Opera In The Park On Sunny Weekends and Successful Cities

One year on and Singapore is hosting the inaugural World Cities Summit 2008. Unfortunately, it has also been tossed out of Monocle's top 20 listing of the world's most liveable cities.

We were lounging on the lawn at the Singapore Botanical Gardens. On the picnic mat: a little brown basket, good Ford Farm oakwood smoked cheese, a rather squished baguette, honey-baked gammon ham, sweet beetroot, sweet strawberries, a pitcher of iced homemade strawberry lemonade for the hot afternoon and a frisbee. Later, a boy would eat strawberries voraciously then put a foot on the cheese.

And we were discussing countries of residence. I'd previously been pegged as one of the country folk, given to Land Rovers and the great outdoors, long woodland hikes and fresh air, composting and matted hair. Be that as it may, I'd said, still I will need good access to an urban centre, a city, a metropolis. For the music, I may have added, but the Singapore Lyric Opera Children's Choir began to sing.

(What is there to say about Darrell Ang and the inaugural Opera In The Park? Nothing about acoustics obviously. Nothing about the grandoise costumes that would have wilted in the heat. There was no space for a deus ex machina. And there was time only for scraps, "operatic favourites". Still, great to get out and lie about in the balmy weather and listen to Mozart and Mascagni. But as the afternoon wore on, more and more people were pressed around our picnic mat. Perhaps, I'd suggested, we can bring durians next time so everyone will give us a wide berth. Right on cue, the unmistakable scent of durian wafted past. Dog poo! complained the ang moh next door but did not budge.)

[The] clustering [of musicians in cities] is puzzling because music-making requires little, if anything, in the way of physical input (such as iron ore or coal) to succeed, and they don't generate economies of scale.

Because musical and artistic endeavours require little more than small groups to make their final products, you would think that musicians should be able to live anywhere they want.

Music scenes have every reason to "fly apart" and spread out geographically, especially in this age of the Internet and social media. But they don't. Instead, they concentrate and cluster in specific cities and regions... (The Globe and Mail, Why making the scene makes good cents for the rest of us)

We are far removed from the days of 17th century Vienna, and even 1990s' Madchester. Still, people go to the city to test their ideas, perform, learn, sell, discuss, share. And they do this physically and digitally, in and around cities like Goteborg and soon maybe Shanghai. Richard Florida suggests that the congregation of musicians in cities demonstrates that the concept of "place", especially in developed countries, has leapfrogged over vocation in the Abraham Maslow's pyramid of skilled, educated people in their twenties and thirties. More people have the means to be more internationally mobile than ever before in human history. And wherever they go, they bring to a city large amounts of human capital, which helps increase entrepreneurship and deepen the area's talent pool. The highest levels of economic growth and development is concentrating in cities, and certain cities are experiencing much faster economic prosperity expansion than others. The same migration brings people who stimulate development by moving to neglected neighborhoods and making long-term investments in schools, homes and businesses.

Florida refutes Thomas L. Friedman's assertion that the world is flat; the world is spiky and the peaks are the cities. Tyler Brûlé totally had his finger on the pulse with the macro-vision Monocle. Micro-vision Wallpaper*-ing had become so yesterday.

And the folk in developing emerging economies know this. Replacing economists and technocrats in the political power stables are urban planners and city visionaries, shaven-headed and goateed, touting creative urban renewal schemes in Macs and Moleskines. Chatting and brainstorming offline* with some of them over the last year has been interesting.

And it is the economies emerging from decades of communism/socialism that promise the most fun. Imagine SimCity divinity, a pliant population, vast untapped resources and foreign money lining up eagerly at your door. What could stop you from building a city (or two, or ten) other planners can only dream of, straitjacketed as they are by local/national politics, interest groups, exhausted resources and saturated markets?

And what, in the first place, characterises a successful city? Even if one assumes, simplistically, economic growth as the most important characteristic of a good city, economic growth, according to Florida, cannot be divorced from a vibrant urban environment: "regional economic growth is powered by creative people, who prefer places that are diverse, tolerant and open to new ideas".

