Circuit Breaker Zine Issue 1 (October 2020)

circuit breaker zine lockdown stories from singapore issue 01 october 2020

twenty writers and artists on: heartbreak • inequality • isolation • coming home • being an essential worker • nature

Editorial Credits Co-Editors

Michelle Lee Wenxin Gao

Production Manager

Wenxin Gao

Designer

Michelle Lee

Email (General/

circuitbreakerzine2020@gmail.com

Media Queries) Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/ circuitbreakerzine/

This publication is supported by the National Arts Council under the #SGCultureAnywhere campaign.

The views expressed in Circuit Breaker Zine are that of its respective contributors and do not necessarily represent the publication or its editors.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or published without written consent by the editors of the publication.

All Rights Reserved Š 2020 Circuit Breaker Zine

b l a t e of contents Editor’s Letter

by Wenxin Gao

5

Where I Know I Must Be

by Alysha Chandra

6

Gathering of Flocks

by Khairullah Rahim

10

Heartbreak in the Time of Coronavirus

by Bhawna Sharma Almost Blue

by Miranda Jeyaretnam The Resilience of Wild Things

by Izyanti Asaari The Other Virus

by G.S. Deepak From Clown School to Quarantine

by Shanice Stanislaus

Interview with a Medical Post Doctor (Who is Also My Mother)

by Michelle Lee

56

Naghihingalo (“Gasping for Air”)

by Bhinali Wallah

62

Poetry

by Low Kian Seh

67

Citizenship in Crisis

by R.Y. Zhang

72

16

Mariko

by Ma Ruonan & Tan Ying Ying

76

22

How Inequality Holds Us Up

by Leong Yee Ting

80

32

Fun Fields

by Lunastry

84

36

Comics & Posters

by Hong Hu

14

Blackout in Strange Times

by Cheryl Gan

42

Teaching during Home-Based Learning

by Hazirah Helmy

50

Class of 2020 Stay Home by jace & chris

21, 41, 61, 65, 75, 79

54, 55, 66

e

r ’ s o l t e i tter d

Dear reader, Where were you on 3 April, 2020, when the circuit breaker was announced?

My family had gathered nervously around the living room TV, bracing ourselves for the news. After hearing of the Covid-19 horrors in other countries, a lockdown had seemed inevitable after weeks of rising cases. My parents, ever practical, wondered aloud if we should have skipped the news and joined the ‘hoarders’ at NTUC Fairprice.

While countries beyond our borders orchestrated lockdown measures in an attempt to contain Covid-19 outbreaks, our government had imposed a ‘circuit breaker’ in Singapore to the same effect. To most of us, who are unfamiliar with terms used in electrical engineering, it was a curious turn of phrase.

Even stranger was the circuit breaker itself, which disrupted all of our lives in a multitude of ways. We wanted to document some of these stories in Circuit Breaker Zine, a project that was conceived of and produced (almost) entirely during the circuit breaker. In these pages, you will find intriguing forms of artmaking, such as Cheryl Gan’s blackout poems made from newspapers she received during her quarantine order, and Izyanti Asaari’s photos of wildflowers that bloomed around our unmanicured estates as we stayed at home.

The effects of Covid-19 have also deepened the socio-economic fault lines that already existed in our society, as illustrated in Leong Yee Ting’s essay, “How Inequality Holds Us Up”.

In “Where I Know I Must Be”, Alysha Chandra writes movingly about how home-based learning has made classes difficult for her brother, a student with special needs. This difficulty is acknowledged in “Teaching during Home-Based Learning”, where Hazirah Helmy interviews her mother, a teacher, about her new experience of teaching students from home.

How do we move forward from this moment? None of us have all the answers. All of us are trying our best to settle into this ‘new normal’ that still feels unfamiliar; where everyone still has to mask up before going out, where workers fear losing their jobs to the recession, and where a sense of unease still hangs between every social interaction we have.

We hope that you will enjoy reading this first issue of Circuit Breaker Zine, which has kept us editors busy through the lockdown months, and given us pockets of time to reflect on the unfolding crisis. Here’s to all ‘non-essential’ artists and writers, whose livelihoods have been impacted by the virus, yet who have persisted in pursuing their craft and believing in the importance of their voices.

Sincerely, Wenxin Gao (Wendy) Editor

r e I know I e h w must be

Alysha Ch 6

handra

I returned to Singapore in the middle of March, crying silently and staring out at the bougainvillea in the car ride home from Changi Airport like a character in a Channel 8 drama. Usually that stretch of the Pan Island Expressway (PIE) made me feel safe and lucky, like when we would land in Changi and the Singapore Airlines pilot says, “and to all Singaporeans, a warm welcome home.”

But this time, everything happened so fast. I was completely unprepared for the humidity, steaming in my sweats and long sleeves, not quite believing that I was back from my exchange in Paris two whole months before I was meant to return.

I had feared something like this would happen. I hadn’t expected it right then, but I always knew that straying too far from home would only make the inevitable return more difficult. Even leaving my family in Geylang for my Clementi dorm room felt like stretching a rubber band tight, tense with the anticipation for the moment it would snap, when I would have to be home again.

My autistic brother is not a burden, but I cannot pretend that being his sister is easy. He is sweet, funny, and loving; but our system is difficult for people who do not fit into it, and my brother does not. As much as our home is a place of warmth and joy, almost all our doors are splintered from being repeatedly battered. I learned not to be precious with my possessions, which were so easily used as weapons or collateral. The moment we got the grilles removed from our windows, we began to have to pull my brother off the edge.

While I was gone, I lit candles in churches all over Europe for my family.

It felt good to do something tangible while far away and unable to help them. With a 7-hour time difference between us, they couldn’t call me as much as usual. No more tearful 8 a.m. recounts of the morning’s battle, or surprise appearances of my brother in my dorm room when everything got too hard for him and he had no place else to go.

Still, I never let go of the dread and worry I feel whenever I get a notification on my phone, always waiting for the news that someone has gotten hurt. Feeling pretty saintly after lighting all those candles, I decided that there was nothing more important than my family. I couldn’t be happy if they weren’t, and once I returned home, they’d be my top priority. I just didn’t know if I’d ever be able to leave again.

As we drove through the lorongs, windows down to disperse potential virus droplets, my mother said, her voice choppy through the wind, that maybe I just wasn’t meant to leave.

circuit breaker zine

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Jetlagged and sick of staring at my screens, I found a book of Emily Dickinson poems in my bedroom while serving my stay-home notice. I had picked it up in a primary school Scholastic book fair and promptly forgotten about it, its pages mottled and yellow. I began to read. Emily’s life didn’t sound too different from many Singaporeans I know – she lived with her parents, never to move away. She became known as a recluse, dying in her childhood bedroom where after her death, volumes of her poetry, hand-bound and lettered, were uncovered, changing the landscape of poetry forever.

Emily became the poet laureate of my quarantine, carefully transcribing the escapist fantasies she would never fulfil. In “Could I but ride indefinite”, she longs to be a bee “upon a raft of air / and row in nowhere all day long / and anchor off the bar, - / what liberty! So captives deem / who

“I said ‘But just to be a Bee’ Upon a Raft of Air And row in Nowhere all Day long And anchor “off the Bar”

tight in dungeons are.”

I know it’s ridiculous for me to relate to this.

I had all the freedom of a steady Wi-Fi connection and no financial responsibilities. Still I felt the rubber band binding me to the place I grew up growing tauter and thicker, my freewheeling bee sucked into vortexes beyond mine or anyone’s control.

Outside my door, my family raged outside.

What Liberty!

