Crossroads

I had hoped to become an astronomer when I was about 10 years old, I read up on many fascinating theories of time travel then. Recently, I finally felt the effects of time travelling; in a very unique way.

The most simple and direct theory of time travel would be this: Light, the fastest particle in the universe, takes time to travel. For example, the light emitted from the Sun takes about 8 minutes to travel to the earth and reach our eyes. If the sun explodes this very moment at 3.00pm, it would be 3.08pm for us on Earth to know. For a man standing on Mars, it would take another 5 more minutes for him to realise the sun has exploded; at about 3.15pm. For a person standing in another galaxy 100 lightyears away, he will only know that the sun exploded at about 100 years later.

As the light continues to travel along, you can imagine it as a man running very fast. But if we could travel faster than speed of light; if we can run faster than this man, then we can catch up with him and see the past. For example, as the sun explodes, the light from that event starts to travel outwards from the source, like a man wearing a 'the sun exploded' tag on his shirt, running a 10000 meter race. At 20 meters, 8 minutes later, the man runs past checkpoint 'Earth' which the people on Earth then sees the event 'the sun exploded'. At 50 meters, 13 minutes later, he runs pasts Mars; the Martians would then realise 'the sun exploded'. The man continues to runs forward at a constant speed.

Lets assume 5 minutes after seeing the 'sun-man', someone from Earth at the 20 meters line, decides he wants to catch up with the man wearing the 'the sun exploded' tag and see it again. It would be possible for this person to do that if he runs faster than the man. Depending on how fast he is, as long as he is faster than the sun-man, he would catch up with him and see the tag again.

By this theory, we know that it is theoretically possible to travel back in time. We just have to find a way to be faster than the speed of light. We can 'chase' back time and see events of the past.

I recently discovered time travelling, albeit in a more philosophical way. There had been a renaissance of my primary school days. A group of us met up for a mini reunion, the momentum of this mini reunion generated a mass search for all our primary 6 classmates. Everyone stayed in contact with someone who stayed in contact with another. Now there are just 7 of the 43 originals unfound.

It is quite amazing considering 15 years have elapsed since all 43 of us were under one roof.

Of the 43 classmates that we were, I stayed in touch with around 4 guys. For the rest of them, time froze at the last day of school, 15 years ago on 1992, in that old classroom with that old wooden blackboard, filled with sweet adolescent words of goodbyes like 'Primary 6D Forever', 'All the best 6D'. Mention their names and the images that float up in my mind are still the skinny, geeky 12 year olds.

15 years later, I have spoke, for the first time in 15 years, with my primary school best pal on msn messenger; Had tea with two primary school friends and spoke to them more words in one afternoon than the whole of my primary school years; Visited a fashion boutique opened by a beautiful lady whom my last memory of her was a skinny tomboy.

The sensation one gets is exactly like time travelling. Because with respect to primary 6 and her people, time stood still and then fast forwarded 15 years to the present. When I look at the people standing in front of me, they do not appear to grow little by little over 15 years. It was as though 15 years of growth hit them within a second. Instant transformation of geeky, bespectaled nerds to gorgeous men and women. The way they talk, their maturity and the things that they are doing in their lives.

A number of them are already married or getting married; another shock. 'Nooo, she can't be married! She is still a that annoying little girl!' I would exclaim in my mind. The last recollection of them were from the young innocent years, where one would blush even thinking about his or her 'crush'. Within an instant, the next thing you know about them is they are already building their own families.

Some of them are teachers themselves now. Hard to believe too. Like in an instant they switched alliance and now they are on the other side of the 'teachers vs students' war.

One travels back to the past too in this little philosophical time machine. Things that you have forgot over the course the years, start to come back again. Like the forgotten fact that I was a grubby untidy kid, who wore unwashed, wrinkled uniforms to school, or that special crush on this special girl my friend used to have, or the other bitchy girl that all boys made fun of, or the guy who liked to put his hands underneath his desk and 'rubbed' himself during chinese class; the scandals and gossips of the 12 year olds, now just seems like one big joke because they do not matter anymore.