The perfect city, the place a talented global nomad would want to stash his Yohji Yamamoto and build his life and career in, is less about cleanliness, safety, healthcare and good schools for the kids; it isn't about iconic buildings (see also Roger Scruton, Cities For Living in City Journal), new sports stadiums or pedestrian malls; it is about buzz and energy and a thriving counterculture. "The same kind of community that allows a music scene, an art scene, a gay scene to develop also allows entrepreneurs to come into those communities to mobilise resources," Florida says. As cities come under increasing pressure to compete for global talent, it is not surprising that the governments of certain cities have seen it necessary to make ambiguous statements about emerging tolerance.

(Well, that just takes care of the humans. But what about the environment? The rise of deliberately developed sustainable eco-cities suggests that the world has embraced stewardship of the environment as necessary to entry to the clique of hip and cool kids.)

But before governments and city councils join the curated graffiti fad and panhandle for the pink dollar, it's worth querying the accuracy of Florida's theories about the relationship between urban economic growth and "the creative class". Does "the creative class" actually contribute to economic growth (see Steven Malanga, The Curse of the Creative Class in City Journal)? And if so, is it actually urban density and diversity that hothouses collaborations and creativity (see Anya Kamenetz, The Laws of Urban Energy in Psychology Today)? And if it is, how can urban planners and city CEOs avoid the pitfalls of eg. urbanism myths: over-relying on high profile, "sexy" projects for urban regeneration; having an unhealthy fascination with unique, charismatic civic leaders; misapplying of other cities' approaches etc (see Five Innovation Myths Applied to Urbanism)?

There is immense power in governing a group of people and planning their living space. And with great power, as the superhero sage advice goes, comes great responsibility. Urban places are such intricate and complex ecosystems. How can we avoid, in our best-intentioned enthusiasm, taking an existing city to bits and boinking ourselves on the head with the pieces?

My money is on going back to the one who created the world in the first place. He alone as architect and designer of the universe should be able to give better advice than the world's most highly-paid (but inevitably ignorant) consultant. And this much at least is clear from the instruction manual on human beings: WARNING: sex outside a one man-one woman marriage not according to manufacturer's specification. Misuse will result in damage and death. (Leviticus 18:22; Leviticus 20:13; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; 1 Timothy 1:10).

The "creative class" theory is probably due for a bit of an overhaul.

For the succulent sweetness of sunshine, green grass, good food, good friends and a good God:
Edson Sunday, Lovely Sunday (Pelle Carlberg)
The Secret Life of Sofia Nanda Devi (myspace)
The Secret Life of Sofia Outside (myspace)
Starlet Sunshine (myspace)
Airliner Everything That's You
Acid House Kings London School of Economics (myspace)
Acid House Kings I Write Summer Songs For No Reason
Starlet When The Sun Falls On My Feet
Airiel Sugar Crystals (featuring Ulrich Schnauss) (myspace)
Sambassadeur Between The Lines (myspace)
Sambassadeur Kate
Brideshead Love Makes The Sun Shine Bright
Irene Little Things (That Tear Us Apart)
Red Sleeping Beauty Summer Tells Stories (myspace)
The Maccabees The Picnic Song
Oh No! Oh My! Walk In The Park (myspace)




Also, though not on last.fm:
Dirty On Purpose Girls & Sunshine - download from SXSW 2006 (myspace)
Plants and Animals Feedback In The Field - watch youtube vid (myspace)
Cloud Cult Bobby's Spacesuit - hidden track. Watch youtube vid (myspace)
Weezer Island In the Sun - listen on youtube

Thank you Britpop, North American shoegaze, Swedish twee and Labrador Records.

*cf online: Airoots, All About Cities, BLDBLOG, Urbanology, Where and even, Antiplanner! :-)

Shanghai and Saving the World

In Shanghai for hit-and-run negotiations.

Shanghai Skyline at Lunchtime. No, it was not about to rain.

The 50th floor boardroom had an impressive view of the smog settled comfortably above the the bluish-grey skyline.

