Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Weekly column written for Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here .   I thought my grandfather's smell would never leave me. Years ago, my father's father had left his wife and children for another woman and her family. In his old age, when the other family could not take care of him any longer, my grandfather returned to his original set of children, as to a stone wall, because none would take him back. Except for my father, himself dead now just slightly more than a year ago, who turfed me out of my room to make room for my grandfather. I could not bear the smell hanging on him like a wreath. He smelled of rotting pork rubbed with Tiger Balm ointment, but drier, dustier. I am reminded of my grandfather by the granddaughter of J. B. Jeyaretnam. The Yale freshman has just published a beautiful essay about her grandfather who is, was, famous in Singapore for being the first opposition politician to be elected into Parliament after almost three decades of People's Act...

Column written for weekly Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . "On the 29th of July, in 1943, my father died. On the same day, a few hours later, his last child was born," so memorably writes James Baldwin at the beginning of his essay "Notes of a Native Son." "A few hours after my father's funeral, while he lay in state in the undertaker's chapel, a race riot broke out in Harlem. On the morning of the 3rd of August, we drove my father to the graveyard through a wilderness of smashed plate glass." Reading the essay in order to teach it in the new school year, I was struck not just by the depth of feeling and the eloquence, but also, more surprisingly, by a strain of sardonic humor that runs like quicksilver throughout the writing. After being turned away by the ironically named "American Diner"—"We don't serve Negroes here."—Baldwin in his fury marched into a fashionable restaurant in which he knew "not even...

Gift exchange after a hearty Christmas lunch is a golden ritual at my lover’s parents. Having joined in the dusky afternoon twice, in the village of Cleves, twenty-one miles from Cincinnati, I thought I knew the form but was taken aback with delight when I opened a flat square box and found a bolo tie from his father. He had made it with braided brown and black leather at the ends of which coiled silver aiguillettes. the slide of the bolo tie is made of peach wood from the tree that died At the airport, as I thanked him for the stay, this veteran of World War II, a teacher of industrial arts, an avid card player, a father of five and lately a great-grandfather, said, Jee, you are like one of my sons. I did not mishear him, for my lover’s mother, knowing her husband’s deafness and darkening taciturnity, was so surprised that she repeated it to her son when he called her to say we are safely home.

In gay terms, I am ten years old this year, a young un. I was not out as a gay man to myself for the first thirty-four years of my life, even though I knew since primary school that I was strongly attracted to boys. I had to move from Singapore to New York in order to come out as gay. Unlike many friends, I lacked the courage to come out in Singapore. It was not easy to come out in New York either. I remember walking back and forth in front of a gay bar, terrified of going in. I had to join a coming-out group at Identity House for group therapy and discussion. I was not sick, but you don’t need to be sick to need therapy. You only need to be damaged. The first time I plucked up the courage to attend a meeting of the Gay Asian Pacific Islander Men of New York (GAPIMNY), I made sure I did not cross my legs in the room filled with gay Asian men; I did not want to appear effeminate. But it was at the next GAPIMNY meeting, which of course ended with supper in a Chelsea restaurant, that I ...

The plot of Late Spring  (1949) reminds me a little of The Golden Bowl . A daughter who loves her widowed father so much that parting, in the form of marriage, is such sweet sorrow. Setsuko Hara plays Noriko Samiya with real inwardness. Having just recovered from an illness during the war, she is seen at the age of 28 to be ripe for marriage. Her father (Chishû Ryû), knowing her attachment to him, and concern for his old age, tricks her into leaving him by pretending to contemplate marriage with a widow. I was thrilled to see Ryōan-ji in the film. The visit to the famous dry garden in Kyoto is the last trip that father and daughter take together, before she leaves the home to be married. Set in suburban Tokyo, Good Morning  (1959) is a humorous satire of postwar consumerism and adult mannerisms. Two boys, brothers, take a vow of silence when their parents refuse to buy them a TV. Their silence comments nicely on the use of small talk as a social lubricant in the adult world....

It is tempting to describe Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine  (2013) as a Madoff scheme of A Streetcar Named Desire . Last night at the Lincoln Plaza cinemas with GH, WL and DM, I kept expecting the infusion of Allenesque comedy into the Williamsian tragedy to pay off, but it never did. WL was right in describing the serious scenes as melodramatic. I thought only two minor characters carry whatever moral weight the film possesses. Augie (Andrew Dice Clay), the first husband of Ginger, loses all his money and his chance of setting up his own construction business. Their marriage breaks up. He makes visible the human devastation of Hal's scams. Closer to home, Danny, son of Hal, the Bernie Madoff character played by Alec Baldwin, is the innocent victim of father-worship. The short scene in the music shop, in which Danny (Alden Ehrenreich) pleads with his mother Jasmine to get out of his life, is searing. Cate Blanchett is fine as the deluded Jasmine, the Blanche character, but even s...

