles. The clothes flapped in the wind, spraying droplets onto the ground. My daughter was at the window. She screamed. The droplets hit my neck. They were her tears. I looked at the round brown water marks on the ground. I shook my head - no, it was water from the dripping clothes. But it felt like her tears raining on me.

I returned.

[thevanishingpresent-blog]

What would you write on your own tombstone?

Boey Kim Cheng:

Perhaps the line from Eliot:

"For us there is only the trying."

Michael Farrell:

"God Stand Up For Bastards" (Edmund, King Lear)

John Yau:

"I wink at you from infinity"

Dave Chua:

A URL.

Anne Lee Tzu Pheng:

Nothing. I don't intend to have one.

Quoted in The Viewing Party, Yong Shu Hoong.

[sglit2013-blog]

leaving

Four months to Brisbane and the knots

feel remarkably tight

You can't box and airfreight

all your longings

when the air is still,

like the well in a frog

in a well.

The brisk bane of bills, parts

of your apartment falling apart,

the office in your head

you can't shut off,

riddles from a son

you can't get rid of -

how they span attention

in a conspiracy of noise

But today

the excuses have wrung their hands dry,

There are forms to fill,

forms to inform,

forms to conform,

a chloroform face to greet

the Devil in details -

like passport photographs and income tax clerks -

when you depart through a door

awkward and half-closed

Felix Cheong - Writing Singapore 2009

The persona 'You' in this poem is likely a Singaporean leaving to emigrate to Brisbane, Australia. Many Singaporeans have indeed migrated to Down Under in hopes of a better future for themselves. This poem however highlights the fact that you can take a Singaporean out of Singapore but deep down, you can't take out the Singapore from a Singaporean.This is evident in that even though the 'quitter' is leaving Singapore for a new place to call home, there is this sense of "longings" - perhaps a desire to want to stay in Singapore but unable to for personal reasons?. Although the poet writes about leaving, he also hints about the troubling lifestyle of Singaporeans - "the office in your head/you can't shut off" implies that many Singaporeans unfortunately cannot separate their work and their life at home. This is a reality in many developing countries, particularly with the proliferation of personal mobile communication devices which makes it too easy to contact a person after hours. This merely highlights the fact that the Singaporean society is so focused on economic development, there seems to be little time left for anything else - even family comes second (as suggested by the poet writing about the "son" only AFTER writing about "the office").

Ultimately, the poet argues that even if one leaves Singapore, the door is not always completely shut, that it is "awkward and half closed": that no matter how far away one leaves Singapore, it forms part of one's identity, that the Singaporean identity cannot be disassociated from oneself. The last lines also hints of possible assimilation problem - that many countries cannot fully accept an immigrant.

[sglit2013-blog]

Singapore River

The operation  was massive;

designed to give new life

to the old lady.

We have cleaned out

her arteries, removed

detritus and silt,

created a by-pass

for the old blood.

Now you can hardly tell

her history.

We have become

so health-conscious

the heart

can sometimes be troublesome.

Lee Tzu Pheng - Words for the 25th Readings by Singapore Writers

(1990)

  As the name of the poem suggests, the poem revolves around the Singapore River. By likening the river to a network of arteries and using the imagery of clogged arteries, the poem suggests that prior to this, the River was dirty and unhealthy. the lines regarding operation is in reference to the clean-up project that lasted from 1977 to 1987. Prior to 1977, the Singapore River was heavily polluted. The clean up was instigated the then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew who set forth the ambitious target of a clean Singapore River within a decade.

However, the line "Now you can hardly tell/her history" has dual meaning. One interpretation would be in reference to the health of the river - driving home the point that the river is now successfully clean.

However, the alternative interpretation is one that suggests that the clean-up has cleaned up more than just the pollution. there is the implication that the scene along the Singapore River has changed. This is especially true since amenities were developed so that businesses such as food stalls could be relocated away from the Singapore River and so forth.

