7°05
“哦，我住八百多号...”

近来常遇见熟悉的面孔，都是同学，也算是同区近邻，只不过从来很少交谈，所以每回碰上，感觉都很新鲜；唯独我个性不善客套，所以，哈啦不到几句，通常就自请告退。昨天遇上的，印象中好像就是列车里一直站在身旁的那位，只不过也不加注意，只是下了车到了站才被对方叫住。短短擦肩之中获悉某某所居，虽不是什么情报，但却也让我联想到那里几间好好吃的煮炒熟食。对，就是港式煮炒，那种请了多半是大马的伙计、一口重重的马式广东腔的煮炒小吃店，伙计们点菜上菜买单清桌都是一流的快手快脚。店里的烹饪师傅也是几位染了头发的热血青年，当然也有老板模样的老手。外头的伙计利用中文缩写纪录客人的点选：“什锦菜”写“杂才”，“湿炒河粉”写“河”，“炒饭”写“反”，等。点完菜后，伙计把点单往厨房送，利用木夹扣在板上，厨房助手依照点单准备料理，头手则接着下厨。也就是这种运作上的巧妙，让我一直对煮炒摊着迷；因为盘盘盛出，虽然少有重复，却样样料理到味，就好像是餐馆搬进了邻里，有一种很贴近人心却不妥协于品味的质感。这给人某种说不出的原滋味，甚至于恰到好处的微妙。这也难怪，偶然相遇时，竟有令人误以为好像认识了好久好久的熟悉感觉。

另一位朋友，是晨跑时遇上的。这位可挺有意思的，因为观其言行，从来探不出有任何焦躁或疑虑的心境，总是一副安详的面孔，有一种莫名的来之安之的清闲道家样子。原来她住的地方就在我常跑路线上的水道边，是钓鱼池的湖畔景区，也是前往海边公园的必经之地。这里除了垂钓者的偶发喧哗，其实非常幽静，有高大的树木，平静的水面，更有不远处的习习海风，与这位外形带有静态美的同学，有不谋而合的对照。

近日遇见的两位熟人，让我重温一个假设命题：人的个性与居住环境是否有相应关系？很治学的问题，是吧？晨跑归途中，一只口中含着树枝的鸟儿飞过蓝天，赶着去筑巢。

6°28
上周六，在乌敏骑了半天的脚车后归来，知道傍晚八点在勿洛水池有巨型艺术公演，就扯了老妈一起去观赏。在四美慈光用了素食晚餐后（还遇到了中学同学阿敦），到水池时已经开演了；因为不熟悉舞台所在，何况湖面一绕就是三公里，所以找了一阵子，随着音乐的指引，沿水边走去。原来夜里的勿洛水池那么优静；离自家只有十几分钟脚车程，不多来真是可惜。到了现场，太多人了，大家都挤着、站着，人人都在设法争睹表演，个子矮的就只好忍着从一个个后脑勺间的缝隙中抢观热闹。原先以为表演将采用池水的大面积来布局，利用远岸、近岸、湖水的大黑暗、水位变异、甚至在幽幽园林中进行变幻无穷的编排规划，从宏观开演逐后拉近微观，加上公开现场的多方位方便，演员可360°随处为台，甚至可能绕行演出，可惜，我设想太多了，这场由荷兰“狂人团”呈现的Hydro Sapiens舞台范围仅局限于岸外不远的水上平台，台上设了许多夸大型的装置，利用视觉效果和水上浮动等互动，达到“戏水”的意境。后半部有一段两人在水上浮动大球上平衡的表演，运用了的物理原理编排，把结构平衡美译化为视觉的平衡美。岸上围观的可热闹了。因为是公开场合，没有自我消音的约束，好多人很坦然地就地讨论起对演出的感想。

“在做什么？很闷啦！可以走了吗？”
“等一等啦！我要看robot！”

结果robot真的出现了。巨型的robot 以塑胶瓶子集结而成，似乎要强调当今社会对“水”作为人性架构的根本元素与环境影响挂钩联系的某种反思，好像我们早已脱离了把水看成是水的本来面目。几个荷兰人在新加坡探讨“水”的当下定义，而“水”恰好是新加坡长期关注的问题。水是一种产品吗？瓶里原有的水，喝完了，和大面积的池水相比对，还是同质同体的吗？一个由空塑胶瓶组成的巨人，从水上平台立正而重生，是什么力量赋予它生命？巨人的双眼喷出火焰，脸颊则水花四射，形成了水火并存不相容的画面。这时候天上忽然响起几声炮火，天色绽开了烟花。太美了，因为几年前在瑞士的某个山中湖上，我也目睹了一对新人的小型结婚庆典：一个小木板平台，烟花从湖上一艘小船点放。短短几响烟火，却扣了众人几夜的心弦。戏演完了，大众又恢复了匆忙的脚步赶路散去，蓄水池路的交通也开始堵了起来。湖水慢慢失去了短暂的魅力，却恢复了以往的平静。本岛上有那么多水面，湖泊，如果每个月在不同的地点来一次水上夜曲，水调歌头，真不知道那会鼓起一种怎么样的激情或冲动。必然会有一些人质疑这是否好不好搞，可行不可行；因为人们都喜欢开车，要看水上公演，地点若不便，停车应该挺麻烦的。

我想：少一点开车，减少碳脚印。环保本来就是一种行为艺术。

6°22
It was the first time in several years to be on the Ubin-bound bumboat again, though embarkation from the new Changi jetty was definitely a personal debut. It's good that the new design did not attempt to systematise or "clean-up" the haphazard manners of passenger coordination at the so-called "departure hall", based on first-come-first-served and packing numbers, for all else remains the same experience, except that the boatmen were wearing crocs this time round; crocs were, afterall, designed for boaters in the first place. As RJ rightly puts it, losing the precursory bumboat experience is as good as giving up on the Ubin charm altogether. Everything stays the way it is, right up to the barnacles-coated stainless steel railings submerged by the tides (though one may wonder if Ezlinking the process will somehow make public transport to the island slightly more seamless; well, we already have that "please mind the platform gap" message anyway). The bunch of us rode on the cheapest range of bikes, so the bulk of the journey proceeded in an orchestra of synthetic gasket squeaks and aluminium alloy shrills. The remainder was either pulmonary pulsation (i.e. panting as we pushed bikes upslope), or simply very industrial-sounding hiccups (as the gear shifter refused to work, slipping the chain back on the same freewheel disc over and again). We cycled to Chek Jawa, walked the boardwalks, went up the viewing tower and ended the walkabout at the conserved 1930s Tudor-styled house-turned-visitor centre, which, judging by the flooding statistics of planar volumetrical overkill in the so-called "contemporary" architectural climate of our urbanite everydayness, generated immense appeal via such natural tendency towards the strangely familiar. By the time we ventured into the Ketam mountain bike trail, we had ingested enough saccharides, including coconut sources, to either reassure ourselves that we've amply recouped our physical exhaustion, or that we were only deluding ourselves as to the actual net loss. Anyway, we chickened out from the adventure trail, after only witnessing two "diamond" types; actually we haven't got time for kid's play. But one other phenomena that has overtaken the lovely pulau (which is Singapore's only valid and sizeable expanse of offshore retreat, never mind the two-year Tekong "manliness" clinic) is that it is getting remarkably unloveable with the lengths (literally) they go to at fencing up the island, both within and around it. Even the only chalet on the island operates in a closed-door, gated format behind obsolete chain-link fences, refusing random visitors the benefit of a curious stroll. The most beautiful quarry lakes are also locked out of access if not blocked in view by the forbidding boundaries. Although the intent is obvious and well-placed, it is equally unsympathetic and without strategy when considered in relation to scenic priorities. Naturally, extending the arguments via pragmatic considerations can only lead to further endorsement of the current state of repulse. Perhaps it is high time to consider where natural environment ends, and where artifice and interface begins to interfere as a calculated solution. We connected the dots on the map, passing by numerous sightings of shrines and huts with all sorts of humorous albeit dated billboard taglines, only to zip by Wat Siam realising it is now void on blank slate. "What happened?" It feels like one of those meetings when decisions were made and passed so long ago that when the downstream parties finally got the truth, they are way beyond the critical path. Well, perhaps there is a grander intent in this manoeuvre; hopefully it's not an accidental nudge on the masterplan paperwork, just to make the visuals a little easier to talk about. If the sensitivities arising from southern ridges has resulted in statistical sensibilities, it is a matter of time that mass attention will weigh itself eventually onto this laidback idleland of mystical quarries, fruitlands, rustic farms and dirt tracks, which, as status quo, is still trapped in the assertively self-imposed imagination of biking rigour, obstacle course vigour, and wetlands environmentalist de rigueur; too much exertion only makes the sun a more blinding, merciless heat, and the tropical rain a nightmarish monsoon. Put into the equation such soft spots like the lazy affairs that formulate camaraderie during cycling pit-stops, pavilion shelters, or drinks vendor-stations (apparently it's never the cycling that does the magic, although poor brakes and bad gears do add to the laughter bits), and so on. It is the palette of netted hammocks, coastline breezes, floating pontoons, fractured rubber tyres against timber hulls, the commotion of bike selection and rental, the occasional student event commencing from at the basketball court, not to mention the hounding by territorial OBS signboards "sorry you are trespassing"... In fact, this sounds like a palette of diurnal transience, the quotidian architecture of which is demonstrated in the insignificance of styles or emphases, not even in the order of things. Almost a blank slate, if you consider the perennial nature of Ubin's Tua Pek Kong's opera stage; it waits in quiescence, like a springboard, ready for the great leap once in a while. Yet we sense a larger curiosity at work here, the curiosity about a real and surviving rural lifestyle, or the curiosity of the depths of equatorial jungle claustrophobia, of the worldviews of tropical island recluses, seafarers, kelong farmers and boatmen, the curiosity of the nightly soulfulness and island myths, the curiosity of the micro-histories in and around each remaining shrine and tablet (especially the introduction of deities of "foreign nationalities")... the curiosity that feeds the island with photography clansmen complete with tripod troopers every weekend. In fact, so many of us grew up having camped at least once on Pulau Ubin, especially those from uniformed groups or student leader organisations. It may not have been a pleasant experience, depending on what level of regimentation each of us went through. There is a collective memory very well in existence all this time, only just latent; how often it is nourished and re-surfaced, depends on how often the magical chord that set the original tone is struck again.

