My latest e-mail to my family

Dear All,

Hey. Following the bomb scares and my friends' departure, I'm staying over with Singapore's foremost contemporary dance authority in a dinky little apartment right off the Skytrain line beteween Ratchatewi and Phaya Thai. God, these Thai names. They taste like deep-fried lemongrass strips.

Until last night, I was at the Riverfront Service Apartments at Bangpangpong, outside the main city area, but overlooking the Chao Praya River and the post-apocalyptic mid-construction sites that halted in the boom of the early-90s, never to be animated, frizen in their skeletal glory. My friends watched the fireworks from the balcony on New Year's midnight while I made friends with an international clique of gay farangs and luuk khreung (whites and half-castes )at a bar in Silom Soi 4. Don't worry; nothing scandalous occurred; these were the only guys I could find who spoke English and some of them spoke Thai as well; a towering Australian anmed David and a mohawked Bavarian named Volker took me to an after-hours Thai club in the middle of nowhere named CNN (so called because it never stops). Other people of note include Jose, a wheelchair-bound San Franciscan entrepreneur who's rather well-known as a bomb of happiness at parties; everywhere he goes people feel joy. I've invited him to have dinner when he and his partner come to Singapore, naturally.

Now, I'm staying with Tang Fu Kuen, who happens to be Singapore's foremost international contemporary dance authority - only everyone asks his advice for free, so he's subjected to working as a Southeast Asian heritage archivist for the Thai government. He's been taking me to fabulous restaurants and clubs like the SamSenSoiSarm and the Face Bar and the Bed Supper Club with his European choreographer friends (who pay for everything with their mighty euros and affable natures) and giving up his own mattress so I can have a place to snooze (he says if I go to a backpacker inn on Khaosan Road, I'll get blown up by another bomb, and while I wouldn't mind being part of history, he thinks it's unwise).

Tonight I'll possibly be going to see Suraiwong Road to see a fucking show, which he insists is compulsory. I was rather traumatised by the Patpong girls, who not only open bottlecaps and shoot darts with their pussies, but also withdraw long strings of needles therefrom.

This fucking show, however, involves two dicks. So don't worry Mum, I'll sleep soundly.

Love,

Yi-Sheng
B).