Sur le pont d’Avignon: Exiled Popes and a broken bridge

The popular children’s song Sur le pont d’Avignon comes to mind each time one thinks of Avignon. The lyrics of the song describes people dancing on the bridge in a circle … conjuring up images of jovial folk dressed in their medieval finery dancing in celebration on what must have been a magnificent Pont Saint-Bénezet, stradled over the Rhône.

Sur le pont d'Avignon: On the Bridge of Avignon

The Chorus of Sur le pont d’Avignon,

Sur le pont d’Avignon
L’on y danse, l’on y danse
Sur le pont d’Avignon
L’on y danse tous en rond

translates into:

On the bridge of Avignon
We all dance there, we all dance there
On the bridge of Avignon
We all dance there in a ring

Le Pont d'Avignon: Pont Saint-Bénezet (The Saint-Bénezet Bridge)

What is left of the bridge these days, are four remaning arches, where there had been twenty-two arches supporting the length of the beautifully constructed bridge. A large part of what had been a 900 metre long bridge was swept away by a flood in the late 17th century. A first glimpse of the bridge on the approach from the cool shadows of the tree lined ramparts of the city walls, against the drone of the gentle chorus of cicadas, who one might suggest, were attempting to mimic the tune of the children’s song, provides a foretaste of the impressive divine inspired work. The solid looking bridge, inspired by the vision of a shepherd boy, Bénezet, after whom it is named, who, in a vision, was commanded by angels to build a bridge across the river, was constructed in the late 12th century. For sometime the bridge served strategically as the only built river crossing between Lyon and the Mediterranean. Standing on what is left of the bridge, one feels a sense of awe and can’t help but marvel at what is truly an impressive feat of medieval engineering.

Sur le pont d'Avignon: The Palace of the Popes as seen from the Saint-Bénezet Bridge

The bridge offers a wonderful perspective of the walled city of Avignon and the Palais des Papes (Palace of the Popes) where the day had actually begun. The Palace of the Popes, built in the 14th century, served as the seat of the Papacy during a tumultuous period of time when the Papacy took leave of absence from its seat in Rome – the only period of time since the establishment of the Papacy when it had been based outside of Rome. The Palace with its 15000 square metres of floor area is an impressive piece of medieval architecture and is in fact the largest Gothic palace in Europe. It was built from 1335 to 1364, after a French dominated Papacy had moved from the strife and hostility it faced in Rome in 1309, serving as the seat of the Catholic Church until 1377, when the Papacy moved back to Rome. It continued serving as the seat of two rebel popes installed by factions opposed to Rome during the Papal Schism that followed the departure of the Papacy, until 1403.

Palais des Papes - The Palace of the Popes

View from the Ramparts of the Palace of the Popes

Roof at the Palace of the Popes

The Palace of the Popes

Cathédrale Notre Dame-des-Doms and the Palace of the Popes

Across from the Palace of the Popes, stands the delightful Petit Palais, which houses the Musée du Petit Palais and its collection of mainly Italian and French primitive and early renaissance art, including Bottlcelli’s The Virgin and Child. On display is what perhaps a glimpse of the art from a period of time during which the awakening of art and culture had started, from a time when art, architecture and much of life, was dedicated to the glory of God.

Botticelli's The Virgin and Child (1465)

Giovanni Baronzio's Madonna and Child (c. 1343)

Outside the palaces, the streets, that had on the walk into the walled city that morning, been filled with the dissonance of a student protest, one that maybe one expects to come across on the cobble stones of a city as French as the dissension of its citizens is, seemed quiet in the heat of the Provencal summer afternoon. Wandering around somehow seemed a lot less interesting after the morning’s journey into the city’s colourful past.

The quiet streets of Avignon

A Medieval Tower in the centre of Avignon

The Longest Road North of the Border?

I remember my father relating this story about a friend of his, who on his first drive across the causeway, made a remarkable observation that there was apparently this extremely long street in Malaysia, when I was maybe eight or nine. As he had made his way from one town to another along the old trunk road on the way to Kuala Lumpur, the friend of my father’s had observed that in every place that he stopped at, there were directions to this street named “Jalan Seha-something” ….