Not forgetting the food at Changi village.

6°18
说是巧合吧？夜间短暂盛开的，叫昙花。昙花一现，总在无人寂静的深夜，总是悄悄的不让你察觉。花开时，只保留三、四个小时，之后就徐徐闭合凋谢。巧的是，最近家前的昙花也开了，我也没当一会儿事。等到隔天，花谢了，才来叹惜，有什么意思呢？莫非不远处也有类似之遇？流失的契机，再逢不易。昙花若能一现再现，那是努力，是发心不让机会擦身而过的勇气使然，更是断然不再以借口推托的坚持恒定。

一花一世界。偈语像轻雨微袭，合上眼睛，不留声闻。似乎又恼了什么，因为流失的机遇，说出的话，放出的箭，是收不回来的，只有硬着头皮让悔意猛压着。可能就是这脾气，成了好多懊恼；竟是无言，也是压着受。偶尔有渐渐化开的影子，在黑暗中摸索什么，也就只是似乎，许些含糊，好像是硬要把这一路走来修饰得合情合理，要编出一个所以然来。结果体会了什么？多些是前有所思，后有所为，好像生命中的每一步，都是先前某一刻的无心插柳时划定好的，是预录的快餐点选菜单，点的时候随意，现的时候失落。也就是这样，我突然醒了，原来一刻都不能怠慢，把该放的放了，把该提的，提了。是时候提了，提得准，是拿捏分寸要到位。记得曾经有朋友讲述一位航空管制官（air traffic controller）在控制塔上面紧张急促时的精湛表现：临时报来几个巨型运输航班有起降变卦，因为机身庞大，所以降落跑道必须特别清场；临时又报来几个军用战机要急速下降。短短几分钟的过程，管制官在秒秒发号司令，竟然临危不乱，按部就班把各个航班起降要求妥当斡旋处理，结果圆满地实现了各家的苛求。我当时听了，不以为然。这有什么神气，也不过是个交通指挥罢了！何况，事发而过，谁会记得她斡旋的高超，假以时日，不也就只是个普通人？突然间自觉还是搞创意比较好凸现自己的才华，因为产品是实质的：建筑，设计，影片... 这都是有模有样的存在体用。但是这几个月来忙着跑project，才体会所谓的“交通指挥”的辛酸。要把方案理得有条圆融，简直就是纸上谈兵，有登天之难！也与此同时，照见自己当初的肤浅，为了一个自我愉悦的虚名，不知要烧尽别人多少的梦想，让人苦中作乐都有自怜之嫌。何况，就连实质的建筑，也会遭受被遗忘的下场。这时候，你会惊然反照周边不计其数的“交通指挥”的神通，想象他们如何冥冥中助你一臂之力。他们都是莫名的，却是简直奇妙的。

另一个常用词，就是“消防员”。有些人出世是为了起火，有些人入世则为了救火。消防员遇见消防员时，会粲然一笑。因为... 也没什么好因为。就算是昙花一现吧。

6°07
六月，雨了。昨夜又一片绿叶随风而逝，放下是非而自由，再现广阔而爽朗。离开的，不知道算不算羁绊；迎来的，不知道是不是枷锁。也不用想太多，不然，连氧气也成了累赘。起步就是机会。别了习气，就是起头一大步。

步行到慈济捐血，短短的过程，可以感受到静思堂的庄严和为民服务的热诚。一位在广告业作创意的慈济义工和我闲谈，说到他们平时在静思堂进行再循环分类的功课，类别的苛求细致，都做到精益求精。难得谈笑中竟然认识了一位制作建筑模型的好手，他可是在慈济捐血的常客。之后，可能是没顾好戒口，晚餐用了牛肉pho，结果随后的话剧《漂移》竟然就直接以「牛」为教训，真是够牛的。怎么说呢？全剧分十场，每场的标题恰好以禅修内学中“十牛图颂”命名。而「牛」在这里是比喻这念心。简易的做解如下：1。「寻牛」寻找道在那里；2。「见迹」对这念心有点契悟；3。「见牛」发现本具，初步开悟；4。「得牛」已证悟自性；5。「牧牛」时刻观照调心；6。「骑牛归家」心牛驯服，人牛合一；7。「忘牛存人」已无烦恼可断，无妄心可调；8。「人牛俱忘」连觉悟的心也没有了；9。「返本还源」本心清净，无烦恼妄念；10。「入廛（chán）垂手」不居正位，入利他之境。不，这不是什么禅修课程，而是新加坡艺术节的又一个戏剧公演，上海话剧艺术中心和Drama Box 合作之品。

印象比较深刻的对白有“悬挂在半空中的城市”，“生命总在他乡”，“到底谁是自己人”等，引人遐想。但这星期的艺术集结让我印象最深的却不是哪一部剧场，而是周四那宁静夜里的一次突发哗然：那晚我在家中，从远处就听见敲锣打鼓的声音渐渐靠近，本以为是什么醒狮团车队路过，我想，呆一会儿就会过去吧。可是乐声造势不休，竟然越变越响。开门到走廊瞧了瞧，惊见好几辆饰着霓虹耀眼的大花卡车，一字排开的停靠在组屋楼下；车上的锣鼓声响彻全区，这时忽然间出现了一尊祥龙，原来是舞龙团！这很难得，而且让人不解，因为组屋楼下若有乐声奏响，第一反应一定以为是丧礼；可是锣鼓不是丧乐，这气氛有点象搞大拜年。我还以为新加坡艺术节搞得那么成功啊！竟然大刀阔斧把原汁原味的精神法事剧场化、地方化，带到邻里社区来了，给毫无准备的居民们来个即兴特秀！再看清楚，楼下已经有人设坛摆放供品，舞龙队在车道上折腾了好一会儿，舞毕，龙头在坛前点了三下，表示叩拜，后方一位身着古装，手持扇子的仙人缓缓走到坛前，说了些什么，然后一吼“发啊！”，随众接连同声“发啊！”，这样子持续重复了好一会儿。之后又有另一位驼背的古装仙人，两手摆在身后，也是步履蹒跚的走到坛前进行仪式。引路的小生手持三角幡和鞭子，不时鞭拍路面指引仙人。整个仪式相当离奇，太过突发，让人不免疑问重重：他们到底是谁，这是什么法事，是否是哪尊神仙的诞辰，要游街，还是哪个庙会的庆祝，但为什么要在这座组屋楼下呢？好奇的公众聚集围观。那晚，全组屋人百思不解。