15 years on, everyone has their own lives, we could afford to laugh at ourselves 15 years ago. How about 15 years from now if we look back to the present? Maybe things that we think are important now could be put into better perspective?

So while we have to wait a few more years for science to let us travel through time. Everyone can always take a trip down memory lane, and do a little time travelling with their very own philosphical time machine.

1. 子入大庙，每事问。或曰：“孰谓鄹人之子知礼乎？入大庙，每事问。”子闻之，曰：“是礼也。” -论语·八佾第三·太庙章

Wise Confucious said, "When one enters the temple, he must ask about everything. This is respectful behaviour."

2. "Hum" - Hokkien (a dialect from China) for cockles, or clams; a type of mollusks commonly used in south east asian cuisines and italian pastas. Like oysters, its shape often conjures the image of the female intimate parts. Hence, it is also a double entendre for Singapore street talk in reference to... you know...

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Recently I picked up cooking, it has been a wonderful experience. To create something meaningful out of a stash of raw materials; to see the faces of the people who tasted your creations, be it a smile or a cringe.

It was a skill that I was interested to learn from a long time ago, but kept procrastinating. But when I was in Buenos Aires, the thing that I missed most, was incredibly, Singapore's food; so I made up my mind to learn some signature Singapore dishes before I would go back to BA again.

I asked my sister, who is an amazingly talented cook, to teach me how to cook. She said, "Cooking is easy, all you need is to put in your care and your love into the dish." (Interestingly I remember my chinese teacher in secondary school saying the same thing about writing, "When you have a good heart and character, your writing would be good... I guess love then is really all you need.)

Well that advice did help, but I still needed some concrete guidance. So armed with my 'Best Singapore Recipes' cookbook, I set upon a cooking mission. And the second major dish that I was going to learn was 'Char Kway Teow'; fried flat rice noodles. The first step was to get all the ingredients from the recipe.

For someone who had never cooked in his life other than eggs and instant noodles; my culinary memories are restricted to the days of my childhood, where my now deceased grandma would take me to the traditional wet market every weekend and try to inculcate the virtues of good fish, chicken and vegetable selection. I also remembered trying to help chop vegetables and strip onions then, with my small young hands. But those were distant memories.

You could imagine then, how disorientated I was when I entered the modern comtemporary of the wet market, the double storey NTUC fairprice at Toa Payoh, the chaos and mess of energy that greeted me. Not only did I have trouble finding pork lard (I was milling around in the baby products section), shrimp paste and the Kway Teow (flat rice noodles), I had difficulties trying to navigate my trolley amongst the scores of aunties battling and pushing their way trying to get their groceries done in the least amount of time.

Time, however was on my side, I had the luxury of taking in the chaos slowly. But I was not getting anywhere. It was then I remembered wise old Confucious. Like a stranger entering a big temple, I started asking every single thing, talking to the amused aunties who seemed more than ready to give a lost young boy directions. Not only did they point the way to the ingredients, some started to ask me what was I cooking and gave me tips to make my cooking better. A few of them accompanied me all the way to where the ingredients are found.

My highlight of the shopping trip came when I was trying to search for the clams, one of the essential ingredients in the decadent 'Char Kway Teow'. I looked around the three different seafood segments and could not find any. Well WWCD, 'What Would Confucious Do'?

So I went up to the nearest NTUC staff, a middle aged female talking animatedly to her male colleague, and asked her, "Hi excuse me, do you have 'hum'"? Immeadiately the guy she was talking to sniggered, "Auntie of course got 'hum' lah, just don't know is it still fresh or not, since this morning no one buy leh." The woman turned around and slapped the guy's arm and exclaimed, "Aiyoh! So dirty minded! Pui pui pui!" And then proceeded to burst out giggling.

Well I got my 'hum' in the end. A little too small and hairy for my taste but those would do. But it heartens me that this little candid banter could still be seen if you look around hard enough. The little spices in life.