So Captives deem Who tight in Dungeons are.”

Lockdown is hard for all of us, but it is doubly hard for my brother and other kids like him, who are expected to focus on busy Zoom calls when they can barely maintain their attention in regular class.

We fielded daily calls and texts from his teachers asking us to push him to show up and finish his assignments as we repeatedly explained that we had to pick our battles. Even more socially isolated than he already was, unable to go to therapy for a good part of the circuit breaker, and with his school counsellor unwilling to meet him over Zoom, my brother was under a lot of stress.

If he could sit through a Dickinson poem, I think my brother would relate. It’s not that things 8

- Emily Dickinson

were much better before the circuit breaker. I’ve burst into tears while pleading his case to stonefaced educator-bureaucrats as they refused to adapt their disciplinary policies to a special needs child, dismissing his autism as a phase. The same institutions that set up neurotypicals like me for success harmed more than they helped him, holding him back from the many opportunities I have had to ride indefinite – the rubber bands tying him to our country growing tighter the more he struggles.

In National Day celebrations of my secondary school past, my friends and I would link hands and belt along with Kit Chan about the place that would stay with us no matter where we’d choose to go.

I loved the song Home and its idea of Singapore – where you know every street and shore, where dreams come true for us. The cool blue hues of the home that Kit Chan flows through was all distance and memory, everything I wanted my home to be. I thought then that I’d never let myself get stuck in this country, in my home.

Years later, I’m still here but far from where I was before. So is the song. It’s been rearranged and rereleased year after year in increasingly overwrought and nationalistic renditions, miles away from the reflective ambiguity of the original.

Home reached its performative peak in April’s coordinated singalong, where the whole country was encouraged to sing it out their windows in honour of frontline workers battling the virus.

I rolled my eyes as hard as the next social justice warrior, shaking my head at the futility of the gesture, how it glossed over questions of adequate compensation for these staff and its obvious exclusion of the tens of thousands of migrant workers left vulnerable while we sat safe in homes they built. I laughed along at the viral video shot out the window of a HDB block during the singalong, where a family cackled as a phone fell out the window of an opposing block, its flashlight illuminating its descent. But I felt really sad too, watching videos of people I once loved – family friends, my primary school teachers, posting videos of themselves singing that familiar chorus together; wondering when the distance between us grew wider than streets, greater than shores. ∎ ---

Collage on p.6-7 by Alysha Chandra

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Gathering of Flock

ks

Khairullah Rahim

untitled (circuit breaker exercise 1), 2020

Extending on my recent explorations with objects and communities, Gathering of Flocks is a new body of assemblages influenced by my daily observations of my everyday urban landscape.

During the initial stages of the lockdown, I spent some time revisiting recent thoughts and ideas from my explorations in my neighbourhood, Boon Lay, where I had relocated in late 2018.

Commonplace objects lining the corridors of my building, including altars and potted plants, act as uncanny gatekeepers of each respective housing unit, revealing fragments of the private lives and social demographics of its occupiers.

Negotiating between aesthetics, materiality, form, function and meaning, this time around, these accidental assemblages were resourcefully created utilising only materials I can find lying around within my immediate surroundings; masking tape, cardboard boxes, hole puncher, invoices and leftover craft materials.

In my previous iteration of Gathering of Flocks, the assemblages were made from familiar household items such as furniture parts, 12

untitled (circuit breaker exercise 3), 2020

0

View from corridor

laundry pegs and kitchenware. Upon closer inspection, these garish and flamboyant ‘almostaltars’ reveal an array of forms and materials that have been selectively chosen, manipulated, and reconfigured with the deliberate intention to evoke both a sense of congruence and opulence. The very act of beautifying and transforming these everyday objects also points to the strategic means in which other possibilities to thrive and flourish are carved out and made possible within the fabric of our daily lives.

untitled (circuit breaker exercise 3), 2020

In contrast to the earlier body of works which were informed by the very same reference subject, these almost-altars were precariously assembled, not durable and will probably not stand against the

---

All photos by Khairullah Rahim

stand of time. Perhaps, it was also a projection of my sentiments during this period of endless limbo. ∎ circuit breaker zine

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heart break

m e i t of e h t in coronavirus Bhawna Sharma If love in the time of coronavirus is hard,

imagine heartbreak. A few days before the circuit

pandemic forced me to reconcile my feelings

breaker measures kicked in, my ex and I parted

mindfully. Going to the gym, running errands,

ways over commitment issues. In what would be my

socializing with friends, and drinking one’s sorrows

last outing before Singapore came to a standstill,

away became the vestiges of a past life where

we dined at a French restaurant. I needed face-

escape was just one bus ride away. Time suddenly

to-face closure, and I needed to see him at least

stretched indefinitely, and every minute was ripe

once before he was gone for good. Punctuated by

for introspection. Within a week, the resentment

heavy silences and trivial banter, the dinner felt

I held towards him melted into acceptance, and

like an insincere reunion. I was profusely nervous

acceptance into forgiveness. Who was I to nit-pick

and giddy the entire time, and somewhat taken

and vilify him for prioritizing his career? With

aback by how unfazed he was. By the end of it, his

all the time in the world, I was compelled to take

effortless demeanour, his signature silver Bose

a long hard look at myself in the mirror before

headphones, the crinkly knots of stubble I loved to

writing off my ex.

run my hands through, and the smile which spoke for his sureness in life were all etched in my mind.

In that moment, it dawned on me that love is as much about letting go of someone as it is about holding on to them. I didn’t have to be with him to be happy for him.

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Bounded by the walls of my home, the

As my feelings crystallised into clarity, I also started to piece together what went wrong.

When fleeting moments of longing threatened to devour me, I saw my own shortcomings in addition to his. Under normal circumstances, it would be easy to throw myself into the arms of my friends

and Tinder dates, and conveniently brush off yet

times of adversity. With everyone confined to

another failed relationship. This time, though, I

their homes, the need to reach out to others for

oscillated pensively between denial, rejection, and

emotional support eclipsed individual hedonism

forgiveness. It was wrong of him to leave me high

and self-expression. Thanks to social media, we no

and dry over text, but looking back, the tell-tale

longer have to find ourselves alone in trying times -

signs were there all along. I took his efforts for

we can connect with anyone, anywhere, one click at

granted without truly understanding the pressure

a time.

he was under. Ignorance was bliss during the borrowed time we were together.

It’s day eighteen of the circuit breaker, and I’ve made peace with my ex – well, ninety percent at

Days rolled into weeks as I slipped into a

least. We text each other sporadically, asking each

homey routine composed of studying, mindlessly

other how we’re keeping sane in these distressing

quarrelling with my parents, binge-watching Money

times. I don’t know if I’ll ever completely get over

Heist, and listening to John Mayer on repeat.

him, because when people say they’re ‘over’

Tucked away from the cosmopolitan grind of

someone, they’re not saying they’ve expunged all

Singapore, I found happiness in my small world,

the memories. They’re just saying they’ve learnt

and deliberately disengaged myself from a hyper-

to distance themselves while reminiscing about

connected culture.Sure, dating him was full of

them. He made his choice, and with a little help

wholesome moments and conversations, but it

from isolation, so have I. Covid-19 has hit the

wasn’t everything. Sometimes, it takes a pandemic

brakes on relationships, greed, and productivity,

for lovelorn souls to discover that life without

forcing us to re-examine our fundamental place

romance isn’t necessarily dull. I was glad to have

in the world. For my ex, the pandemic came as a

taken a step back in more ways than one – not

jolt, eradicating whatever remaining complacency

just romantically, but also digitally, economically,

he could afford to practice in pursuing his career

mentally, and spiritually. We are so preoccupied

ambitions. The irony is that when we’re out and

with the modern desire for acceptance, that we

about, we yearn for time to slow down, but when

forget to look inside ourselves, to ask ourselves

it does, we suddenly realise how much we have to

how we are feeling. I relished time alone, and as

achieve in the little time that we have left. As the

mornings morphed into nights, images of him

world passes me by from my window, I can’t wait to

floated in and out of my head until all at once, they

fall in love again, maybe tomorrow, in two weeks, or

disintegrated into nothingness.

six months from now… who knows? ∎

Once time ceased to have definite demarcations, old acquaintances emerged from their online hibernation: a high-school friend swiping Tinder in vain (only to be ghosted), a boy ready to plunge headfirst into the corporate world, and online strangers whose lives paralleled mine behind a thin screen. The more I talked, the more I realised that people share much more in common

self love

than they think. If it wasn’t for Covid- 19, I would have never rekindled these rusty connections.

