Saturday, May 3, 2014

An Afternoon at the Opera




January 2

We found a traditional Singaporean coffeeshop, or kopitiam, where we had breakfast on New Year’s Morning. Much better than the hawker center, a convention which seems to be largely overpraised here. The hawker food isn’t better than anything in the local restaurants or in many cases as interesting.

Hands down, the best food we had on the trip so far has been the claypot and softshell crabs in Geylang. The Capricci comes in second, but then I am from New Jersey and therefore a big fan of Italian cooking.

The Hindu temple was filled with people when we walked by. There were shoes all over the sidewalk and more people going. People in a procession inside the temple seemed to be carrying vases, possibly containing votive offerings, on their heads.

I had a little work to do to prepare for an interview on Thursday, so we killed some time at the Porcelain. By the time I was finished, breakfast had worn off. We went to a Szechuan place across the street, one of four or five just like it on the block, where we had stewed pig’s intestines and beef with bitter melon. The beef dish wasn’t spicy at all, but the intestines were served with dangerous-looking pieces of red and green chili. To my surprise, they were only a little sharper than Cubanelles, and Joanna was able to enjoy both dishes without heartburn.

Both dishes were savory and delicious, perfect with a bottle of Tiger.

We stopped next door at the Internet cafe to print out directions to a meeting on Friday afternoon.

The Sri Mariamman temple had emptied by this time, in the midafternoon, so we took our shoes off and went inside. Entry is free to visitors, but they ask you to pay a $3 fee to take photos and $6 to shoot video inside. The place was still busy, although nowhere near as active as it was in the morning.

Workmen were taking down a large tent that had sheltered the procession earlier in the day. A few men sat on the floor inside. A man in traditional South Indian dress slept in a chair. Another man filled butter lamps.

A handbill posted by the government warned everyone that rioting is injurious to order and therefore to prosperity, and that rioters will be punished. I imagine something like that is in every Hindu temple and gathering place in town. Singapore’s first riot in 40 years broke out a month ago in Little India.

The effigies of the temple are intriguing. The only ones I can identify are the blue god Krishna, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, and the good-natured elephant-headed god Ganesh. The colors are striking and the features realistic. I can’t tell what they are made of. They could be glazed earthenware or painted plaster for all I can tell.


We wandered through the tourist market to buy some T-shirts and when we came to Smith Road, I remembered that one of the guide books said an opera company, The Chinese Theatre Circle, is based at No. 5. It’s on part of the street largely closed for construction, but the narrow sidewalk is open.

We had passed No. 50 a few minutes earlier, and there was there was a sign for a music organization on an upper floor, so we thought that might be it and I had the number wrong.

When we got to No. 5, we heard the distinctive singing and music of Chinese opera coming, logically enough, from the Chinese Opera Teahouse. We went in and there were fewer than a dozen people in the place. That’s counting the two in front who were singing. They were in a duet between a man who returns from a long journey to find his wife seriously ill. They reminisce about their courtship.

They didn’t have a band. It was a karaoke version, but the singing was terrific, and we must have spent an hour or more there listening.


Each of the opera selections we saw was a duet between a man and a woman. The conventions are very different from Western opera. There is a lot of falsetto, for instance, and the music is punctuated by cymbals and other percussion. You can hear lightning and clashes, footsteps and bird calls in it. The melody is also different from Western music. I find the meters and the underlying rhythm fascinating. I had heard bits of it on television and never cared for it much until I heard the singers on Temple Street in Kowloon.

When the first couple’s piece ended, another couple took their place. A defeated general is looking for his wife and child who have fled to the wilderness. They meet, but are attacked by a contingent of the enemy. During the melee, she is seriously wounded. Rather than be a burden on her husband and child, who are at risk, she throws herself into a well. Very operatic.

Another involves a judge who refuses a queen’s request to release her brother. No, your brother abuses women and takes bribes. She tries to seduce gthe judge. He still refuses. When she starts overturning the furniture in court, he tries to have her arrested, too, but seeing how she is under the emperor’s protection, can’t quite do that. He orders her to leave the court, and the scene ends with him declaring himself righteous.