My 'char kway teow' turned out a little too salty. Nevertheless, it had the taste of satisfaction, something that even the best cooks in the world would never be able to give you. Most importantly the moment where the person you cooked for takes in your food... the expression on her face. I could finally understand why my sis said what she said.

Cesaria Evora, the singer that made Cape Verde, a little island off the western coast of Africa, famous.

She mournfully sings in her unique 'morna' style; Morna is a genre of music special to Cape Verde, a mix of Portuguese fado, Brazilian modinha, Argentinian tango, and Angolan lament. It is often compared to blues. Slow, languid, longing and melancholic.

With her rich vocals, she laments 'Besame Mucho'...

Enjoy the translations.

"Besame, Besame mucho,
Como si fuera esta noche la ultima vez,
Besame, Besame mucho,
Que tengo miedo tenerte y perderte despues.

(Kiss me, kiss me oft,
As if this night was for the ultimate time,
Kiss me, kiss me oft,
What fear that I have! To possess you and to lose you later.)

Quiero tenerte muy cerca,
mirarme en tus ojos,
verte junto a mi

(I want to have you very close,
to see me in your eyes,
to see you close to me)

Piensa que tal vez manana yo ya estare lejos,
muy lejos de ti."

(You must think that maybe by tomorrow I will already be faraway,
very faraway from you.)

A plea for her love to kiss her, kiss her everytime like its their last kiss. Because she is leaving him and is torn between the anguish to love him now and knowingly face the pain later.

No one can promise forever; the love leaves eventually. The only way is to hold on to each and every single moment love feels like it could go on forever...

Or, protect yourself by not starting at all...

Music, singing, melody and the lyrics, they are things that move our soul and affect our moods.

Who would ever forget the suspenseful movie score of "Jaws" going 'duh duh duh duh...' when the shark's fin appears on the ocean's horizon? Or how about the rousing, adrenalin pumping trumpets of "Rocky" when Balboa goes running? What about Hitchcock's "Psycho", when the stabbing begins, 'ding! ding! ding! ding!...', adding to the visual horror.

The above cinematic examples illustrates without a doubt, even to the musically unschooled masses, music is carefully used to make us feel certain emotions.

To the tango dancers, where essentially you have the music, your partner, lastly the people dancing around you; music makes up one third of the equation. It can make or break the night's experience of dancing. The DJ of a tango party (milonga) has a very important job at hand.

I think the most common disagreement would stem from the use of new age tango music (tango nuevo) versus using traditional tango music from the golden age (1930s to 1960s).

Tango is a dance that was evolved from the kind of music from the golden age with certain feel and characteristics. Tango nuevo however often has many electronic music elements and jazz infuences, for example, Gotan Project, Narcotango. As such, to mix tango nuevo music with old school tango music can lead to a very disconnected feel to the overall energy of the night.

To me it would be like watching the classical ballet piece 'Swan Lake' and suddenly, 50 cent appearing in one of the acts singing and dancing to 'In Da Club'. The way of dancing a close embrace salon tango and the way of dancing tango nuevo is completely different. The music, feeling is so different, it feels like two completely different dances.

On the other hand, the DJ could play contemporary classic tango orchestras like 'Color Tango', 'Los Solistas de D'Arienzo' or 'Gente de Tango'. It could sound good. But if the original orchestras are better why not just use Pugliese, D'Arienzo and Di Sarli? Besides I would never imagine Roberto Alvarez of 'Color Tango' calling himself a electronic tango nuevo band.

Royce, an accomplished DJ who DJ-ed in Singapore, Hong Kong and Tokyo would say 'It's not about the individual songs, it is about how you arrange them.' Indeed the energy of the night could be carefully managed by the DJ who decides the arrangements of the groups of tango music (tandas, one group of 3 or 4 tango music).

The DJ could play the most popular songs one after the other, 'Bahia Blanca, El Adios, Nochero Soy, Poema... etc' But if it is not arranged properly, the dancers would be very confused and unhappy!