Transcending distance, time, and ego, social media brings people together in unexpected ways in circuit breaker zine

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almost blue Miranda Jeyaretnam A month before the circuit breaker was announced, the family had shuffled Mama out

you don’t feel comfortable wearing a

of her home of 40 years and into theirs. It was a

mask.” Still, the first couple of weeks

collective decision by Mama’s three children and

passed smoothly. Her daughter and her

their spouses — but one that had largely left Mama

husband adapted to working from home

out — because she’d been living alone for a year

and her grandchildren enjoyed staying

ever since her husband had passed away from a

home from school. She mothered them

heart attack. It was decided that it would be best

to keep herself busy and help her

to have her staying with her eldest daughter Irene

daughter out, and they’d cook together

in case of any emergencies, and so she wouldn’t

in the evenings.

get lonely. They’d spoken to each other about how lucky it was that they moved her before all hell broke loose.

Mama occupied the small room that used to

Squatting on the kitchen floor, on the low wooden stool she had brought over from her home, she taught them to fold bamboo leaves over glutinous rice, meat,

double as the study and as one of the grandkids’

and chestnuts into a pyramid and to tie them with

rooms (the two children, a boy and a girl, both in

raffia. They planted seeds from the pods of blue

primary school, were now lumped together despite

pea flowers in a little pot as she instructed, “One

their protests). It suited Mama fine, aside from the

day they’ll flower and we can harvest them, then

fact that she could only see her friends a couple of

we can make more bak zhang but with blue rice.”

times a week and the family complained the walls

She was kind and patient, even though she teased

were too thin for her to listen to her songs all day.

the girl that she would put on weight from all that

She liked to watch Chinese dramas in the living

they were making and eating.

room with her two grandchildren sitting beside her. It conjured up memories of her own children sitting on her lap when she was a young mother.

When the circuit-breaker commenced, Irene’s

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is. You’re in the vulnerable group. And

Dinner was filled with the usual assent of “mmm”s and busy slurping that took up most of the conversation, interrupted only by comments on whether something was overcooked or

family had bought enough food so they wouldn’t

satisfactory. If one thing connected the family,

have to get groceries for the next three weeks.

it was food. But not in the way of passing down

Mama suggested she could go to the market on

recipes or dissecting flavours, or at least that

some mornings like she usually did but was quickly

had been reserved for their late Gonggong who

shut down. “Ma, you don’t know how dangerous it

would bring the family together every other month

to recreate one of his mother’s dishes. But one evening, a week into the circuit-breaker, Mama started telling the grandchildren stories from their mother’s childhood.

“Do you remember we used to have rabbits?” she said to Irene. She turned to the children, “It was when your mummy was still little.”

Irene piped up, “My God, those rabbits bred like crazy. I remember they’d have a bunch of new babies in the night, but by morning they’d all be dead. We had to throw them away by the trayful...”

“They were so small and grey, almost blue.

“Yes, you were always so angry. I remember you tried to run away when Pa caned you because you wouldn’t finish your food.”

Irene muttered something under her breath and Mama knew she had struck a nerve. They ate the rest of their dinner in silence.

When the kids started to have online classes more regularly, Mama took to calling her friends for company. They’d call and gossip about their families, complaining that their daughters were impatient and shrill, and try to find someone to blame for what was happening. Sometimes they’d watch the same drama and call to discuss it after. Mama told

I put one in the palm of my hand and it was still

her grandchildren about some of her friends, about

smaller than that. You were angry with me for

her sister, Siu Ang, who had taught her to cook and

touching them.”

sew and been like a mother to her. She told them

“Why would you stroke them when they were already dead?”

about how she liked to frequent Bukit Panjang market and talk to the stall aunties, to the bakery shop owners, to the old women and men who shared circuit breaker zine

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her table at the coffee shop. She often bought

was looking at her. She made out the shape of a

something from each stall, things she did not need,

woman. The woman walked closer, her long body

things for which she would get yelled at by her

moving languidly and her sad wan face loomed over

husband for wasting money. She missed talking,

Mama’s. Mama recognised her as her old friend

talking to people who did not think of her as old

Choo Leng whom she had spoken to only a week

or stupid, and she found that people often shared

ago.

their stories with her, because she would listen.

She tried to call anyone she could. But the walls in the house were thin and the rest of the family had more important work, video conferences, online classes, and Mama was told that the calls needed to stop, or at least quieten down. She barely protested, feeling that this need to shrink herself down, to make herself a little easier to live with, was only natural. She quietly returned to her mobile phone, which her late

“What happened? Why did you scream?” Irene shook Mama, who still lay stiff like a corpse, as her husband ushered their children, who had wandered in bleary-eyed and concerned, back to bed.

“We need to call Choo Leng’s family now. They don’t know she has died. Where is the phone?”

“Died? Ma, it’s 4am, what are you doing?”

husband had spent weeks teaching her how to use,

“I saw her. Give me the phone.”

and told her friends she could not talk for a while

“Ma. It’s early. Go back to bed, okay? We’ll call

and not to call.

The isolation sunk into her, weighing her skin and bones down so that she felt sluggish all the time and yet simultaneously anxious. She worried that this was the end of the world, that she didn’t really know what was happening, that her daughter and son-in-law might lose their jobs, that her granddaughter was too tomboyish, that her friends might just disappear. She had a constant headache and perpetually placed a warm towel over her head, waiting for the days to pass.

Mama slept with the fan on and one small window cracked open. She believed the cold draught from the aircon would give her a migraine and then she wouldn’t be able to focus on anything, her eyesight blurring into shapes as her head throbbed. Draped in her thin polyester pyjamas, she hardly felt the heat of Singapore. Yet, she awoke one night, her bare skin sticking to her sheets and her eyes stinging with sweat or perhaps tears.

She tried to get up and look around, but her body would not move. She felt trapped. Someone 18

Her cry awoke her daughter and son-in-law.

them in the morning, I’m sure she’s fine.”

They could not assuage Mama’s turmoil, and Irene glanced sharply at her husband who moved to take Mama’s phone into their room. Later, as they went back to bed, they talked in low voices about dementia, hallucinations, Irene promising that she would take her for a checkup once the circuitbreaker ended.

The next morning, Irene helped her mother call Choo Leng. Mama spoke to her friend, and Choo Leng reassured her that all was well and she was not sick. Everyone tried to convince her that it was just a nightmare. Mama listened but did not say anything. She wondered if she was being punished for her many failings in the past. She thought of the way she’d called Irene ugly and shapeless as a child, though she’d only wanted to see her become a little more feminine. She recalled with pain the way she’d objected strongly when her daughter chose to marry outside of her race, but she’d quickly come round, hadn’t she? She did not want to remember the times her husband’s temper had exploded onto herself and the children, the many canings when they were little, the many harsh

words meant to belittle.

