Under The Shade Of The Pong Pong Tree

There are two large trees beside our apartment block in Oxley Road which have smallish white flowers and large green fruit, not dissimilar in size and shape to a mango.

My interest in them is that once the fruit falls and rots away (which it does very quickly in the tropics) the fibrous pith has a most attractive texture.

When my university colleagues and I had lunch at the St Margaret's Drive Hawker Centre the other day I noticed two more of these trees which the local black crows were perching upon. They used this platform to eye the left-overs on the the dinner plates and made opportunist forays to retrieve the scraps.

I was told by my fellow diners that these trees are called 'Pong Pong'. (Maybe the fruits are too large and of the non -bouncing variety to be called 'Ping Pong'). It transpires that the seed of the Pon Pong is toxic and the fruit inedible. So toxic is it that it is used as the base ingredient of rat poison.

This news was received with more than a little concern, as two weeks previously I handled several of these fruit with my bare hands while setting them up on a nearby wall to photograph. Don't think I will be doing that again in a hurry!

Another fact about the Pong Pong tree is that until recently, no bird nor animal had been recorded actually eating any part of the tree. How sensible I hear you say.

More recently however it has been observed that an introduced parrot, the Tanimbar corella, munches away on the flesh with great gusto. It is either a very stupid bird and a dying species or it's digestive system has evolved to make it impervious to the toxic pulp. I suspect it is the latter as I haven't found any mounds of dead parrots recently.

The title of this posting suggests the need for shade. Usually this is a must for Singapore especially at midday, when it is my habit to wander down to the local Tai Hong Canteen on Alexandra Road for a bite to eat.

Several umbrellas in the last three months have succumbed to the rigours of the tropical climate. Skeletal umbrellas are of very little use and I have yet to find one that fits in my brief case and is robust enough to literally weather the storms.

It is not sun however that we have been escaping from this past week. The rainy season has hit us with a vengeance and the rain has been both constant and torrential. It has 'bucketed down' to such a degree that pilots have aborted landings at Changi and trees have been uprooted.

This morning's paper reports that the rainfall is the third biggest in the past 75 years with a month's rain descending in just 20 hours.

I actually don't mind the rain as it is at least warm unlike the Christmas rains one used to invariably experience in Auckland which are often wind-driven and cool.

Even the rats are attempting to escape the wet weather by seeking higher ground away from the drains and into the trees - I think I have just found a use for the Pong Pong tree after all!

Rain Limited Edition Print Roger Smith 12/2006

Viva Las Vivo

Vivo City is the latest in a long line of Singaporean shopping complexes. It was officially opened shortly after we arrived in Singapore and well before it was actually completed.

Biding our time we waited until today to visit the complex to see what all of the fuss was about.

The MRT goes straight to Harbourside and a subterranean maze guides the unwary to the shopping mecca.

Am I alone in thinking that there is something very sterile about shopping malls? What ever layer of glitz is applied they still are built to the same formula and visiting one brings on a rapid feeling of deja vu. Vivo City is designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito and the design claims to focus on nature and open spaces. Being Saturday, I cannot in all honesty say that I saw any open spaces - there were droves of Singaporeans in all directions.

By comparison, I slipped down to my local bau shop on Killiney Road this evening . The pungent mix of balachan (or belacan if you prefer) and other spices were in the air; the sound of a youngster practising the cello in the upper reaches of a shop house and there was a steady, but not oppressive bustle along the footpath. All in all a pleasant and relaxing encounter and the food is not the sanitised variety that one finds in the malls. Give me the genuine smell of 'smoking woks at dawn' any day!

Vivo City has one thing going for it and that is its strategic location. Being situated directly opposite Sentosa Island it stands to benefit greatly from the new 'Integrated Resort' that is about to be built there and opens in three years.

The term 'Integrated Resort' is PR spin for 'casino'. The selection of the consortium to build both casinos has been the subject of much speculation in the local media. I was hoping that the Gehry design might win through as visitors would have come from around the world just to view the iconic architecture but this was not to be.

