My Singapore Travel Diary, Monday, July 18 - Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Monday, July 18

Slept 1:00 AM - 5:49 AM. A rainy morning. Skipping lunch due to a heavy breakfast and staying mostly in my hotel room.

Early in the afternoon E. picks me up in the lobby and introduces me to Clarissa, who is the senior high school intern assigned to assist me on this visit. Clarissa and I go to the learning institute, where I conduct a playwriting workshop for the first group of senior citizens. Afterward Clarissa takes me back to the hotel and I rest an hour. It rains again. I walk to another 7-11 outlet, then have an early dinner at a Chinese coffee shop.

6:30 PM. I walk over to the theatre. The first evening session of the major workshop begins.

It rains again. After the workshop I walk back, in the semi-darkness, to the hotel.


Tuesday, July 19

Slept 1:00 AM - 6:49 AM. It's Tuesday already but it seems only minutes ago that I arrived at Changi Airport. The hotel corridors always smell of sandalwood.

11:15 AM. Waiting in the theatre's green room for Isaac and his two readers to arrive. Clarissa monitors this dramaturgy session. Afterward E., Clarissa ,and I hold a meeting about the workshops with the senior citizens and the possibility of holding a reading for Beverly's play.

Now resting in the hotel room. Watching a wuxia about the male warrior who turned into a female warrior in order to gain additional powers. His/her name in this wuxia is Shu Buo.

W. messages me. A barter man wants to deliver to the hotel a B.L. figure, but I need to top up the price y SG10 for his taxi fare.

I go down to the smoking area to do some writing. I close my eyes and imagine myself in Cubao. I activate all of my senses and focus on the heat, the cafe music (which could very well be the music at M.'s cafe), and the sound of vehicles on the street (which could very well be vehicles on P. Tuazon Boulevard).

Despite the fact that I've been to Singapore at least six times before I am unable to get used to right-hand drive. I look left when I should be looking right, and vice-versa. I am almost run over at least two times.

In Singapore pedestrians are alarmed whenever I ask "Do you have the time?" or "May I have the time?" They think that they are being propositioned. They respond more quickly to "What time is it?" On the up side, however, complete strangers smile at you when they meet you in the street, as they do in DC. I smile at men and nod at women, especially women who are dressed in traditional clothing. I will also have to get used to E.'s prefixes of "So Tony..." as in "So Tony, let us go now to the workshop venue" and "So Tony, should we begin?"

Evening, second major workshop session, this one on character and dialogue.

Back in the hotel room now and watch _The Legend Is Born - Ip Man_, which I saw some time ago on RED, though the screen resolution here is so much better. Wing chun is interesting. The Ip Man movies sure have great production design and camera work. Frankly and unfortunately B.L.'s movies, filmed much, much earlier, were really quite crude.