Mama began to spend more and more of her days in her room. She came out for meals but was quiet and withdrawn. She smiled a little at her grandchildren but would say she was tired and retreat to her bedroom soon after dinner. There were no further disturbances after that night, but Mama was still perturbed. She worried at a lump that she felt on her forearm until the skin became sore and cracked. When she was out of her room, she watched how Irene helped her children with homework, how she hugged them often and

still working, but in recent years it had become less and less frequent, with them opting to go to their paternal grandparents or one of their aunts’ houses. She remembered how Irene had yelled at her because she had tried to cane her granddaughter for spilling a sweet drink in her old home. Her husband had blamed her and said she was incapable of controlling her grandchildren just as she had failed at raising her children properly.

She felt exhausted, and wanted only to forget, to stop thinking for a second so she could get some sleep.

never yelled. Mama would slink back to her room, complaining about a headache.

“Ma, can I come in?” Irene poked her head into Mama’s room one afternoon.

Mama grunted and Irene closed the door

When Mama awoke, she knew only a couple of hours had passed. It was still night and the room was steeped in darkness. But Mama heard Siu Ang’s voice. She was speaking to her in Teochew: words she had forgotten, words from her childhood. Siu Ang was telling her not to worry,

behind her. Mama had lowered all the blinds and

that Mother would get better. She remembered

the room looked smaller in the dim light. She was

the green bile that her mother had thrown up that

sitting on the edge of her bed, rubbing at her arm.

day. Its acidic smell nearly made her retch, even

“Ma… Are you okay? You haven’t been eating well.”

Mama glanced up for a moment before returning her gaze to the floor. Irene went on, “Is this about your nightmares? Have you been able to sleep?”

Mama’s shoulders hunched up and her back rounded. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

Irene moved closer and awkwardly reached towards Mama’s sore arm, stroking it affectionately and asking what happened. She tried to keep talking but Mama would not respond, she barely seemed to be listening, so Irene left the room and promised to get Mama some cream for her arm later. As she was leaving, she thought she heard Mama mumble, “I’m sorry,” but she closed the door anyway.

That night, Mama lay awake. She thought about how her grandchildren used to come to her house after school when their parents were

now. “But she died, Siu Ang. Don’t you remember?

And Ah Ba was always so angry after that.” Mama continued to speak to Siu Ang. Then she got up, crept to Irene’s bedroom door and opened it without knocking. She stood there like a child who had had a bad dream. “Ah Jeh,” she called out in Teochew. It was what she called her elder sister Siu Ang. Irene’s husband swore loudly as he pulled the sheets over himself. “Shit! What is your mum doing? I thought she was a ghost!”

Irene calmly got out of bed and tried to manoeuvre her mother out of their room and back to her bed. But Mama insisted on packing a bag, wanting to leave straight away to see her sister.

“Ma, you know you can’t just leave. It’s so late!

Where would you even go? Do you really think it’s safe out there?”

“I don’t care! I just want to see Ah Jeh.” Mama wailed. circuit breaker zine

19

Irene paused. “Ma, Dua Yee passed away years ago. Remember we went to her funeral? Ma, why don’t you just sit down for a bit?”

Mama could not help but think of the little rabbits that had died. She began to cry. “Why did we keep all those rabbits and allow them to die?”

Irene did not understand at first and tried once more to lead her mother back to bed, already thinking about bringing her to see a doctor earlier than planned. Still, Mama resisted and looked at her daughter.

“I’m so sorry I did not protect you more. I could not keep all of you safe, I am just useless.

Even Siu Ang… And now all this is happening. What if something happens to the children?”

“It’s okay, Ma. I’m sorry too. I know it’s hard to be at home right now, and it’s scary to think about what might happen. Don’t worry about the children. They will be fine. Don’t think so much.”

Irene decided that the next day she would talk to her family about spending more time with Mama and encourage her mother to call her friends more often. There was a lot to forgive for both of them, but Irene understood how Mama, who had lost her own mother so young, had thought she was doing good by keeping them all together, even when it hurt her children. She held Mama’s hand until she fell asleep. ∎

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circuit breaker zine

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the resilience of wild things field census may 2020

Izyanti Asaari circuit breaker zine

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The city was asked to rest, and it was as if the boundaries between manicured lawn and concrete relaxed.

While we cooped ourselves up in our cubes of social isolation, weeds that had always been beaten back by grass cutters stretched. They were brazen, not shy at all, pushing past the sidewalk flowerbeds; and boy, they excelled.

I grew up by a field in Teck Whye, but for much of my adult years had taken to ignoring its uneven, plain scruff. A month of civic neglect, however, and the field had become a whole new creature.

I was struck by the contours the field took when left alone — the fingers of lalang grazing the air, the dark brambles of mimosa, the reddish haze of Japanese love grass. Beyond that, there were so many other miniature flowers and delicate weeds that I had never seen before in that field. Where did they

Above: Bluemink (Ageratum houstonianum) Below: Coatbutton / Tridax daisy (Tridax procumbens)

come from? Were they there all along?

How long had they been lying dormant, waiting for the right stretch of time? I documented them. I did not want to say it then, but I knew that the field’s state of natural repose would not last. The grass cutters would be sent. I documented them as a reminder to myself, so that even when it was returned into its disciplined self, that there is magic woven in between the blades of cow grass. ∎

Left: Coco-grass, also known as Nut Grass, Purple Nut Sedge, Red Nut Sedge (Cyperus rotundus)

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Left: La

(Chryso

Right: Purpleleaved Buttonweed, a.k.a. Woodland False Buttonweed (Spermacoce remota); unknown plant

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alang; Love Grass

opogon aciculatus)

Above: White Heads (Eclipta prostrata)

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Top: unknown plant Bottom: unknown plant

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Top: Little ironweed (Cyanthillium cinereum)

Above: Oldenlandia diffusa

Bottom: Brittle False Pimpernel, also known as Round-fruited Lindernia (Lindernia crustacea)

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until next time...

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All photos by Izyanti Asaari circuit breaker zine

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SUPERHUMANS | MINISTRY OF MANPOW MAMANPOWER TO ISSUE VIRUS PERMITS | BREAKING NEWS: NOVEL

32

TS CAUSED BY VIRAL GENETIC MUTATIONS” | MARKETS SOARE AS VIRUS PRODUCES WER MAMANPOWER TO ISSUE VIRUS PERMITS | BREAKING NEWS: NOVEL PRODU

CTIVITY VIRUS-2019 DISCOVERED | “PERMANENT NEUROLOGIC NEUROLOGICAL EFFECTS CAUSED BY

BREAKING NEWS: NOVEL PRODUCTIVITY VIRUS-2019 DISCOVERED | “PERMANENT MARKETS SOAR AS VIRUS PRODUCES SUPERHUMANS | MINISTRY OF MANPOWE

the other virus

G.S. Deepak

AS VIRUS PRODUCES SUPERHUMANS | MINISTRY OF MANPOWER TO ISSUE VIRUS PERMITS | BREAKING NEWS: DISCOVERED | “PERMANENT NEUROLOGIC NEUROLOGICAL EFFECTS CAUSED BY VIRAL GENETIC MUTATI

T NEUROLOGICAL EFFECTS CAUSED BY VIRAL GENETIC MUTATIONS” | MARKETS SOAR

ER TO ISSUE VIRUS PERMITS | BREAKING NEWS: NOVEL PRODUCTIVITY VIRUS-2019 The rumours about the new virus had begun to annoy old Shabina Begum. “Whole day only virus-shirus. It’s all anyone will talk about,” she would grumble to anyone who cared to listen. She was right – all of Chittagong was obsessed with it.

