Notes on the Malayan Tiger

When visiting a new country, I like to read books set in that country – like A Room with a View before going to Florence, A Fez of the Heart before my Turkish holiday, and Independent People before visiting Iceland.

On a recent trip to Malaysia, I read The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo – a novel set in the 1930s, when Malaysia (then called Malaya) was a British colony. I took this pic on my night flight to Kuala Lumpur.

I like when airplanes have this little folding table above the main table; it makes life easier for those of us who like to eat while reading. Yangsze Choo's author bio says she too "loves to eat and read (often at the same time)."

* * *

Soon after I moved to Singapore, I read an edited volume of essays called Eating Chilli Crab in the Anthropocene (for which, if I may brag, my friend Xiaoyun wrote the titular chapter). A subsequent chapter called 'Consuming Tigers' has this line which made a deep impression on me:

In 1930, the last wild tiger of Singapore was shot in Choa Chu Kang.

The story was reported in the Straits Times of October 27. Stuff like this is a powerful reminder of how quickly Singapore was transformed from an island which was mostly jungle, to the highly urbanised city-state that we see today.

* * *

Ng Xin, author of 'Consuming Tigers', says:

Since I began writing this chapter, I’ve started to notice tigers everywhere. They’re on beer cans and balm pots, on airplanes and bank facades, in the living room of Crazy Rich Asians and the Singapore state crest.

I had a similar experience after reading The Night Tiger, which features tigers as well as a character who may or may not be a weretiger.

Klang, which is near Kuala Lumpur, has some nice street art. This tiger is painted on a door, but the metal gate makes it look like it's in a cage.

I liked these tiles outside Cheah Kongsi, a temple in Penang:

...and I brought back this fridge magnet which now adorns my whiteboard:

* * *

In a previous post I wrote that I have a 19-inch monitor, but I recently got a 24.5-inch one (Acer EK251Q P6). The first film I watched on my new monitor was a documentary called Malaysia's Last Tigers.

It's on YouTube, but that version has a few minutes missing. You can watch the whole thing on Māori+ if you are in New Zealand (or use a VPN).

One of my favourite bits of the documentary is around 24:00 where they show footage of all the other animals which were captured by the National Tiger Survey's camera traps. They show lesser mouse deer, sunbear, wild dogs, binturong, yellow-throated marten, serow, pig-tailed macaques, Indian civet, crab-eating mongoose, Malayan tapir, Asian elephant, clouded leopard, marbled cat, leopard cat, golden cat, and my favourite, a black panther. And that's just the mammals.

Rainforests are really something.

This Is Going on My Resume

At the seaside temple of Tua Pek Kong at Tanjong Tokong, Penang.

Immigrants

Voja Mitrovic – a darkroom printer who printed for the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Josef Koudelka – was born in 1937 in Foča, in the former Yugoslavia. His father was killed in the war when he was only four, and he arrived in Paris in 1974 with one hundred French Francs in his pocket and a backpack full of clothes and sausages.

Photographer Peter Turnley has a great story about how Mitrovic helped him get a job in a Paris photo-lab. Helped is an understatement; if you read the post, you'll know what I mean. Anyway, at the end of the story, Turnley says:

I took Voja aside, and said, "Thank you. I will find a way one day to thank you for this!" He looked at me and said, "I was an immigrant also. I know what it means to need work – we need to help each other!"

I've been an immigrant in various countries for most of my adult life. I was fortunate to have a vastly more comfortable financial cushion than Mitrovic, but I have frequently received help, in many different forms, from fellow immigrants. I like to think I have helped them too, when I could – both friends and strangers.

Last year, I asked my college friend Indro – who, like me, is an Indian immigrant to Singapore – if I could stay with him for about a week. I followed up with something along the lines of "No worries if not, I could stay with one of my other friends too. But I thought I'd ask you first coz you have a spare bedroom."

Indro said, "Even if I had just one room, you're always welcome to stay with me."

The dynamic between us being what it is, I deflected with silly humour: "If you want to sleep with me, you can just say it!" But privately, I almost teared up, and I know I'll remember his reply for a long time to come.

(See also, People on the Corner.)