隔天，问了老爸，原来是其中一家邻居请神除障驱邪，两位仙人便是大伯公、二伯公。神仙造访，我有眼真不识泰山！这种形式的热闹，太罕见，太难得了，我还真以为是新加坡艺术节搞了什么花样，因为这艺术指标太到味了，神鬼意识就是本土文化，也是06年新加坡双年展《信仰》主题里欠缺的一环真面目；周四那天目睹的仪式，可参透道家的“精气神”一贯，这是大雅之堂所摸索不到的写实，是一种行为艺术，唯有体验能够传达。也正因如此，我对以抽象的，虚拟性质的，或说，MTV式的画面拼凑的效果来呈现“组屋楼下”这个态度性场所，保留发言。原因是“组屋楼下”太神奇了，它的神奇建构在它无有自性，建构在它时而重中心、时而无焦点，建构在它无碍通融、却因场合而生引退效果，让人有近、远的识别选择。这也就是“组屋楼下”空间场所的灰色美。

6°04
心血来潮，赶了场Nibroll《无向》舞蹈公演，由团队主力矢内原美邦编舞，更有高橋啓祐的视觉影像作为舞蹈动画背景，配合ス力ンク的狂音乐与矢内原充志的服饰设计；整体而言，这支艺术组合是个创意合作社，是当今社会这种多元相互影响却当断不断的现实状态中算是殊胜的时空缘合，是一种脱离刻板的“纯”本科正名立命的新思路。舞蹈者拼命地夸大的肢体动作，狂跃，快步操行，带有一种只见于日本动画的童真，怪癖，不可理喻的傻性，狂癫，大喊大叫；虽然有一部分的乱象似乎是刻意的无为，但后面的个别比较有情节部分慢慢把概念带出。全程不乏那象征无方位的指桑骂槐架势；而当一位舞者百思不解地问"where are you going?" 其他人则不客气也停不下脚步地狂奔着。但让我记忆犹新的是高橋的背景动画，尤其是当整个cityscape 从高耸云立颠覆成向下直垂，这种往上又往下，又上又下的重复悠游，让人莫名的忆起911发生时那垂直跳楼的毛骨悚然一幕；而上下弹回的动作把城市的杂物集中又摔散，引人联想到筒井康隆著的パプリカ（paprika）那幕进入梦幻假境时那堆积如山的玩具游行过街的乱象。结果还是被地心吸力给归零。八个主角一一崩溃，荧幕中的八个身影分化为无数小人，小人越来越多，排列成条文，结果，还真给我猜中，画面拼排成世界地图形状（有点太过了）。后面有平原化为花开，花开成木林，木林成山，山中又现花蕊，从微观转宏观又入微观，层层相连，一即一切。除了建筑师久野啓太郎的经纬（grid）平面感觉因为舞台的局限而无法脱颖而可惜，Nibroll《无向》该说是一场高辛烷超动感的艺术表演。

6°01
一直期盼昨日的文化论坛，因为，从好久前就很喜欢那部立邦漆（日本漆）的电视广告，就是布局于少数民族山区中大草原，一群天真无邪的村民身穿漂亮的服饰，利用鲜艳的油漆把房子粉刷一新；天空除了一朵棉花云，竟是万里蓝天，油漆的节奏几乎一律有韵，合作的村民们把漆桶手手相传；音乐是蒙古的“朱迪娜娜”，美妙的曲子里歌词的意思是“针儿可是铁打成的呀，朱迪娜娜咴！心儿可是肉长成的呀，朱迪娜娜咴！美梦都被你带走了，哲德尔姑娘，朱迪娜娜咴！”画面终结就是Nippon Paint；手法简明，效果精准。当然，你可能都不记得了，这是十多年前的作品。那么脍炙人口，由林子祥主演的“你怕黑吗？”，“半夜敲门也不惊”，“改变环境来适应自己”等系列广告，或是中国银行的“止，而后能观”唯美风景写实篇呢？幕后的创意原点就是本土才女林少芬，早报已提供诸多介绍。风趣的她与大会分享了为CCTV2设计的标语“心有多大，舞台就有多大”之灵感来源：曾在赶往青藏取景的途中有三急，荒山中就问了名藏民，厕所在哪里？答案竟然是“西藏有多大，厕所就有多大”。这样的灵感，太“方便”了吧。事事缘起性空，创意点子有时就是在这样的记忆基因碰撞中萌生的。

论坛上有四位名人演说，开讲的是北京宋庄的艺术教父栗宪庭。栗老比我爸年轻，可却已是一头白发。他把中国近代艺术文化史做了详细分析，简直就是上了堂速成班，特别当他说明“毛模式”时提到了一部分人往“高、大、全、红、光、亮”的画风走，另一派则以“小、苦、旧”的伤痕路线着手。这又让我重新审视少芬那立邦漆的广告画面，果然是有点儿粉饰得光亮超实，甚至有乡下年画的平光风格，大跃进的全民劳动工业味。栗老解说的近代绘画史前身的“打倒文人画”引进写实主义，然后说马克西莫夫、苏联影响、毛、西方影响、超现实主义、入禅的王永平、蔡国强的达达（爆破、草船借箭）、政治波普、玩世、艳俗；整合地说，把从先前的以禅入画的文人画势力和写实主义势力对立起来，此盛彼衰，势力交替，本意混淆，使命埋没，腻了，闷了，无聊了，画中人物就如栗老所形容变得像弥勒佛了，嬉皮笑脸，大肚能容。这不是所有以对立起论为前因的现象所将接纳的果报吗？中国银行的禅味广告（止观是佛门概念；风动，心动则是六祖惠能的典故）就是抓到了这个走向，新儒风潮把文人画的风格回流红海，产生了顿时蓝海一泛。但这种一边红，一边蓝，或一边写意，一边写实，双双两极，没有头绪，轮来轮去，不是味道。还是不二法门是一套。

对此，台湾著名戏剧导演赖声川以即兴的方式做了不偏倚中西两极的突破，着重作品里的刹那（当下），以放下，勇气和技巧为方向和方法。有人问赖导，他的《暗恋桃花源》里最后有一句“十分钟，十分钟，一辈子就在等这十分钟”，从导演的角度，想表达的是什么，他答，也没有刻意想说什么，就是剧走到那一点，就要有这样的一句对白。也可见即兴的美，脱离概念性的设计该怎么样该说什么，把各个刹那化作经典，恰到妙处。

也就回想陈冠中对香港的文化现象提倡了杂种式的主体性创新，在逐渐流失“港味”的城市中依循本土与世界交错的格局探寻主体文化的脉络。印象中陈先生一头灰色长发，让我想起了本地资深建筑师William Lim。不只是发型相似，就连说话时的方式和演讲话题都好像是重温那位以爱因斯坦形象自居的老前辈的写作和演说。历史内容的相同，可能是新、港有着非同寻常的双城之缘？不用多提，中西合并的论述各国各城各表说法，（就如栗老提到黄永砯的《〈中国绘画史〉和〈现代绘画简史〉在洗衣机里搅拌了两分钟》），但是以杂种文化命题的，倒是新鲜。陈先生提到的“香港比中国还要中国”的感觉也是诸多人士有所共鸣的。重点是，要在文化界占有主导地位，就必须脱离进口文化消费者身份，作一名文化创作者。

