清明时节雨纷纷

Shocker!!! Fags in the Singapore Army!!!

My friend's going into the army later this month. Direct intake. Combat-fit. And he's gay.

According to him, the Medical Officer DID NOT ASK HIM IF HE WAS HOMOSEXUAL during the pre-enlistment medical check-up. They didn't get him to pull down his underpants and cough, either.

This was part of the old ritual, part of my and many other men's coming out experiences, for chrissakes. When I confessed I was gay, they made me wait in the clinic with all the other boys in their underwear and monitored me for signs of arousal (I was too full of angst to get a hard-on).

Now they don't even have a waiting-room full of boys in underwear. Guys are allowed to wear shorts. (Exposing the skin isn't just so doctors can check vital stats more easily, it's also to reveal gangster tattoos.)

My friend got checked up by the army first in 2005 (they asked him the gay question, and he denied everything), and is now being treated to a different standard operating procedure in 2008. So in between, something must have changed.

So are they okay with gay, lesbian and bisexual officers now then? Does the category 302 even exist anymore? Or is it reserved for pre-op transsexuals? (There was one in my camp, and she was gorgeous.)

And - for the sake of my categorising mind - when the hell did this change get made?

Very very clever of the government men, to do it so quietly, so the fundies wouldn't get pissed off. Still shocked. Still shocked.

Xbox Commercial

What's Coming Up?

A bunch of things!

First off, I'll be doing a reading together with a bunch of Singapore and Australian poets in Perth, to launch "Over There: Poems from Singapore and Australia". I'll be going with Ethos publishers.

15 May: Launch at Poetry Park, Perth at 5pm

Then I'll be attending WordStorm, a writers' festival in Darwin.

16 May: Poetry Slam at Vodka Bar, Darwin, 8:30pm
17 May: Out There - A Tiger Connection at 1:15pm
Pride Event at Books Absolutely at 2:30pm

Then in August, I'll be organising a queer poetry reading in Singapore:

5 August: ContraDiction IV at 72-13, (part of the IndigNation Festival)

And having two plays go up:

13-17 August: The Final Temptation of Stamford Raffles by W!ld Rice, directed by Christina Sergeant, at the Drama Centre Theatre (part of the Singapore Theatre Festival)
28-30 August: Reservoir by Theatreworks, directed by Choy Ka Fai, at 72-13.

Just fyi!

Over the Rainbow

I did a Fridae article about the closing of Mox Bar, one of the nicest gay bars-cum-community centres we've had in town over the years. So of course I had to go for the closing party.


Ain't it pretty? The sequinned dress is $30 from the Salvation Army. The shawl is from a market in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. The theme for the night had been "Over the Rainbow", and we were commanded to wear colourful things. How dare all the other pretty boys disobey?

Someone told me I looked like Benazir Bhutto. So he suggested that I strike a pose depicting her "one second after the explosion".


I also brought kiddies.


Poet Alvin Pang, got these babies from Dunman High School after he did a poetry workshop there. They're matching Dunman boy and Dunman girl dolls, and obviously we tried them in all sorts of combinations.



Here's the full story: Alfian and I had just come from judging the ACS (Independent) Centrestage competition, which was, quite frankly, mostly very bad. Loads of talent, but only one group out of four managed to pull it all together.

I was going for the party anyway, so I actually changed into the costume during judging, and was prepared to deliver comments while dressed in finery. (Hey, the kids would've loved it, and Dr Ong would've finally got payback for having banned cross-dressing in ACS Drama Club back when I was the only kid in school willing to play the tragic leading ladies.)

The prefect was kinda squeamish as he observed me stripping down and zipping up in the Board Room, but he was perfectly civil. It was my old drama club teacher (who coulda fought back harder, back in the old day) who saw me emerging in my sparklies and applied all her moral force to make me change back into my shirt and pants before facing the boys. And ah well, it would've been kinda rude of me, really. And heaven knows, there'd been more than enough drag by the boys themselves that evening. I contented myself with a big congratulation to them all for flouting the official rules against Singlish.

Weird evening, really. And traipsing around in a Guatemalan shawl got very hot very fast. I traded it for one of Yangfa's feather boas in the end:


Someone uploaded this on Facebook and my 9 year-old niece saw it. She was very much amused. :)

It's weird doing drag at a party like that. You know you have to do it because of the joy it brings yourself and people. But you know that almost any good looking boy who sees you like that is never gonna want to date you.

