Timezone Hopelessness

With a change in timezone as drastic as Toronto to Singapore (A full 12 hour difference) it’s pretty difficult to try adjusting sleeping hours to accommodate the change.  So we’re not really bothering.  We’re going to bed a little bit later, to try and ease the pain of the early morning departure, but that’s about it, really.  With any luck, we’ll so tired by the time the plane takes off we might actually be able to sleep off some of that 15 or so hours crossing the Pacific.

There Will Be Preparations

And they have to be made fairly soon.  Next week The Wife and I return to Southeast Asia for 10 days.

Yep.  We’re visiting Singapore for five days, with another five in Hong Kong.

This should be interesting.

Dull Canadian Moment #3784

Aside from writing a comic script and watching Wife play more Persona 3 (she is mighty now. All tremble in her presence) GUM was purchased! And it was legal and everything! And we won’t get charged or fined for having it on our person! I was slightly amazed when I realized that in the months since we’d arrived, I had completely failed to purchase a pack of gum, but now a pack of sugar-free Freedent sits in our home, ready to be chewed and enjoyed with legal sanction from the Canadian government. Wow, what a country…

Also, I got Superman Returns on Blu-Ray today. Whoo hoo. The man of steel in High Def…

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…

Weekends Feel Like Weekends Again

Another Saturday rolls by and I’m reminded of the fact that here, in Toronto, a weekend feels like a weekend again. People who have never been to Singapore probably don’t know this, but when it comes to places like offices, many Singapore companies have a 5 1/2 day work week, where, despite the fact that no work usually gets done, employees are expected to come in and put in a half-day of work (usually ending at noon or 1 pm) on Saturday. If that sounds a bit excessive, you also have to remember that Singapore is the kind of place that values time over efficiency; given a choice, a Singapore employee will prefer (and handsomely reward) a worker who is so hopeless inefficient that it takes them all night to do a simple task that could be done in an hour. I’ve personally seen people who were completely incompetent at their jobs rise the corporate hierarchy for no other reason than the boss would see them sitting at their desk well after hours, struggling to finish a simple job that another employee could finish in a much faster time. Said efficient employees are usually punished for their speed by never getting promoted because they’re not as “hard working” as the ones that stay at the office working (or in some cases, playing Counter-Strike with their co-workers, something I’m happily guilty of) till the wee hours of the morning. Which is why the typical Singapore worker quickly learns that the best way to get ahead is to waste time. Most people who figure out the system have a regimen of checking e-mails, surfing the ‘net, talking to friends on Instant Messaging systems and going to lunch for an hour or two, then coming back and doing more of the same until about 5 or 6 pm, then finally getting around to doing work when it really counts. Needless to say, this doesn’t necessarily work once you get out of Singapore, but if you plan on staying there for life, it’s actually a pretty sweet arrangement.

But anyway, the weekend.

The Annex is slowly coming to life, which is pretty cool to see. Now that the temperatures are in the teens, or, as in the case of today, over 20, the streets are bustling, but it’s not that hurly-burly, everyone’s in a rush kind of energy you normally feel during the week. People are sitting at their porches, reading books, smoking cigarettes with friends, or even just napping. Dogs of every size are being walked by people of every color and fashion, and even the women are getting into the act with ridiculously short shorts and incredibly small, tight tank tops that are causing drivers to fail to notice the change in traffic lights as these Poster Girls For Slut-cercise promote their bounce and their curves on the street.

It’s very weird to have that sense of time and progression again. After over 10 years living in a country where the sun always-and-without-fail set completely by 7:30 pm, regardless of the year, still having daylight outside at 8:00 pm is unfamiliar and, to the Wife, extremely unnerving. But it’s nice to see the change in the people as well. And feel that relaxed bustle of people everywhere, who are simply taking their time to do what they want or just enjoy themselves. When Saturday rolls around in the Annex, it really does feel like everyone is loosening up and taking it easy, as opposed to Singapore where the nervous energy actually jumps up another notch because the mentality is “Oh my God, I’ve only got 36 hours to get this stuff done before work starts up again, I gotta’ hurry!”

People who go shopping here seem so relaxed and leisurely. People who shop or even simply walk around in Singapore always seem to have a clock ticking over their heads and that makes them jumpy.

Did I mention I’m really, really, REALLY happy to be back? Well I am.

