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2004-11-07 - 3:36 a.m. Stone Table Even as the void deck is a space of relentless transit, there is a kind of touchstone represented by the stone table, a space which invites rest. Around the table are six cylindrical stone chairs, and on the table surface itself is carved the board layout to a game of either Chinese chess or draughts. The fact that such public furniture is made of stone invests it with a sense of the mythic, with the permanence of statue and gravestone. However, despite the stone table being inscribed as a space for ‘retirement recreation’, it also plays host to other communities: housewives waiting for their children who are studying at a nearby kindergarten, void deck amateur guitarists, teenagers receiving tuition, as meeting point for lovers or resting spot for those locked out of their homes. The austerity of the stone table has not repelled the young; conversely the juvenile graffiti on its surface has not deterred the old from utilising it as temporary refuge. In upgraded estates, however, the stone chairs have been replaced by plastic ones, whose perforated backings are designed to thwart attempts at graphic vandalism. These new furniture are probably as resistant, if not more, to wear and tear. And yet there remains a distinction to be made between the ageless and the non-biodegradable.
To enter a lift is to immediately restrict one’s visual field. The closure of the lift door, sliding in a horizontal plane, has the effect of erasing a landscape (even if it is that of a lift-lobby) in a manner both systematic and eloquent. At the end of this deletion a sliver of wistfulness: the leaf of a potted plant (and the glimmer of an expired red packet, expired since Chinese New Year was three months ago), or the figure of an anonymous neighbour, whose face flared for a moment with puzzlement and desire (that which came between this person and myself is not just the lift door, but fate). Once sealed inside the interior, my eyes have no other choice but to roam across the tight walls, the cigarette-pockmarked floor, the lit numbers which seem to mark time like a stopwatch (1, 6, 11) but actually denote space. A queasiness sometimes strikes me while in the lift: I find myself standing at the setting of a crime: the gallery includes the illicit fornicator, the furtive urinator, the leering flasher, the impetuous snatch-thief. To exit the lift delivers relief, an escape from a dual confinement: not only physical claustrophobia but as prisoner of one’s imagination.
Beside a sign that forbids those at a void deck from playing soccer, there is a dusty mark left behind by a soccer ball. These two signs compete with one another: the prohibition and its defiance, the theory and the practice, the enduring design versus the transient improvisation. Spaces in the neighbourhood are policed by signs: no littering, no parking of motorcycles, no roller skating (updated over time as the wheeled pedestrian evolves: no skateboarding, no skate scooters). Injunctions which are too complex to articulate graphically are rendered in words: examples include ‘do not feed the birds’, ‘no dumping’ and ‘no trespassing on state land’. This legislation of civic behaviour, expressed through a spectrum of negatives, arises from a sincere and reasonable appeal: be considerate to your neighbours. In the absence of this holistic ideal, we find the body of the community-spirited citizen fragmented, the focus on the body part that is the transgressor. A pair of skates. A hand releasing litter. And for no soccer-playing, the slanted figure, whose one leg is shorter than the other, almost like an amputee. When it is the errant foot, or hand, or leg, that is criminalised, one senses a detachment, which is also the disengagement of the offender from the body politic, from community.
Upgrading is the term used to describe renovation exercises in HDB estates; this often includes an extra balcony or an elevator that stops at every floor. In some cases, however, upgrading involves the addition of decorative features that strike me as extraneous and jarring: fins, antennae, rain shields, skeletal and geometric façades. Employed as a political sweetener during previous elections, the appendages of upgrading often seem like garish lines of cake icing. It has to be said that that in such cases the ornament threatens to upstage the body. The seams between the old and new are often visible, at times suggesting dissociation and rupture. There is little that is complementary between a HDB block, with its muted hues, and its loud dressings; as a matter of fact, there is incongruity and tension. Upgrading involves not a facelift, but the imposition of a mask; a stuffy mask with two large holes where one can see a pair of antiquarian eyes gazing, each slow blink expressing bewilderment and weariness.
On the kitchen façade of a HDB block, one can often see bamboo poles extruding from bamboo-pole holders. There is much that can be observed on HDB façades that can give a clue to the occupants of certain units; these include air-con compressors (as a child, I associated a blank wooden board on the outside wall of the master bedroom with poverty), window renovations, curtains and Venetian blinds. Bamboo poles, however, are great social levellers: one cannot deduce the social class of the occupants simply by the number of bamboo poles on display, their lengths or what colour they are in. The laundry however is another matter: branded shirts and cheap underwear advertise their owners’ class standing. In the event of rain, the denuded bamboo poles once again create an egalitarian illusion. Yet another mirage is generated when one views this façade from below: the bamboo poles have become the stilts to a kelong, that wooden structure built above the sea, with wooden piles driven into the seabed. Utopia is conflated with nostalgia: in this axial view of history, there is only a humble fishing village, where children play on jetties—their bodies wet, tanned and unclothed.
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