The Common Wealth ~ Singapore

I returned to Singapore from Vietnam exhausted but enriched and grateful for the experience that Vietnam brought into my life. Part of acclimating to my new environment in Singapore - where Tim spent his days working (ridiculously hard I meant mention) and I was solita – was a morning coffee ritual I took to the local public housing community. Near Tim’s condo and known as the “Common Wealth,” the particular community center I frequented is one of many that are speckled about Singapore.

The Singaporean government has taken task to creating affordable housing for all citizens and calls them HDB’s, although I have no idea what the acronym stands for exactly. This social program is not extended to the ex-patriot communities nor immigrant residents who flock to Singapore for work however. These communities generally consist of a series of uniform high rise buildings and a central shopping/eating center referred to as a “wet market,” given this name from the wet cement floors that are constantly being washed with long hoses. Residents are able to purchase a home in the HDB’s with relative ease and more than 80% of Singaporeans own their home. I find it quite telling that although the buildings are conformist, the doors of each dwelling are different in color and design; all the while various plants and talisman decorate balconies. Clotheslines held by flag fasteners jet from windows. I am always drawn to the clotheslines…Somehow it reminds me that people are all around me – individuals with individual hopes and dreams and a red shirt or a pair of blue trousers – clotheslines help me feel connected to the people who actually live and work there; wherever there may be. I also feast on the sounds and often found myself sitting alone and still in the “Common Wealth,” soaking up crying babies, coughing old men, loud local tunes, running children, laughing women and televisions speaking a foreign language.

I always sat at the same outdoor café called “Two Chefs Eating Place” on the corner of the wet market. Each morning I ordered two cups of strong coffee sweetened with thick condensed milk. I habitually sat at a table among the same old men each day; drinking my coffee shyly while they went about smoking cigarettes, watching Chinese soap operas and chatting among one another. I was always the only white person and one of only a few women in the group; I smiled at those men every day I was there, even when I only received grunts and puzzlement in return. Somehow I traded the comfort of fitting in for the feeling I got at being among true community.