Syncretism on Dempsey Hill

Like the Rangoon Road situation I posted about earlier, here's another example of Hindu deity Ganesh cohabiting with a Taoist deity (I don't know his name; if you do, please let me know).

This shrine is on Dempsey Hill in Singapore, opposite the Museum of Ice Cream.

2025 New Things List

Last year I wrote a post about a few first-time experiences and new things that I tried in 2024. This year I thought I'll do the same, but whether this will become an annual tradition remains to be seen. Some of the categories are repeats from last year (food, sports, videography) while others are new.

Black chicken

I had seen black chicken on sale in wet markets, but I hadn't tried it until my friend made this stew for me. Silkie chickens, as they are called, have white feathers, but their flesh and even their bones are black. They taste like regular chicken, just a bit gamier because they are usually free-range.

60 kg (132 lbs)

One time at a house party, my friend, who was a few drinks down, was describing the ideal body type that she aspires to. Legs like X, boobs like Y, and so forth (all celebrities, though I don't remember their names). After running through the list, she paused and added one more: "And Sroyon's metabolism."

All my life, I've been lucky enough to be able eat whatever I wanted and still be a healthy weight. I was underweight in college, but for the last ten years, I've been in the 57–59 kg range. But I always told myself that if I ever hit 60 kg, I'll do something about it.

In the last two months of 2025, I was socialising and therefore eating out a lot, and not playing sports as regularly as I did before. And sure enough, in December, I clocked in at 60.4 kg.

It's not concerning by any means – I did a body composition analysis recently, which said my recommended weight is around 63 kg – but if I do gain weight, it should ideally be muscle and not fat. So now I stopped taking sugar with coffee, eating fruit for breakfast, and exercising more. Nothing drastic, but this is the first time in my life that I am actively trying to lose weight. My metabolism is still fast, but alas, not what it used to be.

Badminton coaching

As kids, many of us went to classes for music, painting, etc., but it's less common for adults – at least the adults I grew up around. But the cool thing about being a grown-up, if you are fortunate enough to have some disposable income, is that if you want to learn a skill, you can just pay someone to teach you.

I generally like to learn stuff on my own – I'm doggedly sticking to self-study for Spanish, though I know I'd make faster progress if I had a teacher – but with badminton, which I play recreationally, I realised last year that I had hit a plateau.

My friend recommended a badminton coach, and after a few sessions with Anthony, my game has improved a lot. I have more to say about it, but maybe that's a topic for another day, and a standalone post.

I like the different flavours of shuttlecock motion-blur that you can see in the sequence below: an instant of stillness at the apex, slightly blurry as it drops, and a streak as it leaves my racquet.

MRT station video advert

I've had photos displayed in public spaces, but not video. Until last year, when my friend Emiri spotted – and reacted quickly enough to record – this advert at an MRT (subway) station. It features a clip from a video which I made for Sigma Contemporary Dance. Blink and you'll miss it!

Malaysia

I went to Malaysia for the first time last year, to play pickleball in the border town of Johor Bahru. In the older parts of town I saw some interesting signage and typography. Maybe I'll compile them in another post, but meanwhile I wanted to share this one which I particularly liked – a random metal plaque outside a Commissioner for Oaths office. The Chinese text, apparently, says the same thing.

Nirvana

This viral tweet – "Saw a girl in a Franz Ferdinand t-shirt. She couldn't even name 3 other main causes of the outbreak of World War I" – reminded me of the time my Chinese friend Wu Chi (previously mentioned in this post) was wearing a Nirvana t-shirt:

I asked if she has any favourite songs, and she said "Huh? I thought it's Nirvana as in enlightenment..."

A Certain Leisurely Attitude

To Park, being "learned" isn't about formal education or status but about having a certain leisurely attitude toward things one encounters, having the mental and emotional margin to be able to observe without projecting.

—Park Jiwon, Preface to Collected Poems of Neungyang, as paraphrased by Hannah Kim

* * *

Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy.

—Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

The Beautifullest Sport

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few.

