Images - Chien Swee-Teng

I heard more about the death of a dictator from a friend who has seen the video footage. Inside my head, I only have a vague image of the photograph on the front page. It reminded me of the head shots of two dead men years back. They were the sons of another dictator that was executed later by his people under the instigation of some other foreign power. The obscenity of these images is equivalent to the closed-up moments of triple X porn, and the truisms about happiness, life and death in the spiritually pornographic speech of a New Age monk or guru with an enlightened smile. It is horrible and, at the same time, ironic that these images denuding death could be published ‘uncensored’ on the morning papers, while we continue our endless debate about the moral and social aspects of categorising fictitious sex and violence in films and plays.

But I find it somewhat pointless, if not ridiculous, to think about this while sitting on an old wooden bench outside a neighbourhood clinic and smoking. An armchair critic sits on the armchair at least. The clinic is closed today - or perhaps at this time of the day. A middle-aged woman walked past me. Framed by her untidy shoulder length hair, the features of her face are slightly distorted, more akin to those photographs exposing cases of plastic surgery gone wrong than natural birth defects. I thought, but the face of the earth is more than just a case of plastic surgery gone wrong. Perhaps, what happened to her could also be the result of an accident. She noticed I was observing her. I looked away.

A rather old black cat came towards me and sat under a cracked, dirty blue plastic chair next to the bench. Despite the thinning and greying fur it should still be regarded as a black, I guess. The cat was spying on a bald-headed Javan Myna pecking at a piece chicken bone next to the green rubbish bin. I once said to the friend who told about the video footage that a bird pecking at chicken bone is a cannibalistic sight. The friend once, after seeing another bald-headed Javan Myna, lamented, ‘look at the kind of shit we are eating, even the birds are losing feathers.’ It does not matter if his statement is scientifically valid. When I threw the cigarette butt on the floor and stood up the black cat ran away, the Javan Myna, alarmed by this series of manoeuvres, took flight, leaving the chicken bone on the floor to resume the status as an unwanted litter. Out of curiosity, I looked at the board next to the closed metal shutters of the clinic for the consultation hours. Why do doctors need such a long lunch break? And next to it is a poster advertising the health check packages and the prices in larger fonts, larger than the yellowing white fonts stating the consultation hours at least.