可能，我也只是一个文化消费者。

以四人（栗、陈、赖、林）所说的最具象征的一句话作综合结尾，听起来因该是：
“波普；杂种；怪物；乱七八糟”。

难怪都是蓝海。

5°24
Trooping down the forest walk last week, I was in the impression that the porous steel deck is grated wide enough to slip my w880i through, so the dreamy flotation feel of seeing green under your feet - or rather like walking on air, or swinging between bamboo stilts, does keep you distracted from work, quakes and Nargis, for a while. More thoughtfully, the grating might have been sized such that fallen nuts and dried leaves gets neatly trapped in between, while reveal corners are welded in place perhaps to provide more surfaces for fallen rot to gather; which is probably the most beautiful part of this steel deck walk, until the visual of a Parks keeper with a broom comes into mind. It's neat to see BRC used this way. It was Sunday, and far too many have come at the same time doing the same nine kilometre ridgeline hike after reading the same news releases. Southern ridges begin from Mount Faber, and the route starts from a gently-sloping gravel path accessible from one of the Harbourfront station exits. From the Faber ridgeline hit west (just follow signs) towards Henderson Waves, and you will be greeted first by some "designerly" direction signs that are a little too fanciful than functional (have to be there to understand why). The main repulse, though, was the colour of the steel ribs, which was pale earthy yellow. It could be the Sun at work here, but what could have been a pristine egg-white hue turned out to be the same colour on forgotten old bus-stops (the kind where one could sit on the barrier bars) and HDB stairs metal parts. But the true pleasure of the bridge quickly overwhelms this subjective take on colour: first the height and span; second the form; third the curving balau timber deck and its neat details. The steel ribs of the upside waves brings the floor up into a curved "wall", creating an east-facing cove, giving shade from the west Sun. The slight undulations on the floor reminds me of Wanggong footbridge in Changhua, Taiwan, although the span and height of Henderson easily puts Wanggong to shame. Yet the scenery of Wanggong (and the howling ocean breezes) is still one up compared to the views of estates and traffic of Henderson Road. The Waves is a computational architecture by IJP, and much of it's design process has been documented on ijpcorporation.com, including a downloadable pdf of the bridge section. Leaving the serpentine altitudes behind, one can head towards the lengthy forest walk after walking by some black and white houses, the Alkaff Mansion and the Terrace Garden (where apart from being a wedding photo favourite, is also often used in drama serials as the rendezvous between a police officer and his undercover constable, or such pairings that require a so-called secret yet "usual meeting place" - of course, both must put on the signature shades.) The forest walk is just steel, so one must reconcile the sounds of nature with the tingling chimes of stomping footsteps - especially on days where thousands troop down in unison. This high-level ant-marching terminates at the Alexandra Arch, which bridges into HortPark. So this is pit stop two, where you can fine-dine with all sweat glands pumping at full blast, while watching families frolic in the lawn yonder. One can skip this finesse and indulge in scientific names and giant grasslands and wonder-mushrooms for the next hour, perhaps specify the plants you need for your next project, all in a day's work, or sail straight for the last leg of the ridges, which is named Kent. After another canopy walk one can descend the ridge via old forgotten stairs, trickle through landed properties and barking dogs, before finding a bus-stop on Pasir Panjang Road (and perhaps ending the day at Clementi's claypot rice).

I spent the following evening watching Taxidermia: flaming penis, pig-slaughtering, cock-pecking, Andersen's little match girl turned into a space-bound jerk-off, pigtails cutting, the horrific "cross-swallowing" eating (and vomiting) olympics, two fat persons in romance (Botero?), cat-overfeeding (geese-stuffing!), dissection, encapsulation of an unborn child, machine experiments gone wrong, and new generation of "high" art reviewers in pure white lab-coats automatically infects your guts. A beautiful state of ugliness, lots of satire, much like the ending parody with the torso. So much for the meat of things and intense grossery. Digestive food for thought.

Meanwhile, a calendar message on my desk reads "Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian." Absolutely, for this is regarding expectations, and not about the beef.

5°17
One of the elders, lounging enjoyably on the lazy hammock under the cosy shades of the East Coast foliage, decided to sit up when I walked near. His humble manners followed through in the subsequent brief recollection of his life story. Had to be the innumerable container ships in slow motion across the water horizon. After all, he used to work in one of those vessels of several thousand tonnes. He recalled a shipping trip half a lifetime ago, during which he was injured aboard, and had to stay grounded for three months in GZ (where the ship docked and left). Treatment was cheap - kilos of herbs cost no more than fifty cents RMB, while hospitalisation was paid in mere dollars, gleefully reimbursed by the shipping line. As a "qiao min" (overseas Chinese), he had privileges in various occasions, even managing a visit to Badaling Great Wall in first class travel. But all these were not even the highlight, because he happened to be there at the time when travel to China was largely not advisable for most of the citizenry, for whatever reasons - that was the late 60s / early 70s, the core period of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, about in tandem with the feverish student-led movements that would subsequently fall within "communist" labelling, and such yada yada. The evenings in China, he recalled, were always busy with briefings or meetings or just propaganda chattery, which were participated actively but tending to be low-yielding, socialising sessions. No wonder they are socialists! I cannot but have to draw parallels with the state of meetings so regularly experienced on my whitewashed schedules. Perhaps the only consoling humour is when the water auntie brings in the cups in her rehearsed, delicate ritual. Nothing comes close to the imagined realm of a war room; not yet so much as comparable with the clapping debates of skilled Tibetan rhetoricians (where each clap heralds the meeting of wisdom and method). Back to the odyssey, I was reminded of yet another storytelling session on a cab; the driver used to be a naval fifth engineer who worked his way up to third engineer (because according to him, to get to second you need to do an exam). So he rattled on... his life was all in the seas of seas, as he recited the port-of-call cities visited, from South & Central America to Africa, Europe, China, India, and the rest of Asia (a remarkable list indeed), returning home only thrice in a span of 10 years. His initiative is simply described - when offered full year (or longer) contracts out at sea, his responses were usually "Go! Don't care!" He even spent three weeks on a safari trip, where almost every night is spent barbecuing the hunts of the day. Putting aside the meat of the story, and of course the downside of being in the engines hull for as long as the ship is moving, there is a spirit of taking on the larger uncertain Else, and I was led to muse about yet another story: which was somewhat conjured while witnessing a demonstration of window-frame being installed by two Bangladeshis, on a listless Friday afternoon. As the whole bunch of top-level contractors, engineers and architects stared at the glaring west sun (very thoughtful of the team to do a demo on the west-facing in the afternoon indeed) while passing frustrating instructions to the two foreign skilled workers in Cantopop-Hokkiengwa-English, the Bangladeshis would switch between Bengali and pidgin, during which I would think up lines to try to bridge these moments of incomprehension, of which most of the invented self-ridiculing or self-mocking scripts seem to fit perfectly, explaining the snide nuances and occasional high-pitched yada yadas overheard in their native tongue. Nevertheless they got their job done, as is obvious that this is but yet another of the thousands of aluminium frames they have fixed up in their Singaporean tour - which beautifully mocks this demo because it takes seven pairs of "supervising eyes" and only two pairs of working hands to get a frame up, which reminds us of the joke about how many engineers it took to change a light bulb. This musing clearly has nothing to do with the two stories above, but can potentially be the story that the heroic window frame installer will pass on as grandfather tales to his future Bangladeshi descendants - how Singaporeans had impressed upon him as being obsessed with plumbline perfection, scratch-free fluorocarbon coating, another two verbs and three adjectives on the method statements and other such fickleness, and how they love to stare at the sun - while the heros do the thinking on the job, dangling at the edge of bay windows while hooked on two lifelines, muppeting as risk-taking but decisive silhouettes in the face of those who keep a safe distance away. And this muppeting leads me to Broadway Beng 3, where there's a puppet mini-me of Sebastian Tan. Sebastian reminds me of a colleague, whose outspoken character constantly radiates cleverness, sensitivity and sensibility of everyday nonsense via reinterpretation, i.e. further nonsense. But being reminded over and again of things seen or heard or felt before only elaborates the operations of memory; afterall, I've encountered many similarities in different people and events to conclude that they are all part of a same system of memory avatars meant to continually exert and reassert an existing network of relations that every person is bound to come to terms with, unless he wills against it. This leaves room for thought on the kind of imprints one might wish to recall in the future, as being decided very much by what we do in the here and now. A trip to a new place, re-reading an old book, attention to people, attitude to work, concerted and single-minded effort, readjusting habits. Which drives the last story, or the lack of any, whatever the tally: where have all the flowers gone, after the quakes and cyclone? Many touching stories have been reported - in what seems to be a frenzied decision at first, a grandmother threw an infant out of a collapsing building; the infant survived, and the late old lady did the right thing. Two parents were crushed in the debris while sheltering a surviving child. Thousands of other stories, many more in the ground; the tally goes on. A quiet stroll along Clarke Quay last night, and the world is largely still in party mood, swinging across the river in pendulum cries. Tents in Sichuan are housing victims. Tents in Singapore are hosting chanting masses under the Vesak banner, reciting verses in rituals more appropriately understood as an oral defragmentation of fractured memory space, forwarded as "dedication of merits". Physically, the fracture is on the Longmen faultline and the tectonic sliding made Himalayas grew by inches. Prayers from every river has been despatched, in thoughts and spirits, to the same two focal points on Earth. In China, overseas rescue efforts have moved into Sichuan as well, while for Myanmar, foreign aid supplies were left in the hands of Yangon. The Straits Times contrasted the two as Hope and Despair. The Chinese rivers are being scrutinised for change of course due to landslides, while gigantic dams and radioactivity plants are being checked for damage and leakages. In Myanmar, the junta stays closed door. It's good that Monday is a break, but life goes on.

