My Old Neighbourhood: Section 17

This was the world of university days, when relief meant getting away from the books, assignments and lecture routine.

Neat rows of houses were lined up along grid roads in what was a typical housing estate. There was a green lung of a square green,which I still associate with Simon, Stephen and Kuan Hong sitting there on its edge, after an early dinner and before the equatorial sunset. There was the cinema quarter, surrounded by terraced shophouses, motorbike parking spots and push-bike hawkers. Road 6 does not seem to have changed, still exuding the presence of student rooms, walls bleached by the strong sun and upper floor balconies choked with items that could not be stored inside. However the cinema is gone, replaced by a mixed goods supermarket.

I wonder about the youngsters who grew up in the other rooms while I took one facing the road. I think about the mixed rice dishes which was sold at a price that I cannot even get a Coke can for these days. How regimented our student lives may have been, but we also did enjoy it, especially after dinner, with the fluorescent lights ablaze in our respective rooms all along the sometimes sloping roads of Section 17. Our reliable means of transportation to and from the campus were the Honda 70s, normally parked along the walled fences of houses beside the single car of the landlord. There was no decent grocery supermarket or department store in Section 17, so I often rode my motorbike to Section 14 or 21.

Section 17 brings back memories of single bed thin mattresses, a lone desk with a study lamp and the ever hidden luggage bag only taken out for semester holiday breaks. Bathrooms had white tiles and the array of toiletries of different tenants.  The place was a university dormitory corridor, mostly resided by students after their first year living in campus. It was at worst a transitory place, at best a place where dreams and characteristics were shaped and transformed. There were, and still, are a lack of trees, and the tar of the roads between houses still look like needing a serious new coating.

What If

What would my typical weekend day be like if I had chosen to stay away from Australia?

I imagine a morning in Singapore. As I feel the rising humidity after dawn, I walk amongst shaded trees to the hawkers centre to relish my favourite breakfast of kaya toast, half boiled eggs and coffee. Then it's down to the MRT or the hardly used car to visit a particular suburb. I reach my destination in under half an hour. Most likely I cannot resist dropping by a shopping area even if I have nothing in mind to purchase. I soon get caught up with display, ambiance and salesmanship.

I imagine an afternoon in Penang. The art of the brunch, afternoon tea or gathering with mates to stay away from the midday sun has reached a happy state here. We sit beneath sight of swaying coconut trees and glaring sea views to partake in Straits Chinese delicacies and to get waited upon by Burmese or Bangladeshi staff. We immerse ourselves in musings about dear friends, past and present. More likely I would love to spend an afternoon in houses of different people from various stages of life.

In the evening sunset, I would love to spend the Saturday dusk along the waterfront in Hong Kong. Not necessarily at Tsimshatsui for it can be on a walking trail on one of the outer islands or in a bird reserve along the China border. Then it's dinner to keep up the networking, get the latest financial tips or just to check out the scene at a cool venue. The crowds may bother me and I can retreat to a gym or cyberspace.

What if, maybe not. Here I make most of my own meals, even on a weekend. I may go for breakky by the ocean side or catch a fast food meal if I am in a hurry to appointments. There is a lot of time spent driving. There is not much exciting shopping to go to, as all centres seem to offer the same outlets, but there are also many suburbs with unique characteristics of its own in greater Sydney. There is so much variety of Nature and outdoor activities in Australia. There is however no kaya toast on the go.

Afternoon tea consists of a much less variety and spread but costs more. I prefer visiting houses of friends and cousins like in my home island. Then it's on to dinner gatherings, in a home environment or commercial venues. No gyms or department stores are open late on weekends, so it's back to cyberspace after midnight and after cinemas and clubs close. The sunsets can be glorious, the winter air refreshingly cool.

Strange Days

The heater just would not turn on. I checked all the related options, timer, temperature options and electrical charge prevention buttons. Still the gadget would not turn on. Then the house telephone stopped working. There was no live line. You may expect this in Zimbabwe, but in Australia, it would be fair to think it was unusual, or may be not. I thought the connection to my kitchen phone was just unintentionally pulled off. No, it was not.

The bathroom heater lamp had one of its outlets blown off. I noticed all the bedroom ceiling lights had dimmed. The showerhead was leaking and so were the taps at the kitchen sink. The tap covers for the shower area and vanity cabinet began to fall apart in one form or another.

Maybe an alien spacecraft had flown over my house, causing all these unexpected defects in its wave. Or more realistically it was just simple wear and tear. However I could not help noticing the uncanny timing, the sense of it all happening all at the same, perhaps coordinated time. I then realised that I had piled up newspapers from the past six weekends left unread. Hey, I was just slack and the fact that these weekend editions came in at least 12 separate sections did not help at all.

Rushing through speed reading in an effort to clear up my newspaper reading backlog, I saw the whole host of stories flagged by the mainstream Australian media. I came to realise the trivia made in media output - aesthetic matters, relationship flare-ups, unnecessary products,regurgitated storylines and hidden advertorials. What a sad use of good newsprint. I had vowed to stick to electronic news but I could not resist the value bargain offer of hold-in-the hand newspapers delivered to my home at a ridiculous price. When I had more important commitments, there are all these papers to process.

The relative unimportance of an increasing number of media stories then linked to the utter insignificance of the nature of breakdowns around the house. What if there is no telephone or heater. Most of the world's population contend with less. I could dress up inside the house and even did send text messages on my mobile phone to friends more than a thousand miles away that my landline phone at home had stopped working. What if the taps were leaking? Many people had to walk kilometres just to get some precious pails of potable water.