I was familiar with this quote long before I read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, but having encountered it out of context, I initially misunderstood its meaning. I used to think that Suzuki was praising the expert's mind: less distracted, more focused. But when you read the book, it quickly becomes clear that he means the opposite:

In Japan we have the phrase shoshin, which means "beginner's mind." The goal of practice is always to keep our beginner's mind. Suppose you recite the Prajna Paramita Sutra only once. It might be a very good recitation. But what would happen to you if you recited it twice, three times, four times or more? You might easily lose your original attitude towards it.

The same thing will happen in your other Zen practices. For a while you will keep your beginner's mind, but if you continue to practice one, two, three years or more, although you may improve some, you are liable to lose the limitless meaning of original mind.

* * *

In the 1986 World Cup quarter-final between England and Argentina, at the Azteca Stadium in Mexico, Diego Maradona scored the greatest goal in football history.

Brian Glanville, in The Story of the World Cup, described the goal as "so unusual, almost romantic, that it might have been scored by some schoolboy hero, or some remote Corinthian, from the days when dribbling was the vogue. It hardly belonged to so apparently rational and rationalised an era as ours." Barney Ronay spoke of "a man playing with a kind of light around him."

Here's Bryon Butler's commentary for BBC Radio:

Maradona, turns like a little eel, he comes away from trouble, little squat man... comes inside Butcher, leaves him for dead, outside Fenwick, leaves him for dead, and puts the ball away... and that is why Maradona is the greatest player in the world.

Victor Hugo Morales' Spanish commentary (English subs, Spanish subs) is equally iconic, albeit, shall we say, less restrained. Sam Markham describes it as "a frenzied mix of poetry, yelling, and sobbing that ends with a prayer: 'Thank you, God, for football, for Maradona, for these tears, for this – Argentina 2, England 0.'"

Much has been written about that goal: the differences in the footballing culture of the two nations, the context of the game itself – England's persistent fouling and "the sheer level of physical abuse dished out to Maradona during the game" (Michael Cox for the NYT), and his previous goal which he snuck in with his hand – as well as the wider socio-political context of the Falklands War.

But here's another angle: the psychology of elite sport. In the span of 11 seconds, even as he beat five opponents and seven challenges in a blur of whirling feet, feints and pirouettes, Maradona was weighing up the options.

In his autobiography, he said he considered passing to Valdano who was free at the far post ("I was waiting to pass the ball – the logical thing to do"), and that perhaps subconsciously, he was also guided by his little brother's advice about a goal he missed five years go, in 1981:

Turco phoned me and said: "You moron! You shouldn't have sidefooted it... you should have thrown a dummy, the keeper had already committed himself." And I answered: "You little shit! It's easy for you to say that, you're watching it on the telly!" But he really shut me up: "No, Pelu, if you'd thrown a dummy, you could've dragged it towards the sideline and finished with your right, do you see?" The brat was seven years old! Well, this time I finished like my brother wanted.

Pass to Valdano, or go solo? Sidefoot past the onrushing goalkeeper, or feint and go around? Decisions made at the speed of thought, Butcher and Shilton sprawled on the grass, the ball in the back of the net, Maradona wheeling away to celebrate. In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities.

* * *

I was born too late to enjoy Maradona in his prime. My two favourite footballers whom I've watched live are Ronaldinho and Lionel Messi.

If I had to summarise what sets them apart, I would say: what Messi did (occasionally still does, though he is nearing retirement now) are normal things, but executed at a preternatural level. His moves are fundamentally simple. Feint left and go right. Slow down and speed up. Thread the ball through the inside-right channel to the forward making a run. Cut inside and curl it in at the far post. It's just that he did these simple things better, and more consistently, than pretty much anyone else who ever played the game.

What Ronaldinho did, at his best, was not normal.

Messi is the better footballer – certainly the best since Maradona, perhaps the best to ever play the game. But Ronaldinho was magic.

Rob Smyth once wrote an article with a tongue-in-cheek clickbait opening: "Ronaldinho is the greatest footballer of all time." Never mind mundane nonsense such as goals, assists and trophies, he urged, greatness should be measured by pure thrill and goosebumps. Eventually he concedes: "OK, OK, ... he's not the greatest footballer of all time. But he is the footballer with the greatest imagination, and the one who gave us the most fantasy. These things matter."