It had started with reports that people in the city were being hospitalised with flu-like symptoms. Bangladeshi health authorities quickly reassured the public that there was no cause for worry. But then something odd started happening. Stories started surfacing that the virus was having extraordinary effects on people. It seemed too strange to be true at first, but people were recovering from it changed.

“Permanent neurological effects caused by viral genetic mutations,” a bespectacled Dhaka University professor named Chowdhury explained on television. Virus patients were emerging from bouts of infection far smarter and stronger than they had ever been. CNN covered the case of a 7-year-old boy who, weeks after testing positive, had mastered linear algebra and fluid dynamics.

A septuagenarian found, after being discharged from a hospital in Cox’s Bazar, that she could suddenly deadlift 140 kilograms. One Dhaka woman, employed at a sweatshop pinning the labels onto Uniqlo t-shirts, recovered from a dry cough and was inexplicably able to work non-stop for 21 hours a day.

The world was enthralled. People were calling it the Novel Productivity Virus-2019 (NPoV19). New possibilities were being opened up by the prospect of people with superhuman strength, stamina, and endurance. Business circles in New York and London and Tokyo buzzed with talk of labourers who could labour without rest. Every man, woman, and child infected by this virus could be extricated from the shackles of the body and liberated from the necessities of rest and sleep.

A study by the American Enterprise Institute declared that global GDP would quadruple within the year if all of humanity could be infected with NPoV-19. It was going to usher in a new era of growth and prosperity, everyone believed.

Very soon, Shabina Begum’s grandson Ismail was brandishing a copy of the Pratidin newspaper with a headline that screamed, “MARKETS SOAR AS VIRUS PRODUCES SUPERHUMANS!” Ismail, a lad of nineteen years, announced that he was going to get himself infected with NPoV19. “My school friends and I, we have a plan, dida” he declared. “First I’ll get sick, and then when I recover, I’ll be the strongest worker you’ve ever seen. Everyone will want to hire me and pay me a good salary. I’ll be a big man, you wait and see. I’ll go to Amreeka or Englaand. Or maybe Dubai!”

Shabina Begum rolled her eyes. “I swear boy, something’s not right here,” she muttered. “These goings-on are the work of shaitan.” She was a hard, practical woman, one who had weathered too many storms and trudged through too many years to believe in miracles and godsends.

Her husband had been a university lecturer, and Shabina Begum lived a comfortable life when Bangladesh was still East Bengal, one half of Pakistan. But when Bangla politicians started calling

NOVEL PRODUCTIVITY VIRUS-2019 DISCOVERED | “PERMANENT NEUROLOGICAL EFFE ONS” | MARKETS SOAR AS VIRUS PRODUCES SUPERHUMANS | MINISTRY OF MANP circuit breaker zine

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for autonomy, the Pakistani military went berserk.

military announced that any Rohingya resident of

In 1971, it unleashed a bloodthirsty rage across the

the sprawling refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar was

land, massacring intellectuals and peasants alike.

welcome to return to their Arakan homes. The

Soldiers took her husband away one night, and he

governments of Malaysia, Singapore, and Dubai

was never seen again. People were slaughtered in

handed out all-expenses-paid vacations to lure

the thousands. Children learn about it today as the

interested Bangladeshis into their territory, in the

War of Independence, but a genocide was what it

hopes that some of them might spread the virus

really was.

into their countries. All around the world, where

Something that resembled a country managed to crawl away from this carnage. They called it Bangla-desh, land of the Bengalis. It only resembled a country because it came to be ruled by the IMF

Bangladeshi men and women had long toiled quietly for a few trickled-down scraps, they suddenly mattered for the first time.

Within days, Ismail announced to Shabina

and the Washington-based NGOs and the H&M

Begum that he was packing a bag. “I’m going to

factories that turned Bangladeshi sweat into

Singapore, nani!” he exclaimed. They were giving

discount apparel. Shabina Begum had worked at one

out visas – Virus Permits – at the embassy, he said.

of those textile factories herself, raising a child on

The Ministry of Labour there wanted Bangladeshis

her paltry income. Things were okay now – there

to spread NPoV-19 to Singaporeans, and they were

was food on the table and a few grandchildren. But

taking anyone who was interested in a six-month

she worried about Ismail, fresh out of school and

stay. The next day he was off. He video-called every

facing uncertain prospects. “You better get yourself

day, regaling Shabina Begum with the story of

a job, boy,” she kept telling him. “Don’t go messing

how he and hundreds of other Bangladeshi men

around with this virus nonsense.”

and women had been ushered into air-conditioned

It was not exactly easy to get NPoV-19. It just did not spread like the common flu, said the World Health Organisation. There was talk of an inoculation, a shot that could render you

coaches at the airport and ferried to gleaming hotels. “I have my own room, carpet and TV and all,” he told her. “I feel like a big man already.”

“But what’s the catch, boy?” Shabina Begum

superhumanly productive in days. But scientists said

asked. According to Ismail, he just had to contribute

it would take years to safely develop. It was not even

to Singapore’s NPoV-19 propagation efforts. Every

possible to reliably test if someone had the virus;

morning, he was transported to community centres

you could be asymptomatic and still spread it.

and neighbourhood malls, where thousands of

For now, it seemed, your best shot of getting NPoV-19 was just to be around someone who had recently been in one of its epicentres in urban Bangladesh. And everyone wanted a share of this productivity-enhancing magic. Flights into the country were booked out for months. Borders that had once been impermeable to Bangladeshis suddenly dissolved away. India, which only months earlier had been hell-bent on expelling every

ordinary Singaporeans lined up to meet and greet him and his compatriots. Aspiring NPoV-19 patients came up to them and clamour to shake hands. Some got a little frisky, touching his face and clothes and wherever else the virus might have deposited itself.

One particularly good-looking aspirant full-on made out with him, which he might have enjoyed more if he had been asked first.

But it was all good and well in the service of

Muslim in the Gangetic delta into Bangladesh, now

the national interest. The Ministry’s objectives

announced that land crossings were open to all

were to spread it into 40% of the country’s

Bangladeshis, no questions asked. In Myanmar, the

population over six months, and to subsequently

34

achieve an ambitious target of 400% productivity growth by the end of the financial year. The stakes were high – Hong Kong was making prodigious progress in its own virus-spreading efforts, and financial markets there were surging in anticipation. There was no time for Singapore to lose.

“I don’t like this stuff one bit,” Shabina Begum told Ismail. “You don’t know if they’re going to let you come back after your six months are up.

And I’m just worried about how they’ll treat you in a foreign land.”

“Chill, dida,” Ismail replied languidly. “It’s a new world – these are different times we live in.

They want us here. They say we’re contributing to the future of this country.”

“This is a strange new world that an old woman like me knows nothing about. But some things don’t change.

They’re using you, Ismail,” said Shabina resignedly. “They’re going to toss you away like a sucked orange once they’re done with you.” ∎

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from clown school

to quarantine

Shanice Stanislaus “Your flight to Singapore on 22 March has been cancelled”.