The street that he referred to was apparently “Jalan Sehala” … or “One-Way Street” in English …

The longest road?

A captivating feast of colour and light: La Sainte-Chapelle

The Sainte-Chapelle or Holy Chapel in located on the Ile de la Cité, in what is the heart of Paris, offers a visual feast of colour and light with its 15 magnificent windows of stained glass erected in a famework of stone, which depicts some 1113 scenes from the Bible. The Gothic chapel, which actually comprises two chapels, the Upper Chapel built for use by the nobles, and the Lower Chapel built for servants, was built in the 13th Century by Louis IX to house Christ’s Crown of Thorns and other relics in the possession of  the King.

Being one that has a fascination of Stained Glass, the Sainte-Chapelle and its Stained Glass, which is considered some of the best works in the world, was something that I had always dreamt of seeing, although never taking the time to do so in the numerous trips I had made to Paris. It wasn’t until 2003, that I took the time to stand in queue under the hot mid-day sun of the Parisian summer.

The Sainte-Chapelle is located in the heart of Paris ... the Ile de la Cité

A rose window in the Upper Chapel

The Upper Chapel offers a visual feast with its 15 stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible

The 600 square metres of stained glass, 2/3 of which are original, date back to the 13th Century

Stained glass detail

Stained glass detail

The stained glass panels in the Upper Chapel are 15.4 metres high

1113 scenes from the Old Testament and the Passion of Christ are depicted on the stained glass panels

Sculpture in the Upper Chapel

View of the Upper Chapel

View through a door of the Upper Chapel

Doorway to the Upper Chapel

Bas-relief on door frame depicting a scene from the Old Testament (Noah's Ark)

Bas-relief on door frame depicting a scene from the Old Testament (Noah's Ark)

The serene Lower Chapel

The Forbidden Hill

A walk around Fort Canning Hill with two of my schoolmates from SJI on a quiet Sunday evening brought back memories of the Fort Canning Hill of that many of us were fond of wandering around as schoolboys back when we attended SJI in the late 1970s. The hill for many of us then, was shrouded in much mystery, as it had been when it was once referred to as “Bukit Larangan” or Forbidden Hill by the locals at the time of the arrival of the British to Singapore. The locals believed the hill to be haunted, being the burial ground of the former kings of what was once Temasek. We sometimes also went to Fort Canning Hill for our Physical Education (P.E.) lessons – the shady tracks on the hill and the gentle slopes were ideal for cross country practice.

As schoolboys in SJI, we sometimes went to Fort Canning for a jog for P.E. (Physical Education)

The British perhaps made the hill a little less mysterious, with the hill being referred to as Government Hill with the establishment of Government House on the hill in 1822, the same year Sir Stamford Raffles built his residence on the southern slope of the hill.  Its current name, Fort Canning Hill, comes from the fort that was established at the site of Government House (which was demolished to make way for the fort), in 1859. The fort was named after Viscount Charles John Canning, the Governor-General of India at that time and its first Viceroy.

Much of the mystery that surrounded the hill for us schoolboys had to do with the stories we had heard of the spirits of the inhabitants of the cemeteries that had existed, haunting the hill. There was of course the Keramat Iskandar Shah, purportedly the tomb of Raja Iskandar Shah, the last king of Singapore who ruled in the 14th Century, located on the eastern slope, to add further mystery. It could have been due to an overactive imagination, but somehow we always felt like we were being watched whenever we walked passed the Keramat. The fascination we had for some of the strange structures and features we discovered on our trips around the hill also added to the mystery: walls with gravestones, a cluster of tombstones nestled in a corner, two Cupolas, a solitary Gate at the top of the hill …

The Keramat Iskandar Shah with a roof erected over it. Back then when we were schoolboys, the Keramat was not covered.

