"The Resident Tourist" by Troy Chin (comic)

I was collecting my comics this afternoon at G&B Comics at Bras Basah Complex when I spotted 2 paperbacks peering from the cashier's counter. The words on the cover of the first title read:

Adrian Teo presents

THE RESIDENT TOURIST (Part 1)

By Troy Chin




There was a little price tag on the plastic wrapper: $10.00

I was intrigued. And curious. So I picked up Part 1 and flipped to the back cover to see if there was more info about this title.

There was no blurb and no ISBN number, i.e. it's likely to be self-published or printed on demand (and maybe not submitted for Legal Deposit yet). And likely to be local. So I asked the cashier if I could sneak a peek inside, as I don't usually buy comics with crappy art (unless the story or author is one of my faves).

As it turned out, it was drawn manga-style, and the dialogue was pretty easy to follow, without too much Hokkien, pretentious Queen’s English or the usual criticism of the local socio-political scene.

Plot-wise, it’s about a guy (Troy Chin ~ who happens to share the same name as the writer-artist) who comes back from New York after his dream as a musician?) failed to take off, and feels like a tourist in his own country (Singapore) because he had been away for that long.

I have only bought and read Part 1, and while the story is rather slow-moving at the start (Troy keeps meeting up with ex-classmates and old friends), I had this feeling that the writer wants to develop Troy more holistically, and those born in the 1970s and 1980s can identify with the character and his idiosyncrasies. For example, I sometimes feel like a Resident Tourist like the character. I’ve not been to some parts of Singapore, and when I eventually do, I would behave like a tourist, e.g. whip out my digital camera and start snapping away. Some of the flashbacks in Part 1 – e.g. the video games and school life – also resonated with me.

Oh, BTW, the books collect the strips first published online at Troy Chin’s website and the ‘Adrian Teo’ mentioned on the book covers is actually the bloke who financed the print runs, and he has even started a blog to promote the comics.

I’m going to buy the rest of the series as the artwork if pretty decent and the story is rather original (as in, it doesn’t try to be a superhero or wuxia rip-off). Most of the local comics illustrators cum storytellers listed here are also pretty good, compared to most of the works featured in “Century Comics Presents Singapore's Greatest Comics by Jerry Hinds” , which I bought out of curiosity but which disappointed me terribly.

Taxi story: Dog-walking

I took a cab to Katong for my dental check-up last Sunday, and the driver was one of the talkative types I enjoy chatting with when I'm travelling alone.

I can't remember how we started talking about pets, but the cabby uncle started a discussion on taking care of dogs:

Cabby: "I used to own a dog and it was helluva trouble looking after it.... and when I go for holiday, I need someone to look after him."

Me: "Eh? I thought there are pet hotels? You can get them to pick up your dog from your place"

Cabby: "Nowsaday, people don't use pet hotels already. They pass them to a neighbour to look after."

Me (giving skeptical look): "Huh? Isn't that going backwards"

Cabby (looking at me via his mirror): "I say, young man. You dunno some rich people live in bungalow look after their neighbours' dogs?"

Me: "So rich also want to do this kind of business meh?"

Cabby: "Got money sure take one lah. But it's not easy, because your neighbour won't pass their dog to you just like that. They want to see your house, and how you keep your dog. If your house too tidy, most likely you can't look after dog."

Me: "Huh?"

Cabby: "You know bring dog for walk got rule one? One person can only walk maximum 5 dogs."

Me (skeptical): "A-ha...."

Cabby: "You know lah, some dogs sure fight one. Some friendly to people. And the most troublesome part is to make sure they don't sio kan". [Editor: sio kan = 'have sex' in Hokkien dialect]

Me: {speechless}

Cabby (looking at me through mirror): "You dunno what sio kan means ah? Sio kan means f..."

Me (stopping him mid-sentence): " I know, I know..."


Fortunately, I had reached my destination by that time and he had to stop right there.... :-)

Red House Bakery (Katong) Revisited

I used to live near Katong and would frequent shops in the area. My favourite hangout as a kid would be the Red House Bakery along East Coast Road, with its trademark furniture, decor, cake displays, food and of course the elderly bakery assistants. Sadly, the bakery closed shop in 2003 as the building was deemed unsafe.

I had some spare time after my early morning dental appointment on Sunday, so I walked over to see what had become of the Red House Bakery as I had read that it was supposed to be part fo a major redevelopment - since 2007.

Strangely, it was still there and hoarded up:





As I stood along the road to snap photos of it, passers-by gave me curious stares.

After a while, I walked on along East Coast Road, and as I walked past a cheap ($1 per hour) cyber cafe (which I later learnt was managed by this group, I spotted an oddly familiar sight: one of the elderly bakery assistants from the now-defunct Red House was seated outside as a receptionist !!!



I went in and spoke to him briefly in Hainanese and English, and he remembers that the Red House Bakery was closed in 2003, but he has continued working since then.

After that, it was time for me to attend Mass at the church nearby.

NDP 08 vs Beijing 2008 opening

Yesterday, I heard someone remark that "after watching the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics on 8 Aug, the National Day Parade 2008 (NDP 08) was nothing" and I wondered if that person was comparing apple for apple.

Planning for the 2008 Beijing Olympics started in 2001, whereas planning for each NDP only took place about a year before. So the Chinese had 7 years while we only have 1 year every year.

The budget for the 2008 Beijing Olympics was 'tens of millions' while NDP 08 definitely costs much less (does anyone have the budget for NDP 08?).

