I'm back!

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It's been such a long time since i last wrote. We caught London before heading to Singapore and now that we're here...i lay awake most of last night, thinking about singapore. Thinking about the narratives that go with it. I read The Straits Times again. I am reading it again i should say. It is dire. The quality of the writing is abyssmal and the stories, if possible, are worse. It is like reading a propaganda rag - sorry, it is a propaganda rag. For instance, yesterday's headline ran, a government survey has shown that property prices are NOT at an all time high and people are only getting worked up for no good reason at all. That wouldn't be so bad, if they had someone saying i don't believe this, i don't care what the survey feels like, it feels as if we're being pinched. No, they had someone saying that's fantastic, it's great. We're all so reassured by this. Then there was an article, is an article almost daily about someone who used to think that Singapore was shit, but doesn't think so anymore. How insecure are we that we must be reassured constantly how fabulous this place is? It's like some unreal town whose inhabitants, or children, must be told daily that we live in a real place.

I was thinking, if i was looking for a real Singaporean voice it wouldn't be in the pretendligensia of the place. The pretentious, arrogant, annoying English speaking people who assume they rule the country. The English-speaking middle classes whose god-given arrogance astounds me in the way they treat the working classes here. Their maids, the waiters, the construction workers, the immigrant labour that staffs the stores. Asia still operates by a class system, and old habits die hard. I watched yesterday as we were in Mutafas and the cashier greeted the customer with hello, how are you, with no reaction at all. A mother i struck up a conversation with at the swimming pool telling me that her son was not attached to the maid at all who was solely for the house and he tells her Nana can go back to the Phillipines cos he's not close to her. I smile at the lonely women who take care of our children and they smile back in relief and surprise that they've been noticed. There are somethings i cannot get used to. I cannot understand. But then again, nowhere is perfect. Today i'll get my camera out and start snapping. It has taken me this long to get my mind here as well. Then i'll do some updates.

Sorry Linda, if you've been checking. I know she's in Crete - live it up!!!

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