Real Peasant Food Versus Fake Peasant Food

Despite the fact that I have now been back in Canada for a few months, I still occasionally get those “Wow, I’m home,” moments that sneak up on me and smack me on the back of the head like a sadist in a pillow fight convention. Today was just another quiet day, no surprise considering a) I am incredibly boring, and b) it’s Easter Monday which, in a predominantly Christian country like Canada, means that school kids, banks, government employees and various others are enjoying the last of a four day weekend. A far cry from Singapore where everything grinds to a halt for Chinese New Year, and Good Friday, with its subsequent Easter Sunday is a grudgingly acknowledged blip on the calendar radar because the Asians know the Western world is going to be stuffing its collective face with chocolate anyway and thus no financial or business transactions are really viable.

So today was laundry day and a few other minor errands in the neighborhood, which meant that since the bulk of our clothing was going to be sloshing around in the nearby laundromat (yep, we actually drag our stuff to laundromat now, the first time in my life that a laundry machine has not been in the house) we could afford to take it easy and so decided to stop in a little place we’ve frequented before.

The place, as you can see from the picture, has the very comradely name of “People’s Foods Hamburgers” and like a few places back in the ol’ home town of Edmonton, this is an honest to goodness, 100% completely authentic, utterly functional and completely unpretentious DINER.

You walk in and you see booths. You see a long dining “bar” with stools set up. Hell, you see regulars who come in as the cooks and waitresses say “Afternoon, hon, cup o’ joe before you start on your lunch?” and the regulars barely acknowledge this greeting since it’s the same ritual one they’ve been getting for years. The place has been in the neighborhood FOREVER, and it’s the kind of diner that grandfathers and fathers have been taking their kids to, who in turn, carry on the vicious cycle of keeping this nifty little “greasy dive” alive in a world of McDonald’s, Burger King, and Starbucks coffee. I’m convinced that the coffee urns in this joint are older than I am. The only concession to the 21st century the diner has is an Automated Teller Machine stuffed away in hall to the bathrooms because the place refuses to deal in anything but cash.

Eating in there while the Wife happily sketched away at the diners, the staff and the funky old 50′s milkshake machine tucked away on the counter, I couldn’t help but remember the almost psychotic giggling fit I had the first time I arrived at the place pictured left. An Australian guy I knew had invited me to get a burger with him at a some restaurant on the upper floors of a shopping mall called “Billy Bombers,” a space that was supposed to recreate the authentic 50′s diner experience.

Okay, so said Australian guy was, after all, Australian and thus had probably never been to an actual diner in either America or Canada, and maybe he even thought that me eating at a place like this would somehow make me feel more at home, but MAAAAAAAAAAAAN…

Walking in, I think, for the first time in my life, I finally understood what it must have been like for a Chinese or Japanese national to walk into a North American version of a Chinese or Japanese restaurant. There was a thick, palpable sheen of “chintz” so viscous it practically clung to your skin like the humidity outside. Seeing disinterested Chinese kids dressed up as 50′s waiters with a sullen look on their face that screamed “God this job is so beneath me” was almost as hilarious as the great pains the decor took to be as authentically American as possible, complete with plastic figurines of various presidents scattered around, and a menu filled with cheap imitation renderings of Vargas girls. It should also be noted that they had what looked like imitation Seeburg Stereo Consolettes set up at each table, but these were largely for atmosphere it seemed; I could never get the damn thing to actually take my money and play music on the jukebox, assuming there even WAS a jukebox anywhere.

People’s Foods Hamburgers however, do have authentic Seeburg Stereo Consolettes like the one pictured on the left, and they still work for only a quarter. In addition, when the waitress (a gruff, friendly gal that still chews her gum) takes your order, she DOES NOT blink in confusion when you ask for “a hamburger but hold the onions.” Or, she will actually ASK you if “you want everything on it,” as opposed to being completely baffled when you utter the phrase and ask to have it repeated several times, then slower, and then finally breaking it down to “I would like all the fixings, that is the ketchup, the mustard, the pickles, the onions, tomatoes and lettuce.”

I am also extremely happy about the fact that when you order a burger here, they do not fry an egg and put that on your order, something that still strikes me as profoundly bizarre, but for some reason, Singaporeans seem absolutely convinced that authentic American diners and patrons ate this.

