Why we cling to vanishing touchstones of the past
Tabitha Wang, Today Online 1 Feb 08;
I don't normally accost strangers at void decks but this guy looked particularly helpless.
"Can I help?" I asked. He turned, phone card in hand. "The last time I used this was when I visited Singapore last year and now it doesn't seem to work."
I looked at the card. "You have to get a new one. They've changed the phones here so your card cannot be used anymore."
The last I saw of him, he was walking towards the sundry shop to buy a new card, muttering to himself: "Wah, so fast things change in Singapore. I can't keep track anymore."
His words made me think. Yes, in Singapore, things change fast. Overnight, two-way streets become one-way ones, condos sprout in open fields within months and, in a year, phone cards become obsolete.
Every time one of my friends visits me, she never fails to get nostalgic.
Opposite my block is what used to be her primary school. The main building is still there but has had its gracious wings chopped off by an ugly, new office block. Though conserved, it is not in use and looks rather sad with boarded-up windows and rusty "Do not enter" signs.
"I used to play in that field and study under the tree there," my friend would say.
We may purge ourselves of superfluous stuff during our Chinese New Year spring-clean but we cannot get rid of everything. We still need touchstones of the past to keep ourselves rooted, and give us a sense of personal history.
For most of us, this touchstone is often a building. That pitiful school building with a sagging roof and peeling paint reminds my friend of herself as a wide-eyed 11-year-old.
For me, it is related to either food or shopping. When I think of my past, I think of the Fong Seng nasi lemak shop next to my old hostel, where I had spent many happy university years. And there is the primary-school canteen where I once incurred my mother's wrath for spending all my pocket money on stickers instead of food.
When I was in the initial getting-to-know-you stage with my hubby, we took each other on a tour of our respective childhoods. I even made my husband sample the chicken rice at the hawker centre opposite Temasek Junior College because its $2 dish was my staple diet for two years while I was an impoverished student.
It went a long way towards understanding each other's behaviour. We also finally understood the strange references bandied around when we went to meet former schoolmates as a couple.
But with Singapore changing so rapidly, so many of these touchstones have been lost. It is difficult to feel a sense of belonging if, for example, you cannot take people back to your old playground and say, "Here's where I chipped my front tooth."
So, it is no wonder that we cling on to whatever we have left with a fierce passion, possibly not even in proportion to the actual object itself. Take "ex-Blanco Court" or "Waterloo Street's famous chicken rice", for example.
My overseas visitors never cease to be amazed by this nostalgic chink in our modern armour.
"Why is everything ex this and former that?" one asked me. "Who cares where it's from?"
"I do," I replied.
I watch Lost and Found avidly and take note of where stalls have gone. To my everlasting regret, I never took down the forwarding address of the best pig's trotter stall ever in Ellenborough Market before it was demolished.
The chicken rice from the seller opposite my JC did not taste as good to a palate that has feasted on the Chatterbox version. And I am sure the stuff sold by the "ex-Blanco Court" sellers is probably not that different from anything I can get in Chinatown.
But there is a sense of continuation in buying from them. I see familiar faces and can tell them: "I liked the Christmas tree I bought from you two years ago."
Or they can teasingly size me up and say, "I can't recognise you without your school uniform."
For that alone, it is worth making a trip to an ex. In this changing world, the most precious commodity you can trade in is nostalgia.
Tabitha Wang will be buying all her Chinese New Year stuff at The Concourse before the vendors move to Tekka Mall and become ex-Concourse, ex-Blanco Court.