China is a country that wants to win and win big on a global scale, and Shanghai's iconic stores (eg. Shanghai No. 1 Department Store and Shanghai First Food Store)

McDonald's fronts the Shanghai First Food Store

make no secret of their continuing ambition. So perhaps they might have been happy to hear that they have now overtaken the USA to be named the No.1 source of industrial carbon dioxide in the world.

At lunch, after the usual business traveller talk about the airline with the cutest stewardesses, the most efficient way to collect frequent flyer miles, civil servants boycotting Singapore Airlines if flying from its home city and reviews of the best white and black truffles, we were discussing the current state and the future of China. At one point I noted that I hadn't seen a single bird since arriving in Shanghai. Had the smog killed them all? No. During the cultural revolution, all birds were culled. Were they culled because they appeared in numerous paintings and were therefore bourgeoise? No, they were bourgeoise because they'd competed with hardworking farmers for food.

By dessert, we had moved on to environmentalism, the new transnational ecumenical religion. Still mourning the absence of feathered mammals, I tried to raise the possibility of migratory birds repopulating areas designated as nature reserves in eco-cities. My mandarin being of No. 1 standard, I said,"Yeah, well, what about 那些搬家的鸟..." The entire table lapsed into shocked silence, after which someone almost put his eye out with a dessert fork, laughing.

But there is yet hope for our feathered friends in the future of this city. The great bronze sculpture that sits in the lobby of the Urban Planning Exhibition Hall features flocks of birds in frozen flight over the *iconic* 2010 skyline of Shanghai.

Museums and exhibitions, by the editing necessarily incumbent in their curatorship (argh, was that an OSF phrase?!), by their omissions and angled explanations, always give interesting insights into how a country views itself, and so, how one should relate to it. The bronze relief cast in honour to the BIE Inquiry Mission who'd help select Shanghai for World Expo 2010 might be instructive to those trying to take China to task for perceived human rights violations.

Model of the Future Shanghai (Note lack of smog)

The penultimate exhibit in the hall was about the eco-city being built in Chongming on Dongtan Island at the mouth of the Yangtze River. Nothing so warms the cockles of an old tree-hugger's heart than to hear about committed sustainable developments, and to watch with mounting excitement those longheld dreams of large-scale solar and wind energy harvesting, organic farming and peaceful co-existence with nature appearing to come to fruition.*

Saving the environment is one of the few causes around which to rally the entire world. Thomas Friedman recently touted the "new green ideology" as a way to get over the "trauma and divisiveness of the Bush years". It has, he said, "the power to mobilise liberals and conservatives, evangelicals, and atheists, big business and environmentalists around an agenda that can both pull us together and propel us forward."

And true enough, everyone is getting on the messanic bandwagon to save the world and make it a better place for you and for me and the entire human race. Mother Nature has become our god and to question the premises of the eco-revolution is shocking blasphemy.

But the underlying assumptions are far too numerous:

1. that there is such a concept as nature or the environment;
2. that the use of the rhetoric of rights as justification is correct since this rhetoric always runs into problem of the necessary prioritisation of such rights;
3. that we are correct in what we think is wrong with the environment, with climate change etc;
4. that what is wrong with the environment is due solely or substantially to pollution so that by controlling pollution, we can control whatever is wrong with the environment;
5. that it is possible to define pollution;
6. that it is possible to stop pollution without other knock-on effects...

"Do we have the capacity intellectually to understand complex systems at the level of the globe well enough to make intelligently thought-through conscious perturbations that result in only the consequences that we want, and nothing else?" asked Josh Tosteson, the curriculum coordinator at Biosphere 2. Even without the Magic 8 Ball, I'd hazard, from the chequered history of humankind, that "my sources say 'no'".

To those who do not know God, well-meaning eco-schemes are grand and empowering. But they are ultimately naive. To those who do know God, I suppose eco-schemes present (if infact valid) a bit of temporary caretaking on the basis of Genesis 1 and 2. But ultimately, we understand that just as we have rebelled against God, so "the environment" will always refuse to co-operate with us. And we also understand that we have barely scratched the surface with our science about this intricately-constructed universe in which we live. And, in anycase, we know too that this world and its frozen mammoths and giant squids and climate change will soon pass away when Christ comes again to institute a new world. In the meanwhile, there are probably more pressing matters at hand.

