Building a Home and Community in Tiong Bahru
When I lived in Taiwan, we used to say the temples “were taking their gods for a walk”.
Today I came home from work early to find another giant fire in the empty field and this great procession.
I love these surprises! It is noisy, hot, colorful and unexpected!
I think it is for the eighth month. Next time I will be brave enough to ask!
Video to come shortly!
So every so often or neighborhood gets a temporary temple or theater set up on the open space next to our house.
This week there is a theater. Since Sunday we have not one but two concurrent productions running opposite each other.
I actually don’t mind it at all. But the sound is bouncing off the surrounding buildings!
So if you know us, you know that there is never a shortage of photos – film, iphone or digital – in our lives. Between the significant camera collection that Alan has to my healthy obsession with Instagram Alan and I are guilty of a well documented life.
Even better though was about two weeks ago, Jessie and James of Morgan & Owens Photography came to our home to take our family portraits. This is not some crazy “we must have a family photo” moment, but part of a project that they have undertaken to capture the people who live in our neighborhood.
They said that they have a target of 30 families/homes but so far most of the people who are opening up their homes are 30 something new TB peeps that are like “Sure, come on over” while the neighborhoods older citizens are more reluctant.
It is a great project, not just because we will have a wonderful family photo, but we will all have a great document of the people who live in Tiong Bahru in their homes or places in the neighborhood that mean something to them.
I wish Jessie and James great success with their project and can’t wait to see how the photos all turn out. Will let you know how it goes!
One of the reasons that we decided to live in Tiong Bahru is that you can feel a sense of community. In other places, outside Singapore, I have lived I felt connected because I knew people through volunteering, sports teams etc, but when I moved to Singapore and lived our “Singapore Condo life”, we hardly even spoke to our neighbors.
In fact in the only Condo we lived in, we never even met the people that lived next door and not for the want of trying… I suffer an affliction of always saying hello and introducing myself… and would receive a response of a grunt or if I was lucky a short nod before the stranger would scurry to their door and quickly pop back into their flat.
But today in Tiong Bahru, as we walked back from a morning coffee with Ella – the heavens opened and we were stuck at the block opposite us. After a few minutes of debating how to run across with Ella in the Bjorn and a small burp cloth as her only cover, a neighbor, Jeffrey (who we don’t know) came across and offered his spare umbrella. As we got to our block our other neighbor, Cecilia (who also provides us a regular supply of pineapple tarts) had walked down her three floors with two umbrellas to help us across the road.
Now, it is only a simple gesture, but really it is these small things that help you connect with your neighbors and help us build a community.
I really am happy we live here.
One of the reasons that we decided to live in Tiong Bahru is that you can feel a sense of community. While it seemed like a rather standard experience for me in Australia because I was connected to our neighbors through volunteering, sports teams etc, in Singapore, and when we lived in a Condo life, we hardly even spoke to our neighbors.
In fact we lived in one high rise condo here and never even met the people that lived next door and not for the want of trying… I suffer an affliction of always saying hello and introducing myself. 
But today in Tiong Bahru, as we walked back from a morning coffee with Ella – the heavens opened and we were stuck at the block opposite us. After a few minutes of debating how to run across with Ella in the Bjorn and a small burp cloth as her only cover, a neighbor, Jeffrey (who we don’t know) came across and offered his spare umbrella. As we got to our block our other neighbor, Cecilia (who also provides us a regular supply of pineapple tarts) had walked down her three floors with two umbrellas to help us across the road.
Now, it is only a simple gesture, but really it is these small things that help you connect with your neighbors and help us build a community.
I really am happy I live here.
If you are interested – our flat is in this month (January 2011) edition of Home and Decor Magazine. Quite cool – the pictures make our flat look lovely. We were quite surprised that they photoshopped our IKEA rug out of the living room – who said it was ugly!! and the air con unit we had hidden away in the book shelf.
There is a good reason there are no photos of our bedroom – that is a disaster area! haha!
I thought perhaps it might have been cooler if the editors had used a before and after series – I think the transformation of our place is the coolest part. I mean sure our floors are nice but when you can see what it looked liked before and how AS’s vision (I had nothing to do with it!) transformed it- I think that is what is cool.
Anyway – the photos are lovely and we thank the editors of Home and Decor for including us and our designer Ken for helping us transform our ideas into our lovely home.
Today was fumigation day. We get about one week notice to prepare for it…. Ok it is really not a big deal but man the cockroaches that are sent scrambling are ENORMOUS!!!!
After the fumes are pumped into the garbage chute our once smaller neighbors can be seen scrambling up and down our block. Lucky we only found one inside. I think we limited the refugee escape by covering our chute with a wet towel for the duration!
Yucko! But glad it is done.
One of the reasons we love our neighborhood is because people actually SAY hello – we lived in a condo previously and our neighbors would struggle to even offer a grunt hello.
In TB it is different.
In our block there are two elderly ladies. One of them ‘C’ is so friendly. She was very curious when we first moved in – I know we are curious looking people 
but really she has always been so friendly. I think she must be mid-70s and lives with her husband who is mostly housebound due to illness. While her “Hellos” are lovely the best part is that ‘C’ is an avid baker and shares her latest creations with us regularly.
So far we have sampled Pineapple Tarts, Cornflake cookies, Love Letters as well as Lychee Jellies. I tell you, I am lucky Alan loves to munch or my pregnancy weight would not be as controlled as it is Haha!
One floor down is another elderly lady. She is lovely and has lived in Tiong Bahru for over 60 years. And moved into her flat with her family 30 years ago. (I think these details are correct, my brain is not what it used to be!)
There are just lovely people everywhere and it is nice to come home and say HELLO – not just to your own husband but to the people living around you too.
I do have a funny story though – one day one the way back from an early morning market shop, I stopped to talk to an elderly gentleman at the end of our block. He was just starting to ask me the usual “which block are you in”, “how long have you been in Singapore” etc. when another woman, who I had not seen before, marched past…
She blurted out… “she lives in Block 50″ and “she is married to a Singaporean”… I spun around and was quiet surprised that this “stranger” knew so much about me…. I extended my hand and said, “I nice to meet you, I don’t think we have met”, she responded…. “I see you come back from work, sometimes you are quite late and get a cab”…
Sometimes you don’t need to say hello to get to know each other… just look out the window
I just saw this and thought it is a great apartment - not just because of its location – way, way, way up in the air… but I really love the bookshelves in the bedroom and the old door.
We went to check out our local pool today- delta swimming complex. It has two of my most important criteria- BIG and clean.
There were not too many lap swimmers. And for the most part people swam in straight lines.
Even though It could definitely could use a bit of love- a coat of paint, upgrade to the kiosk etc. It was great to see a lot of learn to swim classes.
There was a definite affinity for the use of tanning lotions. No slip, slop slap campaign would penetrate here!
We will be back.