Starting our walk from the escalators beside the National Museum, we were reminded of the red bricked National Library building that once stood there next to the Museum building, and the little shed next to it which housed a Wonton noodle stall that many of would frequent for lunch when we were bored of the food at the Sarabat stalls along Waterloo Street, or at the coffee shop along Victoria Street close to the junction with Bras Basah Road we used to refer to as “Smokey”.

The view from Fort Canning Hill over the area where the National Library used to stand, over to what is now the SMU, which sits on what used to be the SJI school field ...

Next we came to the grounds of a former Christian cemetery, now the Fort Canning Green, with the cluster of tombstones standing in the northeast corner. Fort Canning Green, bounded by the Fort Canning Centre at the top of the slope, and the Gothic gates and walls on two sides on which had the tablets of the gravestones that once stood embedded into them, is these days a popular venue for open air concerts, looks very much as it did in the 1970s, except for the immaculately groomed lawn where there was once an unkempt field of overgrown grass. The Cupolas designed by George Coleman still stand proudly close to the southwest corner, as it did back then.

The reverse side of the Gothic Gate which served as the entrance to the Christian Cemetery

Tablets of gravestones embedded in the wall of Fort Canning Green

Gravestones that still stand in the northeast corner of Fort Canning Green

The immaculate lawn of Fort Canning Green today

Fort Canning Centre and George Coleman's Cupolas on Fort Canning Green

Fort Canning Centre, a magnificently grand building that served as a barracks for the British Army stands at the top of the slope of Fort Canning Green. The building is used as a dance centre housed squash courts where there are now dance studios, as a squash centre back in the days when squash was one of the most popular sports and when Singapore dominated the regional squash scene.

Fort Canning Centre was a Squash Centre in the late 1970s

Further up near the top of the hill, just by the summit where there is a covered reservoir, Fort Canning Gate with its two sets of heavy doors, stands as it did in the 1970s. The top of the gate is still accessible through an iron gate and a narrow flight of stairs as it was back then. It is of course much cleaner now, smelling a lot less foul than it did when we were scrambling around in the all whites of our school uniform. Where the clearing adjacent where the gate is, is now stands, there was a cemented skating rink where some of us would come with our skateboards. Skateboards were thought of as a public nuisance then and were banned from use in most public places then.

The clearing where there was once a skating rink

Fort Canning Gate

The heavy doors of Fort Canning Gate

The narrow stairway to the top of Fort Canning Gate

The walk around also took us to the area where maybe as schoolboys we frequented less – the western slope along Clemenceau Avenue, where we sometimes encountered schoolboys from a rival school, and the southern side, where Raffles had his residence and where the Fort Canning Lighthouse stands. This brought us back to the eastern slope, where the Spice Garden is located, as well as where the Archaeological Excavation Site from which artefacts from the 14th Century have been uncovered – not that we knew anything about it back when we were in school, near the area where the Keramat is, and back to Fort Canning Green.

Fort Canning Light - A lighthouse on Fort Canning Hill

Bulls in a Roman Amphitheatre and a Landscape under the Stars

An afternoon ride in a furnace that was a regional train sans climatisation, fuelled by the warmth of the Mediterranean midsummer, through the picturesque Rhône valley bathed in the gold and violet of sunflowers and lavender, much like the Provençal landscapes of Cézanne, wasn’t an ideal prelude to a much anticipated visit to the city that was for a while, home to the post impressionist artist, who in the words of Don McLean, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as. The sweaty half an hour’s ride to Arles, from Avignon, was soon consigned to memory as soon as the short walk that took us from the train station provided us with the sight of the magnificent and well preserved Roman amphitheatre, the Arènes d’Arles.

The Arènes d'Arles

Structure of the Arena

Arles, a charming city in the French region of Provence, was established in the 6th Century BC by the Greeks, is a city that is well known for a famous inhabitant, Vincent van Gogh, who while as residing there in 1888, infamously cut part of his left ear off, in an incident involving another well-known short-term resident, a fellow post-impressionist and good friend, Paul Gaugain.

