Racks of clothes along racks of clocks, as
if ticking away the fashion of the eras.
Fortune telling machine, I never
stepped on one before. Durian sign sale,
bicycle underneath a no-bicycle sign.
Rusty tishaw parked outside renovated
lifts. And an old dental surgery somewhere
next to an older barber in the HDB.
Urn, three joss sticks burnt out sometime ago.
That was the background where I walked,
background of the closed down emporium,
background of the foregin worker outside
an unopened shophouse. Background wet market,
background unanswered responses to the cajoling
from the hawkers in the background hawker centre.
Background, backstage.
Our performance dictates a different set of scripts.
Souvenier shops selling chinese hats and fake
pigtails stapled to the end.
Umbrellas for holding water.
Postcards of nothing we really do.
I’ll sell this as distinctly local. Our whole stage of
rojak culture and the embrancement of strolling
down the street back into the tourist bus. Shiny shiny
trishaws and fluorescent T-shirts peddle you around
the incorporated country. This is Singapore,
ladies and gentlemen, although you don’t see
the locals anywhere.
