Days of Wonder.
This May Day weekend, before mum’s day, i participate in the food cine.ma festival held at the objectifs courtyard chapel, nested in the compound with the quaint architecture, and the artichoke restaurant. Somehow, the genius that founded the concept of courtyards in heat-steeped equatorial Singapore could relate to the appreciation of shady seating right outdoors, where the breeze can lull, when afternoons can hit a degree hotter than most regions. The shift in latitude creates an eye for what is interesting, as well as the longevity of culture-breaking sustain of what you have originally brought with you, as your own personality.
My soundbyte usually looks out for food, and things to whet the palate, but generally, a real appreciation for culture, and subculture ensues in the nethers of my northern abode. Sometimes, a plus. But mostly an ode to the writers and artists in residence, who are mostly accomplices to a life well lived. Adjustedly. We populate the bars, and the wonderful cafés that have allowed a documentation of life that has turned into actual life, from a passing fancy, to a hobby, to an income-generating passivity.
Expats have a greater tolerance for adventure normally, whether it be food, lodging, dance tunes, hangouts, even pubs, but after a long while, the localisation factors in the longevity of having a chemistry with not only the immediate vicinity, but a taste sensation as well. I mostly slant to food – so my tastes have adjusted to the spicier, more voluptuous mix-origin stews and curries that abound in the Malaysian-Indian-Indonesian rich peninsula flavours.
Having a knack to find subculture in all my scenarios and travels, and sometimes exchanging a fine palate of sieveing tendencies, to a great degree of taking a cheek to all that might occur on the plate – frog legs in porridge, tea-steeped duck eggs, bone marrow, or tripe innards in the herbal hit of kway chap. Sometimes, there are chill modes to the heat, when sundown high fives what the locals are now fond of – the air-conditioning of the malls, to restaurants, to the quiet outdoor rooftop chill spots, that mellow down the steam of living equatorially looking forward to the next lazy rolls of holidays to give way to lazy salamander surreal, idyllic moments of finding solace in the canopy of wide-green leafy tropical foliage that only an island full of wonder can ever afford to pull off.
Social, weekend bravery, and for this expatriated, family-migrated fashion and advertising writer turned trep, a very interesting subculture suffices. Often mistaken for a hipsterish take on life, the proceedings of trepsters would be given a leeway of income generating pursuit of actual interest, and sometimes, when demand and interest actually hit the right wave, you get that sweet glory of being able to afford the very things you sweat your taste glands off. In review of the tasting events that have hit the island since foodie fever of 2001, (at least from my unique perspective), the influences have become as multi-cultural and varied as the originally examined hits of small enterprises enveloping your sights with adjusted to jarring sensations (which I’ve had my share of, year-on-year).
So corrective sight aside, there are things that remain constant, but there are fusions of actual interest inside the potholes in the road to boredom, which carry the whole experience together, islandwide and mostly surrounding the capacity that helps understand and deconstruct what make an interest stick, or life in a tiny island stick.
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/@treptrips/ – tune in to a trep addicting jargon search for what people talk about, what they mean and the limitations of words in all the given contexts they are applied to.
