By ila

(i)

When I caught sight of you under the tree, I felt my body quiver. I was astounded by the way the sun was glowing a fleshy pink: the glint of rays danced on your body almost as alive as the sea behind me. The shadows you cast, mirroring the setting sun. I could feel you spill out from where you were, right into where I was standing, like waves catching onto the shore.

Image description: A small statue of the Hindu god Ganesha sitting at the bottom of a tree. The surroundings are dark and shadowy.

At that moment, I could feel a story forming in the pit of my belly, tender and bloating from secrets that were not mine to tell. Maybe not yet.

"Tunggu. Tunggu dulu."

Image description: A ship transporting piles of sand across a body of water. In the background is a port with warehouses and other buildings.

I could not walk any further. The tide had started to come up. I caught sight of a BTO being built, a slab of concrete with gaping little holes that seemed to scream, puncturing the horizon. Every half an hour, three giant sand piles on a small ship moved across the waters. I did not know where they came from or where they were going. Over here in this city, there were a lot of things that I did not know. I imagined little islands being born from the mouth of a ship as the sand was spilled into the sea. New islands with no names that would bear the weight of concrete public housing for our growing population.

I realised you must have witnessed it all as you sit perched under this tree. How many piles of sand had passed by today? How many in a year? Were you here when all the stilt houses were being pulled apart like limbs? Did you lose your home too?

"Tunggu."

From that day, I kept coming back to the same place, possessed by an impatience to find an ending to some story that was not mine. Possessed by your silence. I wanted to release what was growing inside me and stop the quivering that came from not knowing. I kept coming back to find you at the same spot but you were gone.

Although you never really left me.

(ii)

Are you a photographer? Wow, two cameras. Do you want to take photos of those big ships?

No, cik. I'm looking for something else. What are you doing here, cik?

Fishing, what else?

Do you fish here often?

No, I usually go to Changi. But today, I ended up here.

Cik, do you fish a lot?

I haven't gone in two years. What about you? What are you doing?

I'm doing a project, cik. I'm looking for…

Image description: A makeshift rack holding up a row of statues of the Hindu god Ganesha in various decorative styles and sizes.

Over his shoulder, a makeshift rack caught my eye. It was a common sight to see idols scattered around the outskirts of the beach. Sometimes placed under the trees or on the rocks. This rack however had about twenty over idols, Ganeshas of different sizes and shapes. They were all placed together with such care on the precariously slanted rack. Some had barnacles growing on them. All of them were intact.

Ah, is that what you are looking for? Don't tegur and please mintak izin.

I already did, cik, dalam hati.

Good. Good.

I climbed over two or three big rocks to take a closer look. At the start of the rack made of broken pieces of wood balanced on tree trunks were two goddesses I did not recognise. From the corner of my eye, the uncle was watching me almost protectively.

Cik, you know who actually keeps these idols here?

Oh, it's the cleaner. You saw him earlier passing us on his bicycle. You know, maybe for them it's not good to throw away idols, even if they are from different religions. Even for us. If we see, we don't touch and disturb, right? Not because we believe in the same things, but we just don't.

Yes, cik. Cik, what is your name?

You can call me Cik Man.

Do you stay around here?

No, I stay quite far from here, all the way in Marsiling. Last time, when I was a boy, I used to stay in Pulau Belakang Mati.

You mean Sentosa?

Yes. I stayed at the end of the beach, next to a Japanese cemetery. When I stepped out of my house it was already the sea. Now I stay in a flat. I love fishing, you know? In my head, it becomes quiet and all I see is this.

So now when you go visit Sentosa, can you remember where exactly your kampong was?

Cik Man laughed quite suddenly and I was laughing along as well. It was such a silly question to ask when I already knew the answer.

I hate Sentosa. So much has changed there. I cannot even recognise anything anymore. It looks like nothing is real. Like it's a khayalan. Last time we would just jump into the water from our koleks. Do you know what that is? It's like a boat. And we don't fish with this or bait.