5°08
北纬一度，尚未兴建的畸石神庙远离预期竣工还有双年之遥。项目核心是一个密封的空壳，鼎立于四斜八歪的圆柱上，内有可容五千人的祭天礼堂，非礼拜时可充当大型舞台场地租让。其外貌“凛然”震撼，可盖灭周边群建之“威风”。回想每逢周末自家楼下那教堂的人来人往，总有好多大巴接送；可大巴的引擎响声却阵阵袭耳，难受不堪。回顾北纬一度的浩瀚之众千人万人周周相会，对其环境之影响，可想而知。也罢，还是迷惘无住之士耳根清静自在！谁能预知，这奢华之中必有识破意象的智者能够从建筑鉴赏中有所点化。就好比蓝天白云之下，谁会预料到哪一天会转眼遇见那让人感觉很bossa-novic 的倩女子呢？或好比一个老在写字楼里发呆的职员竟在屏幕共享时把对方的桌面涂得好不成样，然后敢问一句：“那是谁的图腾？”这时候的你可能志气未放，轻声细语之间却又是夕阳落幕的鸣金收兵；一阵默默暗笑，就在打烊时那种懒洋洋的倦意中丝丝作梗。那，恰恰是一种精神饱满的懒洋洋。

岂如此。万里天边一雁飞。

5°04
五〇一，田庄上收割丰富，田农悦意，难能可贵。回想当初勤于铺路奠基，今见此果，了不为奇。山涧水秀，隔邻的八达好手细腻地将“印象引擎”（EE）和“谷歌文件”的可塑性报告一番，唯独与闪页设计的界面份上尚存疑点。我自愧是一名被时光淘汰的闪客，编织deprecated 源码，对现版软件的用法竟无异与四、五年前的水平。有问：“这不是你的兴趣所在吗？”这问题太致命了。五〇二，好心的同事递了一份注册建筑师大考的表格，提醒五月是年限，过了就要更复一年。从来不设蓝图的我，这回又是考脑筋：路线问题，与之奈何？想想，这两年来，可有用心地追求些什么？不设立目标的人生，无为而浮躁吗？因为不可兼得，所以总说弃一，结果拖泥至此，两栖无益。事业，不是现前提案所能确切代表，所以不应把现职混为永恒；然而断除主动，则必殃于滞状，冻僵入格。或许该走吧，就连帅性少女都摊牌而去了。分离主义象打砸抢烧的藏独分子一般挑逗着，遮盖现实本质。应无所住，扪心坦言，我只期待一个漂亮的借口。而借口，只是手段；至于动机、方向，那还是路线问题，是玄之又玄的众妙之门。是干，还是不干：to be, or not to be。那真是个问题，是个无人能逃过的问题。

五月天的游山玩水，撞上了热天气。真令人心烦。

4°24
我并没有细心考虑过，自己的惰性到底有多大的杀伤力，因为，常想这样的问题，类似一种无中生有、杞人忧天的多心。几天前，来了通电话，是一位去年认识的朋友。他是一名室内设计师，之前也曾任装修商，对空间的敏感度相当细致；而今自立门户的他，旗下有四、五位同僚一起打拼，也搞一些小场的建筑方案，算是挺有卖相的。我跟他又是什么勾当呢？无非是业余闲来凑一宗网页设计充作加持，讨个过瘾。每每会晤，必然聊一些概念性问题，这是设计讨论不可或缺的一环。聊的过程中很容易感悟到，他不是设计学院出身，因为没有设计系的那种琅琅上口的技术性用语，更没有大话翻天的无谓口误。可是我就是没有用心听懂他再三强调的一定要尽快把网页编好那一句。那么简单的叮嘱，算起来，拖欠的人情，也有一年了吧。如今又再会面，他已搬离之前的旧店屋事务所，迁到附近的一间组屋住宅，充当临时工作室。人手也裁了，可想他现在的收入就只能雇养另一位搭档了。这很令人深思；现今建筑发展甚旺，财团四起，这行怎么会有遭杯葛的漏网之士呢？事事无常性，可也应运于缘起，此有故彼有，此生故彼生；如今又再度听见他那恳切的请求：麻烦你尽快把网页编好；这才觉得有点儿对不住（虽然至今分文未收）；他的事业很可能在我这编网编得漫不经心的手中寿终正寝。难得有着一种能发号法号司令的狂妄；歹势的是，自己老是说对不起，对不起，确实是有点儿过了。我就是这样，悠游于各个善意的小品，却不动恩意；惟不擅细心品味人生的我，还真不懂到底可以从中认识、体会些什么。

4°17
近日忙中甚盲，内外湍急交错，繁琐紧凑。走过组屋楼下摆着的白事，打开信箱一看，来了封寄给萎莛的来函；细阅之，竟然是封律师信。原来老姐的那位来自越南的阮姓中同学，又忘了缴手机费，这次所欠数额惊然值四百多元。律函恫言八日内不把债目还清，接下来的法律诉讼开销可能起雪球效应，好比滚滚长江东逝水，或比黄河泛滥，一发不可收拾。为寻化解之门，我联络了律师事务所及M1热线，设法了解为何在没有派发账单的情况下就冒然亮出这招逼上梁山之下三烂策。电话另一端想必是披着大衣的律师事务所接电员用了客套的“只为客户执行法律上的服务”来表示不清楚事实的来龙去脉，建议我直接询问M1就有揭晓。而始终以“不能对外泄漏客户资料”为理由拒我多问的M1不但没交代好事情的前后因果，更把唯一能够把事情交代清楚的当事人（也就是赫赫有名的阮姓中同学）的手机服务给斩断了，导致我无法以电话联系来求公道。老母在家里一些旧信函中找到了这位阮大人的住址，原来上回没交学费的他，被学校开了张追讨偿还付费的通告。真是：习性难改！下班后，咱就前往这地址出发，想当面了解事实。傍晚八时，好不容易找到了17号组屋，这时，邻里一座毗卢禅寺突然钟声响起，于意云何？登门访问，原来昔人已乘黄鹤去；门前只留猫两三。简单的说，人跑了。老母恼了。老爸闷了。结论很显然：钱，还是要白白送去；而债务一还清，阮大人的手机又会死灰复燃，回归正常运作；阮大人的一贯拖欠习性也将滚滚红尘业滚业。也唯有恳请萎莛同修发心斩业除根（终止阮老弟手机服务，并斩断对阮老弟的一切致错之援），方有斡旋之机可言。

至此，我忽然萌生感触：原来行布施（generosity）也会有方便不到位（unskilful）的弊端。

4°12
Cinema floors are always sticky.

Lido was screening "I'm Not There" for film fest, which was about Bob Dylan - but there was not a mention of the name throughout the show. I had no idea what the film was about despite having read the synopsis, until I asked CY. Then I spent the immediate past-midnight morning Wikiing on Bob Dylan - and then partially making sense of his story - but until a certain point I stopped to wonder what am I doing, trying to understand some remote, eccentric life story in the middle of the night, like for what. I should really spend more time on the things that matter. So I turned off the computer and jumped into bed.

