I just returned from a three-day visit to Singapore. My last trip was almost two years ago, to attend my niece Rebecca's wedding to her Dutch beau Dennis Kool. Back in the 1980s I used to spend half the year in the Merlion City, producing multimedia extravaganzas and chilling with a secret colony of Bohemians in Bedok.
Indeed, an early initiation into my lifelong fascination with metaphysics was triggered at the Singapore national library in 1968.
A friend of mine had casually mentioned a teenaged Jewish girl he often saw hanging around the library; people were scared of her because she was overfriendly, so they concluded she was mad. I felt a powerful compulsion to try and find that Jewish girl and befriend her (at the time I was obsessed with Jewish princesses). So I loitered outside the library for an hour or so, hoping to catch sight of the girl - but saw nobody that looked remotely Jewish or even slightly crazy.
That's when I decided to nose around inside the library, which was huge and had a whole section labeled "Philosophy." I headed there and two books caught my eye: one was Richard Wilhelm's translation of the I Ching and the other was the Tao Te Ching (translated by Lin Yutang).

On the Absolute Tao
The Tao the can be told of
Is not the Absolute Tao;
The Names that can be given
Are not Absolute Names.
The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The Named is the Mother of All Things.

Oftentimes, one strips oneself of passion
In order to see the Secret of Life;
Oftentimes, one regards life with passion,
In order to see its manifest forms.
These two (the Secret and its manifestations)
Are (in their nature) the same;
They are given different names
When they become manifest.
They may both be called the Cosmic Mystery:
Reaching from the Mystery into the Deeper Mystery
Is the Gate to the Secret of All Life.

This episode marked a turning point in my quest for meaning. It was as if a seed had been planted in me that afternoon which would subsequently germinate and bloom into a sacred tree, offering enlightenment and shade and whose fruit provided spiritual nourishment.
Singapore has always been good to me, even though I can't see myself living there. Things were a lot different in the 1980s. Areas like Bedok and Serangoon Gardens where I used to hang out still possessed a slightly rural feel. In fact, a few minutes' walk from the housing estate in Serangoon Gardens (built for British servicemen's families in the 1960s), there was a real kampong with chickens, ducks and geese flapping around - plus a few musangs and monkeys and an occasional cockatoo.

However, apart from a massive queue at the Second Link that delayed my arrival for an hour, I was warmly welcomed to Singapore by a bunch of young Polytechnic students I met at the Novena Square MRT station. One of them, a 19-year-old named Chris Tan, insisted on carrying my heavy bag a few blocks and made sure I was headed in the right direction before running off to catch the last train to Outram. It's little things like this that reassure me Singapore is not quite as soulless as she's made out to be by her detractors. The PAP government's attempt to robotize the people and turn them into kiasu consumers hasn't been entirely successful.



Moon was greatly amused by the fact that this was the first time, in the 18 years since they were married, that I had consulted my son-in-law about my teeth. Well, I suppose I wanted Ansgar get exceptionally good at his craft before subjecting myself to his professional ministrations ;-)...

Over the years he has acquired an impressive array of multi-track mixers, studio-quality mics, Wharfedale speakers, and taught himself to use the amazing range of sophisticated sound sculpting software now available. Not only was Dennis Kool gifted with an excellent pair of ears, he also has a vast and wonderfully eclectic musical archive packed between them - plus the technical aptitude and taste to be a topnotch audio engineer. Dennis had asked me on a recent visit to Magick River to avail myself of his studio if I wanted to record my songs - so I took him up on his offer and managed to get two songs mixed down, one of which (Share The Beauty) I've uploaded. I wasn't 100% satisfied with my own performance (we didn't have unlimited time), but I now have no doubts about Dennis Kool's skill as sound engineer/producer. Dennis has decided on the name Trax Studio for his modest recording and mixing set-up.


Well, these are moments to cherish at the end of the day - when a visit with the family reminds us how sweet it is to be loved and cherished, and how blessed one is to have such lovable, big-hearted family members.