The selections were performed on video with the words scrolling across the bottom of the screen. So when actors were dancing the parts, I got some help in understanding the broad strokes.

The singing was in Cantonese, and with the help of the Han characters running across the screen, I was able to identify maybe a half-dozen words during four opera selections that ran a total of an hour or so. So most of the information I am reporting, as you might guess, is due to Joanna, who gave me occasional updates on the dialogue.

The lady who seemed to be in charge of the coffeehouse sang the part of the queen. I believe she is the principal performer for the troupe, which has apparently done world tours and even has one opera, “Madam White Snake,” which it performs in various languages, including English. Her name is See Too Hoi Siang, and she has been studying Chinese opera since she was 15. She also won a martial arts contest years ago because part of opera training involves handling weapons.

We came out of the Opera Teahouse and strolled past Temple Street, which was full of drumming and partly blocked by people standing in front of an awning that covered the sidewalk. First we saw a couple of Commedia dell’Arte looking guys, who were easy to spot because they were wearing bright colors and walking on stilts. When we came closer, we could see the lion dancers. I think I was able to get some video of them. The place was the headquarters of a Chinese cultural association, and the dance was probably for the New Year.


After Szechuan lunch, we wanted a light supper, so we went back to the health-dessert place. We had another kwai leng guo and 24-herb tea, and this time we tried aloe vera with lime and honey. Gosh, I am feeling so healthy now.

Anyhow, this is how we spent New Year’s Day.

Be well, all.


Thursday, May 1, 2014

Singapore New Year’s Eve





Jan. 1, 2014

We started New Year’s Eve with breakfast at the hawker center. I’m fast getting tired of the place.

Joanna had something new to me, though, a barley drink. So what’s new, you ask, knowing that I’ve had plenty of barley drinks in my time. Well, all of mine were fermented and many distilled.

I had a sip. It was a thin watery drink with very little flavor. It was refreshing enough and probably had lots in it that was good for me. But I was working on coffee. I get about two, three hours grace in the morning and then coffee deadline falls. I get a headache and chills if I don’t have two cups of caffeine. Coffee is best, but tea will do.

I had it with nothing inspired, only melon and muffin.

Try as I might, I just can’t face chicken gizzard or pork offal for breakfast. Lunch or dinner, OK. After all, you get to brag how you ate delicacies that get thrown out back home. But not with my morning coffee. I am lacking in energy or adventure without my caffeine.

We pass the Hindu temple on the way to the hawker center, and activities have been picking up. We hear music inside and the shoes have been filling more and more of the sidewalk every day. Perhaps it is due to the approaching New Year.

The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple is decked out in colorful artificial flowers.




Much of the city of Singapore consists of sterile, utilitarian towers. But there are colorful things to find in various corners, sometimes even in the utilitarian towers.

We rested at the Porcelain for a while, and then went out for lunch. We went back to Gong He Guon. This is the place on Cross Street, a modern commercial strip, not far from the laundry shop where we had the herbal tea and the health dessert called kwai leng guo. It’s a Hong Kong herbal medicine dressed up as dessert.

After having enjoyed the slightly root beer flavored kwai leng tea, Harry was ready to pull out the stops. Gong He Guon serves a 24-herb tea in a bowl. Joanna was skeptical. It’s bitter, she warned.

But hey, I drink coffee black and IPAs. I’m used to bitter.

It was actually pretty good. It had a slightly bitter edge, but there were so many light herbs competing in there that maybe one flavor canceled another. It was mild and didn’t taste anything like root beer.

Joanna explained this is what she is talking about when she sips one of my favorite ales and says it tastes like herbal medicine.

We had more kwai leng guo, which also has little flavor of its own. It has the consistency of Jell-O and Joanna poured a watered-down honey on it.

