Room with a View
Needing a respite from sitting on the cold, terrazzo floor, I light my sage bundle. After blowing out the flame and leaving the orange embers on one end, the crackling calms my nerves. The salt lamp on the oak dresser table produces a warm glow and emits a relaxing ambience. I inhaled deeply, to the pelagic smell of an ocean.
My rent is cheap for the living standards in this town. The day I received my keys to my basement unit, the only object in the empty room was a lone frameless canvas print held on by blu-tac. I supposed Figura en una finestra (1925) by Salvador Dali was a welcoming gift left from the previous tenant. Perhaps to compensate for the lack of view in this square room. I can totally empathise with the previous tenant because I would sometimes visit windowswap.com just to enjoy window views from around the world.
The perks of living in small spaces is that there isn’t much household chores to do. However, for someone living alone, the floor feels gritty often enough for me to suspect that someone had walked around with sands between her toes.
The borderless printing of the art could have blended in to the pink hue of the wall. If not for the yellowing on some surfaces of the non acid-free canvas. The soft patterned curtain draped neatly on the window frame encapsulating the petite physique of an unidentified woman. With her back facing the viewers, her matured body softly moulded within tight nightwear, she stood barefoot in her comfort zone, looking towards a vast of opportunities as though awaiting change. As a replica, the painting has lost some finer details but the harmonious colours exude serenity.
The painting does give an impression of a window. But can windows look like paintings? I went closer to examine the pixelated brush strokes. There is a natural instinct to hold my breath. Unexpectedly, a cool breeze touched my warm cheeks. I poked my head through the window. The waters receded all at once. My pupils dilated. The land stretches to where my eyes could take me. From afar, I watched from the window a toddler on her mobile scooter going in circles. Despite the vast landscape, she kept gliding along the invisible trail that she had already taken for the past thirty minutes. In the absence of supervising adults, she displays contentment in play alone. As she approached and passed a huge boulder, it began to change its form. The solid mass increases its size exponentially. The larger it grew, the darker it turns. An elephantine echo can be heard across the barren land as it started to chase after the girl. By now, half of my upper torso was hanging out of the window. I tried to shout a warning but there was a lump in my throat.
A force pulled me back into my room. Ouch! I turned around and saw a woman with the most exquisite features despite her heavy chestnut brown hair. Her porcelain skin seems brighter than my future.
Who are you? What are you doing here? Sounding extremely puzzled.
I’m Ana Maria, sister of Salvador Dali. The woman introduced.
***
“Stay away, ah girl,” my grandmother lamented. “How many times do I have to remind you? It’s for your own safety.”
Ah ma* had started lunch preparation even before our breakfast. Slow cooking happens on a weekend when I don’t have to attend Kindergarten. My nose follows the smell of the burning charcoal. My Ah Ma is making Claypot Fish Maw Soup. She sat on a low wooden bench and used the charred bamboo fan to maintain gentle heat. The gas stove is right behind us but Ah Ma seldom uses it. She thinks food cooked slowly using the traditional charcoal stove will get the best out of the ingredients.
The trick to fully utilising this cooking method is to stand a one metre radius from the red charcoal stove. The heat warms up my body while I hold on to grandma for security. Gazing into the small window at the bottom of the traditional stove, a blend of warm colours brighten up my day. When I’m tired, I like sitting on the floor to view the glowing charcoal and wonder how the black charcoal turns ash white by lunch.
“Come, let me do the tails again,” my back facing grandma as she helps me readjust my unlevelled pony tails.
“My mother was a great cook. She prepares food for a family of nine every day, three times a day! I know how to poach, steam, double-boil, slow-braise, stir-fry, blanch, braise and stew, all thanks to her!”
My grandma is a Teochew. She spoke exclusively in the Teochew language (潮州话) which is a Chinese dialect also known as Southern Min language. Teochews originate from the Chaoshan region in Guangdong Province located in the Southeast of China. It is a region blessed with a long coastline along the East China Sea. My grandma is from Shantou, a city in Guangdong, China. She moves to this neighbourhood when she arrives in Singapore with my grandfather.
I grew up in Block Two, Jalan Kukoh with my grandma. All of the units are public rental housing. When I walk, my eyes were mostly downcast. Terrified of stepping on spits, dog’s poo and unidentified semi-solidified substances. Grandma warned me to never go barefoot outside the house. Sometimes, used needle syringes appear in the drain or behind shrubs. Litters strewn across the lift landing or void deck are daily occurrence. I will hold my breath as I walked past the corridor that were stacked with personal baggage. Pungent smell of urine, most likely by drunken would greet you at the staircase. I was ten when I had to attend my school’s overnight camp. After much persuasion, my teachers finally let me sleep on the cold, hard floor instead. The body bags carried away by the paramedics had too much resemblance with sleeping bags. Grandma and I are living in felicity but I cannot wait to move out with her.
