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Tag: nostalgia

Posted on October 19, 2019January 21, 2020

Imagined landscapes

Kampung Tanjung, Kuala Terengganu The last time I was here, the house was shrouded in darkness. I could barely see the tail light of a motorcycle, streaking to a halt between the stilts. The house stood alone on an empty plot of land, or rather the land around the house had been cleared. I promised …

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Posted on February 28, 2018March 1, 2018

An event to remember

Quite happy with my recent purchase of a small booklet of prints from the weekend flea market. I was only interested in the first 7 or so photographs but there was no way to purchase them without tearing the booklet. The negatives were unfortunately nowhere to be found. One booth had a small box of empty …

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Posted on January 21, 2018January 22, 2018

Thinking about seeing

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than browsing through a box full of abandoned memories at the flea market in Amcorp Mall. These old photographs are usually sourced from family albums, where the prints are stripped out and packaged to be sold individually. In light of how everything remotely old is being sold …

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Posted on January 12, 2018January 28, 2018

Printing old negatives

As someone who deals almost exclusively with fragments of the past, a favourite past time of mine is to look for old photographic negatives and work on extracting the images. Some time last year, my dear friend Audrey kindly loaned me a collection of her father's negatives from the '20s for me to work on. …

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Posted on January 10, 2016January 28, 2018

Unfamiliar faces in town

The Indian-Muslim masters of cendol A bowl of cendol pulut is a must. Rojak is optional. Time to head home and take a nap, I asked him for the total in Malay. He replies in Tamil. I start fishing for coins from my wallet. Haven't see you in awhile. How's your mother? he asks. She's …

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Posted on March 1, 2013January 28, 2018

Sin Seng Nam: The end of a very long chapter

On the 28th of February 2013, the one coffeeshop I've always loved visiting in Kuala Lumpur, Sin Seng Nam, goes into retirement after 85 years of operation. I arrived relatively late, 8.30am to be exact, to find most of the seats already filled with the regulars. I found an empty table upstairs and made camp …

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Instagram

When durian was in season my dad would bring home gunny sacks filled with durian from the farms he visited. We had so much fruits that sometimes that was all we had for dinner. A buffet of durian and mangosteen. Naturally there was plenty leftover and mum must have learned how to make this dish from my Malay relatives. At home we called it pulut durian, and I ate bowls of it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
A stranger sits down at my table and offers me a glass of water.
Art has the potential to move us in unpredictable ways. Sometimes they make us laugh, at both ourselves and the world. Sometimes they nudge us out of our comfort zones, invoking unfamiliar thoughts and emotions. And sometimes they leave us drained and dead inside. But don’t worry, everything will be ok.

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