*Don't suppose these improvements will be accompanied by concurrent progress in the field of little snacks like 小笼馒头/小笼包 xiaolongbaos, 饺子 dumplings and 包子 baozis.

Mega queues for the takeaway but the xiaolongbao at 南翔馒头店 (Nan Xiang Man Tou Dian) in 豫园 (Yu Yuan) was pretty rough stuff. The skin held the soup well enough but the top of the xiaolongbao, where the skin was pinched together, required quite a bit of chewing. And they don't serve Chinese tea there. All tea came in a bottle, they said.

Pork and green vegetable dumplings at 大娘水饺 (Da Niang Shui Jiao), the McDs of 饺子 (jiao zi, dumplings), tasted of drain. Good thing I chickened out on the chicken blood soup. No hot Chinese tea here either. Only overly sweet oolong in a bottle.

But because I like my bao skin slightly chewy, the bao zi at 高安路 (Gao An Lu) were great for breakfast. The thicker-than-Crystal-Jade exterior also helped keep in the sauce that accompanied the meat.

**And what's with the great firewall on biblegateway, blogger and flickr?

Designing Liveable Cities, Idolatry and Prayer

Because of the job, which, as everyone knows, involves plotting over undeveloped countries like a pantheon of SimCity gods* and turning Dullsville into an exciting metropolis in a decade, we have been thinking vastly and deeply about what makes cities tick.

*Joke, lah. How come only Mini-Me is laffing?

Monocle's criteria for a liveable city is one with:

• international, long-haul connections combined with a well-managed, thoughtfully designed airport;
  
• low murder rates and domestic burglaries;
  
• good state education and health care;
  
• decent hours of sunshine and average temperatures;
  
• great communications and connectivity;
  
• tolerance;
  
• ease in getting a drink after 01.00;
  
• the cost of public transport and taxis is low but the quality is high;
  
• strong local media and availability and range of international print media;
  
• access to nature and a good amount of green space;
  
• and finally, key environmental initiatives.

So, someone asked, you think how? Singapore can make it anot?
Aiyah, depends what it means to be liveable mah. Monocle criteria is only for Monocle.
I think liveable cities must be happening lor. Must have place to chiong lor.

So there was an exchange of the happenings of the past few weeks. Fine. (Plus I get a place to dump these photos.) (Plus someone's unwitting confessions shall be blackmail fodder for years to come.)

Two Fridays ago, finger-lickin' black pepper crab amidst the tourists at Newton food centre,

then K-Box karaoke in English and Chinese (and a gobsmackingly terrible demonstration of hiphop moves) at Selegie until about 4am on Saturday.

A few hours later, a wedding at the lovely chapel at CHIJMES where the morning sun shone through the stained glass onto the new couple, and there was someone sniffing that the Sainte-Chapelle looked much better, miscellaneous catching-up with people, then Taiwanese bubble tea at Paradiz served up by a Malay family,

then lunch at The Ranch Home on Dempsey Hill where the food needs a lot more tweaking. And from afar, Wong Toon King, who, other than fiddling about with SilkRoute Ventures, Z-Fencing and Ben & Jerry's also used to coach me in foil (the only fencing teacher who was willing to waste any time on me and to whom I'll always be grateful).

Later, birthday presents were sought and found amongst the crazy maze of little indie set-ups at Far East Plaza and salmon and tuna sashimi were grabbed at Meidi-Ya,

just in time for a birthday dinner with Japanese theme. The hosts, one of whom might be a closet alcoholic, were generous with desserts: Want some plums? Soaked in Choya. Care for some cherries? Griottines soaked in kirsch. The fruits that weren't to be dredged up from with some sort of alcohol had been incorporated into ice-cream. All good. So sometime into the night, the conversation got to the point where there was a debate about french fries and someone was saying,"Well, there is a certain attractiveness about limp fries". Halfway through having to go on the mobile to sort out how to meet a friend of a friend, a German lass who'd met the friend, now in Hong Kong, in London. Then the drivers, being really responsible, trialled Marvel: Ultimate Alliance until they looked less like they'd overdone the blusher.

