A Disappearing Stage

by Kamiliah Bahdar & Wu Jun Han

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I

What food stalls were there?

What did you usually order, and what did it cost?

How often did you go there, and when?

Who did you go there with, and what did you talk about?

 

I haven’t put these questions yet to the generation of artists that would have hung out at the S11 coffee shop along Stamford Road—a shadow para-cultural institution nestled between The Substation and the old National Library. Its presence lurks on the margins of our art history—photos in an art archive, described in writings on art, mentioned fondly in conversations, and shared in honest sentiments that “things kinda went downhill after S11 closed”.

II 

As I walked towards the coffee shop at the corner of Aliwal and Pahang Street, I saw a familiar face, thin, haggard, cynical with bright hawk-like eyes, his pack of cigarettes ready at the table. A curator, he had been in the area to meet with some artists. I joined him for a cigarette or two, chatted, lamented, commiserated—a brief exchange that reminded me I wasn’t alone in my frustrations and confusion.

~

You cannot eat the art, but the next best thing we have is to eat in proximity to places where the art is made, where it is displayed, where it happens. I often eat near a place like this, a long time ago. This place is gone now, and only ghosts remain. For a long time, I didn’t feel the loss.

~

They lit one more cigarette while I closed the shutters on the gallery and locked it—some of them I knew, some of them I didn’t, though most were familiar faces at openings and events. We crossed Keppel Road and took a bus to Maxwell Food Centre. It was almost a ritual, to come to an exhibition opening or an art event, to talk in between looking, watching, listening and smoking, first in groups of twos and threes that then congregated, split and merged again together, pulling more of others in, then moved after to a coffee shop to continue the conversations.

~

I took an Indonesian artist who was here for a few days to set up his work for an exhibition to BK Eating House, at the corner of South Bridge and Circular Road, where he could have coffee, beer, and smokes. Observing the patrons—taxi drivers on coffee breaks, young party crowd loading on carbs before dancing, office workers unwinding—I felt more at ease here than the rooftop bar we were at earlier, where the people seemed cut from the same cloth. I turned to my friend and said, “I’m not sure where else would have a more diverse crowd.”

~

I eat alone in public. It can be a complicated exercise for an introvert to perform. I think we all secretly yearn to be that regular customer with an uncomplicated routine. Arrive at the same time, order the same thing, sip on that same drink, smoke that same brand of cigarette, day after day. Because like anything else, that routine becomes a friendship with that comfortable distance. You could almost call it special if it wasn’t so mundane, so comfortable. 

~

After the music gig, we went to Deen Biasa on Jalan Sultan. I listened as the gig organisers and musicians shared their experiences touring, on technical mishaps, rowdy crowds, underequipped venues, hard lessons learned, and adapting their music practice. One of the musicians gave me a copy of their EP.

~

This invitation to join a group for a kopi or meal, while seemingly innocent and utilitarian,  often disguises a hunger for secrets, mysteries, maybe even true connection.

Sometimes the semangat strikes, the kopi or teh is all you need to spark it off, that one igniting statement that rolls into a hypothesis, an audacious claim, a sarcastic lie, a dark truth spills into the world with gusto. The devil’s advocate makes frequent visits to this conceptual place. Offence is taken, claims defended, and then we forget to order before the food stalls close for the day.

~

For a few months, the Coffee Express 2000 food court at Bras Basah Complex was a meeting point for a group working to reclaim space for the community. Then the energy of the group dissipated, and the food court itself changed—there was less outdoor seating, the smoking area shrank, they stopped playing football on tv, and it closed at 11pm where before it was open 24 hours.

III

Other things happened, but I came here because I was hungry. Was I on my own or with a friend? What came before this moment is difficult to remember, all I feel is a deep pang of hunger that I want to satisfy. I have been here before, but I know also that the moment is a fleeting one. I will never be here again after today.

Words spoken. Orders given and taken. Money exchanges hands. (Would they feed me if I had no money?) 

At an empty table, I sit and wait. (The table is numbered 12—the number of animals in the Chinese zodiac.) Around me, families, lovers, loners, workers swirl around in a soup of activity. All of us in a dizzying dance of movements, and gestures. My part for now is to simply be still and wait. The cues are coming.

A bowl, a cup, a plate appears. Spices and sauces and soup and rice. The first few mouthfuls are bliss. It is a glimpse of a heaven I will never go to. All that salt and oil is delicious energy that flows eagerly into my beckoning body. It is a beautiful sensation. Orgasmic even. It goes beyond mere chemistry and nourishment. A cultural conference, a history lesson, a vigorous debate of utmost importance is taking place. The good faith is repaid many times over.

The plate is empty again. I should have taken my time.  The senses open up to the world. Things are disappearing, slowly, innocuously. You don’t feel it now, but you know it’s happening. We feel it deeply. Better enjoy it all now. Take a deep breath. Savour it. Savour the flickering fluorescent light, smoke wafting from banana leaves burning on the grill, shy mews of a scrawny cat, silver-haired oldies looking at ease in familiar setting, large brown clay vats holding the potent potions of herbal soup stalls, flimsy plastic forks breaking on your third stab at the prata, red rubber band over a tightly-bound brown packet that Claes Oldenburg should make into a sculpture to be displayed at Changi Airport, cracking that bottle of beer hours ahead of 10.30pm, comforting warmth of a hot kopi, back of the cubicle door serving as a public message board scrawled with secrets, clanking of melamine in gaudy orange, bright yellow, dirty neon green, and powdery blue, long snaking lines for choice stalls during lunch hour, eagerly moving towards an empty table only to be let down when you spot a small rectangular packet of tissue, hawkers in tat sing slippers and a white towel draped across their hunched shoulders labouring long hours without complaints, first puff of a cigarette after a sambal-loaded nasi padang, two friends catching up on family, relationships, cryptocurrency, and being each other’s sounding boards on newest project—”I’m doing a work on personal identity, trying to capture the unknowability of the self”—then the conversation segues to capital punishment and Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, one talking with fervent conviction, the other playing the dispassionate devil’s advocate, the drink stall uncle shouting "TAAAAK GIUUU" loudly across the floor, crosses in red duct tapes marking usable seats at a table, fans mounted on pillars whirring softly, its blades caked in layers of greasy grey dirt and the occasional stray strands blowing in the air, heated exchanges in a familiar tongue with spitting sharp tones, short and curt with a blunted edge, muttering curses and death threats, solitary middle-aged men slowly nursing a glass of black liquid and wearing a pensive air as eyes watch the small screen of their iPhone at 3pm, and you’re watching them, feeling the behaviour is all too relatable, and you hear your friend say “Is that you in ten years time?”.

It is alive, for now. All of it. It is right before me. No doubt about it, it is in the process of a slow disappearance. But perhaps my pessimism is getting the better of me. Perhaps what’s happening isn't disappearance, but evolution. Yeah, I think that’s correct. Things appear to go away, but they never do. They move and change at a rate I cannot keep pace with. But I am. My perception of time can only be subjective experience. But I cannot be the only one that feels this. It is now, I am here, at this very minute, against the hour, month, year, decade, and so on. And I am still here. In between a lull, a pause, an estrangement, a disappointment. Sometimes it disappears, but did it really?

More Hawker! Hawker!