The last stanza attempts to highlight the fact that once again, things in Singapore have changed but at the cost of destruction of heritage, of losing a place associated with identity ("the heart can be troublesome").There is the implication that there is a huge price to pay for rapid urbanization - the loss of the 'heart'.

[sglit2013-blog]

Wall

I was walled by a decency

I wished I knew how to ram

Breach the castled past to follow

Belated drives into worldly man.

But ram? Virtue left me

A lamb, green,

Vacantly aware of the world's arms

Not daring her salvation nor sin

I was taught her voice was insidious.

Whispers of wickedness degraded

The original strain floating over the rim.

I thrilled and shuddered as it faded.

Bright holes that I scratched, unseen,

Revealed how much my circumference of the sky

Was mocked by the infinity of those

Who more freely moved outside the chimney of my eye.

I had waited long enough,

Dreaming, scratching and thinking apart

It is time to mount

Then quietly leap with the heart.

Robert Yeo

The Wall from which the poem derives its title from is more of a metaphorical, psychological barrier than an actual physical wall. By painting the imagery of a battering "ram" and juxtaposing it with the image of a "lamb", the poet is perhaps making a critique of the Singapore society which has been taught to follow and not go against the law. The poem suggests a certain naivety of the "lamb" in contrast to the "worldly man", thereby making a criticism that Singaporeans are perhaps too caught up in their own world to realize that there is a bigger world out there. 

He presents the idea of constraints by describing not the surrounding wall but the world outside the wall, using the words "sky", "infinity" and "...freely move..." - words associated with the idea of freedom. In the final stanza, we see the poet take the "leap with the heart", implying that by only by challenging the world around us do we truly become free instead of assuming that we are. 

[sglit2013-blog]

Forever Singlish

We don't care:: we like to speak it leh;

When we end with lor, hor, lah,

People say our English kana-sai

Why do they care? Hard core kaypoh -

Bo dai chi cho.

It got rhythm - like when you say

When pass urine in the lift? Chau si!

Aiyah: Chau Ah Lian; Chau Ah Beng; Chau Buaya;

Chau Ah Kua; Chau Mamak; Chau Kayu; Chau Goondu 0

Who else?

It got reason - like when the secretary say

You hold on arh - he's on the line;

So you wait for him to finish - wah piang, talk

So long, boey tahan, some more I kena

Scolding from boss for wasting time.

We say sorrysorrysorry to make sure we are:

So pai say, we have to repeat two, three times;

Then say excuse! when we overtake or cut in -

Only once. Short cuts must be short and sweet,

If sometimes we cannot cheat, so chia lat

No lubang; so teruk. Kiasu cannot lose,

Kiasi cannot die; machiam machiam words

We also try. Proper English? So lecheh,

So correct, so actsy for what? Wah lau,

Already got your meaning before you finish!

Vegetable, Animal, Mineral, Abstract:

It makes all this rojak, chickenfeed.

Hands all over the place; poke here, touch there,

Growing only like a samseng kia,

People cannot control, also cannot compete.

No class Singlish here to stay,

No big shot can have his way

With how people talk, what people say.

Rules are rules: our bo chap mouth refuse

To listen, follow or to choose!

Leong Liew Geok - Women Without Men (2000)

This poem is essentially a declaration on the right to use Singlish, a language that is a "rojak" (mix) of Malay, Hokkien and English. Singlish is frowned upon by the authorities who fear that it would erode the quality of Standard English spoken in Singapore. There is thus the tone of playful defiance, in contrast to Sa'at's poem, "You are not my country".

As the poet writes, there is this connotation that Singlish users have "no class", that the language is too crass, crude, There is this implication that the language is not used by high society, particularly since the word "class" is used.

Yet, it is precisely because it is of "no class" that explains its wide usage and popularity - the language transcends class. Many, like the author have linked the use of Singlish to their identity as a Singaporean. It is considered an organic language, one developed by the people, for the people.

Enjoy a clip of US Students Learning Singlish.