Sunday, babies hugged and harrassed, German girls lost and found (except they turned out to be really Latvian-near-the-Black-Sea but with German passports), a good Chinese lunch and playing with a very nice Hasselblad (are there Hasselblads that aren't nice?).

Monday, a proud sms announcing that Food For Thought was now open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And so it will be checked out because there is the promise of indie-ness and cake together.

Another night, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, where the choice of movie snacks was bak kwa and McDonalds chocolate milkshake. I am afraid of being found out, said the (voluntary) courier of illegal goods. But when we got to our seats, from the sea of movie-goers around us came the bold rustling of bags of illegal burgers and illegal fries and the cracking open of illegal drinks and the crackling of illegal packets of chips. And all was well.

Thursday, The (not-illegal) Bandits were acoustic-ing it up at Tuckshop. The summary quote of the night: They sound good! But I wouldn't want to put on their CD at home.

Friday, an old friend had conned a girl into marrying him so there was a wedding at Shangri-La where there was mega-catching-up and laughing, and ex-fencers telling about TK and B&J's and how they didn't score any discounts from him and how also they'd now switched from foil to epee to dispense with having to remember rights-of-way (difficulty increases proportionally with age), and where the groom's dad, an editor with a Chinese newspaper, spoke at length and with many elegant literary phrases about Overbearing Wives And What To Do With Them. We were plied with great amounts of wine and beer and had to keep shoo-ing away waiters who were trying, surreptitiously, to refill our glasses.

Saturday, a sleep-in then a late and lazy breakfast at Mimolette, through whose tall windows you could see sturdy brown horses trotting past.

Then,

(Amid the run-up to Deathly Hallows, because we are forever associated in each other's minds with The Boy Who Lived, an ex-roommate emailed from London to say he had cleared his whole saturday so as to be able to curl up with the book, and also that if I so happened, perhaps, out of the overflowing goodness of my generous heart, to sms him spoilers before he was done, he would take the next 13-hour flight out of Heathrow and personally strangle me. Obviously, my friends are exceptionally cheerful people.)

So it was good that a frantic dinner mate called last minute to apologise: I can't meet you for dinner! I'm on a dare to get 7 dates in 7 days and the last one cancelled on me last night which means I need to find 2 tonight! Argh! (Sorry, I can't count you.)

Yay!

Sunday, Bible study was intended but after a good lunch at Ding Tai Fung where migration plans and the leaving behind of things and people were discussed, the majority of us succumbed to severe food comatose. Later, tooling around on a piano called Hyundai.

Monday, we were up for checking out the aforementioned Food For Thought, whose food a chef described as "Le Cordon Bleu meets local ingredients" and indeed, the Chicken Caesar Salad was Hainanese chicken rice and ginger and sesame oil. There was Mama Heng's Spicy Pork where Mama Heng was the mama of David Heng the Smiley Chatty Chef, there was Peter Boyer the Other Chef who kept dumping stuff down sinks they shouldn't be dumped down, there were platforms (cake stands, really) for home chefs to step out of the closet onto, there was speculating whether Mrs. Kang (of Mrs. Kang's Fresh (and retro) Durian Cake) had a house on Sixth Avenue that smelt of durian, or a kitchen that was huge and airy or very patient neighbours, or all of the above.

Later this week, there are grand plans for drinks and dinners but can't remember them all, and to add forgetfulness upon forgetfulness, have also lost the 2 organisers I got for Christmas which were meant to help me remember these things. Don't think Rememberalls would have been much use either. Fortunately, the delivery of team jerseys today reminds me that there will be a basketball tournament.

Like that, is quite chiong-able, mah, he said. Then Singapore can lor. Hor?

Not sure.

Maybe what makes a city is sunshine and low crime, parks and good healthcare. Maybe what makes a city is access to a flowing buffet of new and interesting stuff to do. Maybe what makes a city is having friends about you to chiong with. (Friends who are also family seal the deal.)