* * *

In an earlier post I said I don't know about the beautifullest game, but I do have some opinions on the beautifullest sport.

Football (soccer) is the most watched sport in the world. In Brazil they call it jogo bonito – the beautiful game. And while these things are essentially subjective and indeterminable, football has at least a claim to being the beautifullest sport.

I always loved playing football, and I've watched more football than all other sports combined. It is certainly beautiful to me – both individual skills like the Maradona goal, as well as highly coordinated team play. But I suppose any sport is beautiful to its most devoted fans. The beautifullest sport, I feel, should be one whose beauty is apparent even to a casual observer.

By that metric too, football might be among the contenders. But my pick, at least for now, is badminton.

I had the thought recently while watching The Mistress Dispeller (2024) which now ranks as one of my favourite movies ever.

The movie has a few scenes of the protagonists playing badminton. They play recreationally, in what looks like a typical municipal sports hall, but I found myself admiring the movements and rhythm of the game. It's captivating, even poetic.

Elite badminton is still more beautiful, especially the women's game which tends to be slightly slower, with fewer smashes and longer rallies. Badminton racquets, I think, look more elegant than those used in other racquet sports, and when they hit the shuttlecock, they make a most satisfying ping. I like the rhythm of the game too: a slow lunge and reach, followed by a swift flick of the wrist, the shuttlecock flying off the racquet at speed, and then falling in a slow, graceful arc. Slow-fast-fast-slow.

The shuttlecock itself, with "its ridiculous asymmetric shape", is a unique object (as far as I know, the only other sport that uses something remotely similar is jianzi). It's the fastest object in sport, yet the drag from the feathers means that it decelerates dramatically (as this article puts it, "The exponential deceleration of a shuttlecock in flight means that for any particular court condition it is almost impossible to hit a shuttlecock much further than its design distance"). It follows a parachute trajectory, rather than the parabola of other sports balls.

After a gap of several years, inspired partly by The Mistress Dispeller, I started playing badminton again. And also watching badminton, although the names I grew up with – Lin Dan, Lee Chong Wei, Susi Susanti – are all retired. BWF streams the major tournaments, so I can watch for free, which is not the case for a lot of other sports.

* * *

An Se-young of South Korea is the current world no.1 in women's singles, as well as the reigning world champion and Olympic champion. She's only 23, but already in the conversation for greatest women's singles player of all time. I like her calm and methodical play, and especially her dives (I have a thing for dives, which is why Jonty Rhodes was my favourite cricketer). At this point in time, unless ASY is not fully fit or having a really bad day, I think no other woman on the tour can beat her. To me, she is like Messi – doing essentially normal things, but unbelievably well.

Tai Tzu-ying was like Ronaldinho. (I say was, because although TTY, at 31, has not officially retired, she plays a lot less now.*) In this post, Bharath V tries to explain the irresistible charm of TTY in full flow – graceful, creative, unpredictable, playing with joy, and bringing joy to those of us who have the good fortune to watch her play.

There's this video I've watched many times over: Tai Tzu Ying: Queen of Deception. One of the most delightful things about the compilation is how often the commentators – and sometimes even her opponent, like Carolina Marin at 1:24 – are laughing at TTY's skill and sheer audacity. Or try this video for a taste of her astonishing repertoire and imagination.

In Tai Tzu-ying's mind, there are many possibilities.

* * *

Players like Ronaldinho, Messi and Tai Tzu-ying can produce moments of transcendental skill, but some of the loveliest moments in sport are not about skill at all. Michelle Li and An Se-young laughing at a fluke shot. Jia Yifan playfully stealing the winner's cheque from her opponents, who are also her teammates in the national team. Sometimes, with everything that's going on in the world, when I need something to lift my mood, I watch a video clip of Tai Tzu-ying during COVID lockdowns, world no.1 at the time, playing badminton on a sidewalk with her 90-year-old grandma.

*	Edit: The very day I wrote this post, TTY announced her retirement. Dev Sukumar wrote, "If there was one thing Tai Tzu Ying gifted badminton, it is that essential but forgotten element of sport – playfulness."