However, probably the best part about eating at People’s Foods Hamburgers, aside from some real authentic diner ambiance is the fact that prices are also authentically diner. The Wife and I can easily have a hefty meal of massive amounts of food for less than $15. The average meal for two at “Billy Bombers” in Singapore will probably run between $40-$50 in local currency. I’m still amazed when I stop and think about that. These people are shelling out half-a-hundred bucks between the two of them, just so that they can feel like they’re “really in America” and, for an additional cost, get their name carved on a steel plate on the table, just like the greasers in America would carve their name with a switchblade or jack-knife!

Man. Singapore is just starting to seem more and more like this surreal dream I had for ten years…

Steeped In SIN

I finally got my Social Insurance card reissued to me today, so I can start racking up those unemployment cheques! GO ME!

Also, I only just realized today that when I get on the internet in Canada, I can actually go to www.playboy.com and NOT receive a “FORBIDDEN ACCESS” message as those poor folks in Singapore face whenver they try the same thing. Go morally bankrupt print institutions!

The Ordeal

Cigarettes have been smoked, coffee has been consumed and a long sigh of relief is released as the Wife and I nurse the scratches on our hands.

We have our cats back, and it was nowhere near as straightforward as we were hoping. This was one of those moments were we truly felt the lack of not having a car.

The first bit was pretty straightforward. We actually managed to take the subway and ride it all the way down to the end of the west line, where a shuttle bus went down to Pearson International. However, the bus (quite sensibly) only went to the arrival/departure terminals whereas we needed to go to the cargo terminals to pick up Zero and Uno. After some muddling around, we found a desk with some official looking people behind it that told us there was a bus stop with a Mississauga bus that was supposed to stop around the cargo terminal area. The cargo terminal, we were told, was about a 2 mile walk away.

When we walked out to the intersection we were told to go to, we realized that we didn’t know which direction the bus was supposed to go. We asked someone who directed us to the other side of the street, but every bus that stopped told us they didn’t go to the cargo terminal when we asked for directions. So we tromped back to a parking lot that looked like it was reserved for taxis and vans taking people into the city by request, and asked for more directions. We were told where the terminal was, and found out the person at the bus stop we’d asked was dead wrong.

So we ended up walking the two miles just as the wind and the snow kicked up.

When we FINALLY arrived at the cargo terminal, we were told that while the cats had arrived, they hadn’t yet been inspected by a vet. All animals that come into Canada must be checked out and have their papers examined. The vet showed up a little while after we got there, and once he looked over the cats we had yet another brush with the silliness that we had left behind in Singapore. The pet movers, supposedly the best on the island, whom we had paid quite a bit of money to to ensure that everything would be taken care of and that our cats would arrive, had completely failed to actually get the cats vaccinated for rabies, a key point that they even told us would be required by Canadian quarantine and customs. While waiting, we’d already heard horror stories about animals that had to be sent back to their point of origin (at cost to the owners) because of failures to comply, but the vet, especially once he realized they’d flown all the way from Singapore, took pity on us. He filled out a form that now gives us two weeks to get the cats vaccinated or else face penalties.

Then we thought, “Thank God, that’s over,” and were hoping we’d get our cats.

But then the same vet said that now that he’d processed them and judged them admissible into Canada, we had to go BACK to a customs office to present the forms so that Canadian Customs could properly file them, and then come BACK to the cargo terminal to present said files and finally claim our cats.

The Customs Office was 10 kilometers away.

Once again, pity prevailed and when the vet found out that we didn’t have a car, he offered to drive me there. The Wife stayed put at the cargo terminal, still recovering from her first two mile walk in a light snow storm. I went down, showed off the forms, and was asked by the lady at the counter, “How much did you pay?”

“What?” I asked, not quite getting her.

“The cats. How much did you pay for these cats?”

“Uh… well, I got one at the SPCA and paid a small fee for release, like 20 bucks, I think. The other was a street cat, so she didn’t cost anything.”

She blinked a couple of times. “Why would you fly these cats all the way here when they didn’t cost that much?”

It was my turn to blink. “They’re my PETS. I couldn’t leave them behind.”

She shrugged in a “whatever” sort of way and processed them, telling me there would be a $90 customs charge. I brought the completed forms over to the cashier and she was a lot more sympathetic, basically cooing at the thought of poor Singapore cats all on their lonesome and saying stuff like “Of COURSE, you can’t leave your kitties behind! Who would do that?!”