Images of Arles and Provence as captured by van Gogh, together with the words of the beautiful song “Vincent”, revolving around van Gogh’s life in Provence, had always filled my imagination. The swirling sky over Saint-Rémy depicted in the painting “The Starry Night”, the subject matter for Don McLean’s first and most well known line of the song written in tribute to van Gogh, and another painting “Starry Night over the Rhône” , as well as several paintings he completed when in Arles, including one of his chair and his bedroom in Arles, and the night scene of a cafe in “The Café Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles, at Night“ had for a long time driven my desire to visit Arles, and finally, here I was, standing on the very streets that van Gogh had walked on…

The Starry Night, Van Gogh (Saint-Rémy, 1889)

Starry Night Over the Rhone, Van Gogh (Arles, 1888)

Bedroom in Arles, Van Gogh (Arles, 1888)

Arriving at the bottom of the steps leading up to the Arena, we discovered why there seemed to be a scurry of fellow tourists towards the Arena, which was built in the 1st Century A.D. On offer at the arena was the summer’s regular midweek fare of bulls and Raseteurs. In the Camargue, unlike neighbouring Spain, bulls are not killed, and the objective is for the bullfighter or Raseteur, to snatch three attributes from the head of a young bull, relying on his agility to avoid being gored by the bull.

Course Camarguaise Poster at the Arena

The Entry Ticket for the afternoon's Course Camarguaise

Entering the magnificent Arena, the running of the bulls and Raseteurs was a wonderful spectacle of charging and jumping magnificent black Camargue Bulls in their prime, and agile Raseteurs dressed in white, in a sandy ring bounded by a red fence. Its hard to imagine being in a structure built some 2000 years ago, sitting right where as much as 20,000 people would gather, to be entertained by Gladiators and wild animals in combat, as well as perhaps the public executions that were known to be held in Roman amphitheatres.

Inside the Arena

A Raseteur in action

A Camargue Bull

Over the fence!

A pleasant two hour stroll in the evening after leaving the Arena took us through the narrow streets of Arles. It was not difficult to imagine why van Gogh would had taken to the city, which he had described as being exotic and filthy.  Soon it was time to go … at least by then, the coolness of the evening made the ride back to Avignon a nice way to soak in the landscapes that inspired van Gogh, along the way.

View of Arles from the Arena

Narrow Streets

Rooftops

More Narrow Streets

Quiet Residential Street

Rhône Rhône

A Different Time, A Different Place

To many today, the Esplanade is the theatre complex that stares at you with, as the pair of insect eyes it resembles would appear to, at the North West corner of Marina Bay, near the mouth of the Singapore River. Locals also refer to the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay complex as the “Durian”, its exterior resembling the skin of the thorny pungent smelling fruit, which like the theatre complex aesthetically, is somewhat of an acquired taste.

The Esplanade of today: Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay

The Esplanade that Singaporeans of a generation and more ago would have related to would be the area now known as Esplanade Park, part of which was called Queen Elizabeth Walk, named in commemoration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953. Back then, it was a seaside promenade which provided Singaporeans with a view of the harbour that stretched from the mouth of the Singapore River near Anderson Bridge to the area near where the modern theatre complex stands today.

Postcard of the Esplanade of Yesteryear

The View of Esplanade Park today. The buildings of modern Singapore have outgrown the trees that line Queen Elizabeth Walk.

The Esplanade of yesteryear was a much quieter place, where it was common to see families out on a leisurely evening stroll. A pedestrian tunnel connected the Esplanade with Empress Place, which had enough parking lots then to accommodate visitors to the Esplanade. The Esplanade was also well known for the Satay Club, which had been relocated from its original location off Beach Road (I think it was on a street between the end of what was the Beach Road Camp and what is now Shaw Tower). The Satay Club, was a hawker centre, located at the end of the Esplanade, close to where the Theatres now stand and had a collection of Singapore’s Satay stalls. Adjacent to the Satay Club, there was an extension which Chinese food stalls were located where you could get arguably Sinagpore’s best Chendol, a dessert originating from Indonesia, which is a concoction of cocunut milk (santan), palm sugar (gula melaka), grass jelly, green coloured worm shaped jelly-like pieces of flour and red beans topped with shaved ice. Thinking about it makes my mouth water! The hawker centre made way for the construction of the Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay in the mid 1990s.