Sayang

Last year I posted about a tailless black cat I met at my friend's HDB block in Eunos. I had an instant connection with him, as you do with some cats (and also with some people).

A few months later, from a post on a Facebook group which cares for community cats, I found out that he died.

The photo is by Ruth Sn, posted with permission. Here's the note she wrote:

Just to inform the eunos feeders in case you are looking for the short tail black boy with glue on his back. For 3 days since Monday he was not well & stopped eating, aunt managed to secure him yesterday. I wanted to rush him to the vet in emergency but very sadly he passed away just before I reached her home

Remembering black gentle cute boy with big eyes. You are always untouchable but I managed to sayang you when your body lay lifeless.

You are always friendly to the other cats residing there giving them head rubs. Still missing you 😢😢😢

Sayang (from Malay) is a lovely word – especially the verb form, which means something like showing love and affection through sweet words or gestures.

It's been more than a year, but I still think about him from time to time. I'm glad that Ruth and the other auntie cared for him in his final days, and he got a sweet inter-faith (Christian–Buddhist) funeral and cremation. And I'm glad I got to meet him, however briefly, and sayang him, receiving many head rubs in exchange.

The Number of Hours We Have Together

The other day my friend Muzi and I were going to a mall for dinner. Her place is on my bus route to the mall, and we were trying to coordinate so she could get on the same bus.

The mall is about four stops from her place, so all this frantic coordination was for an 8-minute bus ride (as opposed to simply meeting at the mall). We should have known it was bound to fail, given Muzi's lack of yuanfen with the 145 bus.

I have another friend, Juliet, with whom I play pickleball at various venues around town. She has a car, and often suggests I go to a bus-stop near her place from where she can give me a ride. In some cases it would have been just as easy for me to go to the court directly, but if she gives me a ride, we get a bit more time together, which is nice. Maybe I'm growing sappy with age, but I find it rather touching – these little things people do to spend a few extra minutes together.

All this reminds me of these lines from For M by Mikko Harvey:

The number
of hours
we have
together is
actually not
so large.
Please linger
near the
door uncomfortably
instead of
just leaving.
Please forget
your scarf
in my
life and
come back
later for
it.

* * *

From anything by Adrianne Lenker: "Carol has a little if we need some / Joa has a ride if we wanna come."

The first line is probably a drug reference, but it makes me think of close-knit groups where you freely borrow and share and exchange stuff.

The other day Juliet messaged me at 7:30am, asking if I want to join a game at 8:30. I got out of bed, quickly showered and left the house. When I got there she handed me chocolate milk and a banana, saying "I figured you didn't have time for breakfast."

* * *

There are a couple of companies which send me photography gear to test and review. My contact at one of these companies made a passing reference to "other influencers", which tickled me because it implies that I'm an influencer too.

I told a few people about it, and they all said something along the lines of "Face it, you are an influencer." But Abbi had a different take:

Abbi:	Look at you moving up in the world Actually, I think this would be a downgrade
me:	😳 Downgrade from what?
Abbi:	Who you are and what you do

It's another example of seeing the best in me.

Paragons of Wisdom

My friend Abbi was recently trying to mediate a family conflict. I said it's good she decided to intervene, and she said, "Yeah, the cancer helps. People suddenly think you are a paragon of wisdom."

For the record, I always thought she's a paragon of wisdom.

Some guy she had a crush on in high school moved back to her town. I asked her if she still likes him, and she said:

No lol
I don't know why I liked him
And my type has completely changed
To kind people who want to be with me 😅

I tend to set a lot of store by similar interests, sense of humour, curiosity and so forth – and these things are important too. But if you had to narrow it down to just two things, I think this is as good a list as any: kind people who want to be with me.

* * *

In an earlier post I said how my pickleball group has a diverse age range. Here's Oliver (17) and his aunt, who came to play together:

It was my first time meeting Oliver – a sweet, soft-spoken guy who is into boxing and microbiology. In fact he was a bit reluctant to admit to the latter ("I don't want to sound like a geek..."), but I assured him that my friends circle has many geeks.

