At The Market

18 Ramadhan

Access to the computer is slightly more limited than usual due to the fact that our two houseguests need to be digitally connected themselves at least some of the time. Fi Fi needed to use it to get her homework done this morning, and to play her Cheetah Girls CD. One of these girls it seems is Raven-Symone whom I remember as a cute little thing on The Cosby Show. My, how she has changed.

We duly went to the bazaar last night, with Fuad's mother in attendance, but I came back a bit earlier than the ladies who were obviously in a shop till you drop kind of mood. It was more than a little crowded there, touching upon heaving with humanity and other such hyperbole. As is usually the case I rarely had any sense of my bearings at all, and since the main flats there have been demolished this was even more the case than previously when you could at least get some impression of where you were relative to them. I missed looking at the displays of fairy lights in which so many of the residents used to indulge. The bus had taken an age to get there, though it's a relatively short trip, due to the volume of traffic converging on the area and so I decided to walk back. Highly refreshing.

I've posted one or two shots of the market but they cannot evoke the noise, the smells (a lot of smoke around for some reason), and the tactility of crowds that are somehow always nudging you along. But gently so: not terribly unpleasant, if you are prepared to be patient.

Today we found ourselves at the market around the Mesjid Sultan in the late afternoon buying food for the breaking of fast. There were plenty of folk around, but walking was easier than it had been at Geylang.

Light Beyond

17 Ramadhan

I'd meant to write something yesterday about an article that appeared in The Straits Times on Thursday, an account of a visit to Turkey by a Christian pastor, Yap Kim Hao, from Singapore, in order to participate for a day in the fast of a family in Istanbul. It was nothing spectacular as such accounts go, but gently touching in its sincerity, as the seventy-eight-year-old ex-bishop gamely carried out the full day fast, complete with visits to two mosques for prayers. The ease with which the pastor negotiated the so-called 'clash of civilizations' was striking, and a reminder that this is always the case for ordinary people of goodwill. It's no accident that an article of this nature should appear in Singapore's major daily newspaper, though fairly inconspicuously. The state is utterly committed to religious and racial harmony, way beyond mere lip service, and such inconspicuous promotion of such on an almost daily basis is typical of the social climate here. Long may it continue to be so. There are enough ordinary people of ill-will to make this a necessity anywhere in the world that wants to be truly civilized.

Noi drove across to Woodlands earlier to pick-up Fi Fi, Fa Fa & their Ibu for a trip to the market at Geylang Serai tonight. We'll be going there after breaking our fast at home. Previous experience, over many years, shows that breaking fast in a big crowd can be a somewhat fraught experience. The girls will be staying on with us until Monday as it seems they've got some sort of holiday from school on that day. They'll be 'assisting' Mak Ndak in the making of biscuits for Hari Raya, a process that is now beginning to fire up and is likely to dominate our lives for the next couple of weeks.

On the Henry James front, Strether has now finally met Chad in Paris and is trying to make out exactly what he (Chad) is up to. No good, I'll be bound. I've got a pile of other stuff to read, including Gaiman's Stardust which I finally got hold of last weekend after a trip to Kinokuniya, but it's The Ambassadors or bust for me at present.

The View Beyond

16 Ramadhan

Just over halfway through the fast and it's become a familiar place to be. Not easy, but familiar, almost friendly. It's easy to lose oneself at such a time looking inward, but there's a world beyond, always, and dark places therein.

The news from Burma is not good. Brian Ng remarked to me today on the feeling of powerlessness that watching and listening to the reports from Rangoon engenders. The BBC World Service ran a brief report on an unsubstantiated e-mail they'd received (at this point I think the Internet there is pretty much closed down) which suggested the death toll was a lot higher yesterday than the nine the military government had admitted to. It talked of trucks being driven deliberately into crowds.

I've taught a few Burmese students over the years and they've been memorably good-natured, sweet individuals. There are times when you just can't make things connect. I suspect the generals who are pulling the strings there are simple, stupid, greedy thugs. Always dangerous people to have around; deadly if they get their hands on power.

The Holiday Spirit

14 Ramadhan

Today I've been enjoying an unexpected one day holiday, awarded because the school is the top school for sport in the nation, or something along those lines. However, 'enjoying' is a bit of an exaggeration as I've spent the day so far working (though at home), and this will be continuing into the evening, though we do intend to pop to the fitness centre for an hour or so after breaking the fast.

All this means that I'll manage barely a glance at The Ambassadors in which I'm following Strether's progress after his arrival in Paris. That progress, as it is in the rest of the novel, I'm sure, is slow and measured. I mean extremely measured. To the tiniest fraction of an inch.

Now I don't mind slow-moving novels. I enjoyed Proust's In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past, however you want to translate it. That took me months, but the rewards were obvious. The problem I have, and always have had, with James is that I have little or no idea of what the rewards are. This goes back a long time over several novels and short stories. I remember watching the movie of The Turn of the Screw (I think directed by Jack Clayton, from the fifties, I guess) and being genuinely spooked - though I was only a kid at the time. The actual text was a severe let down. A great story shrouded in a lot of words that sometimes, for me at least, just didn't cohere. The Portrait of a Lady, What Maisie Knew, The Aspern Papers, The Europeans and other stuff I'm too lazy to recall at the moment have all been and gone for me, and I still don't get it.

So why persist? I don't think I would have had it not been for reading David Lodge's Author, Author last year, a brilliant account (sort of novelisation, I suppose) of James's experience in the theatre as a playwright. Basically his plays (or rather the key one) stunk and the poor guy suffered a really bad time. Lodge, one of my favourite writers, managed to convince me that James really does live up to his reputation and is well worth the time spent on him. So here I am trying to find that time.