An email alert had popped up on my phone as I came back to my apartment in Étampes after a hearty dinner with my friends on 13 March, a Friday night. I started to panic.

worth it. Our classes filled me with great joy as we spent 6-8 hours a day doing movement training and theatre-based training with our master Phillipe Gaulier. He is notoriously known for giving harsh feedback in order for you to be able to be extremely self-aware as a performer to the audience. Many broke in his classes, but I found

I was enrolled in a clown school in Paris called

a great sense of wisdom and loved that I had the

École Phillipe Gaulier. After working in a corporate

opportunity to train at such a high level with this

job making digital content for corporations in

master. I was doing incredibly well in his classes,

Singapore, I had made a big decision to take a

feeling aligned with the choice I had made to

break from the job to pursue my love for theatre.

pursue the arts in this way. After soul-searching in

I had been worn out from working relentlessly as

Singapore about what kind of job I really wanted to

a freelance artist, and I felt I had lost my sense of

do, this calling into the arts felt right in my soul.

play, joy and curiosity.

Realising that this feeling was a deep problem

I was really thriving in Paris, and in school.

I had looked forward to finishing up my second

for my soul and finding my life’s purpose, I decided

term before heading home for a small break, and

to enrol in one of the world’s most famous clown

to wrap up the term with a bang. We had planned

schools to try to get my inner child back. I enrolled

to end the term with a nice celebration at Cafe Du,

in the school in hope to also chase my dream as an

the only bar in the small town we were in. Little did

emerging theatre and dance practitioner, and to

I know, a week before that was meant to happen,

find a way to practise my craft full-time. This year

plans would change drastically.

was going to be epic for me as I had saved up to make this big transition for myself. The process of working non-stop for 2 years to save money, taking time off to pursue this, and leaving my life at home was incredibly difficult for me and required a great amount of courage, perseverance, and belief.

Clown school was a highlight. It was totally 36

When the email for my cancelled flight popped up on my phone, I hurriedly went onto the Singapore Airlines website to check on my flight.

However, all direct flights home were getting cancelled as France started to see a rising number of Covid-19 cases.

My flight was cancelled with no options.

I frantically tried to call the airlines, but there was no answer.

The next day, I tried again, this time spending more than 4 hours trying to get through to the airline. My M1 phone bill eventually came to a whopping $1,850 from all the emergency calls I made to figure out how to come home.

My school announced that they will continue for the last week of the term. After talking to my loved ones, we decided that I will stay in France to finish school. It might be safer for me to stay in one place as compared to travelling, especially since school was continuing.

The decision was made after laborious hours of trying to get through to the airlines, trying to

call the embassy, and weighing the pros and cons of staying in Paris. My mind was weary and tired. It didn’t help that my family was extremely anxious which made me unable to calmly make decisions with all the noise and anxiety of the media and the people around me.

Eventually, I decided to stay and finish school.

It’s just one more week. I went to bed that night exhausted but with my mind made up.

The next day, on 15 March, I woke up ready to do laundry when I saw an urgent message from my school: “School will have to close immediately as the

situation in Paris is escalating.” My classmates also started sharing rumours that France will go into lockdown.

Get out. Get out now. That’s what my instinct

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told me.

I jumped out of bed without brushing my teeth, still in my pyjamas, and called my loved ones to help me find a flight home. Most flights available were transiting through European Union (EU) countries, which might be difficult and risky because I might end up getting stuck in transit as EU nations were closing their borders by the day.

I called Singapore Airlines again. No response.

In that moment, my survival instincts kicked in. My mind went on autopilot as I tried to logically figure out the best way to go home. Luckily, my loved ones found that there was one last direct flight leaving to Singapore that very night via Air France, and I had three hours to pack and leave for the airport.

I booked it, paying a ridiculous amount of

My flight home was smooth. Nobody was on the plane, but when I arrived, I was immediately ushered to a corner where the ICA (Immigrants & Checkpoints Authority) collected our passports.

We filled in a stay-home notice (SHN) form and had our numbers taken down by ICA officers, who would confirm with us that we received a “location check” text message sent by the ICA. Only then were our passports returned to us. ICA would then continue to send “location check” messages twice a day for those on SHN. It was a huge juxtaposition for me to return home.

In 24 hours, I went from exploring my freedom in expression at clown school to being locked in a room for two weeks. Having come from a Covid-19 hotspot, I feared that my elderly parents might be put at risk of contracting the virus and agreed not

money for the ticket, and started to throw all my

to leave my room for two weeks. I didn’t even go

things in the luggage. I had gone grocery shopping

to the living room, except once when ICA officers

the night before so I gave away all my fresh food

came over to check if I was home.

to a good friend who had chosen to stay in Paris. I called my Airbnb host to tell her of my immediate departure.

I rushed to the airport with three other clown

The first few days of quarantine was spent on catching up on sleep and ensuring that my apartment paperwork in Paris was settled, as I had left abruptly before my rental period was up. I also

friends. Two of them were from Spain and the

came home to the news that all my projects were

other from the UK. We all sat tensely because we

cancelled. I had some freelance projects that I was

were all trying to get out as quickly as we could

running from Paris, and they were all cancelled or

to catch our flights home. We also knew that we

suspended.

might be going home to unemployment and to an indefinite period of quarantine. As we parted ways at the airport, we embraced each other as we wished each other good luck. No one knew when we would see each other again.

My friends were deeply upset with the school

The first few days, the feelings didn’t hit me. I was operating like a machine, doing all the paperwork and catching up sleep. On Day 5, I was also told that one of my classmates who I worked with had contracted the virus, and that I had to monitor myself. It caused a great amount of

closure. Some international friends chose to stay

anxiety, as all I could do was wait and overdose

put because they wanted to be around when school

myself on Vitamin C.

re-opened in April, but of course, that didn’t happen. They remained stuck in France until June when they could finally fly home and reunite with their family.

38

In hindsight, maybe I didn’t want to let myself feel the anger and perhaps, grief of having to say goodbye to a place so abruptly. I began to try to occupy my mind in positive ways. I played a lot with

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a ball in my room, worked out, did some virtual

all still awaiting for when theatres might reopen

dance classes, and tried to occupy myself with

and for life will go back to as it is. I’m still waiting

positive podcasts and TV programmes.

for the time when I can return to finish my clown

I remember Day 10.

Day 10, it hit me.

I felt the great anger, helplessness, sadness, and depression that was brewing in me. I lay on

journey, but there is no doubt that we will be returning to those things with more appreciation for each other, our health, and our ability to practice the arts no matter what circumstances we may be in.

the floor staring at the ceiling for the longest

The arts are a saving grace for me during

time that day. I didn’t understand why this was

this time, as it kept me going and gave me a space

happening, and how I went from pursuing my

to express all the emotions that came with the

dreams to literally being locked up in my room and

Covid-19 pandemic. I am grateful for this time

not being able to see my loved ones.

that was forced upon me so that I could be more

When my SHN ended, Singapore went right into the circuit breaker. I wanted to cry. But it

introspective on what I was doing with my life, what was essential, and what was not. ∎

meant that I could leave my room and now just be in my house, which was a relief as I was going a bit mad from staying in a room for two weeks. SHN gave me a lot of time to think about how I wanted

---

All photos courtesy of Shanice Stanislaus

to deal with the situation. After the emotional roller coaster that is SHN, I decided to use the circuit breaker as a period of self-learning and growth.

During the circuit breaker, the creative industry was badly hit and I watched a lot of my close friends and colleagues really suffer from the massive impact from the circuit breaker measures.

I used the time to run virtual dance classes from my living room called AnyBody Can Dance Sundays, which started as a simple idea to share my love for dance with whoever that wanted to dance with me.

I started the first one with 3 people attending and ever since then, I have run 14 sessions with as many as 60 people showing up for class! This experience taught me more about bringing ideas to life, and what it meant to be entrepreneurial in a time of a crisis. I also took the time to look again at the kind of work I really wanted to do, and to bring what I have learnt in clown school to potential projects.