Always that choice: be loved, or be yourself. Someday, they tell me. Someday I'll meet someone who loves me for what I am.

"John Donne was right after all:/The body is the book."

Writing Workshop with Kaylene Tan!

... aka the lady who got the NUS FASS-Arts House Fellowship instead of me. :) This is her:


She deserved it, actually. She gave them a great proposal: do an artistic audiotour of the Arts House building, a la Desire Paths/National Museum Guide. Hell, I'd have picked her over me. Plus she's shown years of commitment to inventive theatremaking - much more than I have.

But part of the job that goes with the Fellowship is giving a free workshop to prospective writers. Which is where we came in:


Kaylene sent out a call for applications for her week-long writing workshop, maximum capacity ten. On the first day, only eight people turned up; by the last day there were only four of us. (Not sure why; people just didn't seem able to commit.)

I was the only male: the girls on top are Rashidah, Isabella and Yingying.

We did odd stuff, like being assigned to wander through the city, collecting objects and impressions:






And then returning back to the cafe, where we shared our found objects (we had to bring back something live):


I decided to be hero by bringing back an entire palm frond:


A couple weeks later I tried a similar exercise at the ACS (Independent) GEP Enrichment camp. The boys were kinda nonplussed, but responded very enthusiastically when I told them swear words were acceptable in their poetry.

Mostly Kaylene had us do research at the Library and the National Archives, though. We came up with site-specific performances about lost items of Singapore history.


The final day included a presentation. We actually had an audience!


They were mostly Arts House staff lah. This was Isabella's Merlion Monologue:


And this was us watching Isabella's Merlion Monologue.


Unfortunately I have no shots of my monologue performance about Singapore's lost system of tramlines and trolleybuses.

In lieu of a satisfying image to conclude this journal entry, I'll just add a mural from the Arts House Writers Festival:


Yup. I've already contacted the Speak Good English Campaign. :) G'nite everybody!

HK extra

I've added to my Hong Kong Literary Festival Flickr set. More cute Cantonese boys and miscellaneous oddments at the bottom of the page.

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Roses are red

Violets are blue

Sugar is sweet


I am alone



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How People Get Pregnant (actually informative!)

Drown Drown Drown

I was out being a tourist with my friend Jeff Mishler, visiting from NYC/Taipei, when I got a call from Choy Ka Fai, whose show "Dance Dance Dance" I was gonna review tonight.

Just after they'd finished the dress rehearsal, the evening rainstorm caused a portion of the 72-13 roof to collapse, flooding the control room to knee depth. Luckily power was turned off and they're hoping the machinery's not completely ruined, but the show that night had to be cancelled (they're hoping to hook up a generator for Friday and Saturday night).

I mean, WTF? He was kinda chuckling in disbelief when he was calling me. Ti xiao ke fei. Really.

Mis Dias con Omar

It's high, high time I blogged about my four days hosting Omar Feliciano, Mexican blogger, translator of East Asian poetry, and marica extraordinaire:


That's him in Little India, the first place he wanted to go in Singapore. He's been studying in Japan for the last two years on a literary scholarship he got while living with his ex-Indian-Canadian boyfriend in Brazil (I know, after a while the nationalities stop making sense).

He loves Japanese literature but not always the boys (wasabi breath pooh-pooh, he tells me), and he's terribly, terribly missed the kind of openness and intimacy that the gayboys express on the Mexican subways. So he was terribly happy to see how the dykes hold hands here with impunity. He'd also missed spicy food, terribly. And he's pesco-vegetarian, which meant that Komala's was perfect for him.

We spent his first day walking around the city, taking in odd sights:


And me photographing him on occasion. He resisted bringing a camera himself because of something Roland Barthes once wrote. (Why yes, those are statues of Sun Yat-Sen, Churchill and Lincoln.)


It's a testament to our relative levels of cynicism that his response to everything was "impresionante!" (impressive) whereas mine was "De verdad?" (oh reeeeally?). Yup; I was talking in Spanish almost constantly; broken, belaboured Spanish which somehow felt as much of a mother tongue as Mandarin.

And then I had a party at my house:


And we were a party of sexy intellectuals, artists, activists, capoeiristas and fabulous people of all persuasions. Filmmakers, video artists, directors, poets, dentists, employees of the MDA.


Lots of food, lots of fun, lots of great conversation. I think I'm a rather good salonneuse. I must find an excuse to have another such gathering.


