after going through catherine lim...
I've read a bit of Catherine Lim, and from her writings...
I suppose there is something there to write about: the description of people and their fates as they transit from one culture to another, through different generations. I guess thats why people can write about the displacement of values, as children become estranged from the values of their parents, as they go about their own ways...
But a lot of it is... from a macro point, understandable, since Singapore is still very much a society in transition, and even in the present today, the impacts of the past still linger with us. No generation of people can truly start anew, and us, those born in the late 1980s carry on the legacies of the past, and on and on... Things like 'generations' are an iffy term to use, but I think it'll take sometime before the transition peters out, and it will be true that someday, dialects will gradually become an extinct sound...
I'm thinking about Stanley Fish and his response to a book...http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/god-talk-part-2/ its so intelligent...
And suddenly this wider world of literary culture looms into view, and its a huge huge world to get lost into. I really want to be THERE, and READ, and WRITE!
I'm thinking, Singapore writers are really voices for the present. A kind of representation... Catherine Lim has one perspective, other authors have their perspective...
Meantime, I'm also thinking about a possible photo-journalistic work called, The Singapore Condition(s)...
Meant to capture a snapshot in time about what Singapore is, in all its diversity - that there really are many Singapore(s) existing in one place, and there are contestations.. The Singapore Govt is aware of that, but chooses to trump one perspective above others. Others the govt tolerates, still others, the govt declares illegal or forbidden. I remember somewhere, someone said, 'Singapore has no poverty/poor people' or something to that effect. Which is really interesting.
That is obviously a show of power and where media manifests that... Hmm.. I guess to narrow it down... have to choose a niche and show how diverse it really is...
just another thought. will blog about it more at
http://eddiechoo.wordpress.com/2009/05/18/writing-about-an-transition/
and...
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