Cik Man pointed to the one rod he had perched in the sand. A small plastic bag filled with raw prawns dangled from a tree branch. The prawns were being slowly devoured by ants.

How then did you fish, cik?

We used nets instead, hanging down from the koleks into the sea. Have you tasted fresh fish? No, not even the kinds from wet market, fresher than that. Straight from the water and into the kuali. It's so fresh you do not need to cook it with so much spices, you know. Last time I used to have my own boat, you know? But then suddenly need to pay rent, for parking, so I had to sell it away. No choice. Nothing is yours for very long.

Cik Man's eyes were gleaming as bright as the afternoon sun. The excitement in his voice was that of the same little boy that had lived by the sea many years ago. His memories prickled my skin like the salty air and felt so fresh that I was savouring every little bit of it with him.

Image description: Blue plastic trash bags piled up at the shore. Lights from another coast visible in the background.

Actually, nowadays, even the fresh fish do not taste as good as before. The sea… there's a lot of activities. Look at all those big ships, the factories all around the coast at Pasir Gudang. During my time the sea was thriving, alive and breathing. Laut macam dah nak nazak. Do you understand?

(iii)

"He said he was by the water and the spirit just asked him.” X shared casually as she lay half-inclined on the floor. It was my first time meeting her in person, outside of a performance setting. Naturally I felt a comfort borne from a familiarity of sensing the world differently from others. I believe people like X, myself and the rare few whom I’ve encountered, perceive and experience realities beyond the normative five senses.

The first time I encountered X, I watched her move slowly under a harsh red light, possessed by whispers no one else could hear. X told me about how her father was leading a double life. It was only about six to seven years ago that her family found out about his other life as a medium, and what X described as his chosen family. She told me how her sister and mother had found these rituals sacrilegious and ungodly.

Image description: Seen from afar, a man dipping in the sea, with big tankers resting on the horizon

Several times on her Instagram posts, I kept seeing the primal and fluid movements from that first night X and I had crossed paths, different beings submerged in water. Was it the same water where her father merged with this spirit? X and I had a few conversations before we actually met that night.

Conversation taken from Instagram chat on 11th of October, 2020:

Do you go into trance yourself? I'm always so fascinated when it's passed down through lineage.

My performance work definitely has some of that DNA but I don't actually go into trance. Even though I think the overlap is uncanny. Though some people said I do, but I'm not confident in calling claim to it haha

My paternal side is a family of healers so I get that sensing and on my maternal side I get the gift of telek or clairvoyance. Like knowing that something bad is going to happen but having no way to stop it? So sometimes it can be quite a curse, omg.

Ah, that's so fascinating, thanks for sharing. Yeah I can imagine. I think it requires a lot of conscious boundary setting because you can catch a lot of unwanted energies.

Sometimes when people tell me their personal experiences or their dreams, I can see it so clearly and distinctively and it can be so exhausting.

I can imagine! It's beyond empathy. It's literally inhabiting the experience. Can be quite intense. My father has always been spiritual. When I was a kid, he disappeared to Thailand for a couple of months without notice and was like a monk there for a while.

So fascinating, thanks for sharing!

Haha, np. I'm proud of my dad haha I think what he's doing is a huge part of culture here. Something that hasn't been co-opted by the government or sanitised to become more palatable for like a western audience.

Yeah or destroyed by capitalism.

Hahah, yeah once in a while you get some clueless student wandering around…

I mean documentation makes it visible yes but it's also how the research is framed. I'm trying to find out different rituals done at sea, not only the ones practiced by the Malays.

Yeah I think it's diminished to like folk ritual or heritage when it's so much richer than that.

Yes precisely. So hard to explain this sometimes.

Like I hate that most 'civilized' people see themselves apart from this.

That this is beyond the 'festival'

Yeah, it's a life practice as well and it permeates every aspect of lived experience and also how we perceived things. That's why I feel that people who don't engage with this, even in just simply acknowledging it are killing part of themselves.