Later that night, one of the older ladies was teasing me about why I don't have a girlfriend ("Stop being so picky" and so on). I didn't mind; I tease her about various things too. But Oliver took it to heart, and said to me, "Don't worry about what they say, bro, just work on yourself."

My friend Li Ling overheard, and was like "Wow, you got life advice from a 17 year old!"

Near-Perfect Contentment

There's a Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin says "Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria!" I like happiness and euphoria too (who doesn't) but perhaps what I aspire to even more is contentment.

In my final year of college, I experienced a moment of near-perfect contentment.

I was standing on the balcony of our hostel (dorm), looking out. I had a job offer (frankly, a very desirable job offer – although I quit a few years later, but that's a different story), I felt part of a community (my college friends who I hung out with almost every day), and my days were full and fun. At the same time, I was aware that this period of my life was about to end, and the community that I loved so much would soon disperse. But perhaps this sense of transience – mono no aware – is also a necessary part of near-perfect contentment.

Anyhow, I resolved to try and remember that moment. Since then, I have had three or four such moments – I mean, moments when I experience near-perfect contentment, and consciously try to remember it.

One such moment was when I was living and working in Tokyo. It was a weekend or a public holiday. I was having breakfast (I had a serviced apartment with a complimentary breakfast buffet – that was the life), reading a very good book (Underground by Murakami), and looking forward to a day of exploring Tokyo.

Another was more recently, in Singapore. I was in a mall – Lucky Plaza, which is one of the older malls (I have a soft spot for older malls, and Lucky Plaza is a cute name) – and I was waiting for two friends whom I was meeting for lunch. From where I stood, I was overlooking Orchard Road, a prime spot for people-watching. I had headphones on – I even remember the song I was listening to: Tantra Practice by Emily Lind (it has the line "Twenty bucks for lucky weed," which now always reminds me of Lucky Plaza). I was looking forward to the lunch – Filipino food, and the friends I was meeting are two of my favourite people in the world – and also to a contemporary dance performance which I was going for afterwards. I enjoyed the dance show too.

In my last post I was reflecting on final thoughts: "whether I'll want to be fully present in the moment, or perhaps, drift off as I relive a happy memory." I still don't know the answer, but if I were to relive a happy memory, one of these near-perfect contentment moments would be a good option. However, I think I have an even better candidate.

Since I graduated from college, I have mostly lived in other countries. When I go back home to Kolkata, I often have afternoon tea with my parents – milky tea with biscuits (Britannia Marie Gold or cream crackers). I haven't consciously "recorded" a moment of near-perfect contentment during teatime with my parents – they kind of blur into one – but in the moment, I feel happy, grounded and loved. Winter-afternoon light filtering through the windows, my mum telling us about some bird she saw that morning, and biscuits dipped in chai.

Final Thoughts

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell – one of my all-time favourite novels – has two scenes where people who are about to die relive happy memories. In the first, Sonmi-451, who is a fabricant (a type of clone) is giving her final interview. She is – spoiler alert – executed for rebellion, but in a post-apocalyptic future, she is revered as a god.

The interview has some zingers:

Archivist: But if you knew about this ... conspiracy, why did you cooperate with it?

Sonmi-451: Why does any martyr cooperate with his judases? He sees a further endgame.

The interview, and the chapter, ends with her final request:

You can switch off your silver orison now, Archivist. My time is short and I claim my last request.

Very well... name it.

The use of your sony and access codes.

What do you wish to download?

I wish to finish viewing a film I began watching when, for an hour in my life, I knew happiness.

Cloud Atlas consists of six nested stories spanning multiple geographies and timelines. In San Francisco, 1973, Joe Napier, a security man, wants to retire to his mountain cabin and a life of fishing. But he tries to help his friend's daughter, journalist Luisa Rey, in a corporate crime investigation, and eventually dies trying to protect her. He is shot by Bill Smoke, a henchman, who leaves Napier for dead, and turns his attention to Luisa Rey. But Napier summons the last of his strength, and reaches for his gun:

The trigger resists his index finger – then a blaze of incredible noise spins Bill Smoke backwards, his arms flailing like a marionette's.