From there, I called for a cab to take me back to the cargo terminal, and he was some laid back, interesting Slavic guy, I think. Probably an immigrant, his accent was still noticeable. He offered to wait there while we picked up the cats and drive us back into town and I wasn’t going to say no to that.

So I went back to the cargo terminal, presented the forms, paid out another $45 as a processing fee and the Wife and I went into the Warm Room (apparently they had a special room set up for small, live cargo) and promptly saw our two traumatized cats, although Zero was definitely the more shell shocked of the two. Big surprise there.

We loaded them up into the cab and rode back to the Annex where the Wife, just happy to finally have the cats back in one piece and be away from the airport, gave the cabbie a $10 tip, putting the total cab fare at just a little over $90.

We gave them a bath. I hope they don’t die from hypothermia. Uno, as usual, completely defeated the purpose of getting a bath by wetting herself in protest to the treatment. She also took out a piece of my left hand. And the Wife’s.

Now Zero is once again hiding under the couch. Uno is wandering around meowing and being incredibly clingy, since we’re the first familiar things she’s seen in two weeks.

I’m just so, so happy that’s over. At least until we get them their jabs.

Crime Has More Color

One of the interesting contrasts between Singapore and Toronto is how they handle crime. For example, in Singapore, we lived in a “colorful” part of town. That’s not to say it was a particularly bad part, but there’s more potential for conflict of the illegal kind in our area. Our apartment building was directly across the street from an older, ramshackle, vaguely sort of falling apart kind of complex which was in such poor condition because no one of consequence (ie, wealthy) had yet thought of renovating the “quaint” somewhat old building for their post-modern, revisionist requirements. So instead, that crumbly old building across the street was used to house foreign workers en masse, and when I say foreign workers I don’t mean “professionals” that wear a tie and go into the office, so much as the legion of hedge trimmers, street sweepers and construction workers that fill out the jobs much of the locale populace had already deemed beneath them.

As a result, when you squeeze that many poorly paid, disgruntled manual laborers into a such a confined space, in bulk, nastiness is bound to occur. So while it was by no means common, we were privy to the occasional manslaughter, where people would die as a result of getting a bit too angry with each other during arguments.

This would normally result a cop car, perhaps an entire van, showing up while a few cops tried to figure out what to do next, since their normal activity in Singapore consists of helping citizens to fill out forms notifying government organizations of a change of address. Whenever anything even remotely forensic comes up, a kind of student-like bafflement ensues with the local cops, who more or less have the same reaction to a murder as a classroom would when someone bumps the class fishbowl onto the ground and while the teacher is out taking a call and will be back in five minutes.

However, this evening, just across the street from the Old Friends house, some kind of crime was committed (I’ve been told that despite the fact the rest of the neighborhood is decent and safe, that one particular apartment building is a mini-Mos Eisely in that it’s a hive of scum and villainy) and whoo hoo! Ambulances! Fire trucks! Cop cars! Doughnuts and coffee! It was just like TV, but… colder. And no commercials.

Also, I have been informed by The Wife that the last vestiges of Singapore still cling to me with the annoying stickiness that only red tape can produce. The Ministry of Manpower, aka MOM, is now saying that the banker’s guarantee we had as Crime Insurance in the event I committed a major infraction (y’know, like owning gum or not flushing the toilet in a public men’s room, and yes, these ARE chargeable offenses in Singapore) still requires some kind of signature from me before it can be completely nullified. Unfortunately I wasn’t aware of this because we never received their Psychic Telepathic Communication informing us of that detail, and it’s not a detail that’s readily accessible unless you’re a bureaucrat.

I guess it’s true what they say. You can never really leave a place. Because there will always be one last form to fill before they can file it, process it, put it out in triplicate, stamp it, sign it and enter it into a database…

On a happier note, The Wife will be here in a couple of days. Yay for wives…

Sayanora Singapore

And, after over ten years on the Island That Common Sense Forgot, I now bid contradictory government policies, shameless elitism and a fear of failure so pathological it has its own reality distortion field, goodbye. That’s all you get out of me, Singapore.

I’ll dearly miss the people I’ve met and befriended here.

But I won’t miss you.