First of all, after a tango dancer gets through the initial learning curve and begins to appreciate music, he or she steps into the dancefloor during a milonga at the start of the tanda with some expectations. The basic expectation would be that the tanda they hear would be of the same orchestra of the same period!

Take Carlos Di Sarli for example, his 1940s music are lighter, uses higher notes, sweeter sounding vocals and on average have a faster beat. Into the 1950s, Di Sarli uses much lower notes, more dramatic vocals and slower, heavier beat. So the dancers on hearing the first song of the tanda, they would think to themselves "Oh its 40s Carlos Di Sarli with Podesta singing, time for a romantic, heartbreaking dance!" or "Oh its 50s, instrumental Carlos Di Sarli! Time for a deep, profound, elegant dance." And then they expect to feel this way for the rest of the four songs! It is imperative to put together four songs of the same orchestra from the same period.

For two bodies to come together and feel each other's lead and follow, musicality; to connect, it is not easy. Four songs is a just about right for them to get use to one another. A good, consistent DJ would provide a kind of predictable environment where the dancers know from the first song how the rest of the songs would feel like. From the first song, they would get into a certain mood and energy. The last thing a dancer should worry about is the sudden change of mood in the middle of the tanda.

I've done acting before when I was young. To mix different pieces from different orchestra or even the same orchestra but different period, would feel like trying to get me to act in a comedic scene and then 5 minutes later expect me to emote to a tragedy. It's mind-boggling!

Secondly would be the arrangement of the between different tandas. The DJ could get the basic unit of a tanda right; four songs of similar beat, similar feel, similar period of the same orchestra; but he could still screw up in putting wrong tandas back to back.

A Pugliese tanda, dramatic, emotional, full of angst and deep latent energy; not easy to dance well. After four songs of Pugliese, if I had really danced it well, I would be physically tired because the music demands a lot of big, powerful movements; I would be emotionally tired because Pugliese's orchestra is so varied and its melody evoking so much emotions, the only way to dance it well is to feel your heart wrenching to the music.

At such a physically and emotionally drained state, the last thing the DJ could do is to follow it up with a energetic D'Arienzo tanda, or a powerful late Biagi or worse another Pugliese or Color Tango. Give the dancers a break! Play a peaceful, simple D'Agostino, light Laurenz or a sweet Fresedo. One cannot hope to read Plato, Shakespeare and Ba Jin all on the same night! Give me some Calvin and Hobbes!

An excellent DJ, one who knows what he/ she is doing, is acutely aware of the energy of the dancefloor and the dancers. Every single tanda is carefully arranged, and the order of every tanda is also carefully planned. Like a good movie, a good novel or good sex, there is a slow buildup, the climax and then descension of the energy, and then buildup to another climax again; if managed properly, one should experience several peaks in one night, dancing I mean.

Thoughtless and callous arrangement of the individual tanda, then randomly putting of tandas one after the other. Unaware of the effects it has on the dancers, it is disastrous to the dancing experience; not unlike the boorish amateur lover, who handles his partner without skill and order; selfish and careless without finesse and attention to details. We all grieve for the unfortunate soul at this receiving end.

I was unfortunately at the receiving end of such absurdity; once again, dancing I mean. A couple of tango friends who came all the way from overseas visiting in town and we all went out to a local milonga, fully expecting to dance our night away. Instead our night was ruined by tandas that were mixed with music from different period of the same orchestra (Di Sarli instrumental from the 50s mixed with 40s vocals), bad tanda arrangements (Pugliese - Di Sarli -Tuba Tango - Pugliese), we even had a two milonga tanda back to back!

Of course, if one is just doing steps, dancing to show off figures, dancing without connecting to the partner or the music; then this detail would be insignificant. In fact, I would say play more Pugliese, because the countless boleos, colgadas, secadas, jumps and poses would probably not look too good on other orchestras; At least good ol' Pugliese is so creative and dramatic on his music, he could connect to these people, even if they don't connect to him.

PS: This entire article is written to a soothe calming background music of 'Cry me a river' by the soulful Lisa Ekdahl. In fact the whole blog is.