Rockstar In Singapore – Beginnings at Far East Plaza and Ritz Carlton

Seasoned Traveler Rockstar must make sure he doesn’t miss his flight…

Would’ve had one with floor of entrance to Immigration section in background, but I failed to put my iPhone away in time… Walking into the restricted area an airport official stops me, points to the no cameras sign and goes thru my iPhone to delete the picture I have just taken. Swear there was only the floor in the frame and I’d kinda expected him to check the photo but not delete the pic, but visiting say, the States I wouldn’t even have dared take my phone out. I generally find HK immigration one of the friendliest, I lose my photo but the other staff are now patiently trying to coax Rockstar through the x-ray area. And that’s saying a lot because the average waiter or taxi driver in HK is very much not the friendliest or chattiest. (Though I realized on this trip they are the fastest.)

Entering Singapore always gets me. I can smell the difference in the less polluted air (one of the few things I dislike about Hong Kong). Driving into the city from the airport, there are all these beautiful trees. My grandmother who lives in Bishan used to say it always takes longer the first time you pass because the trees ask, “Where are you going?” On the way back you don’t get asked because they already know.

Straight, wide roads. Flowers in pots behind little wooden fences that look more at home around a white-washed cottage than on a highway. Some of the airport road dividers are made out of potted plants so they can be cleared away to make an additional runway for say, military planes. I recall one ex boyfriend telling me, at least back then, that terrorism (like drugs) carries the death penalty – troops handling the one attempted hijacking he was aware of shot to kill in an operation that was over in several minutes. He was proud. He is not normally a bravado-ed guy.

8 exes serving National Service, at least several officers among them, hopefully some of that understanding of Singapore’s commitment to ever-readiness “if only out of necessity because (they) are surrounded by Muslim countries” was not gleaned from the universal boy-showing-off-for-girl phenom.

Anyway. One of the more common questions I get asked by fellow expats I meet in Hong Kong is whether I prefer living in Singapore (10 years, 5 of them in school) or Hong Kong (going on 7 years).

I’m not sure I can ever answer that objectively. I married and went to live in Hong Kong when the hot hub had a job offer and well, we both made a lot more money there, possibly in part due to a difference in where we were in our careers. We were no longer fresh grads when we moved to HK. What I began to learn at work in Singapore was fleshed out and then some in Hong Kong. We were at such different stages of our lives. Many of my old friends now live here. I could go without seriously making new ones in Singapore, it’s small and every trip here I’ll bump into someone I went to school or worked with here.

Kings and I learned to tend our marriage in Hong Kong, and professionally we learned so much at work too, but it was in Singapore that I “grew up.” When I feel troubled and uncertain, walking the streets like I used to in the middle of the night, having hot plate beef at Cahaya in Far East Plaza, is a balm like no other. I marveled at, reveled in the safety and freedom to wander from Bugis to City Hall to Raffles Place at 3am on my own, when I felt like it, a luxury I never had living in my parents’ house in Malaysia.

Singapore was where I first tasted freedom, and the soft spot I have for the city born of the confidence with which I find my way around may not necessarily be logical. It was for here that I left home at 17, to share a little dorm room at CJ Hostel where I enjoyed the lack of hot showers and the outlawed use of hairdryers and hotplates (in case they tripped the power in the whole building due to the old wiring, back in the day) for 2 years.

(More on how Kings and I met here…)

It was also here that I recovered from the death of a loved one, watched some people near and dear to me in bad (I find the word ‘abusive’ melodramatic) relationships, learned the most important lesson about personal choices: If you cannot take care of yourself, if you screw yourself up because you choose foolishly, you hurt the other people in your life who love you. Being loved carries responsibility. Unless of course you really don’t love back.

(This must also be why on the plane they always tell you to get the oxygen mask on yourself first before you attempt to help others.)

The friendships I made while I studied here are so valuable, I remember the incredible strength some of my friends displayed. It’s one reason I retrace my steps to some of the places I visited when I hung out with them, I find inspiration and strength in their ability to make the most of the hands they were dealt in life. For isn’t that your real achievement, what you make, in the time God has given you, with the hand you’re dealt?

(Yeah, yeah, there are so many more inspiring people whose stories get turned into movies and books – but they are not people I had the honor of knowing personally.)

A girl I roomed with had followed her family to Hong Kong from China as a young child, earning a scholarship to study A levels in Singapore along the way. Worried about the impending 1997 handover, she fast-tracked her A levels, teaching herself half the syllabus (she excelled in Math and the material wasn’t covered in school yet). One day, I came home to an empty room, and a goodbye note (with an apology for saying goodbye in a note). I never heard of her again, not even her fellow Hong Kong scholars knew where she’d gone. I hope she made it to medical school like she wanted.

Then there was the older friend who had run away (from somewhere in Malaysia) – her mother had pledged her to a Tibetan (if I recall correctly) temple and she would occasionally get beaten because she didn’t want to go. Despite testifying at custody hearings, she was still repeatedly sent back to her mum (who was the more convincing speaker) instead of grandparents, her preferred choice of guardians. At one point she was locked up for several days in a jail cell because she kept running away, and she avoided the showers til she got out as she was afraid of the guards (not the other inmates). That was her life until she turned 21 and no longer needed a guardian. Today she’s a teacher and happily married mum of two.

There were other abuse cases. And other stories of bouncing back from illnesses, or nursing loved ones. I only mentioned the ones whose identity other friends reading my blog wouldn’t be able to guess 🙂 I used to joke that if all my friends came to my wedding, I wasn’t sure everyone would have anything to talk about with each other, some were from such different walks of life.

And so, after almost 2 decades, I remember… stuff. We don’t talk about anything in particular, we don’t often see each other for like ages at a time. Only this time as I look at where they are now, I remember the hand some of them were dealt in life, and I think I Can Swing Whatever The Hell I Need To. Just Look At These Guys. I remember when so-and-so cooked chicken stew in the room one night and it got confiscated and 10 days later when she got the pot back the stew was still in the pot. I remember when so-and-so stored carrots under her shoe rack. I remember one girlfriend describing confronting another friend’s (ex)boyfriend and then calling the cops because he had been hitting her. And was still hanging around outside in the bushes. I remember, I remember!

Then I go back to our hotel room.

And with his earphones still on, Kings waves over his shoulder at my reflection in the giant picture windows overlooking so much city that wasn’t around when I used to live here.

When I emerge from the shower, he nods at the coffee table, “Rockstar said to leave you that bun from dinner… ‘Because Mum will be hungry when she comes back’“ Aforementioned Rockstar is now fast asleep on the bed with his mouth wide open.

I might never fully appreciate the extent to which He has blessed me. But maybe tonight I came a little close.

PS: And we were in… the Ritz Carlton! They’re known for those windows in their bathrooms. It was one of Kings and my early dates and almost a decade later Rockstar is splashing about to the same view outside. Well, except for the casinos and the Esplanade and…