The View from the Esplanade towards the open sea at the mouth of the Singapore River in 1976. The Merlion in the background, is seen at its original location at the mouth of the river.

The View in 2009. The Esplanade Bridge obscures the view which now looks out to the Marina South Area, land since reclaimed, on which the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort is being developed.

View towards the Singapore Harbour of Connaught Drive and the Esplanade in 1930 before the land reclamation on which Queen Elizabeth Walk now sits. (Source: Postcard from Mr Low Kam Hoong's collection)

The Merlion in its present location at Merlion Park on the seaward side of the Esplanade Bridge.

I have some memories as well of the original Satay Club along Beach Road. The street on which it was located was lined with low tables and stools and with the satay sellers barbequeing the satay over a flickering fire with a straw fan in one hand, occasionally fanning the flames. The stall holders back then, would keep piling sticks of satay on a plate in the centre of the table as you ate, counting the sticks only after the diners had finished eating their fill to work out how much to charge. There was once when some of us children decided to have a satay eating contest, and one of the boys consumed over a hundred sticks of satay at that one sitting – incurring his father’s wrath immediately after his father realised how much he had to pay for the meal!

The Little White Boat, 小白船

The Little White Boat and its White Rabbit

The full moon that accompanied me on the drive home last night brought back memories of a song we were taught to sing in primary school.  小白船, or little white boat describes the moon as a little white boat drifting in the Milky Way, on which a white rabbit is playing by an sweet osmanthus tree.

蓝蓝的天空银河里
有只小白船
船上有棵桂花树
白兔在游玩
浆儿浆儿看不见
船上也没帆
飘呀飘呀,飘向西天

渡过那条银河水
走向云彩国
走过那个云彩国
再向哪儿去?
在那遥远的地方
闪着金光
晨星是灯塔
照呀照得亮

The moon has long been a subject of folklore. Chinese folklore has it that there is a rabbit that lives on the moon – the markings on the moon’s surface as seen by the naked eye does look like a rabbit with a little bit of imagination. The moon is also associated with much superstition. In the West, lunacy and Werewolves have long been associated with the full moon, the word “lunacy” itself derived from the Latin word for the moon.

A Moment of Madness in the Eerie Glow of the Full Moon - wandering around the ruins of Urquhart Castle and the banks of Loch Ness on a cold November's evening in 1989

In some parts of East Asia, children are warned by their parents not to point at the moon, lest they wake up with a painful cut behind their ears the following morning. Strangely, the first I heard of this was from a Sikh neighbour … it was only much later that my maternal grandmother did care to mention this to me … and for a while I believed it, not daring to direct my fingers towards the moon!

My Days in the Sun. Part 1: The First Days of School

School life for me began on a cool early morning in January 1971. After a light breakfast of bread lightly toasted over the stove by my grandmother, spread with the SCS butter that my mother was fond of then, I dressed in the crisp white starched shirt and khaki shorts of my school uniform, sat on the sofa by the doorway to put the white socks and white shoes that seem to glow in the half light of dawn, and waited for my grandmother, who was to take me to the school bus pick up point. As I sat, a sense of anticipation, as well as a growing sense of trepidation came over me … it was for me, a journey into the unknown…

As I waited for the school bus at the foot of the block of flats, a light blue cardigan draped over me by my protective grandmother, I silently observed the many school children, dressed in different coloured uniforms, as they waited and then made their way down the staircase as  their buses pulled up one by one. I was constantly on the look-out  for a light blue minibus with the number 388 on the license plate. I suppose my grandmother would have brought me to the pick up point with a lot of time to spare, as I remember waiting for what seemed like an eternity before the minibus finally arrived.

