Back in Singapore: Impressions *

After a year in Los Angeles, we’ve been back in Singapore for 2 days. Like waves upon the shore, or maybe Chinese water torture, I’m reminded of all the things we’ve grown to love here or the idiosyncrasies we find annoying. People are amazingly helpful and kind.



• Three friends picked us up with a truck for our luggage, even though we came in at 11:30 PM. They drive us across the island to our place and take us out for Indian bread called roti prata and the yummy gravy we couldn’t find anywhere in multi-cultural Los Angeles.
• The owner of this apartment renovated the bathroom and purchased new mattresses, sheets and towels for us. The beds were made and looking like a guest house when we got here.
• After being gone a year, I couldn’t remember my bank PIN number when buying stamps at the Post Office and the woman across the counter patiently says, “take your time, you’ll remember.” (I did).
• I have a little trouble buying a train ticket at the automated machine and the woman next to me volunteers to show me how.
• In the neighborhood shops I try out my rusty Chinese and instead of scolding or snickering to themselves about my bad pronunciation or my wrong choice of words (which is what I overheard or witnessed people in USA doing to immigrants), the “uncle” or “auntie” will praise me with some comment about how good my Chinese is (when I know undoubtedly it isn’t).

We are living in limbo until we find an apartment, until we decide if we’ll be able to afford a car, hire a helper, or have a dog.

We are grateful for the offer of a free apartment where our furniture has been stored for free this past year. This meant from the first night back I was sleeping on my own bed. It is a huge gift to stay here, with some familiar surroundings, but still, I don’t know the neighborhood yet, can’t figure out how to use the washing machine, and there are strange odds and ends in all the kitchen cupboards. 

There was also a surprise: we’re sharing the place with 2 Filipino single guys. It may be jet lag, but I feel a bit numb. There is expectation without excitement. After having spent 25 hours last week scrubbing down our missionary housing in Pasadena, I am not sure how much energy I have to clean up here, but I am not comfortable enough to cook at home in these conditions? I wonder how long can we eat every meal out. How soon and how much should I attack the ramshackle kitchen that’s in desperate need of cleaning and renovation when it may send me into depression and there are so many other uplifting activities I could make a priority over scrubbing the greasy burners of an old cooking range? Why do I feel this compulsion to clean?

I’ve told the boys to put their things in drawers. It will help us feel more “at home” even if we have to move out in 2 weeks. The bottom falls out of one drawer. Then we find one cabinet in their room is full of wet books and papers. They are all covered in thick mould from a drippy air conditioner.

Exiting the standard steel elevator of this apartment block, I am also very glad that we are staying on the 6th floor since it only stops at the 6th and 11th storey. 

I walk down a hot concrete corridor, looking out over the groves of high rises painted orange, yellow and beige. I smell a familiar scent. The mixture of incence to ancestors wafting from home altars, mixed with the sour stench of mildew from the wet washed clothes. It had gone a little "off" from sitting in the humidity before getting dried in the blazing sun. 

I smell what I think is the stale and dusty cooking grease coating every kitchen. I’m wishing that this aroma give me a warm fuzzy feeling about being back. 

I want to have the old “home sweet home” feeling after investing 8 years of my life here. 

But it doesn’t, and I don't.

However, I am walking beside Tyler (15) and Cameron (11) and I watch them take it in. I know that their reactions to all of this are happily and completely different from mine. To them this constant sticky sweaty feel, and the hum of fans, and escaping to an air conditioned bedroom is familiar. These dark security bars across all of the apartment windows seems normal. Instead of these bars making it feel a bit like a prison, like it does for me, it adds to everything that is making the boys happy to return.