VOL. 5, ISSUE 6 NEWS Alarums and Excursions: What’s Up With the Fire Alarm? Managing Arts Spaces on Campus
FRIDAY OCTOBER 14, 2016 FEATURES OPINION The Yale-NUS Culture of Busyness Border-crossers: Being a First ARTS Generation College Student at Interchange: A Sneak Peak into Yale-NUS Southeast Asian Cinema Honour Thy Student
YALE-NUS, SINGAPORE LITERATURE My Family Is Not a Cloud
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS: WHAT'S UP WITH THE FIRE ALARM? story | Joshua Wong, Contributing Reporter photo | Rachel Juay
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Have false fire alarms lead to a ‘boy who cried wolf’ mentality?
n the early hours of Monday 3 October, Saga and Elm colleges experienced a fire alarm caused by a faulty alarm device on the 22nd floor of Saga Tower A. Fire alarms are a regular occurrence on the Yale-NUS College campus, but their frequency has irritated students. Since the campus’ inauguration in May 2015, 32 alarms have been activated (excluding two scheduled fire drills per semester), with seven alarms occurring this semester alone. Many students voiced their frustration over the repeated incidences of false alarms. Vasudha Katartuka ’19 expressed her annoyance at waking up to yet another alarm, and felt that the repeated, groundless evacuations were a “waste [of] time”. A common worry was that false alarms will lead to complacency in an actual emergency. Jonas Yun ’18 feared that the College’s notorious fire alarm record will mean “students will not respond with [a] sense of urgency” should there be
a real fire. Kevin Low ’17 echoed this sentiment, raising the concern that multiple false alarms have led to a “‘boy who cried wolf’ kind of mentality” among the student body. Multiple things can trigger the alarm: faulty alarm hardware, dust particles and insect repellent setting off smoke detectors, and individuals manually activating alarm call points (which has occurred twice this year). As maintenance work on our new campus—and thus the quantity of dust particles in the air—decreases over time, so should the number of false alarms. Ms. Radha Pebbisetty, Senior Safety and Health Manager, urged students not to use “fumegenerating devices” in their suite to avoid triggering the alarm. Mr. Ng Chin Fei, Senior Project Manager of the Design and Construction office, noted that there are far fewer smoke detectors in public buildings and HDBs than in Yale-NUS, where they are present in every suite. This in part explains the high incidence of alarms on campus as compared to elsewhere. All alarms triggered will alert the island-wide decentralized alarm monitoring (DECAM) provider, who will in turn notify the fire department. A member of the College’s 24-hour security team will investigate the alarm to determine if it is real. If not, they will notify DECAM so that a fire engine is not activated. The Singapore Civil Defence Force reserves the right to penalize the College if fire engines are dispatched for a false alarm too many times. The closest fire station is located in Clementi. According to Ms. Pebbisetty, a fire engine can be here in “single-digit minutes” should there be a real emergency. Nevertheless, continued vigilance remains important. Ms. Pebbisetty urged students to “honor the announcement” and follow all instructions given during a fire alarm. “It is better to be safe than sorry,” added Mr. Ng.