I think it takes time to understand it beyond what is obvious. Or sometimes it doesn't happen for the person and that's ok too. It not meant for them.

Yeah sometimes it's easier to just turn a blind eye also. It's easier to live in the world and just concern yourself with material things.

Haha.

I think the developing infrastructure here also gives the illusion that this doesn't exist anymore. When really the foundations of Singapore are so occult.

*

I caught a glimpse of the fleshy pink and felt that quiver, a low rumbling in my belly as if you were turning inside me whispering your secrets in a language I could not translate. I wanted to tell X how the city woke up at odd hours of the night, fiercely alive with energies that I could never articulate and how I seemed to know which places to avoid by the way my skin folded into itself and my bones jolted in surprise. I wanted to tell X that the sensing was incomplete, unfinished and that I was an illiterate child that was never taught to read. Unlike X's father who was chosen to be part of a large family of devotees, most of us remained orphans to our own spirits.

Image description: A father and a mother playing with their two children by the seashore. The beach and several trees are visible on the left side of the picture.

X and I talked about other things: about the way she moved[1] [MOU2] , about her cats and how the pandemic had been so overwhelming for the both of us. "Has your father seen you move?" I asked as I stretched myself out on the carpet, delighted that I felt this ease around her. "No. My parents don't know that I do this. I've been living this double life thing for a long time. Like my dad," she said almost immediately, then laughed at what she had revealed. "My mom made sure we had good education but it caused an unintended rift between us. Like our life experiences are different from his maybe, the way we were brought up is different from how he was brought up. And that made us distanced."

That night as I left her studio, I thought about multiplicities of selves, stories and lives. I thought about the Ganesha idols, all of them in different sizes, coming from different places, worshipped by different individuals and ending up on that rack. These idols were carried by the same sea that extinguished the paper boats that brought me here to X. I thought about my mother who had been adopted and how parts of me came from that absence. My mother had met and kept in touch with her biological mother and her half-siblings but none of them resembled her. My mother and I were multiple selves of a ghost man we would never meet. Or maybe we had met, each time my skin folded into itself, when I sensed the echoes of the land or when the quiver danced inside me.

(iv)

Cik Man, can I ask you something? How do you know when is a good day to fish?

Oh. You just need to look at the sky to know. You see how the clouds are sparse and far apart right now? That means there is not much fishes. Sometimes when you go out at around 5pm and the sky’s a little reddish, that means you'll catch a lot of prawns. When the clouds look like ikal mayang, like my hair and it sways this way and that way, it means the sea has an abundance of fish. We used to tie a stone to our fishing line and threw it out in the middle of the sea. When we pulled it up, the stone must be warm to touch. If it's cold, we know it's going to be a waste of time and the catch will be quite small. I learn all these from my family. As kids we just ikut-ikut and do not ask so many questions.

Image description: A pale blue sky with wispy clouds and a waning moon in the center.

"Tunggu. Tunggu dulu."

Do you have children?

I do! She's turning four this December.

You can take my advice if you want to but it's ok if you don't. Don't bother lavishing your child with money and wealth. But do make sure they have the education they need and they will be ok. Insyallah.

How many children do you have, Cik Man?

I have four children. All of them are doing well. My daughter, the third one, is a doctor at a clinic in Punggol.

That's nice, Cik Man. Cik Man, does any one of your four kids follow you on your fishing trips?

Hahaha, of course not. They won't understand it. To them, it's going to be too hot and a waste of time.

So none of your children ever asked you about fishing, or the sea or any of these things you've shared with me?

No, not really. I don't see how it will be of any use to them.

Ah, that's alright, Cik Man. Maybe it's not meant for them.

*

The smell of jasmine, sandalwood and turmeric permeated the air as she rubbed her skin in circular motions, harnessing the energies in her maternal body, and scraping it off into a viscous mass of skin, dirt and a longing borne from her loneliness. She gently caressed the mass with her fingers, imagining a young boy with big eyes, curly hair and a little baby belly before kissing him on the lips, breathing life into bone, blood and flesh.

