To Singapore With Love

On October 15th 2018 my partner Daniel and I decided to go watch To Singapore with love in a theater downtown on second avenue and second street. To Singapore, with Love is a film by Tan Pin Pin (2013). Before the film started Tan Pin Pin got to say a couple of words about her film and why she decided to make it. Pin Pin's intention was to create a film that explains and shows political exiles of Singapore. She created two pieces to this film she first started off by picking a family in order to portray their story to get her point across by showing the struggles the family had to go through. The way this family was getting treated way insane, the government first started off by kicked them out of their own land. This family had a tradition that when a family member dies they bury them in the families land. They had to dig out the bones of their dead family member when they were getting kicked out. This is an example of mistreatment and how much they struggled. Years later, the family is in the UK, two of them passed away unfortunately. They're still exiled from Singapore and they wonder when they could make it back. They were banned from their own country for no reason. Tan Pin Pin did a great job on this film, she got two different times in this family's life which definitely changed my experience and made me engage a lot more with the film. She decided to show everything in the film without leaving anything out, from the graves to them in the house talking. this piece was something to remember forever, I had never seen anything like this before. The best part was being able to see Tan Pin Pin in the theater and to be able to hear why and how she made this film made my experience a lot more exciting.

It’s now sunday, 2:30 am. I could barely catch my breath because I just finished my daily run. Today, I decided to take an extra hour and walk along the East River. No phone, music, calls, company, just me and myself 2:30 am by the East River hoping to experience something, learn something, focus on the sounds of  life and nature. I started walking for the first fifteen mintues, from my left side I heard the river water splashing and, from my right side there was the high way with cars driving by but also people sitting and talking. Surprisingly, there was a lot of people out this late at night. Eventually, I sat down for about thirty minutes, usually I space out and meditate and try not to focus on anything around me or in me. This time I closed my eyes and heard everything around me, like running feet, dogs passing by, grass hoppers in the grass. I was hearing those little sounds until, the ambulance came passing by on the highway with loud sirens, along with five cop cars behind that with their sirens. It always makes me wonder if there’s an actual emergancy everytime or do they just want to cut traffic. After the sirens, I wasn’t in the mood to stay anylonger, I started walking back home. Now, as I’m walking back home the river is to my right and the street is to my left. It’s a very different exprince, made me realize I hear better with my right ear rather than with my left ear. When I was walking to the bench I sat on, I couldn’t hear the river as clearly as I hear it walking home.

Project 1 from Sarah Madboly on Vimeo.