Song for my Province – Chien Swee-Teng

Song for my Province (28.10.2011) – Chien Swee-Teng

‘The Austrain misogynist, Otto Weininger, divided women into two categories: mothers and prostitutes. Similarly, men can be classed as fathers and profligates. The fathers again can be graded into two groups: the fathers of children and fathers of “men.” Since all the former can do is beget children, not bring them up, they still have something in common with profligates. The latter not only beget children but also try to educate them, in order that they may be genuine men in the future.’ - Lu Xun, ‘Random Thoughts (no. 25, 1918)’
If it is Roman numbers and Arabic letters, the price of four slabs of meat might be better. To braise (Lor), steam (Chway), because I am patient, grille (Peng), I leave no stone unturned, to pan-fry (Chien)? the oil, but I am profound, I like it deep-fried. We love to share our concern for the price of meat but not the meat. Vegetarians love to despise us and secretly hope we die from all kinds of cancer. But they are kinder, but they are kinder than us, they love animals.
We love the girls from our hometown, fair limbs, flesh-vegetables (bak chye) it doesn’t matter if they shave – their armpits, I mean. Or faint shadow of moustache on another adorable face. I am lying.
I met a German girl, and she told me about the hairy woes on her legs and arms. We discussed Buddhism (a popular topic amongst many Westerners now) and the hairlessness of monks and nuns, and some cunts in school.
I knock on the wall like a door, I forgot to tell you that I am strong, that I am so strong that the wall cracks instead of my bones. And hairlines are born to form a distorted map of the world. But I can’t see my province from it, knowing it is not about the cartographer who prefers pounding than drawing. I live on exaggeration.
I notice a trace of my blood on the wall, few drips, not a spot or a little red dot. ‘Blood on the sheets again’, white sheet but it could be the dark virgin I bought last night, or a menstruation blood of a careless loveless 45 year old. A 78 year old lady is watching the advertisement of Japanese sanitary pad on TV. But she doesn’t say much about the Japanese occupation in 1942. This song is not dedicated to women or to criticise mothers to be. I was born to be unfilial.
I am proud of my province with a name longer than the territory, the almost invisible territory on the world map. Not a problem of scale, 1:63,360, 1 inch = 1 mile. And 1:1000000 made it worse, 1 cm is 10km, pocket size map of Sydney is 1: 15000. Kannina, I failed mathematics in school.
I am proud of my province with a bastardised name, took a cat for a lion when we only have tigers, now dead tigers of Bukit Timah, now intimate friends of paper tigers. What prince, what Hindu, what traitor, what Sang Nila, what Utama, it only reminded me of the word Kannina. For a day, after school, my classmates substituted Kannina with Sang Nila and Sang Nila with Kannina in class. And Utama for conversation in Mandarin. What Srivijayan, what Indo, what Chinese envoy, what Chinese monk, I am not a prince with mythical power or intelligence. I only would throw myself into the sea, than the crown, because of my fear of drowning. What lanchiao lord of the sea! Whose grandfather!
In school, we were told that scientists of the West said tiger and lion are classified as Cats. On my way home I looked at the skinny stray cats around the void deck. One of them, I guessed female, was licking herself. I was reminded of some poses of showgirls in United States from a movie. Science lessons in school must be a protracted joke imported from Germany. I was told that huge rats used to bully their ancestors, some came from Persia and Siam, until the great William Farquhar came to save the day. Anyway, the cheaper beer here must be ordered by the names of cats, fierce cats, black cats, tigers and lions in different language or dialect. Tiger Beer, Leo, Singha…I did not do biology and hate to visit the zoo. The most dangerous species there is considered visitors.
The conversation ended but she forgot to hang up. She did not put the phone down properly. No click. It is landline. I hear the TV. Earlier she played me a song recorded on cassette tape through the phone. In return, to continue this potlatch of muffled sound, I played the acoustic guitar and sang out of tune for her. Scratching of strings is more prominent than the plucking. She is talking to her sister now. I hear screaming, chattering, screaming of joy, bliss and innocence compounded, and laughter and chattering of joy, bliss, unfounded excitement and potential hysteria compounded. I hear a man’s voice, the father, I guessed. Is that how she behaves at home? How she speaks to her family. I put the phone down. I hear it click.
First time out of the province, on our way to Malacca, driving along the high way listening to The Rolling Stones the palm tree plantations, is it mathematical or dynamical sublime? Sorry for the Kantish question. The Rolling Stones played at the badminton hall in 1965 which is to say the The Rolling Stones played in Geylang. The Rolling Stones Live in Geylang! The two friends who went with you are dead. One of them, David an ex-cop spent the rest of his life as a full-time gambler, a hustler in the billiard saloon at the basement of Golden Mile. Now you are studying Golden Mile as an architectural phenomenon. We met him when he was jaywalking, crossing Jalan Sultan. He died of heart attack few years later.
The promise to be a man of the world - let’s return to the price of meat and related matters. Not to waste your life in a basement. The advertisement in the newspaper today inspired this provincial song, I must cite my reference. Fresh Buys, Available at 85* stores! Argentina Packham Pears – $ 1.95 US California Red Globe Grapes – 38 cents 100g China Winter Dates 350g -$2.25 per punnet Italy Angeleno Plus 1 kg-$2.95 per punnet China Yuan Huang Pears - $ 1 for 2 Spain Melons - $4.95 each China Spinach 250g - $1.10 per pack Fresh Grey Prawns (Stateless) - $1.08 100g Japan Sea Bass - $1.44 100g Australian Chilled Twee Bah – 98 cents 100g.