In the fourth to last moment of his life, Napier fires another bullet into the marionette silhouetted by stars. The word 'Silvaplana' comes to him, unasked for.

In the third to last moment, Bill Smoke’s body slides down the cabin door.

Second to last, an inset digital clock blinks from 21:57 to 21:58.

Napier's eyes sink, newborn sunshine slants through ancient oaks and dances on a lost river. Look, Joe, herons.

I've occasionally thought about what my final moments – and final thoughts – might be like. Whether I'll be alone or have people around me. Whether I'll be conscious of the fact that my time is up. And if I'm conscious, whether I'll want to be fully present in the moment, or perhaps, drift off as I relive a happy memory.

I'll ponder some more, and write about it in my next post.

And I'll try not to die before that – which would be ironic, but also one hell of a cliffhanger.

Thanksgiving

My friend Abbi's 3-year-old nephew made this Thanksgiving Turkey – or rather his mom filled it in for him, but he told her what to write.

It says water bottle, my guitar pick, snacks, new baby sister, Aunt Lisa, zoo, Daddy, Mama, Aunt Abbi, Uncle Nate.

I asked Abbi about the guitar pick and she said, "My mom found one and gave it to him (he loves music and has a little pretend guitar). But he lost it 😂"

Anyway, I love guitar pick and water bottle – that he is thankful for objects – and cheap, everyday objects at that. It got me thinking about cheap, everyday objects that I am thankful for.

I recently got these plastic drawers which were only S$5 each (you can see them on the shelf below the typewriter).

I used to keep my art supplies in my storeroom, but now that I have them in my study, in neatly organised drawers, I use them more.

I'm likewise thankful for my cotton bedsheet, a pair of sneakers that I got for a steal (secondhand but unused), and a mint-blue retro-style toaster which I found abandoned in our recycling bay.

In my previous post, there's a photo of Chiok (who made the pomelo kombucha) and our mutual friend Emiri. Emiri is Japanese, and said itadakimasu before drinking. Chiok's partner Guofeng asked her what it means, and Emiri said it's a way of saying thanks.

Guofeng:	Like thanks to Chiok, for making the kombucha?
Emiri:	To everyone. To Chiok, to the farmer who grew the pomelo, the people you bought ingredients from, and also to the pomelo.

Syncretism on Rangoon Road

I was cycling past this shrine on Rangoon Road in Singapore (that's my bike in the photo), when I noticed that it has Taoist deity Tua Pek Kong cohabiting with Hindu deity Ganesh.

In front of Ganesh, there is a bottle and a can of Strawberry Fanta. Ganesh keeps healthy.

Two Chinese Puppet Shows

I went to two Chinese puppet shows in the last year, which were both interesting but very different.

The first one was by Ge Yi Hokkien Opera & Puppet Troupe at Hong San See Temple. It was free to attend, but for the performance that we went to, my friend Carol and I were the only audience. Although Carol was saying that the performance is mainly intended for the temple gods, so maybe publicising it for and attracting a mortal audience is not high on the temple's agenda.

The dialogue was in (possibly archaic) Hokkien, and although Carol is fluent in Mandarin, she could only understand bits and pieces. But I thought it was cool that they had live music, and we could see "backstage" simply by peeping around. I love the handpainted sets and backdrops too.

In the photo below, you can see one of the puppeteer's hands.

The other show was much more lavish: Journey West: Mount Fiery by Paper Monkey Theatre. It was in the air-conditioned auditorium of the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, and a ticketed performance, although I got a complimentary pass from my friend Redwan who was one of the musicians.

In the photo below you can see two of the puppeteers, clad in outfits that bear an amusing resemblance to beekeeping suits.

The story was mostly enacted through puppets, but for some bits, they also had human figures in costume, which was more like traditional theatre or opera.

Journey West had higher production values, and English surtitles which helped me follow the plot. But as a cultural experience, I have to say it was the temple performance that I enjoyed more.

Idiot

From Eric Hobsbawm's introduction to The Communist Manifesto:

…the original meaning of the Greek term 'idiotes', from which the current meaning of 'idiot' or 'idiocy' is derived: 'a person concerned only with his own private affairs and not with those of the wider community'.