The minibus delivered the small load of noisy schoolboys, four wide-eyed first years amongst them, to the drop-off point at school, greeted by the statue of the Archangel Michael killing the Serpent over a circular pond that served as a roundabout. I don’t seem to remember how we got to our classes, but when we did get to our classrooms, I do remember our teacher trying to introduce herself and organise our seating arrangements over the dissonance of cries and voices that punctured the air. In the midst of all that, one of my classmates proceeded to throw up right in the middle of the classroom, adding to the discord that prevailed over the chaotic start to my school life.

Class Photograph, Primary 1B, St. Michael's School, 1971

In the few weeks that followed, as the number of parents and grandparents that stood outside the classrooms which were on the ground floor started to thin, we got about our daily routine of assemblies, classes, recess time, and more classes before the morning session which I was attending, ended. The morning session would start with assembly, during which we would stand in our class groups lined up in twos, at the designated assembly points facing the school building in front of which a flag pole stood beyond a row of trees. The Pledge would be recited and the National Anthem sung as the Flag was raised, as we stood at attention. The row of trees, as I recall, had lots of green caterpillars dangling down from the low branches and very often, as we walked below them, we would find green caterpillars on the back of our shirts and sometimes in our hair. The last period of the day was what some of us look forward to as our class teacher, Mrs May Chua, would hold a mental maths quiz with pencils as prizes to those who were the first with the answers.

Early in the school year, I had to have my schoolbag replaced several times – something my parents remind me of from time to time. Schoolbags then were these boxy shaped cases constructed of cardboard, measuring about 35 cm wide, 25 cm high and 12 cm deep, with a tartan like patterned exterior. They were fitted with plastic handles, which some school children had sponges tied on (to make it less painful to carry the full heavy load of books), plastic corner protectors, and had a catch in the middle where the handle was.  I had to have my bag replaced as there was this particularly mischievous boy, on the same school bus, who besides using my schoolbag as a seat, had on one occasion put the bag on the road right within sight of St. Michael, for a school bus to run over!

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh

As a child, the days of December would bring with it the anticipation of Christmas. Christmas would mean smart new clothes, a frenzy of shopping, glorious food, and of course Christmas presents! Over the years, Christmas has become a celebration not just for Christians, but for almost everyone else in Singapore. We see Orchard Road and the Marina areas being transformed into a wonderland of lights and decorations. Crowds have started to throng the streets and shop tills are beginning to be busy. Christmas now is celebrated with much enthusiasm, aggressively promoted by the shops and restaurants. So much so that what Christmas means to most of us is very much how we saw it as children.

Christmas back when I was growing up, was a quieter affair amongst family and close friends. The highlight for me was the Christmas eve dinner with the extended family, usually followed by midnight mass. As a prelude to mass, the story of the birth of Christ would usually be played out … a story that has fascinated me since childhood, particularly the part relating to the Three Wise Men, following a star from the East bearing precious gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, to pay homage to the Christ child, I suppose that the concept of gift giving was derived from this.

Christmas Decorations from a Simpler Time - Robinson's at Raffles Place, 1966

The more elaborate decorations of Christmas today (Source: Frasers Centrepoint Malls)

As a child, I would wonder what Frankincense and Myrrh were that made them gifts fit for a king. The names alone brought with it a sense of mystic. I did not realise until much later that Frankincense and myrrh were both resins from shrubs that grew in the southern Arabian Peninsula, used in anointing oils, as incense or as burial spices, and perfume making, precious, as it was rare and much sought after back then. Somehow, I never got to see what they looked like unitl a recent visit to Dubai, where I wandered around the spice and gold souks (or markets). Interestingly I also discovered that trade in Frankincense and Myrrh is very much intertwined with that of the spice trade. It must have been the same back then.

Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh as seen at the Gold and Spice Souks of Dubai

The walk I took through Spice Souk was particularly interesting. The colours of the herbs, spices and aromatics on display was certainly a sight to behold. As I wandered through the narrow alleys, venturing into some of the little shops lined with displays of spices, I was greeted not just by the Persian spice traders who manned the shops, but also by the rich aroma of herbs and spices that filled the air, the aromas bringing me back to the sundry shops and spice mills of old Tekka market in the Singapore of my childhood.

