change of address

2011-12-02T15:14:00.003-08:00

Hello friends,
To facilitate posts and suscriptions, and also to be able to classify my posts by language, I decided to move to
www.patadeperrochiquito.wordpress.com
See you there!

Singapore

2011-11-21T07:09:00.000-08:00

I have always been fascinated by borders. Borders and thresholds. The magic of becoming, the power of translation, the mechanics of standing at a specific point in time and space, and an instant, a moment, or a lifetime later, turning into someone else, be somewhere else. From the backstage to the front stage of a theater, from the backroom to the customer service counter in a store, or from one side of a bridge to the other. And I have always asked myself: Do we really change when we move? So we lived for 15 years in the U.S.-Mexico border, a place where becoming someone else is a simple affair of everyday life, as the international line transforms people in so many ways: housewives into smugglers, reputable paterfamilias into illegal immigrants, unreputable characters into respected customers. Rich and poor turn into Latinos as they move north; missionaries and perverts into tourists while going south, soldiers and teenagers into drunks, workers into shoppers, and who knows what else. Who knows.

Many miles away, we find ourselves dealing with other borders. Singapore is a tiny enclave inserted in South East Asia, right next to Malasya and Indonesia, and very close (physically and metaphorically) to places like China, the Phillipines, Australia and England. So close to England in fact, that you can still taste its colonial heritage in some of the architecture (what has survived the modernization sweep), its huge expatriate community, and the names of British explorers and governors populating a landscape of street names, public squares and historic landmarks. So much that the other day, Diego wrote in his homework that to take care of mother earth, he will help pick up “rubbish”. He paused and said to me: “It’s because many people here are British mom, they will understand”. Not only British though. People speaking all sorts of languages, with a rich variety of accents, an unlimited menu of religions and beliefs somehow manage to live here peacefully together, at least on the surface. And after seeing the pain and destruction that ethnic, religious and political conflict has left in so many places of the world, just the surface sounds good enough to me. At least for now.

Our condo is located in an invisible border. To the east we are on the edge of Tanglin and Orchard, an upscale expatriate zone, packed with embassies and fancy stores, impressive architecture and luxurious hotels. A Starbucks land, where people pay 60 dollars for a yoga class, 20 for a beer and 10 for a latte. Mercedes and BMWs stop on corners where beautiful skinny ladies step in, loaded with Louis Voutton and Giorgio Armani. This kind of prestige here costs an additional 50 percent, but in exchange it fulfills the fantasy of being in “the West”. But to the west we actually have Redhill, a very traditional public housing town, mostly populated by elderly of Chinese descent who have been here for ages. They are so stereotypical in the city’s narrative, that they are called after the place where they live: “Redhills”. Conservative and hardworking, much of them do not speak English. I see them every morning walking to the market with a small grocery bag. They will buy two or three things a day, both for freshness and exercise, and also for a chance to talk to their neighbors and merchants in the market. And they are not afraid of scolding me when in my purest American style (without the minivan) they see me loaded with groceries for the whole week: “You should buy less and come more often!” They say.

They are in fact teaching us a very different way of living. Buy less, store less. Keep on moving, even if it is slowly. Steam your food, make it simple. But if one day you eat pork or something with a heavy sauce, says Diego repeating the words of his Chinese teacher, have some hot water and green tea to “flush the fat”, and then go out for a walk, instead of burning the pounds of junk food in an air conditioned gym. So I now drink green and ginger tea every morning. I walk all day long. And I run. I run in the outdoors, next to the markets and small restaurants, construction workers and veiled Muslim ladies. I see young people rushing to work in the streets and elderly men and women doing tai chi by the river. I run and by running, I am exploring the city. I am now able to draw the face of all those underground stations I pass by on the MRT. And, if I finally learn to turn my head to the right side of the road, I will probably be in shape to run a half marathon. While I run I keep on thinking about the vast array of meanings and paradigms clustered together in this place. I notice the borders I cross, from Chinese to Indian neighborhoods, from an area of public housing to expensive expatriate condos; from mosques to Christian churches to Buddhist temples. I see the islands of Indonesia from my kitchen and the buildings of Malasya from my living room. And every time I open my windows I think: Boy! Aren’t borders so fascinating?

pata de perro chiquito

change of address

Singapore