Bloglook and Blogname

The other day I was reading a post by photographer Hannah Yoon, and thinking that Substack's design looks rather sophisticated and nice – whitespace, serif font, occasionally (in this case) broken up with an understated photograph. And I found myself wondering if I should give this blog another makeover to make it look more like Substack, or perhaps even start a new blog on Substack. (A parallel blog I mean; I wouldn't abandon this one.)

The new blog, if I were to start one, would be about photography. In 2020 I started writing regularly for a couple of photography websites, whereupon I decided I would reserve this blog mostly for non-photography topics. But I've recently been wondering if, rather than writing for other photography blogs, I should just start my own. Just an idle thought; I most likely won't act on it. In any case, changing this blog's design to make it more Substack-like was still an option.

Then I saw this tweet asking what people miss about the "good old days" of the web, to which @jeesun replied:

i miss blogs with a unique look. it seems like everyone uses substack nowadays.

I think I'll keep my old design for now :)

What I would like to change is how it looks on mobile devices. But that involves messing with the CSS template and implementing responsive design, which I currently don't (perhaps never will) have the energy for.

* * *

In hindsight, I would have liked to have chosen a blog name and URL that don't have my own name – but that ship has sailed.

Last year I wrote that one of the blog names I considered was The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. I think Planting Cabbages would have been a good name too. It's from a quote by Michel de Montaigne:

Let death find me planting my cabbages, indifferent to death, and still more to my unfinished garden.

Planting Cabbages is my username on WeChat, which I use to communicate with some of my Chinese friends. One time they asked me why I picked this name, and I told them about the Montaigne quote. They found it very interesting, and on the taxi ride home, we ended up having a long discussion about it. One of them also speaks French, so she looked up the original quote and proposed various possible translations. Another mentioned a Chinese philosopher who said something similar.

They later told me that the discussion continued after they dropped me off. The taxi-driver was silent throughout, but right at the end, as they were getting off, he asked, "But why cabbages?"

Masked Figures

Shortly after joking about mosquito bites, I got a severe case of dengue and had to spend four nights in hospital. This is like the time when I made a flippant remark about a minor earthquake and, two days later, experienced one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history.

On my second day at the hospital, I had... I'm not sure what to call it – a daydream? vision? hallucination? I was lying in bed hooked up to an IV drip, a bit drowsy – not asleep, but perhaps not fully awake either – when I saw two figures at the foot of my bed. They wore expressionless white masks which covered their whole face, and red robes like the Red Rebel Brigade.

The vision(?) lasted just seconds, and felt different from a dream, in that I could see the rest of the room just as it was in real life, but with these two figures quietly looking over me. Their aura was not exactly evil, but not quite benign either. Enigmatic, like Kaonashi in Spirited Away.

Anyway when I saw them, I had a feeling that I would die that day (specifically from organ failure). I had a friend who died of complications from dengue, so maybe that was on my mind. Interestingly, it didn't make me anxious or panicky – though I did think about my family, and how they would feel if I died before they could see me.

Why was I not scared? I think one reason is that I don't set much store by premonitions. I have hunches and presentiments from time to time, both good and bad. Some come true, and some don't. A second reason is that the masked figures felt, if anything, like a calming presence.

I wonder if I will see them again.

Two Carol Quotes

The mezzanine floor of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple has statues of several eminent monks, such as Venerable Miao Hua (1922-2009) pictured below.

My friend Carol described it as "Madame Tussauds for monks".

* * *

Last year I watched Women's Football World Cup final with Carol and her dad. Before that, we also watched a few Men's World Cup games together which, here in Singapore, were very late at night.

On one such occasion – a Friday – we went to a birthday party in the evening. Carol and I left around 11pm to come back to my place, where her friend also joined us. We watched a game from midnight to 2am. I napped for a bit, while the two of them went out to eat bak kut teh at one of the all-night joints on my street. Then we watched another game from 3–5am.

I was wearing this t-shirt, which dates back to my college days when I was much more into football than I am now:

"Maybe you should cross out the Sleep," Carol said.