Over The Water

13 Ramadhan

I was talking to John & Maureen last night for the first time in a while. John phoned when it was quite late, as he generally does, to tell me that Mum got back safe from bingo despite the fact he failed to pick her up. His failure was related to the sudden appearance of a police car in the vicinity when he had already had 'a bit of a drink'. Anyway, he promptly disappeared to avoid PC Plod whilst Mum, in the meantime, not seeing him around, grabbed a convenient taxi. I've got a feeling she may give me a more colourful version of the story when I next speak to her.

Maureen went on to tell me that John had been bitten by a duck at the park, much to the amusement of all who know him, and that she's fed up of working for Sainsbury's who sound like real slave-drivers in terms of how they treat staff. It seems that if they're short of staff in the restaurant where she works those who are there have to cover for the absentee rather than bringing in the available off-duty staff. Result - misery for all as they can barely cope. (I assume also more money in the pockets of shareholders of this noble chain of supermarkets.)This sounds like an example of leadership with vision, to me. Making what were originally quite bearable jobs as stress-ridden as possible appears to be a talent required of almost all 'managers' these days.

Special Ones

12 Ramadhan

Noi stayed up last night to watch United beat Chelsea and gave me, who collapsed even before the kick off, a full match report - or, at least, as much as she could remember, which was the score. With the Special One gone it's hard to see Chelsea going anywhere but down. I'm now trying to see if there's a repeat on this evening.

The other thing I had been intending to write about is my latest reading, revolving around The Ambassadors by Henry James. However, an over-long staff meeting has left me in dire need of mental rest so I'll pass on the Master for the moment.

Phoned Mum yesterday. She was figuring out a way to get to bingo since Jim, who usually gives her a lift, is not around. Now there's determination. Special.

Let There Be Light

11 Ramadhan

I've just tested our fairy lights, decorating our balcony at the front, and they are functional for Hari Raya. With a third of the fasting month gone it's getting to the time when we start to gear up for the big celebration. We've still not gone to the bazaars at Geylang, or Arab Street as I've been snowed under with marking this weekend and will be continuing to dig myself out in the week ahead, but we usually don't go there until the second half of the month anyway.

Noi is now showing signs of embarking on the annual clean-up of everything around us, which means I can expect curtains and cushion-covers to start disappearing soon. The place will soon take on a distinctly depleted look, as if we've been visited by a particularly choosy band of thieves. Also there's been talk of biscuit-making, one of the great features of the later part of Ramadhan in our household.

One of the great things about the celebration of Hari Raya is the way it has generally resisted commercialisation. Of course, this is creeping in (and I'm sure we'll get to see the logo soon) but since the whole point of the experience of fasting is the cultivation of moderation, it seems to resist the more egregious manifestations of consumerism, such as those poor Christmas has fallen prey to.

Fight the power, say I.

Restraint

10 Ramadhan

So far I've spent the day marking and developing a headache. But the marking is done, the fast is broken and we'll be going out for a bit of a run in a few minutes.

In the meantime, a quick reflection on what it's all for: I mean, why exactly are we depriving ourselves of food & drink for most of the day as well as observing other do's and don't's. Isn't it all a bit, possibly a lot, pointless?

I could list some of the benefits involved, in fact, I will: a heightened sense of the deprivations faced by others, which should result in some form of action to directly help a few of them; a heightened sense of the importance and value of the basics of life we take for granted (trust me, you could not possibly enjoy a glass of water as much as I did just now, unless it was your first in thirteen hours); a comforting awareness of solidarity (and purpose) with those sharing the experience of fasting; a satisfying daily feeling of success at getting something really difficult done; a remarkable introduction to a way of developing a new perspective on time & intention, and a way of learning the value of slowness; numerous health benefits - which, I've noticed, frequently make it into the pages of newspapers these days, to the point at which it's almost as if fasting is being generally recommended. And yet, nowhere in this is the reason for fasting given.

The Qur'an: Fasting is prescribed to you as it was prescribed to those before you, that you may learn self-restraint. It's a interesting value to consider, restraint; not exactly a fashionable one. It involves a radical re-orientation of things at the very centre of our being. The whole capitalist system, our beloved consumer society, might stand in danger of collapse if we could all learn it. (I include myself in there, being no more than a beginner.) We may even be able to preserve something of the natural environment we are happily stripping away to feed our need for that which we don't need.

Why is something which seems inherently negative - being prepared to deny ourselves what we want - so positive in its outcomes?

Crowded

9 Ramadhan

The mosque was bursting at the seams today for Friday Prayers, as pretty much any mosque in Singapore, or Malaysia, is in this month. I arrived there a little later than I intended as my last lesson overran. By the time I got there the only place I could find to pray was on the tiled floor right at the back. It was more comfortable than I expected, and will now find a place on my list of unlikely spots I've prayed in and found reasonably conducive for concentration despite their limitations. I suppose the strangely conducive nature of such spots is due to the realisation that you've got to make the best of things and lose yourself in the experience.

Relativity

8 Ramadhan

A week of fasting has now gone by, and we're just about a quarter of the way completed. It's a been a long, slow week which seems to have passed quickly.

I'm marking some work on Donne's Batter my heart… sonnet. It's fascinating how often students substitute a comfortable, cliched idea of what Donne is talking about for the shocking actuality. Self protection, I suppose. Perhaps that's why religious scriptures are prey to sometimes egregiously wrong-headed interpretation. We need to defend ourselves against the remorseless, painful reality with which they confront us, and reading into them what we would like to have them say helps build necessary barriers.

I've sometimes found that reading English versions of The Holy Qur'an is a bit like being subjected to an assault. I suppose the fact these versions are in English serves as some kind of protection against its insistent, remorseless probing.