Bugis, Singapore
Joseph Gordon-Levitt brought Bugis to mind. (What brought him to mind, I don’t know.)
My flatmates and I sat in a coffee shop at Bugis one rainy evening, watching sheets of water sliding down the windows, turning the blue cabs and crowds of shoppers into an oil painting-like blur. Sated with shopping — my friends were buying handbags and clothes, if I remember correctly — and sugary coffee, we were preparing to watch 500 Days of Summer, which features Gordon-Levitt with Zooey Deschanel. We promptly fell in love with them and spent days talking about the film. You know how certain places and things become inexplicably linked in your brain? This is one of them. I can’t think of the movie or the actors without remembering Singapore.
500 Days was the first movie we watched in Singapore. It was also the best by miles, because we followed it up with Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Angels and Demons in the next few months. We spent most Sunday evenings wandering the city aimlessly, grateful that work was still at least twelve hours away (we worked in shifts, the earliest starting at 5.30 am), and that we could be out on our own — women — and had to answer to nobody. The recession had just hit, but as first-time employees on a shining island, giddy with an independence we’d never known and would never know again, we were living a consumerist dream.
Bugis was one of the first places I visited on my own in Singapore. One memorable afternoon, I set out to get my library card — another first, for I had never had one until then. I got off at Bugis MRT station, ended up in a massive food court, wandered around self-consciously, then called an aunt who lived in Singapore for directions. I could have asked someone in the mall, but speaking to strangers didn’t come easily to me. Stepping off the anonymity of the muted spaces of trains into a busy shopping area, especially a food court where I barely recognised anything, was nothing short of terrifying. Put me on the purple line from Ponggol to Harbour Front and I knew what I was doing. Set me loose near the Fullerton and I’d walk for ages because I could look at buildings and read plaques. Shove me into a mall and I wouldn’t know what to do, even today. Malls bring out the awkward best in me.
However, that afternoon, liberty was at hand, for a short walk delivered me into the welcoming warmth of the National Library. For under SGD 30, I had a shiny new card and a world of books at my disposal. The library took my breath away then and I still remember it with awe. High ceilings, glass, and rows and rows of the grown-up books I’d wanted to read for years.
I went back to Bugis often. For a long time, not being aware of the convenience of branches and book drops, I continued to go to the main library. This was my getaway, a place where books exuded friendship and strength, and the presence of strangers wasn’t daunting.
The first book I borrowed was Rumi’s Daughter by Muriel Maufroy, which I didn’t like much. But this was also where my love affair with reading on trains began. I’d bury my nose in a book through the length of the journey, even if my flatmates travelled with me, and they usually left me alone — I’m not a joy to be with when I’d rather be reading. Multilingual conversations and station announcements playing in the background, I kept work anxiety at bay with one book after another. Sadly, I don’t remember all that I read then, because this was over a decade ago and before I signed up for Goodreads. One book stands out, though, both for its brilliance and for a short subsequent correspondence with the author. Indra Sinha, author of Animal’s People, found a blog post where I mentioned its bland cover. He wrote to me to say that he didn’t like it either! So, you see, Bugis led me to an exchange with a living, breathing, Man Booker-nominated writer.
I had to tell you this because you’re probably wondering how a post ostensibly about a locality in Singapore has turned into a treatise on libraries and books. I can’t help it. I see the bustling streets and Fu Lu Shou Complex, but what has endured is the reason for those constant visits, and the paths they set me on. And as the years go by, the various haunts of our year in Singapore overlap with one another, merging into a tapestry of shops and glitter and a little bit of local culture. If I had a chance to go back now, I would do it all differently. I’d try to know the country, which I failed to do, and be a much smarter twenty-two-year-old. I’d eat traditional food, make friends outside work, and stay in touch with them. I’d try to live a little less in my head (which, even to my wiser self, sounds implausible).
Bugis will crumble and join a mismatched pile of jigsaw pieces. The years will carve a gulf between girlish dreams and real life. But occasionally, Gordon-Levitt or Deschanel or another trigger will come by and extricate a memory. What is the point of these memories? Solely to offer writing practice, because the people and places who helped make them have moved on, and I remain here, custodian and keeper.