Colours of Spice Souk (From Top Left Clockwise): Saffron; Lavender; Garlic; Red Peppercorns; Nutmeg; Rosebud.

Display of Spices at Spice Souk

Dried Oregano Leaves

Herbs and spices were very much a part of Christmas when I was growing up as well – I remember the smell of cinnamon and cloves as I helped my mother stir the pot of ingredients, over the stove, that went into the glorious dark fruit cakes she baked for Christmas. Just the thought of her fruit cakes and the delicious food she prepared for Christmas makes my mouth water! My favourite dish was the Ayam Buah Keluak which she often prepared for Christmas and other special occasions … the thick curry gravy, a cacophony of spices, thickened and coloured black by the black paste that the Buah Keluak, seeds with a nut like appearance with a hard black shell, are filled with. While the fillings of the Buah Keluak we get in the Peranakan restaurants in Singapore are usually prepared with a mixture of meat and the black paste, my mother would prepare hers with just the pure black paste, mixed with a little sugar to reduce the slight bitter taste of the Buah Keluak.

A Touch of Spice

A Touch of Spice is a delightful Greek movie that revolves around Fanis Iakovides, a professor of Astronomy. The audience is transported back to his childhood in Istanbul, spent amongst the spices in the shop his grandfather owned, and his later somewhat confused childhood years in Athens, after his father, a Greek citizen, was deported from Turkey, following the troubles in Cyprus.

Spice, plays a central role. The young Fanis is told, spice is essential in life as in food – making both tastier. In one scene, Fanis’ grandfather is seen teaching the young Fanis astronomy, and Fanis is told that “astronomy”  is concealed in the word “gastronomy”, going on then to relate the heavenly bodies to common spices: Pepper, like the sun, it warms and burns; Mercury like cayenne is hot; Venus is cinnamon, sweet and bitter – much like a woman; and salt is the earth, as life requires food and food requires salt to flavour it.

Pepper, warm and it burns ... the Sun ... Fanis receives a lesson in astronomy and gastronomy from his grandfather in A Touch of Spice.

Watching the movie does bring me right back to my own childhood … I was never far from the aroma of spices that escaped from my grandmother’s kitchen. It wasn’t hard to distinguish the distinctive smells of the spices that would fill the air: “kayu manis” (cinnamon); “lada hitam” (black pepper); “bunga lawang” (star anise); “jintan putih” (cumin); “bunga cengkih” (cloves); “jintan manis” (aniseed); “ketumbar” (coriander); “buah keras” (candle nuts), were among the spices that were commonly used in our kitchen.

Old Notes on Spices from my mother

Beyond the kitchen, I looked forward to the visits my mother made to Tekka Market and Little India. The market, also referred to as Kandang Krebau Market, then stood at the corner of Serangoon and Sungei Roads, across Serangoon Road from where the market is located now, was where my mother got her supply of mutton for her stews or curries. Entering the market building, we would often make our way past the sundry shops and spice mills, from which we would be greeted by the wonderful aroma of spices that wafted from the shops.

Spice shop in Little India, 1980 (Source: National Archives PICAS, http://picas.nhb.gov.sg)

Sundry and Spice Shop in Little India today.

I was not one who was fond of the wet markets of those days, but Tekka somehow always captured my imagination. The colourful sights within the market building as well that provided by the petty traders who displayed their wares on the streets around made Tekka a fascinating experience for me. One of the sights I would look forward to were the mutton sellers …  a strong smell of fresh mutton would tell us that we were approaching the mutton stalls as we walked through the market. Before long we would see the rows of white and dark red goat carcasses that hung from huge meat hooks, and the mutton sellers, shiny meat cleavers in hand, perched over the huge chopping blocks that must have been cut from fairly large diameter logs – a sight that I always held a fascination for!