Regardless, the nice comfy thing about urban design is that it is about community, about the big picture, about the wonderfulness of create living spaces for people and making life better for them.

Yet, taken too far, relied upon too much, it is something like being addicted to SimCity. It is the elevation of architecture or urban design or city planning to the status of a panacea to all city problems and urban ills; it is the fantasy of attaining complete control that is, at its heart, ungodly and idolatrous.

Idolatry is also the ever-present danger of thinking that it might be possible for us to effect our own redemption by our obedience, our enlightenment. God's world is so good and God has endowed humanity with such gifts that we can be tempted to believe that we are sufficient unto ourselves...Prayer is the protest against idolatry. In prayer, we give the Creator what is due, acknowledging the joyful surprise that we exist. Moreover, in prayer, we claim our existence as a gift, grace. The Decalogue is God's gift to Israel continually to teach Israel how to live, not by wits, but through gift. (Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, The Truth About God: The Ten Commandments in Christian Life)

************

The Ranch Home/Ben & Jerry's
Blk 8 Dempsey Road
#01-14
Tel: 6473 3231

Tuckshop (happenin' like a KTV but not)
Where to finded them?
21 Tanjong Pagar Road
#01-05
Tel: 6534 9287

Mimolette
55 Fairways Drive
Singapore 286846
Tel: 6467 7748

Food For Thought
420 North Bridge Road
North Bridge Centre
#01-06
Singapore 188727
Tel: 63348773

Monocle Magazine And The Best Cities To Live In

Travel deadtime is for junk-fooding on magazines: Time, GQ, Esquire, Foreign Affairs, Economist, Monocle...

So I was telling someone about Monocle: several months old, founded by Tyler Wallpaper* Brûlé, "original coverage in global affairs, business, culture and design", cross-processed photos, monochrome prints, graphic design, product design, urban design, some parts glossy, some parts good rough paper...

At one point I said, When I grow up, perhaps I will write for Monocle. But only if they ask nicely.

Well, stuff Monocle, he said transcontinentally, when you come over, we can use the private jet. And all the splendour of Europe (and the east coast of America) will be but an inflight movie away.

What are you, I laughed, a dinosaur from the power-suited conspicuous-consumptive 80s?

Monocle, he continued sniffily, is for people who can't get any. Porn for plebs who can only stare longingly through shopwindows at the goodies inside. Come inside the shop. Smell and taste. Live the life. No friend of mine is going to stand outside whining like some miserable mongrel.

Transcontinental obnoxiousness aside, Monocle does actually remind me of Playboy. (The Playboy story is that thanks to my housemate in uni who, when he wasn't condemning me to hell for not being Christian, was giving me Playboy for Christmas.) Playboy isn't just any old lurid topshelf girlie. Hugh Hefner was selling the Playboy lifestyle very much like Tyler is selling the Monocle lifestyle: a intelligent, finely-written magazine for the well-heeled, informing the already well-informed about wine, politics, cigars, cars and air-brushed ladies (ok, none of that last bit in Monocle. Tyler's sexual preference means there're gratuitous photos of well-built boys in swim trunks). Oh wait. That's, like, all the men's glossies nowadays. It was the bunny, Hugh, that did you in.

And Playboy digressions aside, it is significant that the July/August 2007 issue of Monocle is all about "the best places to call home". It is even more significant that one of those places is actually home, Singapore. No, really. There it is, clear as day, in slot 17 of the Top 20 Liveable Cities. All together now: dun pray pray ah. Criteria for choices here.

While, maybe, 100% of complainy Singapore-residents are still wah lau-ing the notion over kopi and teh (and 95% of them are really working out how this new information translates into winning 4D numbers), Monocle goes on to interview a bunch of people about the characteristics of a perfect city:
Imperfect cities, says Bernard Khoury the architect from Beirut, that have contradictions and a dynamic nature keep me interested.

Cleanliness and safety, says John So the Lord Mayor of Melbourne.