Future Song Lyrics - Darren Hayman

Future Song (Bracket parts unsure)

Verse I

This look nothing like it does in the brochure

The beds are double and (there) should be a four poster

We should be booked on the 19th floor

with a view of the lakes and the view of the mountains.

This girl looks nothing like the girl on the cover

She’s got acne and the braces,

she’s a (mother)

The photo shows a nymphette who could only be nineteen with big brown eyes.

Chorus

And the future is not what they said it would be

in the Sunday papers, the Seven-tiers (or 70th)

where’s my monorail, where’s my hover car, where’s my robot slave

My wife is into Elisabeth Sladen and she’s not Lesley Anne Down

But we live with disappointment in a small apartment

making do with what we found (Cheo Chai Hiang)

Verse II

They don’t make movie like they used to

They don’t make music like they used to

I don’t really feel the things I am supposed to

but my wife helps me work it thru’

Repeat Chorus

Instrumental

Repeat Chorus

For Eugene

.It was published in 1991. Printed on the cover page is the title 'Things to Translate'. Written on the same page, beneath the title 'For Eugene, in Stoke-on-Trent, 25 VIII 2003 (with all my best wishes!) Piotr Sommer' and a drawing of a stickman holding a stalk of flower - not a faceless stickman but the kind with a smiley. Piotr Sommer is the author, a Polish poet. I found this thin paperback in a secondhand bookstore about five or six years ago. Often when I open this book, I would come across the same page and read this message before proceeding to the content. Although I am not the addressee, I have read this handwritten message lying on my bed, in the living room, in school, on the bus, in the toilet. I thought about how and why the book had ended up in the secondhand bookstore? I speculated about the relationship between Piotr and Eugene. Why flowers? Superficial, merely acquaintances, Eugene has no interest in this book, and it was dumped together with some bills, statements and invitation cards piled under the coffee table with the old newspapers and magazines, after a month or so. Maybe, they were once very close, intense but the friendship has soured very badly and Eugene just couldn't stand the sight of the book. Was it misplaced and sold as a part of a bulk by a rag and bone man? Perhaps this Eugene is already dead and his family cleared everyhing in his room, including his bookshelf with a modest but eclectic collection. I thought, this Eugene could be one of the few Eugenes I know. The Eugene from sixth form, the well-loved Eugene, the much-praised Eugene, some forgotten Eugenes. Related words and names came to mind, Eugène, the French Eugene, Eugenides, eugenics. Perhaps, this Eugene is an avid but selective reader who maintains the purity of his collection like a fascist. If that's the case, I would say to the imagined (but not imaginary) Eugene that it is not 'a matter of of taste'. But rather how some people without the faculty of taste are allowed to express their opinions, and are given the rights to act on their tastelessness.

.

Fanon and Friends

The waiter made you wait with your hand raised
before you caught his attention

The maid thought the crows attack her twice, on separate days, because she’s a maid.

The bus didn’t stop when you flag. You weren’t as slow as an old man.
It was night time, the street lamps were on, the street wasn’t darker than your skin.

on ash

Indeed, if one goes into this apparently uninteresting subject in any depth there is quite a lot to be said about it which is not at all uninteresting; if, for example, one blows on ash it displays not the least reluctance to fly off instantly in all directions. Ash is submissiveness, worthlessness, irrelevance itself, and best of all, it is itself pervaded by the belief that it is fit for nothing. Is it possible to be more helpless, more impotent, and more wretched than ash? Not very easily. Could anything be more compliant and more tolerant? Hardly. Ash has no notion of character and is further from any kind of wood than dejection is from exhilaration. where there is ash there is actually nothing at all. Tread on ash, and you will barely notice that your foot has stepped on something.

