A Talented Brunch

Yes, I know that’s a horrible, horrible pun, but it’s also an apt description of this afternoon.

The Wife went off to meet with the group of artists in Toronto I’ve mentioned before, the Sketch Motel, and so we wandered slightly further past our usual haunts to another stretch of Annex populated by neat little shops and restaurants. It was a fascinating experience in comparing Canadian creatives versus their Singapore counterparts (or at least my recollections of them) and I was amazed at how different their behaviors are. They operated in almost diametrically opposed ways. Singapore creatives, for example, usually don’t talk much about the work or techniques they use, instead preferring to talk about Important People they know, the latest good restaurant, the prestige of their position or the soap opera of burn outs and back stabbings of fellow peers in the industry. The Canadian counterpart tends to concentrate a lot on talking about their work, sharing their techniques and secrets with each other, barely acknowledge that food exists, and tries to minimize the significance of their work, while at the same time praising and admiring their peers.

I remember meetings (both informal and not) in Singapore where creative types would imply that the little company they did work for was somehow linked to Microsoft, which meant that the creative doing the talking was theoretically working for Microsoft and wasn’t that just the coolest, most Award Winning, World Class thing? The creatives here will offhandedly mention they’ve gotten job offers to storyboard the latest Incredible Hulk movie, or have someone congratulate them on the stellar job they did for Coca Cola or Camel cigarettes and then talk far more enthusiastically about a new function they’ve discovered in the latest version of Painter, whereas the Singapore counterpart would barely know what Painter is, would viciously guard every precious “secret technique” they know (in order to maintain a “competitive edge” I’ve been told) and would still be working off a pirate version they downloaded off bit torrent, because only idiots actually buy software whereas smart, clever people get things for free where ever and however they can. And oh, by the way, they were in the same room with Jude Law once, that’s practically being best buddies with him…

And the people of that island wonder why they’re not in the same league creatively as North America or Europe and blame it on the small population. I’ve met plenty of talented creative types in Singapore that I respect a lot, but they don’t fit the typical Singapore profile. And when they don’t fit, they do the only logical thing.

They leave and live in some other country as quickly as they can make it happen.

It’s night and day to me, and just staggered me what a vast, almost incomprehensible culture gap there is between these two groups that are supposed to work in the same profession. Hell, even though I was the only non-artist in the group, they insisted, “You’re a writer! That’s creative! You’re one of us!”

After that, we spent the rest of the daylight (which was considerable as spring rolls along) wandering through various areas of the city as the Wife took photo references in preparation for the story for Sonny Liew’s Cities-themed anthology. Aside from photos of the Annex, there was a trip through Queen Street West and the Front Street/CN Tower/Union Station/Super Money/Business District area. It was nice to see the place devoid of people, but there were still cars and traffic everywhere you looked…

Right. Theoretically I should be doing more writing, but after all that walking around, I may just goof off and watch movies and play games…