A city like Dicken's London, "that marvellous labyrinth of dark alleys, secrets, surprises, extreme economic inequalities, coincidences, possibilities, where every kind of human imperfection and eccentricity finds it niche...it's in gross imperfection that perfection lies", says Jonathan Raban.

Harmony between individuals and their lifestyle, says Edward Tuttle the architect and designer from Paris.

A city with chaos, noise, its own distinctive smell, says Teresa Sapey the architect from Madrid.

...

Convenience, safety, peace, diversity, music, art, design, technology, parks, green spaces, efficient transportation, yummy food, good coffee, sprawling bookstores, funky music shops, spiffy urban planning, space for organic urban growth, countryside within easy reach, energised creative residents, clean government, healthy employment rate, competent medical care: all good to have. But an ideal city, in this passing-away world, must allow us to offer free citizenship in the Best-Ever-City-To-Come without fetter or harrassment.

And of that Best-Ever-City-To-Come, what is there to say? Who can tell us? What words can describe it?

(Postscript: So I was telling someone about Time magazine's summer special on food: how food does more to unite the nations than the United Nations, the pictorial contrast of different folks with their week's supply of nosh, how Nestlé caters to local taste so that there are 200 different types of Nescafé and so their French vanilla ice-cream is yellow and tastes like a frozen crème anglaise while their German vanilla ice-cream is much whiter and more buttery, and about Mark Brownstein - Food Hunter; scouring the world for exotic ingredients and matchmaking them with daring chefs for mind-blowing culinary experiments (or not).

And at one point I said, When I grow up...

And I heard eyes rolling in their sockets, transcontinentally.)

(Post-postscript: The first flyer shoved into my hand upon return to Singapore was for Tan Pin Pin's Invisible City.

Urban introspection is in.)

Diversity and the Cities of Man and God

Diversity
I like the differentness of Ho Chi Minh City (which is not the same as wishing it upon my home country):

driving with one hand ever-ready at the horn,


ubiquitous phở, iced lotus tea, teeth-melting ca phe,


soda chanh for vitamin C,


how cake tins are lined with the yellow pages,


numbered trees with their bases painted white,


fresh fruit touted by ladies in conical hats,


how, at night, motorcycle headlamps are like fairylights from afar, and being threatened with Honda Om tyremarks across the face about 10,000 times a day,


whole goats being roasted in shopfronts,


kids cycling home from school in ao dais,


earnest tour guides saying "Ho Chi Minh was a very nice and very handsome man. Everyone who met him loved him",


motorcyclists wearing caps instead of helmets,


roadsweepers pushing along their huge orange dumpsters and keeping the city clean,


art copies being better than the stuff in Saigon museums,


the extreme foulness of mắm ruốc, pale sickly looking Vietnamese chilli that really numb the taste buds,


women wrapped up against the sun,


colonial hangovers like roadside bánh mì (baguettes) and


tree-lined boulevards radiating out from a central monument or round-about, women hanging out about town in pajamas...


...how life is lived out on the streets: how cameras are repaired on corners and watches traded and cigarettes sold from open briefcases, reading under street lamps,

eating places and drinks stalls along roads and outside shuttered shops with their little plastic furniture neatly set out, cuttlefish vendors and lottery ticket sellers strolling about the tables, young fire-eaters entertaining bemused customers, men sitting around in the morning with their ca phe chatting and reading the papers, people gawking through tall windows at foreigners indoors as at animals in the zoo. How unlike, say, England, where a Malaysian mate, squatting on the pavement waiting for his friend, was showered with 20p coins from goodhearted but mistaken passersby...

And its sameness: how it is, simply, a growing changing city with all the common problems of a growing changing city.

At lunch with some Vietnamese businessmen, I asked about the regulation of Saigon's multitudinous motorcycles:"These giu xe's (parking places). Are they the result of some law or government policy to keep the city neat and clean?" The Vietnamese businessmen laughed long and hard into their bowls of phở at my foreigner's ignorance. When they'd finally wiped their eyes, one said,"If you leave your motorbike on the road ah, when you come back, there is no more motorbike ah". Which set them off again for a good while.

Cultural heterogeneity and city homogeneity - c'est cool.