As a teen, I am careful not to reveal my exact address to my friends. Once, a friend’s mother insists on sending me home. I politely declined but gave in eventually and requested to be dropped off at a bus stop near Robertson Quay. This is an area that residents living in Jalan Kukoh could only dream of. It is clusters for million-dollar homes, al fresco dining along the Singapore River and art galleries. Waving goodbye, I ensure that I walk a short distance towards my said estate. Once I am sure that I am not in view from her rear mirror, I head the opposite direction. The overhead bridge at Havelock road connects Jalan Kukoh and Robertson Quay. But in no way, the residents on either sides can connect.
***
“Quit staring at me! Say something,” bellowed Ana Maria.
“Erm, I studied about you in Art history in University. I know, I know, I must be tired and I’m sure I’ll be waking up soon.” I was impressed. My room appeared exactly the same in my dream. My GrabFood Delivery Starter Pack is where I had placed it.
“You’re definitely not dreaming, I’ve been expecting you.” Maria said calmly. “Someone sent me.”
“Who?”
“Come, let me bring you somewhere.”
In front of Paragon Shopping Mall along Orchard Road, facing Ngee Ann City.
“What do you see?” Maria points to the shopping mall across the street.
“Why are you taking me to a mall?”
To have seven levels of polished granite and marbled establishment in 1993 in the city is a grandiose plan. An egregious national symbol for prosperity and progress. Behind all those glitz and glamour, the premise of where Ngee Ann City now stands used to be a cemetery known as Tie Swah Ting (Tai Shan Ting, 泰山亭).
“Tell me, what does the layout of the mall reminds you of?” Ana Maria prompted.
“I don’t know.” Fumbled on my words.
When the land here was going to be developed, exhumation needed to be done. Between 1951 and 1953, more than twenty thousand graves in the cemetery were exhumed. To appease the spirits, the mall was modelled after a Chinese tombstone. The feature of a tombstone comprises of three columns with the one in the middle erected higher than the other two. The five flagpoles in front of the main building represented joss sticks and the fountain signifies wine as an offering.
I must have looked dumb. Ana Maria jolted me out of shock.
In 1845, Mr Seah Eu Chin and twelve other Teochew merchants representing the surnames Tan, Lam, Chua, Ng, Quek, Teo, Goh, Sim, Yeo, Chan and Heng came together to form a fund, known as Ngee Ann Kongsi. It is to be used for the promotion and observance of the doctrines, ceremonies, rites and customs professed or maintained by the Teochew community in Singapore. Due to the fact that my father has registered me as a Huang instead of the Chinese dialect Ng during birth, Ana Maria had a hard time locating her last person. Thus, the eleven of us string together by a common heritage was somehow a tenant before in my room.
Before I can ask more whys, Ana Maria brought me to main entrance of Ngee Ann City. Rumour has it that if someone of Teochew descent placed both feet on a cracked tile nearest to the road side, perpendicular to the mall, a vision would emerge. Little did I know that it is true. We waited for a group of tourist nearby to leave before my sceptical self followed Maria’s signal. I hesitate. Then proceed to put equal weight on both feet. The moment the crown of my head is lifted, I possess a bird’s eye view, like in Google map, in a barren land. My usual perception is dislocated and the initial effect is obfuscating. Imagine seeing yourself and your vicinity from the top but your physical body remains grounded. This visual information received by my brain prompts a cognitive adaption. There’s a heightened sense of bodily and spatial awareness as I can no longer rely on habitual movement. Negotiating in the new space, I clomped about ponderously on the sandy ground. The seemingly infinite land was eerily quiet. Moving about aimlessly, a bourgeoning black dot from a distance emerges and rolls towards me. My instinct to shout for Maria only yield an unfamiliar, deafening silence. Only my own voice reverberating in my chest. Just then, a white door not too far away appears like an exit strategy. Slightly elevated. One leg over, and another. I throw myself over the bottom of the door frame and landed with a thud.
This new place was dim and has a whiff of sage. Feeling weary, I push myself up to sitting and empty the sands out of my shoes onto the familiar terrazzo floor. The glint in the self-portrait tells me that there’s more than meets the eye.
References:
https://explorersg.com/explorersingapore/ngee-ann-city-a-former-cemetery/
https://www.roots.gov.sg/Collection-Landing/listing/1190275
