Just came back from a full dress rehearsal of Diaspora at the Esplanade. It's good, dono exactly how I can classify the performance, it's not a drama thing... it's got a full chinese orchestra, indonesian musicians, multi-video projections plus some really good performers.
However this show was relevant to me, coz after staying in Paris for the last few months, I have been thinking and reflecting about my identity as a Chinese Christian Singaporean. Parts of the show spoke volumes to me, the feeling of displacement, a sense of isolation and the need to connect to the past. It's hard for me to put it in words, but the show has given me hope, that I am not going through this phase alone.
Two nights ago, I was on the way home in the last bus from Marina, I talked to one of the actors from the show. I told her that in spite of being part of the majority race here, I felt not-rooted. She was surprised since she was in a minority group but I told her that in spite of that, I didn't really know who I am culturally. I went on to explain, I am a Cantonese and I was raised in a environment where my dad spoke only English to me. I grew up with American sitcoms and TV series in the 80s and 90s so I am more familiar with Western icons than Eastern ones. At that time, China was branded as the bad guy by the media so I don't feel linked to China as a Chinese Chinese. I told her that even now, my past is being wiped because the places where I lived and studied are gone, I can't even show my kids the classroom where I studied, or the field where I played, or the canteen where I loved the chicken wings fried by the malay uncle.
I told her that one of the most bizzare things that happened to my school was that they replaced the old clock tower with a replica. And with that, my memories were taken away. Some people might argue that memories live only in our heads, I disagree. I think that old clock tower held part of my memories and a replica cannot replicate memories. Anyways, I think that this process I am going through will take time. Dono if it's going to be useful but not everything has to be useful, does it?
On another note, we feel that something fundamental is changing in Singapore, Jo and I were discussing about it when we came back 2 weeks ago but can't still we can't put a finger to it... but it feels as if the whole island is in a new big rush to head off to somewhere.
Jo's dad had to go for a lung operation this week and she was very tied up for a while, but thank God he has cleared the op and will be heading home soon.
We are heading back to Paris on Wednesday. Got a piece of good news, the Internet connection has finally been installed in our apartment. Woohoo!! :-)
Wes