We also later gave a capoeira demonstration in the garden, which Omar hella appreciated. (I accidentally vengativa-ed Cegonha in the groin.)



Did I mention it was officially held to celebrate my Conception Day? That's nine months before my birthday. My parents were away, so they didn't have to get embarrassed by my advertisement of the fact that they actually had/have a sex life.


I persuaded my friend Terry to look at my closet and tell me what T-shirts I should and shouldn't wear. These are the ones he okayed. (Had to take a photo, or else how to remember?)


On the weekend we went to Memories at Bukit Chandu. Omar's very interested in this whole Occupation stuff - he wants to do a tour of the whole Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.


Leftenan Adnan is my homey.

Look, they installed a diorama on the ceiling and a mirror on the floor!


Attached was a Chinese ink painting that a guy did from memory of his whole family being bayonetted to death. I think he was 10 at the time. The receptionist told us that the Japanese schoolchildren get very freaked out when they come here on field trips.

Got treetop walk next door! WILD CINNAMON.


Then we went to Haw Par Villa, which is excellent now they've taken away the Chinese moralism. In fact, you're now free to be as disrespectful as you like towards these cultural objects.


Ah think Lady White Snake and Green Snake are a little turned awn!!!


Omar at the Gates of Hell!


Omar INSIDE Hell! (It has a surprisingly good ventilation system.)


And I think I've found twoo wuv!!! And boobies.

And for Sunday dinner, I took him to Lau Pa Sat for oat prawns and sting ray.



Even got him to eat durian ice kacang, which he liked. :)


We saw Dim Sum Dollies at the Esplanade (which he loved, especially the Kamikaze Karaoke scene, 'cos he could understand the Japanese bits) and then I showed him Merlion Park:


This Japanese couple when asked him for a photo. He surprised them by saying A-OK in Nihongo.

Then a final night of conversation with poet Alvin Pang at Holland Vee.


I'd previously secured him conversations with Yong Shu Hoong, Cyril Wong and Alfian Sa'at. This was because he'd expressed interest in translating Singapore poetry, and I wanted him to know what our scene was like.

Crazy shot:


And BFF.


He's moved back to Mexico now (was coming to the end of his scholarship days in Tokyo), and though I shouldn't confirm it yet, he might be translating last boy into espanol and publishing it in Mexico. !Que padre! if it happens. If not, siga la vida.

If you want the story of how I got to know Omar, click here. And if you read Spanish and you want his much much more poetic account of the visit, click here.

March 2008 texts

I'm updating my blog from the American Club, where I'm meeting Christina Sergeant about the rewrite of my play. What play, you ask? That's for another blog entry, coming soon.

Anyhow, read and watched very little this month due to being in Hong Kong, struggling with writers' block and generally getting distracted by Scrabulous and Noggin (your fault, Bernard Koh). Must do better this month!

Didn't sleep last night. Sustaining myself on hazelnut latte and butter toffee chip cookie. So not good for me.

*POETRY*
+Robert Pinsky’s “Gulf Music”
+David Tucker’s “Late For Work”

*FICTION*
+Goh Kasan’s “H2O”
+Marina Lewycka’s “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian”

*DRAMA*
+Neil Simon’s “Broadway Bound”
+Tim Fountain's “Resident Alien”
Mart Crowley's “The Boys In the Band”

*NON-FICTION*
+N. I. Low's “When Singapore Was Syonan-To”
+Karen Armstrong’s “The Great Transformation”
+Yuki Tanaka’s “Japan’s Comfort Women”

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
+Alan Moore’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier”
+Art Spiegelman’s “Maus I”
Maki Murakami’s “Gravitation 10”

*PERFORMANCES*
TTRP’s “The Divine Wind and Tears Lost in the Rain”
+The Hong Kong Players's “Anything Goes”
The Fun Stage’s “Death.Mother”
+Action Theatre’s “Theatre Idols 4”
+The Necessary Stage’s “Frozen Angels”
Singapore Repertory Theatre's "The Pillowman"
ACS (Independent)’s “Centrestage”

*EXHIBITIONS*
Hong Kong Fringe Club's "Reform"
+Hong Kong Museum of Art’s “Made in Hong Kong”
+The NUS Museum’s “返思: Reconfiguration”, “Ng Eng Teng Collection”, “Fragments, Histories, Contexts”

*FILMS*
+Michael Herbig’s “Lissi und der Wilde Kaiser”
+Jeon Yeon Soo’s “The Grand Chef”
+Nick Curran’s “Little Black Book”