Diversity is totally enjoyable, and learning different languages and experiencing other cultures terribly exciting. But our differentness and diversity have a sinister history: the curse of Babel.

Rise of Cities

Cities, according to John Reader's Cities, are really things of marvel, intricate organisms: just think, for example, about the mystery of their historical roots - were they born of agricultural surpluses or was the requirement of specialised trades the main factor? Was their original aim the provision of security within walled defenses? Did they grow by being economic centres for trading and by the churning of money, the making of fortunes? And think of the richness of urban complexity: the planning of cities - water supply, sanitation, the spacing of housing to avoid overcrowding and prevent the spread of pestilence, constructing effective public transportation systems; the regulation of the population of cities - crime, violence, corruption, pollution, laws to govern how a mass of people can live harmoniously within a confined space, electing the lawmakers who are to make such laws...

Most people also equate cities with civilisation and creature comforts: central heating in winter, air-conditioning in summer, electricity and the delight of electrical appliances, movie theatres, bountiful libraries, 24-hour convenience stalls, flush toilets. An Economist article, The World Goes To Town, touts the development of cities as being synonymous with human development. More than just the modern conveniences, cities epitomise the pinnacle of human achievement: fecund hotbeds for wonderful new inventions, for being freed from such base worries as the acquisition of daily food and drink to advance the frontiers of knowledge about our selves and our world, to dabble in art and music and culture and the detailed discussion of jazz chords.

But we are told that the first cities were nasty things. The construction of the first cities were not signs of human development but human regression - rebellion against God. Cities were the architectural representation of one's hired (SIM) gardener marking out one's vegetable plot and claiming sovereignty over the patch.

Cain built the first city and named it after his son Enoch. Because Cain had earlier killed his own brother and spilt his blood on the ground, his days of getting food from the ground were over and he was to be a fugitive and wanderer on the earth, getting food from other sources. But God in his mercy had promised Cain that though he'd punished him, he would also continue to protect him from his enemies (Genesis 4:8 - 16). It might have been that Enoch did not trust God for protection or he might have thought that God's protective mark on him lacked any efficacy, for he proceeded to settle at Nod, there building for himself a something he might have been more confident would defend him from enemies - a city (Genesis 4:17). If this is true, then the Psalmist later laughs at such misguided folly in trusting in hackable walls and sleepy watchmen, rather than an undefeatable God for protection:

Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain. (Psalm 127:1)

The city of Babel was more obvious edifice of rebellion against God (Genesis 11:1-9). Its inhabitants said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth." They sought honour and glory for themselves that properly belonged to the name of God. They sought security in their bricks and mortar rather than in God.

Fall of Cities
The recorded past demonstrates the impermanence of cities. Greece and Rome once great centres of learning, innovation and sophistication in their own times have since retired quietly into pretty tourist destinations. Where once great military conquerors were feted; where thronged successful merchants and agriculturalists; where governance was sophisticated and well-thought out with laws of contract and property and family, law courts and routes of appeal; where flourished refined art, monumental works of architecture, intricate jewellery-work, impressively accurate astronomy, the ancient cities of Assyria and Babylon now exist only as museum exhibits. Perhaps the city that manages to continuously reinvent itself might survive? Statistically, this is improbable.

And in reality, this is impossible.

Of the great city of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar once boasted:"Is this not magnificent Babylon, which I have built as a royal capital by my might power and for my glorious majesty?" (Daniel 4:30). And truly, Babylon was one of the wonders of the ancient world with its hanging garden and lofty walls and ziggurats and beautiful Ishtar Gate. Today, its ruins span over two thousand acres. But ruins, they are, the beauty and magnificence of human constructs ultimately amounting to nothing. In the end, warned Isaiah,"Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendour and pomp of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them"(Isaiah 13:19).

Cities For The Redeemed
Though in this life and on this earth we have no lasting city, we seek a city that is to come (Hebrews 13:14) whose architect and builder is God (Hebrews 11:10). Re-reading Revelation reminds me how much I long for that city:

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day--and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.(Revelation 21:22 - 22:5)