My Singapore Sling: Culture Shock
I’m thoroughly enjoying my newfound home. At least, my home as it is to a visitor accepting hospitality more impeccable than The Shangri-La Hotel (believe me, I’m the expert after spending just a few hours there). The sensation of utter acceptance into the rhythm of domestic life here has me in awe and each day I feel myself becoming more and more of a local, without adopting the terrible creole Singlish. But don’t worry, ‘adapting’ to the way of life here didn’t happen over night; it took a few solid weeks of feeling utterly confused and amazed before the whur of noise, sight and sound began to take a cohesive form. It was well worth the wait.
Despite the rewards yielded so far, I have no intentions in staying here for the long yards of life - it’s merely a detour from the instability of life in Sydney for an even more unstable life experience. Except that this time, I’m dwelling on the outskirts of Asia, so young in spirit but old in tradition and forever welcoming to my insatiable urge for culture shock. I have no doubt that I’ll be carrying more than just a few trinket goods in my luggage home. It seems that I have just begun to scratch the surface of this surreality.
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The Waypath, Ablaze
The waypath to home is a treacherous passage
An unforgiving, exiled way whose runes
Etched in a fragmented, forgotten language
Is the only sure guide to deliverance;
Yet some million years before, an intrepid magician
Could carve stone from sand and shift the mighty mountain
Having beside him the rowan wand and will-to-good
Pairing the flame with its rightful fury,
Rising the phoenix from its maddening fire
Quenching the alms of the insignificant flare
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With Friends at Bay
I have the most unusual thing to report. To all of those special people who fill the void of affection in my life, I am glad to have you back. You might not know it but many aspects of my life suffered in your absence and the scene of my familiar social faces dwindled into oblivion. My mother and father, my closest friend and workplace ally, my housemate and landlord and even the neighbours upstairs and next door, each took to the river with their raft and sought a change in climate and ideology, and it ultimately came to them; for they say in the breath of small things come the most sacred things.
Whether it is some strange act of karmic cleansing or a subconscious hiding the old trail meandering footfalls in the snow, in some fashion everybody has returned to my life after leaving me without contact to them and rendering me vulnerable and somewhat disillusioned. For their return I am grateful and at peace. We never truly know how much we depend on those around us until they have departed, and we never really know how fragile at heart our friends and family are until they are in a dire time of need.
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