Chernobyl 1986 - Jorge Volpi, Season of Ash, p.10

Chernobyl 1986 - Jorge Volpi, Season of Ash, p.10

Mikhail Mikhailovich Speranski, with intense grey eyes, had just joined the Armada. Held back in school because of mathematics and spelling, and prone to bullying his brothers, he celebrated his recruitment: He was seventeen years old, and the only things that mattered to him were money and women. When a sergeant suggested he join the special labour force that was working in the Ukraine and Byelorussia, and promised him extra rubbles every week, he abandoned the wide-cheeked girl whose bed he shared and went off in search of adventure.

Transported in obscure military trains, he reached his objective after three days: an improvised encampment on the Ukrainian plain. By then, hundreds of volunteers were dreaming of long hours of combat. A tall, thin sergeant explained the mission to his squad. At 5:00 A.M., an army truck drove him and four of his comrades to a spot seven kilometres from Pripiat. The moon was shining through the trees. Their orders were blunt: They were to kill every animal and clear the land – that’s right, the whole place – to free it from the plague. They were no longer soldiers but butchers. The local peasants called them liquidators.

Speranski almost wept when he shot his first deer, a doe only a few months old, but after a few weeks of constantly emptying his rifle, he barely took note of his victims. The corpses of sheep, cows, cats, goats, chickens, ducks and hounds carpeted the meadows before being doused with gasoline and burned like heretics. The liquidators had to eradicate everything the monster hadn’t devoured. Within a radius of ten kilometres, all cities and town were demolished, the trees cut down, the animal life decimated, the grass taken away. The only way to guarantee the survival of the human race was to make the plain into a desert. Mikhail Mikhailovich went about his task with the same blankness as the executioners who put his grandparents to death in the Kolyma camps. After contributing so faithfully to the massacre, Speranski found life less than attractive. Soon after the fall of the Soviet Union, he would be executed for armed robbery.

Notes. India Song. Duras

- Singing of a mad beggar woman from Laos, from Savannakhet, dead children she drops along the way, walking to Calcutta.
- Not about mad woman but of Embassy love affairs, of a French woman with her lover or lovers, young attaché, Vice Consul…
- Shadow, elongated shadow of a man cast on the stone steps of the villa. Folds like a black accordion.
- Smoke, incense or mosquito coil burning or the guy smoking. It is a French film after all: ‘People of France, a good looking depressed guy smoking a cigarette is not a movie?’ - Peter, Family Guy.
- mentioned mist after the wind.
- Disembodied Voices. Didn’t see any Indian in the film, despite title. Except an Indian waiter dressed in white, even the turban. But he is not a white Indian. Didn’t see the crowd in the ballroom, at the reception, only noises, the mad woman, the gossipers, the seagulls… actually we see no one else except the French woman and her lovers. We only hear voices. No Indian songs although mentioned ‘India Song’
- Other Names of Places, Lahore, Bengal, Calcutta, the Ganges, delta and islands. Wife of Spanish Ambassador. Shalimar Gardens. Shanghai and Spain. 1937.
- Mentioned tennis court, deserted tennis court, nothing to do with Tennis Court Oath, but led to an Oath or death of another kind
- Humidity, she has Venetian blood. Loves dancing but ‘no one’s dancing in this heat. Immobility is the only remedy’, and something about slowing blood circulation. The piano, out of tune because of the humidity.
- Reflection. Played a lot with the mirror 1) came into the frame from the right, she was in her red gown, it was her reflection, followed by her person. 2) She bends over the piano, in her red gown, he walks towards her, entering the scene from the left, once again, it is man who follows his reflection. Reminded the piano is in front of the mirror. 3) Bullet hole in the mirror, from the dialogue.
- Leprosy, ‘leprosy of heart’, he shot the lepers. Couldn’t see because of the mist. Boredom, ‘boredom is personal’ Writing, ‘You write?’ ‘I used to, thought I could.’ ‘Love can be shouted’ – Vice Consul who wants to stay over for just one night. ‘Never loved…’ suspects ever really. He is a virgin. He claims. ‘The air smells of mud and leprosy’