updated 24 February 2000

Where's b?

Singapore

16 January - Sunday


This afternoon I met one of my former students. She is a young artist from China. She studied at the finest art institute in China. She was one of 30 students from the whole of China to study there. She took a four day art exam of some sort and finished first in the country. She is now 24 and has come to Singapore to further her art career.

She mentioned that she was an artist. I expressed interest and she asked if I would like to see some of her work. I did and she volunteered to bring a small portfolio of her work to class. I didn't expect anything special, but I was extremely impressed with her work. I only saw small photos, but the works looked fantastic. By my eyes, her paintings were masterfully executed.

After seeing her talent I was a little ashamed that I had named her so flippantly. When she was handed over to me as my student I asked if she had an English name. Several students did but she didn't. She asked me to give her one. She told me her name and I tried to think of the most similar sounding English name and came up with "Jamie." She told me today that she likes the name. I was glad to hear that.

She explained that she liked to paint portraits and she said she would like to paint mine. I felt privileged and agreed we should arrange a time to work on it. She said that I would be the first Westerner that she had painted. Two classes later we exchanged phone numbers and she called me that night and asked if I wanted to go to an art exhibition with her. We arranged to meet on Sunday.

She had already attended the opening of the exhibition and didn't like it. So we went for a drink instead. We went to the Roomful of Blues. I explained to her that it was a special place in Singapore and that the owner was friendly. I told Steve that I'd come by to play with the band now that I had free time. He asked if there was school holiday. I said, "Yeah, a permanent holiday." He gave us two pints for the price of two half-pints.

20 January -Thursday

Jamie came by early this evening. We had some tea and I asked if she wanted to go for a walk. We walked to Mt. Emily park, a nearby hill of green that I had just discovered. The sun was setting as we arrived. We walked up the old concrete steps to the top of the hill. There were a few benches, some swings, and palm trees. The park was deserted except for us and another couple.

We sat on a bench and watched the sky turn pink. There was a cool breeze and the palm trees blew above the city. We were situated so that we couldn't see any buildings, only trees, green and sky.

We both are surprised at how much we are able to communicate even though we don't speak the same languages. I have a lot of practice communicating with people not fluent in English, but there's more to it than that. I have an example.

We were actually talking about our language gap and she said, "Bu…Bu.." and motioned in a praying motion. I said Buddha. She said, "yes." She said, "he said the".. she made a circle in the sky, I said moon. She said, "like this," and pointed in the sky. She tried to say some other words, but I said, the finger is pointing at the moon, the finger is not the moon, language is not the moon, it only points at the moon. She said yes. She was talking about Hotei-san pointing at the moon, I knew it from Sengai's paintings in Japan. I told her only a few Western people would have been able to understand what she was saying. And that's an understatment.

21 January - Friday - Thaipusam Festival

Today I was lucky to catch the Thaipusam Festival. Thaipusam is the Indian festival where devotees pierce themselves through their cheeks and tongues and stick pins or hooks in their torsos. Those participating transport shrines decorated with flower petals, peacock feathers and images or symbols of deities. Many Indians crowded along the streets to watch the procession. We joined the crowd and watched the parade of bare-chested Indians with ritually pierced bodies. The attractive Indian women in their colorful sarees were as much a sight to see as the participants.

Unfortunately, I left the parade no wiser than I had come. The ritual is obviously related to the "Vegetarian Festival" in Southern Thailand (most notably Phuket and Trang). There is also a similar festival oustide Kuala Lumpur at the Batu Caves. I'm not sure of the date on that one.

Each person has a set of two rods piercing their faces, a horizontal rod through their cheeks, a vertical one through their tongues. I can only guess that the buckets on their heads contain offerings of some kind to Hindu deities. The man appears to be carrying milk (Vishnu appears as the beloved cowherd Krishna, perhaps the milk is for him.)
The first man also appears to be carrying offerings in buckets. His buckets however (If I'm not mistaken) are hanging from his skin by hooks. He also has what appear to be bells hooked into his torso and there is something on his face as well. The other fella is transporting himself in a cage like shrine. He occasionally spins and dances around in his cage to the enthusiatic encouragment of his entourage of young men.

Previous -- Next

Index - New Orleans Music - Where's b? - Travels - Festivals - Links