Ganesha, she whispered as he opened his eyes. He was born outside of the womb and existed alongside the cycles of rebirth. As he took in the world and the face of Parvati, his mother and creator, he absorbed the knowledge that existed beyond time and space, beyond the samsara. In a single breath, Ganesha experienced a billion lifetimes before and after his present form, in the arms of Parvati, who was enraptured by this child.

Needing to replenish her maternal energies, Parvati wanted to soak herself in the vast bath of the universe and tasked Ganesha to stand guard at the door, especially for Shiva who had barged in with no notice several times. Parvati did not wish to be disturbed. Ganesha might have already known the events that would follow but knew he could not stop them. Ganesha stood fiercely by the door awaiting his fate.

As Shiva returned from his long meditation in the Himalaya, he came home to an earnest boy guarding the chambers of his wife, refusing to let him in. Not recognising that Ganesha is Parvati's son, he cut off the boy's head for his insolence. The sight of Ganesha's headless body when Parvati came out of the bath sent her into a rage. She threatened to destroy the entire universe unless Shiva brought Ganesha back to life. Shiva found the first living being, an elephant, killing it and severing its head to replace Ganesha's.

Image description: A small blue statue of the Hindu god Ganesha stuck in the ground, seen through an opening in foliage.

Like all the origin stories of the gods and goddess, there are multiple versions of Ganesha's origin story. This version is the one that is widely shared. Reading through each of these stories, I've always wondered if Ganesha's wisdom was acquired only after, from the head of the sacrificed elephant. Or was the wisdom attributable to being born outside of the womb? In almost all of the versions, Shiva beheaded Ganesha because he could not recognise his son. I think of Cik Man and his children, X and her father, and my biological grandfather.

What was severed and what replaced it?

Last time, in Bedok you had all these hills, you know? All the hills were cut and made into earth that stretched the shores of East Coast.

Was there kampong on these hills, Cik Man?

Yes, of course there were. Clustered kampongs on the hills. Bedok used to have beaches too.

Boleh bayangkan tak?

Bayang, I thought to myself. To imagine shadows that are long gone.

I looked at Cik Man for a while, trying to make out his face but knowing that I might not cross paths with him again. Strangely he looked at me and pulled down his mask, so I could see his face.

Going home?

Yes, Cik Man. Thank you for sharing all those wonderful stories with me.

It was my pleasure. Maybe that's why I come here to fish today. It was probably so I would meet you.

(v)

It was really hard to track the exact locations and timings of the sending-off ceremonies. Unlike the other well-known festivals here, the nine emperor gods festival seems to elude access by people outside of the different temples that are practising it. I had caught sight on social media of some of the rituals performed in the last few years, but never encountered them in person. Not until this year, when I found myself caught in some current that kept bringing me back (to where?). Scenes from a short film, the conversation with X, and a recurring dream of burning paper floating in the water.

I cycled out to East Coast to meet Jane, who wanted to document the send-off again this year. We were told by a few people that it was going to be at Carpark F, as it had always been. On my way, I realised there were many parts to Carpark F. I caught sight of the table of offerings placed on the shore as the sun was setting. It was such a beautiful sight and strangely not out of place.

Image description: A table of offerings to the nine emperor gods, erected on the beach, with the sea in the background. Two flags are tied upright to the two corners of the table closest to the sea.

Jane told me that we might want to explore more of Carpark F to find the spot with the largest temple.

Yeah, last time we went to a site which only had one boat. But we kept walking and found a site with more boats. I didn’t know why some temples had fewer boats.

You mean all the temples are here tonight?

I'm not sure actually.

So what happens now?

We wait. The last time, it dragged on quite late. But we cannot question the gods and their timing, can we?

Let's not move from here yet then.

There were some members from the temple dressed in white, with a white scarf on their heads. They had their masks on and were standing inside the red and white tape barricading the space for worship. Jane mentioned the tape was added only this year, maybe as part of the safe-distancing measures. As we were waiting, a woman approached us and asked if this was the entourage for the temple in Sengkang. Her mother was part of the entourage and they were on their way from the temple. She received a phone call and told us she was heading towards the end of Carpark F.