If you ask Singaporeans about the building of casinos in their country you will get a very mixed response. Many are really worried about the social problems that will inevitably follow the opening of such venues. Others are more pragmatic and appreciate that the country needs to provide more attractions to make Singapore the tourism destination of choice that it once was.

The reality is that Singapores status as an electronics hub is under serious threat from China. Another factor is that modern aircraft can go further without stop-overs or refuelling and combined with the rapidly increasing competition of countries such as China and Dubai, Singapore has to reinvent itself for destination and convention / incentive tourism. An example of this is the cessation of services to this country by Air New Zealand, an airline that had been travelling here for forty years and now has moved its hub further North to Hong Kong.

Dubai is religiously copying Singapore's style as a hub and using copious amounts of oil money in the process so clearly Singapore faces many challenges in the immediate future.

The country will however overcome these as it has a very procative and pragmatic government, one that is thankfully not prone to the endless vacilation and political corection of many western democracies.

Poem - Epiha Road

Black mussels spitting their juice
on corrugated iron
over the slow fire of time

Straight from the shell
plump pink
with tiny crabs entombed

Blackberries picked on the dusty road
rutted sand
rocking grey of the Morris laden down

Black sand of the wild beach
slow cooling and a Taranaki sky
bare reefs exposed to a quarter moon

Black armbands now
for memories of picnic bankets
rusty hooks and seaweed popping
slow to burn, slow to burn


Roger Smith
January 2003

The Return of Mr Chains

Readers of this blog may recall my earlier observations of life on the 111. This is the bus that I use to commute to work each morning.

Characters reveal themselves at this time of the morning before the rush of Orchard Road and the lure of glittering shops. One such identity is a man I have christened "Mr Chains"

His presence has been missing these past two weeks but this morning I noticed his slight build in a rear seat. It transpires that he has a hobby - collecting rubber bands.

A considerable part of his journey was spent winding bands of various hue around an old matchbox, no doubt with a mind to use these items at a later date.

He gets off in Tanglin Road, two stops before my own. Today he nearly lost his balance in doing so. Possibly as a result of his slight frame or more probably because as a result of the erratic and jerky driving which is the trademark of some of the less patient bus drivers of which there are a few.

Another person of interest on the same bus is an 'occcasional Indian' whom I knicknamed "The Boxer". A man of some stature with a puglist's nose of similar proportions. In the social strata of Singapore he appears a step down from 'Mr Chains'. That is one of the great things about public transport, you get to mix and mingle with real Singaporeans going about their daily business.

The heat has been oppressive these last two days. Being the rainy season usually this is broken each afternoon by a peal of thunder and a good downpour. However this had not happened for 48 hours - until last night. There was a torrential deluge that went on and off throughout the night.

The earlier morning is therefore doubly refreshing with the veil of humidity temporarily lifted. The groundstaff have been busy clearing up after the storm and the willow broom has given way to a motorised sweeper to cope with the amount of debris.

Bah Humbug!

I just can't quite get into the spirit of Christmas this year.

If truth be known I have felt this way for the past thirty years and being back in the tropics with the prospect of working on Boxing Day just reinforces this feeling.

If you celebrate this Christian festival then it might be a different matter but nowadays it often appears that it is pure commercialism promoted first and foremost.

Not that don't enjoy the special light displays that festoon Orchard Road at this time of year. They really do look impressive but you need to wait until 7 pm for the lights to come on.

The other thing that occurs at this time is the last minute frenzy to complete budget spending and get contractors to complete their tasks ahead of the Xmas break. This is when many expatriates emulate the swallows and fly South for the summer.

Completing contracts near Chinese New Year is an even worse proposition so I am told. This delight awaits us when we take over our new 'condo' early January and try to get our minor rennovations completed well before the February 18th date that marks the start of New Year.

It is the Year of the Boar by the way. That is "boar" with an "a" not "bore" with an "e"

My New Year resolution therefore will to be really "piggy" and capitalise on all of the local delicacies on offer! Of course many of the traditional New Year foodstuffs and sweatmeats are now on sale all year round so one does not have to wait until February