3°30
Close to two weeks ago there was a meeting on the second floor of a shophouse office where everyone, except me, was dressed in black. But this is not the first time. Last year at another such design office, also a shophouse, in Chinatown, everyone else was wearing black as well, head to toes. A few shophouses away, another office is also donning the standard somber. I guess our office operates on a different chromatic encoding, but I'm not entirely sure if this unspoken but obviously compromised conformity to an absolute shade (extending also to frames of glasses) is, in any way, a corporate identity contracted on the employment papers of those who opted to "desaturate" their closets, in no-nonsense compliance. After all, the foreign team seated behind me occasionally turn up for work in full darkness; so it's could be in the upbringing, in the education, in the blood, in the mindstreams, in the memes - whatever one call it. I must have missed the lecture on appropriate architectural dressing back in school; so, I should go shopping too.

Last week there were several things on my desk. To list a few: I was called upon by friends to come up with a design for a cup. Then I was suddenly in the mailing loop of active reactionaries talking about the website they were planning to revamp, which I replied to just by thinking aloud in a manner which I would have earlier deemed "reactionary". Later I did a check with the ever reliable dictionary.com to realise that "reactionary" is not the same as radical - it really meant ultra-conservative. But words doesn't matter. Maintenance and updates are still going on, but I kept Friday night free for steamboat with some colleagues and friends. Two of us were early, so we walked China Square Central instead, which had a grand collection of shops selling old toys, Transformers, anime characters in die cast metal or fibreglass, action figurines, model kits and dioramas, Macross and Robotech, doll house accessories, and other such hobbyist collectibles and magazines. If Beach Road is for army paraphernalia, and Sim Lim Square for computer parts, then this place is niche for the serious toy collectors. In that short half an hour, Ivan elaborated on what he knew to convince me that he probably owns a store here himself - because he even knows that the stocks come in on Thursdays every week, where these shops were previously located, and even the temperament of some of the shopkeepers (one Auntie is always reminding people with bags not to knock over the precariously stacked toy boxes). Yet he claims he doesn't own a single item of collection - although in his younger days, he had worked on scaled Tamiya WWII war vehicles models. It seems to be a common phase for most boys. "Come here to see all these stuff, can relax mah," he said. I was reminded of another friend, Raymond, who used to go through toy display shops too. He would be caught sculpting basswood swords using the sanding machine in the workshop while everyone else was rushing to complete their design models, or still slogging it out in the sweatshop of butter papers.

Saturday morning, after a brief chat at a lifestyle shop, I joined an afternoon screening for "Seven years in Tibet" and a sharing session for short-film making led by a really young (yet award-winning) local director. Though the screening was not planned to coincide with the recent Tibetan riots (I'm still puzzled by who started it - at least for now evidences are showing up to suggest that the initial finger-pointing by both the Western media and Beijing appears to be not well substantiated. Of course, every cause is an effect of a previous cause. If one is talking about primordial, original sins, then, hmm, it can be backtracked to many histories before.) But interesting points have been brought up in the editorials - one of which is about the legitimate claim of region T belonging to country C ever since the Yuan dynasty. The dissent here is that if 700 years is not enough to prove a claim, then what about those nations which have been demographically reconfigured during the past 200 years of imperial colonialism and war? Which point in history should we choose as a "correct" reference, and supposed someone actually decide on that, are the leaders serious about reverting? Then someone else will zero in on disclaiming that Yuan China is not Han China, because that's a Mongolian concoction. Then it was also read somewhere that a further historical reference, Huangdi (the Hans are considered the sons and grandsons of the Yan and Huang emperors) was recently noted by scholars to have been a king of old Sichuan tribespeople; whom the Tibetans are somewhat linked with. So 5000 years ago, same family folks don't stone or arson one another! Maybe the scholars should all be invited to debate on this, because only by having a thousand mouthful of blistering pointless talk go on and on will someone coercibly bother with a forceful "shuddup!" A sweet moment of silence may prevail, but not for long before the argumentative cloud takes over the weather again. When all the excessive energies are expended to the max, the boisterous may, hopefully, come to finally ponder with a calm final breath - realising now what is best for them - and then cast a vote that may bring handsome horses to Führerhood. The problem though, is that Taiwan can vote, while region T and country C, cannot. Not as if they have an idea of what they want, yet.

3°16
There was a movie screening ("Angulimala", a Thai production) at 100A Duxton Road yesterday, followed by a series of short scenes taken from various films. Incidentally, Angulimala (a historical bandit and serial killer) went on a terror spree after receiving instructions for attainment via taking a thousand lives; on Schindler's List there was one scene in which Schindler was bidding farewell to his workers, before breaking down in anguish lamenting he could have saved many more than the 1100 Jews; and two days ago, I landed an assignment to convert webpages into pdf documents, my rough count numbering 1105 - and that was before I made the promise to deliver within a week. Needless to say, the severity of the former two far outweighs the meagre hassle of pdf conversion on my plate. Fortunately, Angulimala stopped at the 999th collectible to his garland of fingers, because he could never catch up with his thousandth prey, despite arduous efforts across hurdles of forest thickets; or perhaps it was his seventh consciousness obscuring his pursuit of the awakened one (manifesting in the show as a slow-paced silhouette of a mindful walker against a brilliant sunset; one can imagine the amount of floodlighting and post-editing just to get the filtering effects right. Whoever acted as the bhikkhu must be sweating from the sweltering radiance - just imagine Kanchanaburi!) The other film scenes screened at DDS included snippets from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", "The Simpsons", and "Paris, je t'aime (14th Arrondissement)", accompanied by commentaries from a very enthusiastic Shen Shi'an, whose critical examination helped clarified additives, omissions and deviations from the original scriptures. The same night I had the opportunity to visit Kmspks' Hall of No-Form, since there was a free talk going on. Two nights before a similar spatial exploration took place at LaSalle, where two creased glazing wrap the inner facades of mismatched floor plates, locked in place with flying bridges, and all overlooking a central carpeted atrium. A beautiful urban object, just missing something peculiar about art schools - dirt.