About 15 minutes later, we saw a little boat coming to shore. Jane explained that this boat would be pulling the paper boats out before they were set on fire in the middle of the sea. We saw another boat moving further down. I turned to Jane and both of us took it as a second sign to move further down the beach. After walking quite a distance we caught sight of giant flood lights lighting the entire space. Unlike the first place we were at, the barricaded area was twice as large and clusters of people were waiting all around us. There were offerings placed on the sand but I could not make out what they were. There was also a table of offerings much like the one we saw earlier. Some of the people, who were dressed in white with the same headgear, were burning incense and spearing the burning sticks into the sand. The smoke wafted in the air, merging with the smell of the sea. I felt my body bristling, unsure if it was from seeing all this for the first time or from being awakened.

I turned and caught sight of four boats made of paper, with talismans pasted all over. On the boats were little effigies of the gods themselves. I did not know how much time had passed. In the distance, I caught sight of a single paper boat burning in the sea. It came from the place we were at earlier. Behind it, brighter than the flames, was a cruise ship with giant LED screens spelling out "WE LOVE SINGAPORE".

One of the photographers informed us that the entourage was arriving. Two men came to the edge of the barricade and briefed us on the house rules for the night.

Do not stand in the way of the sedan chairs.

Please do not get too close. Please do not crowd around.

Do give enough room for everyone.

If you are a woman, please do not accidentally touch, it is dangerous if you do.

Image description: Silhouettes of Chinese worshippers lighting up their long incense sticks at night and looking at the departure of the nine emperor gods at sea.

Everything was said in Hokkien, and again in Mandarin. One of them pointed to me and asked if I understood and started to explain these house rules in Malay. I laughed and wondered how many bystanders had been carelessly treating this as a spectacle, like the National Day or Chingay parades. But to be fair, I felt I was intruding into a sacred space too, just by being there. Slowly as the incense started to waft in thick plumes, I felt my body opening up.

Image description: The night procession of the nine emperor gods consisting of sedan chairs for the gods each carried by four men and accompanied by big lit lanterns.

I could hear the cymbals and bells as the procession came into the barricaded area. Moments later several sedan chairs, carried by four men each, were dancing on the shore. Back and forth, side to side, in the water and out again. The chants were whispers from where I was and the devotees started to fill up the area outside of the barricade with incense sticks clasped between their palms. They were kneeling facing the sea. I felt a giant cloth had been pulled from the corners of the island, wrapping all of us underneath it. Suddenly all was quiet, except for the waves. We were underwater, buoyant and drowning all at once. I was kneeling too, overwhelmed by the intensity.

The hard claps from the whip broke the silence. One of the mediums was whipping himself and the chants seemed to be getting louder. I turned to see the arrival of the other paper boats. There were nine of them now. One for each god. Jane told me she would be at the breakwater and I wandered back to shore. I saw several men kneeling in a row. Their all-white outfits created a high contrast to the orange life jackets they had on. They also wore masks. I had watched the same men earlier, going into the water. They were pulling the paper boats, with the help of the small boat that was parked near the shore. One of the men was carrying a lit torch. Others were running with the urns to be placed in the paper boats. Those who were praying placed their incense in the sand and stood at the shore with me.

The men grew smaller, almost disappearing into the horizon and I thought to myself, what happens if the fire from the torch burns out? What happens if it rains? What happens if one of the men starts to drown?

I kept thinking too, from the moment I heard it, why not a woman and why is it dangerous?

(vi)

Image description: At night, three big paper boats carrying the emperor gods are floating in the sea. A man in the sea is about to set one of the boats on fire with his flaming torch.

“Water spirits are one of the most vicious spirits,” he said, with a look of warning in his eyes.