We had an egg custard with ginger that was very tasty. I wanted to try some dumplings called tong yin. They came in a sweet sesame-seed soup called sima woo (I’m making up the transliterations here, gang). The dumplings are chewy, because they are made of rice flour and steamed. They have a surprise filling of peanut paste.



I don’t know about the custard or sima woo, but 24 herbs and kwai leng guo—hell, enough of that and I may be able to fly like one of those guys in the kung fu movies. I always wondered what it would be like to run across the top of a bamboo grove.

My feet were acting up so we took it easy in the afternoon. We came back to the Dragon Court for a nap and then when we got up decided to go for a stroll at that delightfully friendly Italian restaurant, the Capricci on Tanjong Pagar Road.

This is where we ate a few nights ago, before we left for Bali.

Joanna wanted a few shots of herself walking on the streets of Singapore, so we got a few good locations, with Year of the Horse decorations, a temple, and other Singaporean stuff in the background.



We walked through the Chinatown Complex, a market of individual stalls that seems to go on forever. There’s a grocery store downstairs, but it was pretty much closed up by the time we got there, around 5:30 or so.

The tailors on South Bridge Street have stopped coming out of their shops to offer to make me a duplicate of the jacket I’m wearing. I have told each one that I’m sure he can, but I am not in the market for new clothes right now. God, I have to carry this stuff, and I travel with one checked bag, even for this trip, which will last a total of 17 days.


 Dinner was fun. We got to the restaurant early and sat at the bar to share a couple of Campari and sodas. This is a weak cocktail, but probably my favorite mixed drink. Campari is a bitter liqueur and mixed with club soda and given a slice of citrus, it is delicious.

It is only a little stronger than dry vermouth and club soda, which is the drink I take when I have been drinking too fast early in the evening and want to sober up before bed time.

The bartender, who may be one of the owners, mixed a tall and strong one for us. He’s the guy who noticed us walking past before we came into the restaurant last week.

He greeted us again, as if we were regulars, and introduced the man who would be our waiter.

The waiter, he told us, had been hired a couple of hours earlier. He looked like one of those wiry Malays with a sunken face that will look the same from the time the guy is 30 to 100.

We had fettucine Bolognese, followed by grouper cooked with tomato and little potatoes. Joanna had a merlot, and I went through two glasses of Chianti, which may have been from a different wine maker from the one I had last time. This one wasn’t as sharp.

Dessert was strudel accompanied by a glass of prosecco.

It was a good New York-New Jersey upscale Italian meal, and very good.

The rookie waiter was very attentive, and always spoke first to Joanna, addressing her as “Madame.” He stood at attention when he spoke to us at the table. His English enunciation was very careful and clear.

I hope he is not as uptight as he appears and eventually relaxes into the job. Otherwise, the tension may make his head blow up.

New Year’s Eve is often an early night for Harry. I may stay up till midnight, but am usually home early. The only memorable New Year’s Eve that I spent out was in Chiang Mai, where we lit a lantern that sailed up and joined hundreds of others glowing in the breeze, and then watched the fireworks over the moat. Fantatstic.

I was out late last year, but that was Barcelona, where nothing much going on besides a drunken chorus of La Marseillaise and a lot of people wasting good cava by spraying it into the air.

So prosecco and strudel, and then a short cab ride, finished the night for me. Joanna too, or maybe she was just humoring me. She looked fine and ready for more playing.

Happy New Year to all.

Jan. 2

Harry you are the person I want to be

I have another favor to ask. I'm on the verge of being trapped in Philly a day longer than planned - if Jeanie needs a car Saturday can she borrow yours. She said she would fill the tank and leave a bottle of absinthe.

Karl

Jan. 2

Of course, she can.

The keys and a wallet with the relevant papers are in a silver bowl on the table in the living room.

 No need to buy gas, or anything. And I have a bottle absinthe, which is about 6 or 7 years old. Do you like the stuff? I can polish off 24-herb tea, but I can't develop a taste for absinthe. How strange is that?

Harry