American movies that are ostensibly about family are really about individualism. The family become the context, the arena, in which the individual struggles for genuine happiness or authentic conscience. This truism came home to me after watching The Oranges last Thursday and The Details last night, both films from 2011. The Oranges , directed by Julian Farino, is set in an area of New Jersey where the cities all have the word "orange" in their name. The Wallings and the Ostroffs share a long friendship until the wayward Ostroff daughter (Catherine Keener) returns and has an affair with David (Hugh Laurie), the head of the Walling household. The resultant shake-up makes everyone realize their unhappiness and seek change. Oliver Platt puts in a pitch-perfect performance of the hapless Ostroff, father of the young siren. He is partnered by the always worth watching Allison Janney. The Details , a black comedy, casts Tobey Maguire as Dr. Jeff Lang, who lives an outwa...

Flying to Singapore tonight. I'll have to start packing soon. And mail off MC's book to TS for review. And get a haircut from my favorite barber at Woodside, and then lunch at Sripraphai. And buy presents from New York Historical Society, which was closed yesterday when I forgot that it would be and walked from 86th Street to 79th. I am really looking forward to spending time with my nieces, H and L. They must have grown so much since I last saw them. Now H is 8 and L is 4. The summer is flying by, and taking me with it.

Inferior Education  Today, for the first time, you struck your mother on the cheek.      Yosano Akiko, “Auguste’s Single Strike” Three things I was not taught as a child but wish: to strike my mother on the cheek to contradict my teacher in public to throw rocks at cops. Now I am an indifferent citizen, keep-at-home critic, afraid to go up against someone smarter. I shout at my mother when she doesn’t come to the point, striking her with words.

Richard Eyre directed the BBC TV production of Chekov's "The Cherry Orchard" (1981). I watched it over three nights, straining to hear the often-muffled sound. The poor sound might have to do with the age of the DVD. Using a version written by Trevor Griffiths, the production seemed overly English. As Madame Ranevsky, Judi Dench was affecting in certain scenes, as when she debated with herself whether to return to her Parisian lover, but was otherwise unconvincing as a Russian aristocrat who had to sell her family estate, including the famous cherry orchard. More likely was the performance of Bill Paterson as Lopakhin, the eventual buyer of the estate. The character was the richest of the lot. Upwardly mobile, commercially-minded, he gloried in the purchase of the land on which his father had worked as a serf. Anton Lesser was also very fine as the "eternal" student Peter Trofimov. * Over the last two weekends we watched two gay movies about adopting a child...

In the Mind of God This world is not conclusion           Emily Dickinson I’m not the son of a carpenter, your every look told me. Living in mistaken circumstances, I’m the son of a king. I tried to please my father by picking up the rip saw but I could see, even at five, words cut more readily. I’m the son of a king, so I thought and thought until a star dropped from the sky, then I’m the son of God. I bade you farewell, wiped your eyes with my wrists, set off to find the falling star and seize my destiny. The men, the neediest men, I ordered to follow me. The women I pitied for their strength and told not to sin. When they told me you were outside, asking for your son, I knew then I didn’t belong to you, I belonged to them. Be strong, woman, the cross you see is not a cross. Far away, a woman will write, This world is not conclusion. Be comforted, woman, all of us are never who we seem. My son, this is your mother. My mother,...

I received my green card in the mail on March 1. GH left two official-looking envelopes on my table. One was a questionnaire to find out my eligibility to undertake jury duty. The other held my permanent residency. Responsibility and privilege come hand-in-hand, they say. I will have to live here for five years before I can apply for citizenship. I don't know yet if I will, since I am reluctant to give up my Singapore citizenship. Neither government encourages dual citizenship, unfortunately. I think I will try to write a poem about dual citizenship sometime. Last night, at the Son of a Pony reading, I shared the good news and the audience responded warmly. Then I read this poem, which I introduced as the other face of becoming a permanent resident in a foreign country. Singapore Buses Are Very Reliable And they told him that in Prague his mother died.             Polina Barskova, “Motherhood and Childhood” ...

