So I'm kind of busy with work at the beginning of the semester, so I'll just supply you guys with an update about what I picked up in Singapore, mostly from BooksActually and the Substation's Alternative Art and Book Festival:
Top row: Zhang Yueran's Ten Loves, Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen's Dim Sum Warriors 2, Jay Bernard's English Breakfast and Tan Mei Ching's Beyond the Blue Gate.
Bottom Row: Escape from the Lion's Paw: Reflections of Singapore's Political Exiles, Jason Wee's The Monsters Between Us, That We May Dream Again (writings of the detainees of Operation Spectrum) and Bernice Chauly's Onkalo.
Ooh, but I haven't shown you my latest find. The National Library's got an exhibit on about the early 20th century Singaporean poet Khoo Seok Wan, and there's free bilingual chapbooks available on Level 8!
Khoo's remarkable for many reasons. He was an intellectual of the Qing Dynasty, and actually qualified for the second (but not the third) round of Imperial Examinations - no mean feat for an overseas Chinese (granted, he was born in China, but spent much of his developmental years in Singapore). He thus wrote poetry in traditional Chinese structured forms - not the free verse you get today, but a dense, highly symbolic version of the language, going back to the Han and Tang Dynasties.
Renowned for his craft in his teens, he later started to describe his Southeast Asian landscape in his writings, describing Malay students, even incorporating Malay words in his pieces. Wrote eulogies for both the Empress Dowager Cixi and Queen Victoria! And he died in 1941, just before World War Two, when modern Singapore as we know it was just starting to get formed.
I've transcribed a couple of his poems here. The first one uses a different name for Singapore - Sin Chew, which literally means "the continent of stars". So nice!
Top row: Zhang Yueran's Ten Loves, Colin Goh and Woo Yen Yen's Dim Sum Warriors 2, Jay Bernard's English Breakfast and Tan Mei Ching's Beyond the Blue Gate.
Bottom Row: Escape from the Lion's Paw: Reflections of Singapore's Political Exiles, Jason Wee's The Monsters Between Us, That We May Dream Again (writings of the detainees of Operation Spectrum) and Bernice Chauly's Onkalo.
Ooh, but I haven't shown you my latest find. The National Library's got an exhibit on about the early 20th century Singaporean poet Khoo Seok Wan, and there's free bilingual chapbooks available on Level 8!
Khoo's remarkable for many reasons. He was an intellectual of the Qing Dynasty, and actually qualified for the second (but not the third) round of Imperial Examinations - no mean feat for an overseas Chinese (granted, he was born in China, but spent much of his developmental years in Singapore). He thus wrote poetry in traditional Chinese structured forms - not the free verse you get today, but a dense, highly symbolic version of the language, going back to the Han and Tang Dynasties.
Renowned for his craft in his teens, he later started to describe his Southeast Asian landscape in his writings, describing Malay students, even incorporating Malay words in his pieces. Wrote eulogies for both the Empress Dowager Cixi and Queen Victoria! And he died in 1941, just before World War Two, when modern Singapore as we know it was just starting to get formed.
I've transcribed a couple of his poems here. The first one uses a different name for Singapore - Sin Chew, which literally means "the continent of stars". So nice!
Sin Chew
Of the many islands strung together
The most prominent is Sin Chew
Situated in a sea so vast
That rocky mountains can hardly be seen
Today's travellers to the region
Will find their sojourn easier now
Steady in its role as a favourable locale
A well-equipped, strident junction
星洲
群岛重连锁，星洲建一环。
冲层不见石，到海欲无山。
车辙殊今昔，航途利往还。
由来形胜地，设备等严关。
Here's another, more political piece. Couldn't find the Chinese ideograms to transcribe the first word, sorry, so you'll just have to read it in English.
TEMPEST
In the eighth month, upon hearing of the coup in Beijing
A tempest rattles the window
The beating of flags against the wall
An echo of guns
After the wind, leaves and branches lie
Fallen, as the storm clouds depart
For other locales
In slants of afternoon sunlight
Dust spirals in the wind
A swirling dragon
And in its flight, an anser
Separated from its mate
Where are all our heroes?
It falls to you and me.
Brill, huh? Catch you again next week.
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