the light in the east
[To my gentle readers:i find my writing getting more and more stilted, more and more cliche-ridden. It seems now that i have nothing important to say. This is the worst yet that i am allowing myself to 'publish' on this blog. So why publish, you ask? Because the alternatives - to not write at all, or to write and keep it all to myself, would both lead to stagnation. Because writing needs an audience. So bear with me till the time when this gets better.]
The island i live on measures 42 by 23 km. For the geographically challenged, that means that it would take you all of half an hour to drive non-stop from east to west at the speed of 80 km/h, or 20 minutes to drive from north to south at the same speed. Singaporeans are denied the privilege that people in other countries have of saying (with no hint of self-mocking irony), I live in north / south / east / west Singapore, because Anywhere segues almost seamlessly into Everywhere Else, largely undistinguished by climatic zones, local culture or political affiliation. Even our government has tacitly acknowledged this fact – our ever-expanding electoral zones seeming to point towards an Utopian future when Singapore will simply be governed as a huge conglomerate constituency, removing the need for all artificially-imposed boundaries, and allowing us to truly be one people, one nation, one Singapore.
In the meantime, however, certain renegade Singaporeans continue to cling to outdated ideas of our island’s physical and cultural geography. A friend of mine once claimed that the light in the east is different from the light on the rest of the island. Something about the air there, she mumbled. Which is just the sort of thing to send the skeptic in me on a crusade in search of the One Truth. So on my occasional forays into the east (another curious feature of life in Singapore: despite our size, we rarely venture beyond our own kampungs, except for work-related purposes), i’m always on the lookout for evidence that would prove or disprove her claim. And so far, i must concede that the evidence seems tipped in her favour.
* * *
At one point in time I half-seriously thought the light in the east looks different because there are fewer high-rise buildings there. (It’s dangerous to build high-rise buildings near airports – a fact that has taken on a certain dark resonance after September 11). Fewer tall buildings allows more light to filter through. I love being able to see the sky, and in the east, the patches of sky you get to see are that much bigger than elsewhere in Singapore. Take a walk in the east on a Saturday morning, and you will find a crisp clarity in the air that in a less busy country might pass for quietness and stillness; in Singapore, though, this is obscured by the growl of traffic and the miscellaneous noise of people going about their weekend lives – an intriguing example of how the aural and the visual are so closely intertwined that one can affect our perception of the other.
* * *
Perhaps the light in the east looks different because the air in the east allows it to. I know for a fact that the air in the west is more polluted because of the heavy industries located in Jurong and Tuas, and someone once told me about how the air there smells like a chocolate factory because of the presence of some deadly chemical or other. How exquisite. Delirious chocolate poison – the sweet sweet smell of death. I can think of worse ways to die.
* * *
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to capture the light in the east on camera. Does there exist a camera sensitive enough to record each nuance and shade of dust-refracted solar energy that comes our way? I remember my own attempts to photograph the blue of the London evening sky – that deep rich blue, hued with infinite possibility. The photos turned out grey-blue, purple-black, grey-black-blue – an object lesson in unrealized hopes and disappointed ideals.
And what if it were possible, anyway? What difference would it make to anyone – the exact luminosity of something as intangible as the light in the sky?
* * *
If I were an Easterner living overseas, one of the things I’d definitely feel homesick about would be the light in the east. Funny how it’s never the big things that grip your heart and leave you feeling strangely hollowed-out and emptied – sometimes it’s not even the important things that do that. In this way our memories become a motley montage of cracked pavements, greasy sandwich-bar windows, linoleum floors (with air-pockets where the lino was not properly glued down), clean white walls lined with rusty green rails, small green mosaic tiles on concrete floors, fine stubby grass on cow-eaten meadows, the tangy sunburst of fresh orange exploding in your mouth. The weight of it all. Yet skimming, light as light, across a rain-washed sky.
In the meantime, however, certain renegade Singaporeans continue to cling to outdated ideas of our island’s physical and cultural geography. A friend of mine once claimed that the light in the east is different from the light on the rest of the island. Something about the air there, she mumbled. Which is just the sort of thing to send the skeptic in me on a crusade in search of the One Truth. So on my occasional forays into the east (another curious feature of life in Singapore: despite our size, we rarely venture beyond our own kampungs, except for work-related purposes), i’m always on the lookout for evidence that would prove or disprove her claim. And so far, i must concede that the evidence seems tipped in her favour.
* * *
At one point in time I half-seriously thought the light in the east looks different because there are fewer high-rise buildings there. (It’s dangerous to build high-rise buildings near airports – a fact that has taken on a certain dark resonance after September 11). Fewer tall buildings allows more light to filter through. I love being able to see the sky, and in the east, the patches of sky you get to see are that much bigger than elsewhere in Singapore. Take a walk in the east on a Saturday morning, and you will find a crisp clarity in the air that in a less busy country might pass for quietness and stillness; in Singapore, though, this is obscured by the growl of traffic and the miscellaneous noise of people going about their weekend lives – an intriguing example of how the aural and the visual are so closely intertwined that one can affect our perception of the other.
* * *
Perhaps the light in the east looks different because the air in the east allows it to. I know for a fact that the air in the west is more polluted because of the heavy industries located in Jurong and Tuas, and someone once told me about how the air there smells like a chocolate factory because of the presence of some deadly chemical or other. How exquisite. Delirious chocolate poison – the sweet sweet smell of death. I can think of worse ways to die.
* * *
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to capture the light in the east on camera. Does there exist a camera sensitive enough to record each nuance and shade of dust-refracted solar energy that comes our way? I remember my own attempts to photograph the blue of the London evening sky – that deep rich blue, hued with infinite possibility. The photos turned out grey-blue, purple-black, grey-black-blue – an object lesson in unrealized hopes and disappointed ideals.
And what if it were possible, anyway? What difference would it make to anyone – the exact luminosity of something as intangible as the light in the sky?
* * *
If I were an Easterner living overseas, one of the things I’d definitely feel homesick about would be the light in the east. Funny how it’s never the big things that grip your heart and leave you feeling strangely hollowed-out and emptied – sometimes it’s not even the important things that do that. In this way our memories become a motley montage of cracked pavements, greasy sandwich-bar windows, linoleum floors (with air-pockets where the lino was not properly glued down), clean white walls lined with rusty green rails, small green mosaic tiles on concrete floors, fine stubby grass on cow-eaten meadows, the tangy sunburst of fresh orange exploding in your mouth. The weight of it all. Yet skimming, light as light, across a rain-washed sky.
posted by eothen @ 6:31 PM
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