Tribes , a new play by Nina Raine, asks hard questions about stigmatized identities and minority communities. The London production won an Offie Award and was also nominated for both Olivier and Evening Standard Awards for best new play. A new production opened on February 16 in Barrow Street Theater, New York City. It is acted by an all-American cast and directed by David Cromer whose production of Our Town last season won acclaim. Billy (Russell Harvard), who is deaf from birth, lives with a family that has tried to treat him as if he has no hearing defect. He speaks to them using his own voice and understands them by lip-reading. He does not know sign language. Things change when he meets Sylvia (Susan Pourfar), who grew up in a deaf household and has lived mostly within the deaf community. She is not deaf but is becoming so. They fall in love and upon her encouragement he took up the job of transcribing criminal suspects to aid their prosecution. Newly independent, Bi...

A Poem to a Poet I am a poet, I have had my day For I have written one immortal line; Nor Greek nor Latin ever wrote more fine— The Poem: Edna St. Vincent Millay.             Cora Millay, “A Poet to A Poem,” quoted in Nancy Milford’s biography of Vincent You had pleasure at my making, happiness rolling in foam that on the scalloped shore raises to a gull shout and creaking oar an astonishing figure in an astonishing dress. Hardship you had also, the heavy progress from island to wild island, store to store, to have shut in your face the frightened door, before one dared receive you, your largesse. Mother! The name is too small for a lover, like Hestia who yielded her throne and fled. For dandelions, mustard, pig-weed, clover, abandoning the flowers of marriage bed, you search, jealous as Hera, the world all over. I am the best thought springing from your head.

Abstract Shapes         those abstract shapes of who I was which she found so much easier to love             Julia Alvarez, “Folding My Clothes” The army uniform that I hated my mother spa every Saturday, and rested on a bamboo pole to dry with her flesh-colored bra. The supporter of my oppressor is my oppressor too. My mother is an oppressor who does things for me, like your mother for you.

Tearjerker My mum would insist on watching the latest release with Dad and me, some action flick like Iron Man or The Fast and the Furious . Clanks and clashes notwithstanding, she would fall slack, snoring. The plot, said Dad, is too complicated for your mum. But she could tell you everything you want to know about some 100-episode Cantonese tearjerker, who is sleeping with whom and not his wife, why he sells out his partner, how she takes her revenge, what is the relationship between real life and TV.

The Cliché My mother will die with a cliché on her mouth— I’m going to God or Love each other and live — she will embarrass me even in her last moment, common as the Kleenex she blows her nose into. Unlike Rita Dove’s Beulah, she will not think, with horrified longing, There is no China. She will not ask what she knows of Africa, or the equivalent of a land of origin. As far as she is concerned, China is Africa, and Africa may as well be China as anything. She is going to God. She has loved and lived. My mother will die contented, non-tragic.

My Mother’s Hips these hips are big hips      Lucille Clifton, “homage to my hips” They have a bicycle in them, my mother’s hips. They move. They have a washtub in them. They do. Smell of soap suds. They have a gas station too. They don’t have a university in them, they don’t, no, sir, they don’t have a battlefield, but they have training grounds in Australia, they have India, and the greatest city on earth, New York, New York, where I praise my mother’s hips.

Indian Veranda h Sister, you live in a very private place      Meena Alexander, “Red Parapet” I will visit you in New Delhi in March, when school is out. I will see your strange house, verandah closing it around, more like an old Malay palace in Singapore than any rented apartment in New York. I will ask Raymond when he’s home about managing a country’s oil market, but say little about life with Guy. I will run with Liesel and read to Hannah the books that she is fast out-growing. I will be driven by your driver through the old city, which will remind me of the four long days I was stuck in Calcutta when my plane had engine trouble. I will think that an itinerary is always also an interruption. In the relative coolness of morning, I will sit with you on the verandah, sipping tea poured by your housekeeper, both of us brightly polite to her, neither of us used to being served in our house, if not by our young mother, the tea...

Last night, with LW and AG, watched Iphigénie en Tauride by Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck. On the big screen, as it was, a part of the Met Opera’s annual HD Summer Festival. The plot reworks a play by Euripides, in which Iphigénie is not sacrificed by her father Agamemnon, but is rescued by Diana. Held captive by the Scythians, she (a passionate Susan Graham) is forced to conduct their human sacrifices as a high priestess. The drama really begins when the Scythians capture her brother Orestes (Plácido Domingo), still fleeing from the Furies unleashed by his killing of his mother in revenge for her murder of his father and her husband. A terribly ironic cycle would be complete if Iphigénie kills her brother as a Scythian sacrifice to the gods. The seemingly inevitable tragic ending is complicated and delayed by Pylades (marvelous Paul Groves), Orestes’ companion in his flight, who loves Orestes enough to die for him. He is the only guiltless one, unlike the House of Atreus. ...