The circuit breaker has affected the creative industry greatly, and we have had to be extremely innovative and resilient during this time. We are 40

Watch the video Shanice made during her stay-home notice at https://youtu. be/08O6Q3R66ro

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black out in

strange

times Cheryl Gan

42

The only fresh, new, physical, tangible thing that came to our door besides food was the daily newspaper.

My family was served a 14-day quarantine order (QO) when a loved one was tested positive with Covid-19. I began creating blackout poetry with the daily news reports about its evolution and effects worldwide, day after day, as part of my routine.

Connections, possibilities, humour surfaced through the process. Tucked away from the distractions that were being served in high definition frequencies, I found myself in a flow.

What did I do when the quarantine was faithfully and diligently completed? Nothing, as the circuit breaker began on that very same day...

Enjoy the poems. â˜ş ∎

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Day 1: Apart

Mac’s trusty Preview tool

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Day 4: home with mummy

Pentel Oil Pastels circuit breaker zine

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Day 8: Pause ?

Patterned Washi Tape 46

Day 5: Silver Lining

Circle Foam Sponge, Black Stamp Pad

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Day 10: Quiet Respite

Crayola SuperTips

Day 14: Stiller

Crayola SuperTips 48

Day 12: doing nothing

Crayola SuperTips

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i h n c g d a u r g i n e t

home-based learning Hazirah Helmy It’s always easy to tell when my mother is having class with her students. It doesn’t matter that her door is closed, or that I’m in a different room and plugged in: I can still hear her voice, reminding students to speak up.

The circuit breaker meant that teachers were challenged to reassess their existing pedagogy and adapt it to meet their students’ new

Q: How is HBL different from your usual timetable?

A: We have a HBL-specific timetable, and

needs. Studying in the National Institute of

students have a mix of online and offline lessons.

Education (NIE) means that I get to hear about

Online lessons are what people tend to think

how different schools have been managing

of when they think of HBL – it’s the sessions

this transition, but living with my mother

over Google Meet where teachers and students

means that I get to see (and to some degree,

have face time with each other. The lessons are

experience) what this is like.

scheduled for the morning or the afternoon,

I’m learning how to teach Social Studies and History, and discussions form a core element of our preferred pedagogy. My mother has been teaching for over 20 years, and currently teaches English to Secondary 3 and 4 students. She utilises discussion

but never both so the students would spend the remaining time completing their tasks for their offline lessons, which are usually a set of tasks or lesson packages that students have to complete in their own time.

For English, the students’ offline lessons are

strategies frequently in class, so it’s been

before their online lessons, so the offline lessons

intriguing to hear how her execution strategies

that I set for the week are meant to prepare them

have shifted to meet her students’ new needs.

for their online session. For example, I would assign notes or articles that they would have to read, and a set of questions they would have to answer on their own. During the online lessons, I would put them into groups, and they would have to discuss their responses to the articles before consolidating and deciding on a group response.

50

Q: It sounds a lot like a university seminar.

How do you monitor their understanding?

A: I give feedback in two stages. I usually assign work through Google Classroom, so their discussion would be on Google Docs. For the first

I know what I can improve on for the next time.

Some teachers use Student Learning Space (SLS), a consolidated platform for online learning, so their feedback channels are a bit different, but it’s something we all look into and plan for.

stage, I use the comments function on Google Docs to give feedback on their work directly as they are discussing. This allows me to engage with the specific groups of students and push their thinking a bit further with targeted questioning.

At the end of the discussion, the second stage of feedback is when I consolidate all my observations from their discussions and share more general feedback with the class. I find this really important, because the students can not only clarify their own confusion, but also share with me their feedback on the lesson. That way,

Q: What do you take into account when you plan for your lessons?

A: Since I need to inform my students of the plan for the whole week, I have to really consider whether the tasks or activities planned are sufficient. At the start, I had to check in on my students more often, but over time, I didn’t have to as much because they got used to it and they adapted fast! They’re quite independent and driven, so it does help. It has also settled into a routine, so

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there’s less troubleshooting on the tech side.

That being said, over the course of HBL, there were quite a few changes in terms of platforms we could use because of the various security breaches. For example, with Google Meet, the chat function was disabled because of those security breaches, so I had to use the comments function on Google Docs to interact with the students. With live conferencing, I try not to introduce too much new information, because it’s hard for the students to keep track as opposed to a chat where they can just copy-paste the comments or information for their own revision.

Beyond thinking about the learning objectives, I also think about how to best utilise the technology to engage the students and deliver the lesson.

There have also been various tech hiccups. I once presented a video in Google Slides during the live lesson, not knowing that audio does not get shared when using the “present screen” function on Google Meet. Now if I want to share a video with my students, I share the link with them first so they can watch it before the online lesson.

Q: Do you still have lessons like Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) or Form Teacher (FT) time?

A: Yes! We have FT time with the students.

It’s about 30 minutes each week and meant for the form teachers to check in on the students to see how they’re coping with their workload and the circuit breaker. On the school’s part, they do prepare lesson packages with resources for us, but my co-FT and I always plan what to do for our class. Sometimes we play games with our students, but we always make sure to check in with them.

If it’s not too personal, sometimes we teachers will share too! After all, the point is to encourage them and remind them that their struggles are valid, and that this is something we can get through together.

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Q: How did the whole HBL experience help you grow as a teacher?

A: My experience with HBL isn’t universal. I teach at a school where the students generally own their own electronic devices and are quite disciplined and self-motivated, so the concerns my colleagues and I have might differ from teachers who teach learners with a different profile.

Q: How did the whole HBL experience help you grow as a teacher?

A: I’m quite thankful to my colleagues as well.

They’re very enthusiastic about all the possibilities and are very open to sharing whatever resources they find. They’re a bit younger and more

as easily. It also makes me more cognisant of the feedback I give the students. Written words carry more weight, so I am more conscious of what I say to the students. It’s a good point of reflection.

Something I’ve realised is that if you tell

technologically-inclined, so I was quite heartened

students what to expect for the week, it helps

that they accommodated my questions as we

them to plan their schedule and they will be able

explored the different options. They were also

to deliver on the tasks you set. It helps them

really encouraging, so this made the trial process

see the bigger picture, and also encourages

more accessible. Their enthusiasm was quite

them to take charge of their own learning. By

intimidating at first, but it was also infectious,

clearly communicating my expectations with an

and made me want to explore more options for

overview of the week, they are also able to pace

teaching and learning as well.

themselves and produce quality work, so we

Overall, I think I was actually quite surprised by my own adaptability and mental strength in transitioning to HBL. As an older teacher, I didn’t think I was going to take it to it so readily,

should trust our students! ∎ ---

Photo by Hazirah Helmy

but it ended up being a lot easier than I initially anticipated. HBL has been tiring, but I think I feel quite accomplished that I took on the challenge and was able to learn and grow from it.

Of course, my experience with HBL isn’t universal. I teach at a school where the students generally own their own electronic devices and are quite disciplined and self-motivated, so the concerns my colleagues and I have might differ from teachers who teach learners with a different profile.

Q: Moving forward, what would you incorporate into future lessons?

A: I find that technology is really useful in making thinking visible and retaining it as well.