3°08
Three hours was how long Qian Wenzhong's lecture ("Cultural Seminar on Xuanzang and Jianzhen") took at the SPH Media Centre today. Qian is a history professor at Fudan University, who is better known as the speaker behind the 36 episodes of "Xuanzang Journey to the West" featured on CCTV's Baijia Jiangtan lecture series; that is, among his many other feats including being a multilinguist, a notable scholar of Sanskrit and Pali, his erudite interest in the cultural exchanges and histories between Tang China and the flourishing civilisations of India, the western region (that is, Central Asia) and Japan, and his numerous stories about exotic archaeological finds, little-known historical facts and the origins of many of the Chinese words we are so used to today. Expectedly the full-house attendance was composed of mostly the hyper-matured, learned or faithful, if not serious readers of Buddhist sutras and sastras keen to hear Qian's take on varying authenticities of translated scriptures. Quite a lot are Chinese nationals working locally; a fifth of the audience were monastics, who kept to the left end of the auditorium, while the remaining marginal portion are the younger audience, the bulk of whom are Chinese students (made up largely of very cute girls) who are fans of the star academic. After the info-saturating talk it was hardly surprising when the first Q&A was to request that Qian do a Sanskrit dictation of the last stanza of Heart Sutra. An advocate of bottom-up conciliatory efforts between China and Japan decides to extend his platform via the topic of Jianzhen - without adopting politically-correct stances, Qian responded on cultural terms, adding that when he was in Kyoto he needn't ask for directions even though he knew not a single word of Japanese; that is because the ancient city is modelled after Chang'an (current Xi'an) - which highlighted the far-from-simply-intertwined relation between the two lands. The more interesting points brought up are: his hilarious albeit objective summary of the fiction novel "Journey to the West", allegedly authored by Wu Cheng'en; and the remarkable injustice brought about by the novel upon the historical Xuanzang, who in true person could not have been such a cowardly figure as fictitiously created, if he were to be able to journey across the Gobi alone, passing through the ancient lands of the Khans and the Turks, over and beyond today's Afghanistan, into India, and return one and a half decades later from Nalanda as an accomplished "professor" of Yogacara himself. Understandably, the sutras and sastras that Xuanzang eventually devoted himself to translating were of the best quality, but he had chosen the more difficult ones to do first. As a result, only a fraction of the scriptures he brought back from India were translated into Chinese - unfortunately the whereabouts of the remaining Sanskrit scriptures are still a mystery today. Many anecdotes were also recalled: Qian recounted an incident of a famous Tiantai monastery housing an important sutra, written in Sanskrit, which the temple monks kept as a sacred "secret" for many years. Later it was discovered that this "sutra" is actually a love story extract from the old Indian epic Mahabharata. What an embarrassment it must have been all these while! So translation work can bring many surprises. And discovery is just as critical - Qian recalls another account which dates back to the Tang empress Wu Zetian. Wu was a lady concubine who worked her way up to dowager, finally declaring herself as empress (or rather the emperor, without gender bias). To gain justification for her reign against the gender-biased Confucians, she opted to quote a line from the Great Cloud Sutra - which is in Chinese - stating the legitimacy of women in key Dharmic roles. Scholars remain mixed about the authenticity of this sutra because the Sanskrit origin has never been located; afterall, it isn't incongruous to assume Wu Zetian had made up an apposite raison d'etre. It was only in recent years that Qian found the original Sanskrit version as inscribed on palm leaves from many centuries ago, still neatly bundled in cloth and stored untouched and forgotten in history at a small Tibetan monastery. He had to describe his adrenaline rush at having identified the texts "Mahamega Sutra" at the end of the inscriptions - which implied mystery solved. Yet he is most fluent in the topic of languages, and having explained the international and metropolitan character of ancient Tang - where East meets West and North meets South - we get a picture of how there was such a mix of influence on the Chinese language we use today, and how incredible it is that so much wasn't originally "Chinese". Everyday words like 牙or 贝; not forgetting the extensive vocabulary borrowed from Buddhist speak. As for why he decided to drop by Singapore - apart from the obvious that he was invited - he said there's much to learn from the Chinese diaspora, something which could have been anticipated from Taiwan if not for the political barrier so tangibly dividing; and that is the culture of tradition (as apart from traditional culture). And that is where I am personally not so aligned on, because I wouldn't naturally associate Chinese cultural heritage with Singapore - perhaps it is Nanyang exotism at work, perhaps it is the overhyped logo of an efficient city-state that appeals to the Chinese pragmatist imagination.

Talking about diaspora, I am reminded of an Architectural History lecturer: Dr Widodo; because their work seem to collide so much in direction, though the focii are on different (hemi)spheres. It struck me that Qian had been reading in detail the obituaries on Zaobao during his 5-hrs flight - which amazed him because he was clearly impressed with the traditional format and structuring, suggesting that a strong adherence to lineage is still in place in Singapore. Interestingly, the other famous person I remember who was ever interested in obituaries and the like is Lu Xun, author of "Ah Q", who spent several years of his life copying texts from ancestral tablets and stone inscriptions, before a publisher talked him out of his indulgence by reacting to his "windowless steel house" lemma - Lu then went on to write his first short story titled "A Madman's Diary", his attempt to awaken those sound asleep in the windowless steel house under fire (i.e. "old" China). Crazily enough, Dr Widodo is renowed to have done just about the same kind of work - looking at tombstones in overgrown cemeteries in Singapore. Whoever he is hoping to awaken though, that I'm not sure. But it's all for the love of history.

2°23
"Persepolis" is a wonderful graphic animation about the life of a young Iranian girl, who happens to be the comic artist, writer and co-director herself, Marjane Satrapi. The synopsis goes that the "title Persepolis comes from the Persian capital founded in the 6th century BC by Darius I, later destroyed by Alexander the Great. It's a reminder that there's an old and grand civilisation, besieged by waves of invaders but carrying on through millennia, that is much deeper and more complex than the current-day view of Iran as a monoculture of fundamentalism, fanatism, and terrorism." Interestingly, the interviews uploaded on the website also explained the traditional animation art of manually tracing each of the 3-4 frames per second (in the same manga-style of, say, Doraemon, as can be familiarly recognised in the depiction of the japs in the godzilla scene); likewise familiar is the styling of clouds and waves that can be observed in the old cartoon epic of Journey to the West, produced in Shanghai in the 1960s. Verdict: must-watch, on cinemas right now.

2°16
To be or not to be. What kind of fucking question is that. The week passed with Wednesday evening spent watching What is Man directed by Edward Lam at the Esplanade, where I spotted a few peers (surely there must be more) in the audience. The 28-scene play is a reinterpretation of The Water Margin, a Chinese classic novel which is also the Chinese title of the production. Because roleplaying is a key theme, a convenient condition is set up to switch between various situations of acts or acting, or acting like acting, so the play can move on in multiple dimensions and directions even to the point of self-critique - like asking what's the point of doing this scene? - and yet still going back to the death trap of repeating the trilogue between the big brother, the number two brother, and the sister-in-law. This snapping in and out of stage mode (while still on stage) reminds of an earlier Secret Love in Peach Blosson Land, so the suturing of scenes become a pilgrimage taken by both the storyteller and the story-reader - because one cannot exist without the other, this journey being made possible in the inter-reflections of each other's narrative (or have I taken in too much of Sheldon Kopp's psycho-therapist afterthoughts that I might have snapped myself too far off the stage as well). Because the invisible voice (acting as director) pours forth the questions from the audience, so the trilogue builds up, big man vs small man vs the women, - transcending the question of which gender is trivialised here - eventually coagulating as a matrix of multiple triangulations (the triangle being the smallest module for steady state deadlock / stalemate) with guns pointing everywhere, everyone - because, as demonstrated, not only the big brother can have two guns. This interfacing / inter-relatedness / interlocking schema culminated in the cliche lotus or fan dance rotary, or more like the innumerable limbs extending from a cyclic chakra, such that the gunpowdery arsenal is now outwardly directed; more explicitly there is the ego, the talk about bigness vs smallness, the philosophic, the risk-taker, the impotent assuming potency, the juvenile playfulness behind jedi-like swordfights, and many more such intertwining themes factorially permutated in and around the nine main characters (which is said to be a representation of the 108 heroes). Life! today carried a review titled Impotent Man, which keyed in on the finale as being "its most interesting element, hinting at possibilities rather than harping on present limitations". The article further details: "in the finale, a bird's eye view of the stage, captured by video camera, was projected onto a large screen. Audiences saw the topless actors writhe slowly in a group as a poetic text about an alternative beginning of the world was read out. It combined the Christian genesis story with elements of Buddhist philosophy, suggesting a way out of the confines of constructed gender identities instead of reproducing them ad nauseum". Perhaps the notion of man (or manliness) has nothing (and henceforth everything) to do with the outwardly creative / cosmic vs the inwardly contemplative (recall Sabapathy's lecture on Nataraja vs Gautama), and perhaps the middling in-between? Is not the two-dimensionality of characters purposefully developed precisely to dissuade simplistic, dualising / bipolarising of the world around us? But before this correlating exhumes those days of stifling lecture-theatre blues I must confess this is only a humble and inadequate depiction of what the play could be about, because it is, I think, far better to just enjoy this multi-layered roleplaying thoroughly - by roleplaying as the audience, and sticking with that purity of role - than be overdosed with analytic nuances over and over. Hence, before the nail in the coffin pops up again, it is best suggested not to believe a single word I said.

I revisited Changi coast boardwalks this morning, a stretch of memory space so lazily and lightly touched before, in the resounding breezes of not so long ago, among filtered shades from the parallel blades extending from inclined trees, and the quiet rhythms of the disquiet sea between here and there. Swaying purple fountain grass, crows on a dried tree, sand on the timber deck, a blue kingfisher on the rocks, snailmoving container ships, black and red, and pink sails, adrift. Very lazy, very lazy, but very spirited. Like spirited away.

2°07
Happy New Rat Year! I've just uploaded 79 photos, on the "quiet" page. Generally old stuff, but I still enjoy looking at them every now and then. Now I still have one more section on the website which I am clueless about what to put up. Definitely it's not going to be about work or anything related to that... Any suggestions?