A devotee explained that there were various types of spirits with different levels of strength and power, but Dou Mu, the heavenly Queen of Heaven and mother of the nine emperor gods, yielded exceptional power as a strong water spirit and therefore was given authority over the seas.

It was no wonder the gods had to be fetched and sent off from their place of origin – a river or sea.

Dou Mu. 斗母元君. She held the knowledge of celestial mysteries, passing through the seas and protecting seafarers. Queen of heaven, with her sixteen arms, two clasped in prayer. One of the origin stories portrayed the nine emperor gods as human sovereigns or monarchs. After gaining enlightenment, Dou Mu imparted her transcendental knowledge to her nine sons and they became the nine emperor gods, making up the constellation known in the Western world as the Big Dipper.

I sat on the shore for a long time, taking in the sight of the burning boats moving slowly apart. A constellation of flames floated brightly on the sea's surface, unyielding even in the face of the strongest of waves. The tradition itself had lived through several erasures under the guise of modernity and progress, and had been thriving from the devotion of those seeking prosperity and good fortune. I wondered, how many of these devotees were from families of seafarers and migrants who made this place their home many, many years ago? Multiplicities of selves, stories and lives.

The men were coming back now, their white outfits completely soaked. I thought about my favourite origin story from Songkhla, Thailand, in which a group of fishermen found a vase floating in the sea. They could hear strange voices asking them to remove the talisman paper and unseal the vase. When it was removed, they saw nine heads soaring into the sky in broad daylight. On the same night, one of the fishermen had a dream of the gods forewarning him of an impending storm, but they promised him safety if a flag was erected on the masthead with the words “Jiuhuangye” written on it. The fisherman warned the rest of his crew but they laughed at him in disbelief. After they set sail together, a fierce storm wrecked all the boats and the fishermen drowned. Only the boat with the erected flag survived the calamity.

The remover of obstacles.

I caught sight of Jane on the breakwater and climbed up slowly, feeling reverberations all around me. I could feel you inside me. You were wide awake and I was wide open. I looked behind to see that the space was slowly emptying out. I turned, expecting to see Jane but she was nowhere to be found. In the stillness, I caught a glimpse of you beside me and I turned, but there was no one. Again I looked out to see the last of the cinders burning out. A bright light flashed upwards momentarily and I caught a glimpse of you again, a streak of fleshy pink, as the quiver finally left me.

Jumpa lagi, I say under my breath.

Image description: At night, three paper boats on fire in the sea, diminishing in size from right to left.

As I walked back down to the shore, I saw Jane still standing at the edge of the breakwater. "You ok?" she asked when she finally joined me. "Never better," I replied and under the darkened skies, I whispered a silent thanks to the currents for bringing me back to where I needed to be.

The piece was first commissioned for motu pulau as a web experience.

"lupa," by ila, traces different narratives through the forested routes and water bodies of a city. It began with an urge to take a DNA test to identify the missing ancestry in ila’s maternal lineage. The undertaking led to the provocation that embodiment is not tied solely to ancestral lineages; instead, the work invites one to look closely at the ties between all living beings beyond human connections.

Through the Bugis epic of Sureq Galigo, gene expression, and familial traumas, the work speculates about how all living things are connected to the first living ancestor. The Bugis epic itself, disseminated through oral transmission, changes slightly and is never singular. Delving into the multiplicities and fragmentation of body and land, "lupa" ruminates on other forms of kinship and connection that transcend ancestry.

The intimate works of visual and performance artist ila (she/her, Singapore) incorporate objects, moving images, and live performance. Through weaving imagined narratives into existing realities, she seeks to create alternative nodes of experience and entry points into the peripheries of the unspoken, the tacit, and the silenced. Using her body as a space of tension, negotiation, and confrontation, her works generate discussion about gender, history, and identity, in relation to pressing contemporary issues. She writes speculative fiction and is working on a collection of shorts, Pura-Pura Parade.

Tunggu Dulu

By ila

About
Singapore Unbound

Tunggu Dulu

By ila

About Singapore Unbound

About
Singapore Unbound