Memory & Place. Singapore 1982–1988
A place steeped in first memories and the edge of feelings I cannot quite grasp. A place that doesn’t exist anymore having been built over and developed. A place almost rural in the expanse of its garden that rolled like a field onto a fence with a gate that led to a church. A pilgrimage I’d make with my Yaya, my small hand in hers.
A place of idyllic birthday parties under a pagoda by the pool. Birthday cake, party hats and horns. A place with a pool that ran parallel to the long single-storey house, tropically open along one side. Steps led down to the pool where I first swam, just a few days or weeks old.
A pool where I had my first accident, knocking my chin on the edge. I can still recall the shudder of it, or an inkling of the memory and I have the scar to prove it. A place of many firsts: my first crush, Christopher, also 5 years old, who I tried to kiss goodbye at the front door and slipped and hit my head on a big plant pot and had to get stitches (I have the bald patch to prove it). Or so the memory goes, compounded over time into folklore. A short oral history.
A place where I first tested the boundaries of my independence and power through tantrums, once demanding ice-cream ad nauseam (aka attention) of my father during a cocktail party and being thrown over his shoulder and sent to my room… There was the boundary.
A place where I discovered lipstick in my mother’s boudoir; where I discovered my taste for chilies in the kitchen at the back of the house, still in my high chair. A round glass dining table where I had hot oils with my mother, to tame our bushy locks. A sofa where my mum smoked her Silk Cuts, which she never inhaled and that I told her to stop. Which she would remind me of when it was my turn.
A place where I had my first sexual awakening. Furtively rewinding a VHS tape that my parents had where a damsel in distress was pursued in different scenes, and delightfully ravished. My bedroom, a feast of dolls, where I would make my new little brother play with Ken and have sex with Barbie, a mini act of vengeance. A game of doctor which I cannot fully recall. The Filipino Nipa Hut, my playhouse in the other expanse of garden on the front side of the house. Whiskey, dad’s golden lab, and his tennis balls, who would mess up the rubbish just to get punished with the rolled up newspaper… Not the only one vying for attention.
These memes of early childhood rooted to this place that is now built over. The final meme moment that I can summon like an instant projector screen with surround sound, is the stationary taxi, at the front of the house, about to leave for good, for London. In the taxi at night with the tropical rain pounding on the windows, and the metronomic tick tock of a Singaporean taxi meter. Oh the nostalgia! I would refer to this scene a lot, a trigger and a solace for homesickness during my first awkward years as the one with the weird accent and outfits, and who devastatingly wore a clown suit to a Halloween party — when only witches and wizards would do.
