Worn Armrests

New fabric on the armrests of a swivel chair, parked in Teka Market, Little India, where private space becomes public.

City Chickens

Fancy buildings.

Coming from Metro Manila into Singapore for me is kind of like being wheeled into an emergency room. It's a clean place, and you might have many existential thoughts.


A housing building.

There are neighborhoods though-- pockets of immigrants. Where you can see chickens on the street. That's where you go to soothe your aching need for chaos.


Chickens eating scraps outside a Geylang kopi tiam.


A typical menu in the back.

Cans / Ashtrays

Milk can ashtray.

Singapore mornings were spent people-watching and grabbing some indigenized coffee in any nearby kopi tiam. Business is brisk in most of them, and yesterday's cans are reserved for use as disposable ashtrays. A steady clientele means they never have to wash and dry another ashtray for as long as people order coffee with condensed milk... or dishes with ma ling (Chinese spam, which my nanny used to tell me was made of old Chinese people).


Ma-ling cans waiting to become ashtrays.

Drawer Handle Improvisations

Plastic rope and wire replacing handles at the durian joint.

Carboy Resurrected

...as a carrier attached to a bike.

Washing Greens

Washing greens in a bucket and bunching them, in preparation for a market day.

Hungry Ghost Month

Coca cola! And oranges, apples, and that orange bread thing with incense sticking out.

I was in Singapore during Hungry Ghost Month. From August into Septmeber, I saw weird breadstuffs and smelled resinous incense everywhere.

Praying in front of an elaborate feast, which includes Yakult.


A mind-blowing array of food.


Baby bottles for dead babies.

That means (I later learn) that I will routinely come across banquets laid out for invisible dead people, have whiffs of various burning matter, and, if lucky, observe raucous koh-tai presentations in tented fields among Singapore's immaculately clean, vertically dense suburbs. All these are meant to appease, pay respect to, and help the spirits out. They are, by the way, believed to be roaming the earth at this period, having stepped out of the Gates of Hell (purportedly open during Hungry Ghost Month).


A burning frenzy.

Quite a sight are the large drums placed in public places which people continually burn things in. They are always putting joss paper in, to represent money. Transforming joss paper from solid into gaseous form represents an attempt to bring the comfort of money into the spirit life. This can be a little confusing for foreigners such as my cousin, who, when she arrived in Singapore, thought that the out-of-service drums were garbage cans, and began throwing her rubbish in.


Joss paper, or false paper money, for burning. This brings good luck to spirits.


Fanning money out, in preparation for burning.


Drums for burning things, not in use at the time.


A hanging incense holder along a building hallway.

Incense in a bread thing and coffee.

More coffee and incense. Plus pineapple and banana.

Public Checkers and Grandpas

A game of checkers, on the floor of a public area. Kind of weird.

What do retired senior citizens do while everyone is at away at work? Why, play checkers, of course, for hours on end. Funny, I didn't see a single young(ish) person playing chess or checkers in public.


Watchers, who watch whole games, and those that walk by and go "good move!".

Hidden Ashtrays

Ashtrays that swivel in and out of a seat, stuffed.

Singapore Clothes-Drying Norms

Towels on bamboo.

Ordinances banning public clotheslines are dumb. They are responsible for many a misshapen, stretched Hanes Beefy Tee. Air-drying your clothes saves energy, prolongs garment life, and can be quite a pleasant chore.


Uniform bamboo poles shrink-wrapped.

In Singapore, clothes are hung off bamboo poles. These poles may appear to be plastic pipes to the untrained eye, but closer inspection reveals that they are actually pieces of bamboo wrapped in a crispy, thin film of plastic.


Some securing.

In common housing buildings, they are placed either in hallways outside doors (balanced on iron rods with U-shaped placeholders welded on) or outside windows.


Hallway clothesline.



Some people have died of head injury due to falling bamboo pole.

Pimp My Delivery Truck

Animal print, fake flowers, real flowers, Hindu deities, Chinese good luck charm, littering awareness sticker. In Little India.

Pimp My Kariton

Garbage collecting kariton in Singapore, looking so neat and refreshing.

In my short car-driving stint, I actively explored ways to incorporate indoor plants into automobile interiors. I had failed on all counts, with results ranging from a small pot spilling its contents onto the seats, to rooting stems in bottles nestled in my cupholders, looking magnificent in the morning and then perishing in the sauna-like environment created by Manila heat.


Some kind of fortune-bringing plant.

I admit that if my means for carrying my stuff around had been a kariton, it never would have crossed my mind to incorporate a sunken potted plant into the wooden bed. Well, perhaps now that I've seen one, things will be different.

Cut-outs in Signage Part 2

Cut-outs in signage, common in Singapore for services offered.

Public Haircut

By-sitter at the open-air barbershop.

One of the first things I learned in Singapore, is that locals generally despise having their pictures taken by strangers. This was a break from back home, where people jostle their way into the photos.


Grumpy man getting a public haircut, Chinatown.

But they do also, in less "busy" alleys, engage in public hair cutting.

Chestnuts

Feathers as tails.

A man selling chestnuts in Singapore's Chinatown decides to adorn a false "cage" of hoary chestnuts with wooden birds.


Pre-processing chestnut education.


Gets em.

Singapore

I am in Singapore for a couple of weeks.