2°02
I did an exchange of books online via Bookmooch last December, where a small box of Enid Blytons from the late eighties were traded for half a dozen plus of interesting titles which was recently shipped in. On top of a few bookstore purchases, this means I have enough readings to saturate myself probably through the whole of this year. So let me share some titles I have on my desk: John Man's "Kublai Khan", "If You Meet The Buddha On The Road, Kill Him!" by Sheldon B. Kopp (just finished reading), Arthur Waley's "The Way And Its Power - Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching and Its Place in Chinese Thought", "Beyond the Sky and the Earth - A Journey Into Bhutan" by Jamie Zeppa, "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami, 张斌著的“丰子恺诗画”, "The Karma of Words" by William R. LaFleur (finished reading), S. Toulmin / J. Goodfield's "The Architecture of Matter", 胡湘玲著的“太阳房子”，单德启著的“中国民居”, Hermann Hesse's "Siddhartha" (finished reading) and "Narcissus and Goldmund", R.M. Koster's "The Tinieblas Trilogy", 易中天著“讲美学 - 破门而入”, Claude Simon's "The Grass" (translated by George Braziller), "Stanley Kubrick" by Vincent LoBrutto, and a picture book on "Kaiping Diaolous, China". I'm also holding on to "Whatever you think, think the opposite" by Paul Arden which is a T-loan from Min, as well as "Party of One - The Loners' Manifesto" by Anneli Rufus, which belongs to KW. There also "Chinese Conception of Space" by Li Xiaodong and Yeo Kangshua, a gift from XY. If there's any book (except for those that don't belong to me) that you might want to temporarily possess, please drop me a note.

1°28
How else better to learn pattern-making, if not from the random picks of mahjong or cards. It's not as if the wins ever get patterned into permanence; patterns are formed only to be washed back into the sea of randomness. (At the least, three out of every four on the table tends to think so, usually.) No I wasn't in the game. It was grandmother the grandmaster, against grandsons and grand-daughter. For the rest, apart from equivalent lowlying types, there were only the running kids, and I was surprised that two playful post-toddler siblings would show keenness in my amateurish yoyo flicks, of which I can only sustain at most two bounces before the line halts in full extension. The same nephew-niece pair tagged along while I offered to slice some fruits for the whole lot who have gathered yesterday to offer a token of evanescent incense to, though not to further incense, the late old man my grandfather. The elder brother tried to do some pear skinning. Soon his attention was totally soaked up in some transformable machine toy, and that of his lovely sister dowsed in the flatteries and teases of fellow cousins. In office, two new college interns are housed temporarily on the team while they await results of their Uni admission, their first choices apparently being Architecture. One seemed genuinely entertained with Sketchup; or maybe that was the only best thing we could offer. Or perhaps we have really aged, that to churn up something conceivably fun amongst your daily workload appear to be so challenging you would prefer offering a placebo as elixir, to pre-occupy them for a while and to exhaust their high-minded energy (they better not be reading this) while hopefully passing on some useful tips of what to expect. But the questioning, doubting mind is that which we so often forgetfully leave at home; the same vigour of questioning training me into bare honesty about the kind of work I am involved in, my attitude towards the work at hand, and what am I doing about it, this honesty of which I prefer to confront with utmost silence. So I remain unspeaking when questions of profound pointlessness come around and go around in boomerang meteoritic orbits. It's like the matter doesn't matter even if you tried. After all, when you see the picture from another point of view, you really wonder how far your claims for sanity can change the state of stalemate. So I blank out, once in a while, outlasting the ruse so that the guise of "work" detaches itself from the frame of first meanings, like steel beams giving way under intense heat. Of course it is easy to cop out. But while the music is still playing, why not shrill along and rave in the chorus? For instance, if you stare still and square into space quick enough, you will be able to catch that almost quiescent bell chiming playing out between the lyrical notes of some very slow, soothing music, like "fragrant nirvana tree", or the impulses of violin "in the setting of the sun". It's like graffiti in living, or vandalising a perfectionist imagination as a hobbyist thrill. Have you ever declared war on your own dreams? How can one double-outrage your future; what's the worst thing that can happen to your master plan? How do you sweep yourself off the ground - do you jump first, or pull the carpet first? Why only spoil a wall - when you can kill a greater picture?

1°22
Over the weekend the old class of 01/96 managed to meet up for lunch at Dempsey Hill, although only seven showed up - which was considerably remarkable since the number never got more than that for a long time since class dismissed in 1997. After ice-cream almost everyone diligently flocked back to spouse and promising spouse, so I was left with Daniel who suggested a couple of places to go, of which I chose the most unpopular of them all - to check out the revamped Kallang Leisure Park; naturally, the verdict didn't take too long to materialise. It's 2008 and we are still getting shopping mall replicates of this sort. Uninspired, we slipped out of the unpopular mall (which will remain a drone until the Sports Hub tone up the demographics) and walked into National Stadium on a quiet Saturday mid-afternoon. A few photographers were doing their stock image assignments in the empty arena. On the field was the national soccer team. Under the shade in the common gallery were two nobodies, lounging about while lunch settle among stomach juices, the queer pair peering into the beautiful blue sky enjoying the breeze. The timber benches were already warping, but they weather prettily with the ageing concrete. The green and the dark warping wood reminds me of another one such space of national pride - the 300m rifle range at Tekong. Or it might not be the material that triggered the reminiscence, but the carefully conditioned ambience of a huge enclosed space, peaceful and unhurried, ageing gracefully, and largely open to the sky. Yet the skyline in this view does not contain external outlines; what one sees, can only be seen from within. I recall yet another range elsewhere, where I was part of a preparation party at the target butt, last to be called up from the basement, and too troublesome to run all the way up via the proper escape route. So I tried to scale the target mechanisms to surface from the butt; how dangerous that can be, now that I think of it, for any test fire could have gotten me there and then. But how strangely familiar, this expanse of contractual silence with the confined space, like as if we all grew up from some kind of controlled environment, or some self-sustained bio-experiment in a test-tube. When the tell-tales seem to keep showing up, one wonders if this is really just a school of thought, of consciousness-only, or is this a never-ending reflection of sensible (or insensible) self-assertion? It is rather ironical to note that it is always the architect who is the last to walk the sites of memory before they get demolished and built over, like a military chaplain collecting the rusting tags of those KIAs. Yet despite all the nostalgic emotions that may well up from that momentary final recce, nothing can quite salvage the fact that we have once again proved ourselves incapable of holding our breaths for a while just to take in the awesome sunset. Newness, newness, everywhere. We left the place early, wary that the hasty changes once witnessed (and soon to be witnessed) by this legendary oval ovum of classic self-identity unsuspectingly lock us in on a memory labyrinth of our own. I had to recall the movie I watched during the weekend break of my ICT; "Assembly", by Feng Xiaogang - a Chinese war film - because it has something to do with recovering honour for a company of war dead. The next morning I was on Hortpark, only to recall that I have physically being there before, twice in fact, during my postgrad days. That was well before the NParks nursery got converted into a public park. I was assisting one of the profs in my Department on a competition entry which dealt with some botanical planning, so we visited the greenhouses that nurtured saplings groomed to adorn our expressways, in an attempt to understand the internal workings and gather design considerations. But anyway, the Hortcentre looks well done, but the theme gardens a little half-hearted. Maybe it was the effect we got from Sentosa's annual flower fest that one would expect a sea of blooming nature; of course, those that were seen on the themeparked island could only hold up for a week at most. But there's something else to look forward to, when the park connecting bridges are all up and ready. When the network of green ties up all corners of the island, reservists would find no excuse to say that a maintenance vehicle breakdown on the east-west line is reason good enough for being late on a nationwide call-up. Maybe we will see force-marching take place on cross-country orchards; up the hill, down the slope. No sweat? One turbojet of commandoes racing from Kent Ridge to Kallang, while another lazy buffalo of reservists enjoying their walk in the park half-time break at West Coast Mac. It's a fascinating and refreshing change to the commitment of resourceful citizenry; well, at least, no more panting down Chinese Cemetery Path 13 again, for a start.