MANAGING ARTS
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SPACES
CAMPUS
story | Nicholas Lua, Features Co-Editor photo | Jacqueline Su 1
NEWS
The number of artists is increasing, but the number of art spaces is not. leven recognized arts groups and a steadily growing student body: the arts scene at Yale-NUS College is thriving. However, campus resources are not infinite. Now that we are a full house, how do different art groups negotiate the use of our arts spaces? With the number of arts groups still increasing, students expressed concern that there would be insufficient space for the practice of the arts. Min Ying ’19, President of sYNCD, the umbrella organization of Yale-NUS’s different dance groups, said she now has to spend more time coordinating the access of seven dance groups to three dance rooms. While sYNCD uses Practice Room 4 for dance practice, only around three dancers can use that space at one time, said Min. Theater groups have faced issues finding room to store their props and equipment, even having to store props in their suite. YaleNUS’s repertory theater group, (aside), had to dispose of its Lord of the Flies set as there was no room in the Arts block to store it. Another concern raised was how the arts spaces available on campus are not always equipped for the practice of particular art forms. The practice rooms could have better sound insulation, said Vincent Lee ’19, a member of Yale-NUS Orchestra, as someone practicing in one practice room can hear performers in other rooms. The College is aware of student concerns regarding the arts spaces. To address these concerns and facilitate the maximal use of arts resources, it has set up the Arts Spaces Committee (ASC). Different arts stakeholders, including students, faculty and Arts & Media are represented on the committee. Upon inspecting the arts spaces, Dr. Rajeev Patke, current chair of the ASC and Director of the Division of Humanities, found some practice rooms too small and that there was a shortage of storage space for equipment. “Architecturally, we can’t tamper with the structure of the buildings,” he said, “but what we do in them can be made more flexible.” Some changes mentioned included changing room interiors in ways that are not structurally fundamental, such as by installing soundproofing. The ASC also aims to establish a “concise, transparent, rational procedure for the use of [arts] resources,” said Dr. Patke. The College recognizes that as it transitions from a growing phase to a steady state, it needs to shift from using adhoc procedures to using long-term ones. To this end, the ASC has created a five-page document detailing how it functions and how it prioritizes access to arts resources. Arts groups can use the document to apply for access to resources, including funding. The document is available on the College website. On its part, Arts & Media aims to make arts spaces fully
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accessible to students. “The goal,” said Gurjeet Singh, Associate Director of Arts & Media, “is 24-hour access.” Students can simply walk in and use most arts spaces, provided no one else has booked or is currently using them. All arts spaces can be booked except the Performance Halland the Black Box Theater. If performers wish to use these two spaces for a production, they have to first schedule a production meeting with Arts & Mediar. Nevertheless, students can use these spaces informally if their activities do not require technical support. For instance, some dance groups have been practising in the Performance Hall when it is empty, said Mr. Singh. With a few exceptions, the bookings of most rooms (such as the practice rooms) are automatically approved by the system. Dance studio bookings go through Arts & Media to ensure students do not wear heels in the studio, which could damage the dance studio’s flooring. Arts & Media has also enlisted students’ help in managing the arts spaces. Haokai Lek ’18 helps manage access to Practice Room 5, the band room, which students can book using a Google Form on the Yale-NUS College Students Facebook group. Access to the Georgette Chen Arts Studio (Studio 2) will be managed by the Visual Arts Society. Institutional initiatives aside, arts practitioners are working together to face campus constraints. While many have long-term bookings of some arts spaces, they are open to compromise should other groups need the spaces. For instance, after consulting sYNCD, (aside) now uses the dance studio every Friday until their performance of Spring Awakening. “At first there were some difficulties but now [they’ve] been resolved. We’re very open to discussion if other people need the studio,” Min said. In addition, arts practitioners are willing to share their resources. Dr. Nirmali Fenn, Assistant Professor of Practice, said that the musical instruments under her charge are available for all students to use after they have obtained her permission. The different arts groups could potentially create “a common pool of props and equipment everyone can have access to,” said Kristian-Marc James Paul ’19, Co-Director of (aside)’s Spring Awakening production. Other creative solutions have also been implemented. While the school cannot store large sets,, Arts & Media tries to store flats, which “sets could be built around”, said Mr Singh. Arts & Media also have 20 theater cubes and 10 movable mirrors, which can be adapted for the practice of different arts. After Dr. Patke had granted Dr. Fenn use of Dressing Room 2 to store musical equipment, Dr. Fenn installed a humidifier to ensure the equipment was stored under proper conditions. To work towards improving their craft, arts practitioners
NEWS/FEATURES
expressed their willingness to stay open to new ideas. This would help the College facilitate the artistic development of students. “Open-mindedness, imagination and cooperation” is the way forward, said Dr. Fenn. “If someone suggests an idea, it should
not be obstructed. Eventually, after five conversations, you get a super-idea.” In short, compromise, collaboration and creativity.
THE YALE-NUS CULTURE OF BUSYNESS story | Gabe Ibasco, Contributing Reporter image | Rachel Juay
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n the residential college elevators, students can be found tinkering with their phones—despite the complete lack of connectivity—or mindlessly re-reading walls of posters to avoid awkward eye contact with their fellow lift-riders. Nonetheless, the standard question of courtesy occasionally punctuates the elevator silence: “How are you?” “Oh, I’m busy—you know, with the usual,” a student might reply with a strategic sigh, carrying a laptop in hand for the now ritual library study session. The inquirer would smile back in solidarity, perhaps ending the conversation with a “me too.” At YaleNUS College, many students would argue that “busy” has now become an emotional indicator—a relatable substitute for the traditional “good” or “doing well” to mark one’s current status. Defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “having a great deal to do”, “busy” is a word that occupies a place in the cultural fabric of this school, and for valid reasons. On top of essays, exams, problem sets, and readings, Yale-NUS students are also committed to clubs, organizations, and polishing their resumes. Notice that this list does not include personal relationships and family commitments that students already manage beyond the College walls. At its core, Yale-NUS has already been structured as a busy place from the moment it was conceived. The name of our College in itself carries lofty expectations, promising a meaningful
“Oh, I’m busy—you know, with the usual.” connection to two universities hailed as some of the best in the world. Yale-NUS students naturally feel the immense responsibility to live up to the standards of these juggernauts, which benefit from years of historical backing. In contrast, the clubs and organizations at Yale-NUS are still in their infant stages. Lishani Ramanayake ’18 said, “I think that our engagement with CCAs [cocurricular activities] ... and the way we are intimately involved in creating these organizations … makes our extracurricular commitments seem all the more pressing.” The school makes these expectations implicit, with admissions criteria heavily grounded in the depth of one’s extracurricular and personal achievements. However, in such a uniquely close-knit, residential setting, can “busyness” be solely attributed to workload and institutional expectations? Some would argue that being busy, regardless of whether one actually has “a great deal to do”, has become commodified into a socially desirable trait that connotes success and productivity within the community. Are
students pressured to be busy? An article published in 2012 on Psychology Today argues that students may choose to immerse themselves in work to validate their own sense of meaning and purpose in an increasingly work-driven global environment—a subconscious method of “existential reassurance”. Ironically, the perceived need to be at work in every waking moment may actually undermine productivity
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levels. It unnecessarily extends how much time students allocate to certain tasks and drains energy reserves. Although this piece is contextualized to US universities, the social posturing phenomenon also applies to Yale-NUS. Maruša Godina ’18 highlights the stark differences in work culture between Yale-NUS and Sciences Po in Paris, where she is currently spending her semester as an exchange student. “I think people [at Sciences Po] are not necessarily less hardworking [than students at Yale-NUS are], nor are the courses less demanding, but people make time for fun and relaxation,” Godina said. “In Paris, it isn’t cool to be busy or constantly working, because it implies you are being inefficient with your time.” The reverse may be true at YaleNUS. It is common to valorize students who devote themselves to a hectic work schedule, despite the lack of shut-eye these achievements might require. “There’s this tendency to perform—to put yourself forward as really active and interesting,” Evan Ma ’17 said. Dean’s Fellow D Dangaran, an alumnus of Yale University, offers a similar take on the unique work-intensive culture at YaleNUS. “I have heard students talk about a social pressure to stay up late, to be involved in as many activities as possible, and to have a smile on as they do it,” Dangaran said. “We had similar ambient pressure to work hard and be happy simultaneously at Yale, captured in a phrase called ‘work hard, play hard’ that I don’t hear as often at Yale-NUS as I did at Yale.” While Yale students “dive deep” into specific niches—whether they be fraternities or sports teams—Yale-NUS students are generally more inclined to juggle a wide range of commitments. Perhaps this catch-all trend emerges from the pioneer spirit of exploration established by the first class. While social pressure can inform the tendency to overwork, Ma suggests an additional factor, pointing out that the Yale-NUS academic workload is distinctly heavy. “The rigor of classes here is a lot more intense than at other universities, save for some of the top few,” Ma said. On an average week, Ma and his fellow students majoring in Mathematics and Computational Sciences have to submit as many as four problem sets, each of which can easily take around 8–10 hours to complete. The intimate size and the residential context of Yale-NUS may also amplify the pressure to conform to this busy atmosphere. As pointed out by Sha-En Yeo, former Senior Manager at the Health and Wellness Centre, “the residential system, where students stay on campus for four years, definitely contributes to the work-heavy setting.” With less than 800 students on campus, individual achievements can rarely be anonymized. The school’s pervasive social media presence—ranging from the newly-formed “YNC Shoutouts” group to the official “Yale-NUS College” Facebook page—helps to broadcast success stories within the community. As such, students may find it almost impossible to avoid the social gaze, feeling compelled to match up to peers with noteworthy awards and emerging startups under their belts. Are
students too busy for themselves? “I feel like stress is very normalized here. I constantly see people around me overwhelmed with deadlines and commitments with [co-curricular activities]. So on some irrational level, I feel if I'm not equally as stressed, it feels like I'm doing something wrong, like I'm not measuring up in some way,” Ramanayake said. The once-innocent virtue of hard work can translate to a self-perpetuating cycle of pressure and stress. Ramanayake said, “Most people are quite content to commiserate about how stressed we all are. A friend of mine once said that it seems like
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most people at Yale-NUS are struggling with stress. And I think that when talking to my friends, this seems really true.” These honest conversations, while useful for establishing solidarity, may inadvertently exacerbate feelings of mental and emotional strain by making them seem “normal”. Instead of actively trying to break out of this cycle, students may become socially conditioned to believe unmanageable stress is an expected component of daily life. However, stress is not always a bad thing—“Stress that challenges one to push forward and do new things can make a person grow, and actually be useful,” Yeo said. Anandita Sabherwal ’19, who is overloading this semester, said, “At times I have felt inspired to stretch my boundaries and time after hearing a friend talk about the long list of things they have been up to.” Nonetheless, Sabherwal concedes that this workheavy environment may be pressuring for some, coercing them into activities that they do not truly enjoy in the first place. In an atmosphere where chugging through work is the norm, it comes as no surprise that alternative lifestyles may be implicitly frowned upon. “I’ve heard students express that it’s stigmatized to read for fun or take a true mental break through watching TV or playing a video game,” Dangaran said. Acts of leisure might be viewed as emblems of idleness and irresponsibility, rather than modes of self-cultivation that are just as valid as academic work. Most of the time, this stigma is self-enforced, as students feel the impulse to live up to the ideal image others project of themselves. “I feel guilty when I have nothing to do,” Godina said. “There definitely is peer pressure when you see what everyone else is doing.” How
can students escape the busy trap? Godina argues that the “work hard, play not-at-all” environment of Yale-NUS is predominantly a cultural phenomenon, and as the first four cohorts, students have to power to alter it. “Chill and start thinking about goals beyond careers and grades,” Godina advised, “and remember that working harder will not necessarily make it easier to achieve those goals.” Students can redirect that extra hour spent on perfecting an assignment toward an equally enriching means of personal care. Ultimately, students should avoid feeling guilty about taking a break from the daily grind. “One of my favorite quotations is from Audre Lorde, who said, ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare,’” Dangaran said. “You can achieve your dreams so much more readily if you allow yourself time to rest along the way.” Even seemingly trivial changes to one’s schedule can have a profound long-term impact on one’s well-being. “It might seem silly, but block out when it’s time to brush your teeth, get ready for bed, meditate, do yoga, journal, and eventually sleep. Find a routine of self-care activities, which can be even better than one-off self-care methods,” Dangaran said. Allocating time for self-care in advance not only helps to relieve stress, but also “psyches” one out to become more efficient by designating a limited time frame for work. At a very basic level, Yeo suggests that students should rank their top three priorities (e.g. friends, health, academics) at YaleNUS and analyze the values underlying these priorities. With this framework, students must decide which activities are important enough to keep and which are worth discarding. This simple yet essential exercise is particularly relevant to freshmen, who are still in the stage of sampling various extracurricular and academic options. Ideally, students should be intrinsically interested in the activities students choose to commit to, so at least bouts of stress
FEATURES/OPINION
can be balanced with a strong sense of fulfilment and autonomy. During periods when the pressure feels insurmountable, students have highlighted the importance of close support groups. Sabherwal said, “I think one thing that helps me survive is a supportive friend group to fall back on. These are people I met before I held executive positions or overloaded … so these relationships aren’t contingent on how busy or productive I am but are rather highly personal.” In the residential context of Yale-NUS, it may be difficult to disentangle the personal from the professional. Stepping off campus every now and then can create some space to breathe. It is easy to get caught up in the endless whirlwind of readings, essays, meetings, and projects—especially in such a small, concentrated community. Flashing commitments in the elevator, while honest for the most part, may preclude more important conversations about why people choose to be busy and the emotional ramifications of this choice. At the end of the day, while social pressure does exist, Yale-NUS features a deeply honest and caring community that takes shape in various forms: free cookies in the Elm College Office, P.S. We Care’s dedication to late-night counselling services, and simple notes of appreciation on the elevator walls, among other things. Students can afford to take off their busy suit every now and then—even without it, they still have something to show for.
“Kingfishers do not settle, they jump from plant to plant.”
HONOR THY STUDENT story | Aditya Karkera, Opinion Editor photo | Rachel Juay
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he upperclassman, wonderfully wise in their own ways and warily wistful in others, is as fascinating a specimen as the rosy-cheeked first year student—unbounded in their own ways and unknowing in others. And so, when I learned that I’d be sharing a meal with one of my upperclassmen a few weeks into this first year, I was as excited as I was willing to learn more of the institution I had now become a part of. And while I don’t precisely remember what I had for lunch when I shared a table with one a few weeks ago, suffice it to say that I left the table with
plenty to chew on. For while we’d discussed many things, none were as jarring as the Latin Honors question. The Latin Honors question is not new to these pages, nor to the college in general. But what is novel (in some senses) is the administration’s response to the 160-signature-strong petition that pushed back, and the subsequent town hall, where the administration and students deliberated on questions of pay grades, academic competition, and faculty rationale. Beyond the genuine attempts at consensus building from both sides, the status quo stands as it did when The Octant first broke the news of the Latin Honors system: it shall proceed in the wrong manner of meaning, and in the right manner of intention. The college’s intention is one that is sincere and measured (academic “excellence”), but its adverse translation into meaning is one that requires a different dimension to understand. To achieve this, we must give rest to the highly specific arguments of positive competition, intra-major percentiles, and NUScomparable honors—each with their own proud proponents and opponents. Instead, I believe it is of import to rear the head of the issue back to those it affects the very most: the upperclassmen who have been forced, without their permission or knowledge, to become guinea pigs in an experiment that is not cruel, but is not called for either. To implement the Latin Honors system is less of a question of technicalities and formalities, but one of the spirit of Yale-NUS College as upperclassmen manifested it to be. Was it their mistake to embrace it as it was advertised to them—liberal, liberating, and liberated? The promise of Yale-NUS to the first two cohorts was one that allowed students to dauntlessly chase after their academic pursuits, engaging in risks that were more thrilling than terrifying— falling down, picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, learning something new, and falling back down again until they were suited to make greater climbs. By imposing a system that retrospectively penalises such risks, the college has punished its pioneers for doing exactly what they wished for them to do in the first place. But the impact of incentivizing such academic safety is far-reaching. Newer cohorts, seeing the curve exhibit itself this coming year, will proactively seek to remain academically safe by, as they would see it, learning from the “mistakes” of their forebears and trimming the eccentricity of their academic careers at Yale-NUS. But these were never mistakes to begin with, and to trivialize the risks taken by earlier cohorts as “mistakes” does far more than undermine their academic courage—it sieges the spirit of what Yale-NUS was, and is, meant to be. “It isn’t a disaster of epic proportions,” remarked one senior who wished to remain anonymous, “but it is pulling the rug beneath our feet. And while I’m fine with whatever turns out, I just think it’s unfair that we were proffered a liberal arts education without the knowledge that it’d come with a regular education’s compartmentalization.” And compartmentalization is a very real concern given the concentrated, compact character of our College. A sharper curve would entail far sharper competition, and intensified competition would spell for the college a fall in the bonhomie and unified spirit that defines its cohorts—at best. At worst, most students would take a page out of Aesop’s fables as they peer at a prize far too entrenched in stiff competition and, like the fox who pined for grapes beyond his reach, declare them too sour. An implicit exhortation to academic safety would have newer cohorts plan out their academic careers such that standard routes replace the beautifully haphazard academic journeys of older
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cohorts. The clean, level, immaculate state of a highway that leads right to a magna cum laude seems more alluring than a bumpy, rugged, pothole-infested path with a million detours to either a summa cum laude, or nothing at all. But the latter is what makes us Kingfishers. We should never have to lose that innate, exigent urge to incessantly jump from plant to plant, pond to pond, and peak to peak. We should never have to settle in a cozy, watertight nest, because playing it safe is not what defines a life, much less the small fraction of it spent at our college. While the administration’s wishes for an academically sharp student body is more than endorsable for a college as young as ours, it is by no means preferable. A student body should be
allowed to stretch its wings and take flight, no matter how many times its feathers are ruffled by falls and failures. It must be the direction of the administration to best realize the ambitions of its older cohorts and the aspirations of its newer ones, and foster a college that celebrates the vibrancy of academic excellence before trying to compartmentalize it. At the end of the day, if I were looking for standard cuts of meat, I could easily walk into the dining hall. The views expressed here are the author’s own. The Octant welcomes all voices in the community. Email submissions to: yncoctant@gmail. com.
BORDER-CROSSERS: BEING A FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENT AT YALE-NUS
Punggol heartland. story | Abdul Hamid, Guest Writer image | Dickson Phua
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t times it can feel like one is on the run, trying to evade detection. The charade, presumably, is up whenever a question like where did you go for the break? or an assertion like Delta definitely has better seats is met with a less than satisfactory response. I usually lie: I had a lot of work to do; I didn’t know that; I’ve never taken Delta. A quizzical look is returned, conversation sags—briefly—but the moment passes. One crosses the border, undetected, until the next wrong question. That I am able to write this does not mean I wish to speak for other first-generation college students, many of whom will surely refuse such identification. This is not something you stitch onto a sleeve, because such a label carries with it the suggestion that one needs assistance, and I need help is not something any of us first-generation college students would readily admit to—even if we, objectively speaking, do require help navigating an elite (and elitist) institution like Yale-NUS College. I say “able to” because none of this would have found a home in sentences at the beginning of freshman year. For two
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reasons: firstly, I am now comfortable enough to admit that this has not been an easy experience—and am able to say why without shame, and secondly, that the anxiety that comes with passing through an environment that takes so many things for granted has largely disappeared. Perhaps this means I have become accustomed to living a comfortable life on campus. Or maybe I am now able to remove myself from the bubble of good taste and see it as yet another environment in which a certain group of people exist, isolated (for good, for ill: who knows) from how other people exist in other spaces. For instance, my other space is a three-room HDB flat in Bedok, in the eastern part of Singapore. I come from a singleparent family, and my mother has worked in low-wage support staff positions in airports, condominiums and office buildings to provide for my three siblings and me. I have never been enrolled in any of the premier public schools in Singapore that are well resourced and connected. In short, I am, according to most measures of excellence in Singapore, entirely unremarkable. Moving from one space to another, and calling it displacement, then, seems almost a disservice. There are frictions. They happen everyday. Here are several: One: the culture where everyone is friendly and agreeable was highly unusual to me, and where I come from. Where I come from, any form of help has terms and conditions, and is associated with feelings of helplessness and unwanted dependency. Two: for a majority of students here, sitting on a plane is akin to sitting on a bus. Travel is exalted as a means to discovering oneself. The converse of that implies that to live in a country for an extended period of time must mean that you are somehow deficient, as if your other half-person is left undiscovered at some exotic locale. Three: premature financial freedom, even if it is largely at your parent’s expense, is financial freedom nonetheless. I circumvented this by trading my future time for present money—and I am thankful that I was awarded a scholarship from an external organization, for not having one would mean I would have never even considered Yale-NUS an option. To me these are self-evident, and have formed the backbone
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of all of my interactions with students, staff and faculty here at Yale-NUS. I can summarize my past anxiety as being in a position where one is constantly aware of what the stakes are, and what failure implies: student debt that one cannot crawl out from; no second chances at alternative institutions or immediate employment via family networks; lost time, because there is only one shot at passing the threshold of not having much. This is not a template for understanding the experiences of a first-generation college student in Yale-NUS. These are the reflections of one student who thinks that he will graduate with
a liberal arts degree by the skin of his teeth. I am sure there are others, though for various reasons entirely justified they will be more concerned with getting through the other side of a four-year undergraduate education than to pontificate about the realities of inequality. They will be concerned with survival. They will be plagued continuously with the thought that they do not belong in an institution full of high-achieving affluent students. But they nonetheless exist. They are here. Look out for them, even if they adamantly refuse to look out for themselves.
INTERCHANGE: A SNEAK PEEK INTO SOUTHEAST ASIAN CINEMA
story | Neo Huiyuan and Terence Wang, Arts Editors photo | Danny Lim © Apparat 2016
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ngaging 12,000 audiences with over 100 films annually, the Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF) is Southeast Asia’s longest-running international film platform, featuring film screening, masterclasses, talks, panel discussions and in-conversation sessions led by guest directors, actors and industry experts. In its 27th edition this year, the SGIFF will open with Interchange, a fantasy noir thriller film by lauded Malaysian filmmaker Dain Iskandar Said. The Octant was invited to a rare pre-screening of the film, held last month at *SCAPE. Interchange weaves Malaysian folklore seamlessly with the enigma of film noir. Inspired by a century-old photograph by Carl Lumholtz, which showed a group of tribal woman cleansing themselves of the evil effects of being photographed, the film was a tribute to nostalgia and the Malaysian identity in the modern, secular context. Interchange was representative of the festival’s spirit; the film explored Malaysian culture against the backdrop of Kuala Lumpur’s skyscrapers, and interpreted oral tradition through the medium of modern storytelling. Mr. Said’s love for the noir genre and style was clear from start to end. The troubled protagonist, the keen detective, the deceptive femme fatale—all were alive and present in this film. The former role is taken on by young forensics photographer Adam (Iedil Putra), haunted by hallucinations arising from previous assignments and keen to remove himself from a job that keeps him a hair too close to the criminal underworld. However, his boss Detective Man (Shaheizy Sam) is less
Interchange by Dain Iskandar Said. supportive, desiring Adam’s help in a new case unfolding through the city involving a series of strange ritual murders. Reluctant but curious, Adam finds himself becoming entangled in a complex web of perplexing events and mysterious characters, one of themhis alluring new neighbour Iva (Prisia Nasution). The cast did an excellent job at adding to the murky nature of the film, with character arcs that develop with complexity and unpredictability over the course of the two-odd hours. Perhaps the clear talent of the cast made Said’s next feat even more remarkable: from what is, for all intents and purposes, an indie film, the cinematography of Interchange is nothing short of stunning. The dark, gritty atmosphere of the city fits the noir style perfectly, often evoking a sense of fear and secretiveness. But beyond that, a distinct flavor is injected into the multiple allusions to the lush environment of Borneo, especially in the form of an unusual park-jungle hybrid in the middle of the city, directly contrasting with the moody urban environment. One shortfall is the editing: scenes sometimes transition into each other somewhat roughly, making an already intentionallycomplicated plot even harder to follow. Moviegoers more familiar with the mainstream fare may therefore face some difficulty digesting this film. This is a pity, as it is otherwise an intriguing film which proves that Southeast Asian cinema is nothing to sniff at. The enduring enchantment of film lies in its power to tell beautiful stories and capture the imagination of a society. For an increasingly cosmopolitan Singapore, memories and identities are particularly pertinent. If the repertoire of SGIFF is to reflect
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the themes and quality of Interchange, SGIFF 2016 will be a platform for inspiration, learning and exposure for both filmmakers and audiences alike.
SGIFF will take place from Nov. 23 to Dec. 4, 2016, with SISTIC ticket sales starting on Oct. 28, 2016.
MY FAMILY IS NOT A CLOUD
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ome light crept in through the bedroom door and took a seat by the little girl’s bed. Hey, how you doing? The girl flashed a half-grin, and sunk a little further into her pillow. Yeah, we figured. It’s late. You should be sleeping. She lost her grin. Penny for your thoughts? After a moment’s deliberation, the girl fished around in her bedside drawer. “Do you have change?” Of course. That’s ten, we’ll give you back nine – thank you, have a nice day. The girl whipped out a hand, and snapped her fingers. “You’re that nice café lady, aren’t you? You used to give me extra cookies.” She’s in here, that’s right. “Is your girlfriend there, too?” Oh, she couldn’t make it tonight – still relaxing upstairs. She’s exhausted from all the travel. “That’s good. Tell her I miss her – oh, I had a painting of the two of you –” Before that…what’s going on with you tonight? Your thoughts are all over the place. “I’m sorry. Nothing bad happened today. I don’t know why I’m like this.” No – hey, come on, you’ve got nothing to apologize for. The girl let her head fall against the hard wall behind her. What about yesterday, huh? Anything in the past week? “Don’t think so. Oh, there’s been good stuff, too!” Is the good stuff keeping you up at night? “Not really. The good stuff is great. Hey, how are you doing?” The light shimmered, unconvinced. We’ve been good, only getting better. It feels like the world’s nicest people are coming over en masse. (Oh, that means all at once.) We just hope there are enough left for you. “I’m happy you’ve got more friends!” Now that we’ve established that, you wanna talk about what’s bothering you? “I wanna, I do, I…I don’t know. It’s so little.” If it’s keeping you up, it’s big enough to talk about. “Okay, it’s – I’m warning you, it’s nothing.” The light glistened expectantly. “Fine, it’s just…I did a painting, for this competition. It had to be about my family.” Right. “And I thought it was pretty good, and it’s not like I expected it to win, but…” The girl was choking up. “The man said, what, are we supposed to believe your family is some kind of rainbow cloud?” She broke out
into giggles, brushing the moisture off her cheeks. “I didn’t know how to draw your...uh, you’re really hard to draw.” Hey, hey – we understand. Can we see it? A ray shone where the girl pointed, revealing a trashcan opposite her bed that smelt distinctly of ash. “It burned for a really long time – even then, it didn’t look anything like you.” The light didn’t know what to say. The girl held out an outstretched hand. “Is mom there?” Of course. Always. “Could you stay for a little while? Just until I fall asleep?” The light scattered across the room, diffused into a dull glow, as she watched with eyes half-open. It was everywhere, and – at the same time – it looked like it had almost vanished. The little girl tucked herself in. What has Roshan Singh done to deserve a write-up? His professors would argue that it's not what he's done that matters, but what he has yet to do (most of which is a week overdue). Granted, there was also some faffing about in the Iowa Summer Workshop, plus the occasional play, poem, or prose piece -- but he hopes, if the need ever arose to do a write-up, that there would be more to it than a mere list of things.
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