And of course, the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was directed by famous director Zhang Yimou and featured 15,000 performers , while NDP 08 was helmed by an army guy and his creative team.

While most of of the 91,000 people in the Beijing 2008 opening ceremony has to pay for their tickets, NDP 08 tickets were free of charge (unless you bought it from a tout).

In Memory: Father Lawrence Yeo

Fr Lawrence Yeo officiated our wedding at Holy Family Church in 2004, and although I knew he has been in poor health in recent years, his sudden passing took me by surprise.

Extract from a church bulletin:

"Fr Lawrence Yeo was called home to the Lord on the morning of Thursday, 7 August.
Nightly masses at 8pm at the St Joseph’s Church Hall (Bukit Timah).
Funeral Mass is on Monday, 11 August at 9:30am at St Joseph’s Church.
He was the former Parish Priest of St Joseph’s and also the former Rector of the St Francis Xavier Major Seminary. "



Rest in peace, Father Yeo...

National Day Observance Ceremony

About 20+ of us were nominated to attend the National Day Observance Ceremony at MICA HQ today. Here are some photos and videos I took of the hour-long celebration...

My colleagues from various divisions (not all were present when I took this shot):


The programme of the day:


The Pledge-taking ceremony after the singing of the National Anthem. The folks on stage came from MICA HQ and its statutory boards:


Videos of various performances by talented MICA staff:

A rendition of Joi Chua's "Qing Kong Wan Li" by the new MICA band. The Chinese version sounded nicer to me...


The 'Singapura' medley in various tongues:


Two Malay dances by the Persadaku Seni dance troupe of Fuchun Community Centre:





And finally, a rendition of Kit Chan's "Home" (1998 National Day theme song) by MICA stafF:



That's me:


A colleague took this shot of me outside MICA building. Why do I look like I'm levitating?

Heritage Road Show (2 Aug 08)

The 3rd annual Heritage Road Show (HRS 3) last Saturday was a little different from the ones in 2007 and 2006. While there were the usual donation booths, official launch by a guest-of-honour and prizes to incentivise potential donors to step forward, HRS 3 was held in conjunction with National Day and focused on collecting old photographs taken before 1980. As such, the theme for the launch event and the supporting events had something to do with photography.

For instance the launch mechanism this year was a gigantic "mouse" which could be scrolled and clicked to launch the SNAP Flickr site as well as the Virtual Donors Gallery.



Unlike the first HRS in 2006, the 4 donation booths this year were geared towards digitisation and digital donations to NLB's SNAP Flickr site.



While the first HRS has a few booths to collect physical donations, HRS 3 had only one but it had rather good business throughout the day (see below for stats).



Yahoo Flickr was one of the programme partners this year, since we were collecting digital photos via the Flickr platform. Here's a photo of their booths: one for Flickr and the other for Yahoo Answers.



Flick also exhibited photos taken by local enthusiasts at the level 7 promenade:




The Aljunied Town Council was also one of the event partners and it held a mini exhibition of old photographs:



Featured prominently at the events plaza was the "43 Things That Remind Me Of Singapore" photo exhibition organised by us, and it show cased the top 43 photographs selected by our judging panels. Members of the public were invited to vote for their favourite photos to stand a chance of winning twenty $50 prizes (see below for stats).




Next to the "43 Things That Remind Me Of Singapore" exhibition was the [A-Maze] art installation by Central CDC High Five Youth. Starting from a blank canvas arranged in a maze-like formation, members of the public could get paint and brushes to illustrate "what do you understand as Singapore's culture and heritage":



The photos below show a few early birds at work. Notice the blank walls all over.


A couple of hours later, more people joined in:


Even my colleagues couldn't resist and took ownership of one panel:



By the end of the day, the Art Maze was complete:




The last item for the day was by no means the least interesting. The annex located behind Han's Cafe was the venue for the "Wanted For Being Beautiful" exhibition by Ukay. In his words: "Singapore longest photo wall exhibition features 43 individuals and celebrates alongside Singapore 43rd Birthday. It showcases the diversity of many beautiful faces, professions and cultures who call this island home."

What caught my attention at this launch were the guests who turned up at the official launch. Apparently, the folks in the photo wall popped by and some of them were either dressed for the occasion or very comfortable as themselves:








And yes, I did promise the stats for HRS 3 (reproduced here with kind permission from the project manager):

• 2000++ visitors (whereas last year HRS2 had only abt 1000 visitors and 1500 for HRS1 over 2 days).
  
• We have also collected a total of 1,095 items of which 150 are physical items plus 945 digital photographs:
  - 373 obtained at HRS 3
  - 332 submitted via SNAP Flickr
  - 240 from Aljunied Town Council
  
• The physical items collected range from:
  - "Beauties at Bugis Street" in 1960s (which might be too risque to show)
  - a 1930s Singapore Island Country Club photograph
  - 1950s to 1960s Arts Theatre of Singapore programme collaterals
  - some 1955 publications.
  
• As for the digitised photographs, we have collected a series of National Day Parade photographs ranging from 1963 (before Singapore's independence) to the 2nd National Day Parade and many other interesting photos... if you are interested, pls view here http://www.flickr.com/groups/snapsg_events/pool/show/ This is triple the amount of collections from last year's Heritage Road Show where only 300 items were collected and almost double that of the previous year where only 600 items were collected.
  
• The interactive SMS voting system for the 43 Things That Remind Me of Singapore Exhibition had also attracted 2,000++ SMS voters.

Church poster

Spotted this on a church bulletin board: