clogs, tissue sellers, street vendors and the ventriloquist

i know that, recently, the blogging community at large (back home) has been milking SingaporeGaGa dry (but not quite yet), and i'm dying to watch this for myself once it gets to melbourne. this nearly unbearable itch is due partly to the fact that it hinges strongly on my research topic, namely, curiosity on the [familiar] streets.

have already strongly recommended it to my cool and not to mention uber-techie mom, and i've told her to bring her friends too! so. to whoever reading this, WATCH IT! WATCH IT! WATCH IT! and yeah, i see that SingaporeGaGa has no lack of fans, from Lianhe Zaobao, to Today, to several blogs-from-the-horses'-mouths. so i'm not too worried about them not being able to cover costs. yay!

i remember my dad setting the timer to start taping that radio show (is it called happy hour? i forget.) with victor khoo and charlee on saturday mornings. my best friend even called in once with her riddle, and won herself a fanta hamper! you bet i was green-eyed. heh.

and there's a mad scramble to retrieve margaret leng tan's The Art of the Toy Piano CD from my audio pile. bought it a few years back when she had a concert in singas, but was too shy to ask her to sign it back then. it was my birthday, too. regrets, but life goes on. there is an odd desire to listen to the strangely surreal strains of a miniature version of the upright piano i've grown up on. guess that's what bachelard means when he talks about one's continuing journey back to their 'first home', eh? more recently, a friend bought me a toy piano from one of those lovely old toy shops in chinatown. but i fear once i touch it, its magic will somehow be lifted and broken.

when i last went back to humid ol' singas, i set about with my totally novice get-up (nope, guess who did not inherit the techie-gene?) of muVo mp3 recorder and videocam, and tried to document the street sounds and scenes for my own research. of course, the result was intended to be scratchy - why else would a financially-dependent student not do the documentation in a more professional manner?! for once, without my headphones stuck in my ears, i walked the streets of home, and i listened. but this film's done it all. and won my heart.

and i heartily cannot wait to see it. and own it.

the singaporean vernacular is ever-present (even from the clips) and i can already hear the soundscape of home.

being away from home sure makes this international student prouder of where she came from.