Since everything is recorded online, students can go back to their discussion or my feedback from past lessons when working on their present assignments. In a classroom setting, this would be recorded on a whiteboard or mahjong paper that will be erased or thrown away after the lesson, so students can’t go back to a previous discussion circuit breaker zine

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interview with a medical post doctor (who is also my mother)

Michelle Lee 56

My mother is a General Practitioner (GP) who

After the results of their swabs are known

has been working at a clinic in Marsiling for the

and diagnosis is confirmed, they are usually sent

past few years. Even before the pandemic, a large

to the hospitals for treatment first. Subsequently,

proportion of her patients were migrant workers,

they are sent to the community care centres and

as her clinic has contracts with these workers’

community recovery centres.

employers to serve their healthcare needs.

After Covid-19 began to spread, she was deployed to a medical outpost in Woodlands, where she carried out swab tests for suspected cases

Q: Tell me more about the medical post.

A: This Woodlands medical post was initially at

and also tended to the general medical concerns of

Woodlands Recreation Centre, before the present

migrant workers. She also volunteered to do tele-

location in Sembawang Drive. There are similar

medicine, where she provided consultations to the

medical posts set up all over the island as there

workers over the phone. These teleconsultations

are over 300,000 migrant workers. For instance,

took place after the medical posts stood down for

there are medical posts in Jalan Penjuru, Kaki

the day, from 6pm to 9am the next day.

Bukit in Bedok area and in Kranji. These recreation

I interviewed her about her experiences at the medical post, and her thoughts and feelings about the current coronavirus crisis.

centres were set up after the Little India riots to give migrant workers facilities to rest and relax during the weekends. Usually these recreation centres also have remittance services, shops, and a sports field.

Q: What kind of medical work have you been doing during this period?

A: I’ve been working at a medical post in Woodlands. Most of the migrant workers who report sick here are under quarantine. They’re from the active clusters in their dorms, and they’re all under lockdown. They can’t go to the polyclinic or other neighbourhood clinics like previously, as their movements are restricted.

My current medical post in Sembawang is at the Cochrane Recreation Centre, which is brand new and has superb facilities including a cricket pitch, two huge fields for football, two big multipurpose halls, a food court, facilities for hand washing, and ample and well done up bathrooms. There is also a row of shops that are yet to be opened, as the centre hasn’t been officially opened for use. There is also a stage for performances and spaces for movie watching and

Initially, we primarily saw those with sore

other activities. In comparison, the Woodlands

throat, runny nose, cough, fever, loss of sense

medical post was situated at an old recreation

of smell - symptoms of Covid-19 - and our focus

centre and only has simple basic facilities.

was on swabbing them, diagnosing and getting them the appropriate treatment they need. As the Covid-19 outbreak evolves, workflow and swabbing strategies also evolve. So the situation is very fluid.

After swabbing, the workers are sent to the

Q: What do you do at the medical post?

A: Our work is fluid and depends on different strategies to diagnose and manage Covid-19 cases

isolation facilities. As long as there’s a possibility of

as the situation evolves. Initially, as the number of

Covid-19, they have to be isolated - until we know

Covid-19 cases in the dormitories were increasing,

the results. We have to segregate them from the

aggressive swabbing was done to quickly identify

rest of the healthy men in their dormitories.

the sick men and isolate them from the well men. circuit breaker zine

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Subsequently the strategy changed, and the swabbing criteria changed - if there are no symptoms of acute respiratory infection, we don’t swab.

By right, workers from so-called “clean” dorms are all under lockdown and a lot of them still haven’t gone back to work. If they develop any Covid-19 symptoms, they get sent to us to be swabbed. Under current policy, the dorm manager has to isolate them in the dorm after we send them back. If the dorms are unable to isolate the swabbed men due to a lack of space, they are sent to community swab isolation facilities.

When we identify older migrant workers (over

Q: What’s a typical day like at the post?

A: Working hours are typically from 10am to 5pm, but I arrive earlier at 9am. We have to go in at least thirty minutes earlier to prepare for work for the day.

The cleaner will have cleaned up the table but I’ll clean it again. I also clean my chair using 70% alcohol. I’ll then set out my equipment, such as the thermometer, blood pressure machine, oximeter, auroscope, stethoscope, torchlight, tongue depressor, alcohol swabs, hand sanitizer, tissue and paper towels. These are very mundane actions but are very important for infection control. I have a routine for gowning my PPE (Personal Protection

45 years of age) with comorbidities (other ongoing

Equipment) to ensure I get everything in place.

medical conditions such as hypertension, diabetes,

Otherwise, one may forget a piece of the PPE such

high cholesterol) and those who are medically

as the face shield or hair net.

unstable, we don’t swab them, but we send them straight to A&E (Accident & Emergency). This is because if they turn out to be positive, they have a higher risk of running into medical trouble - so, we let the hospital manage them.

At the medical post, what we can do is

The staff also help to set up the computer and the printer. I need these to document my work as well as to fill out all the official forms for MOH and MOM - they want to know which workers we have seen and what they were seen for. The buses of workers might start coming in at 11am. Previously

very basic. We have to make decisions like when

at Woodlands, we had three buses to convey the

to send workers to the A&E - these are very

migrant workers to and from their dormitories.

different circumstances now. The Ministry of

Now we only have two buses.

Health (MOH) keeps updating us with changes in policies in managing the Covid-19 situation, and we really have to go with the flow. The latest is that we can send workers to polyclinics or PHPCs (Public Health Preparedness Clinics) for lab tests and ECG (electrocardiogram). Prior to this new development, we usually give those with chronic conditions two weeks’ medicine to tide them through the lockdown. We don’t have the facilities to do tests to monitor their condition, other than taking their blood pressure. In comparison, polyclinics can do laboratory tests like checking their kidneys. The post is very different from a regular clinic in this aspect, too. However, these people currently can’t move freely; they can only go to the medical post for their medical needs.

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Q: What’s it like wearing personal protective equipment (PPE)?

A: When the patients arrive, we put on the N95 mask, face shield, and gown. The medical post is not air-conditioned, but we have a lot of fans around the post to circulate and cool the air. Nonetheless, it still feels like being in a sauna. We have to drink plenty of water to hydrate ourselves. Once all the patients are seen and sent off, we degown quickly and change out of our PPE. I’ll switch to my surgical mask, because with the N95 it’s very difficult to breathe. At the end of the day my clothes are drenched with sweat and smell awful!

The first day I worked at the medical post,

least three months. They worry about their families,

I was dehydrated and woke up in the middle of

they can’t get out of their room, they have to eat

the night with a nasty headache. Since then, I

what’s provided to them. There’s only so much you

learned to have a schedule for my fluid intake and

can do on your handphone to entertain yourself.

my meals. Every day before gowning, visiting the

They’re especially stressed out when they see the

toilet is a priority because once you have gowned

people in their room disappearing because their

up, you can’t go to the toilet or drink until after

roommates are being taken away to hospital for

the next doff off. Having a heavy breakfast is also

treatment.

important, because lunch is unpredictable and may be delayed depending on when the patients arrive.

After I see them, they are either isolated in the community swab isolation facilities or in their own dormitories until their swab results are known.

If their swabs turn out positive, they are usually

Q: What’s it like interacting with the workers who have been exposed to COVID-19?

A: I find many of those who come to the medical post to be quite stoic, especially the young men.

A few might be a bit more worried. I’ve come

admitted to hospitals. When they’re medically stable, they’re sent to the community care facility.

This is especially so for the older patients.

I saw one man with a very rapid heart rate and chest discomfort, which could have been due to anxiety. He was in his late thirties. He initially saw another doctor, who referred him to A&E to

across a couple who are mentally stressed out.

rule out a cardiac cause for his rapid heart rate.

The lockdown has been going on for a long time, at

Unfortunately, there was a miscommunication. circuit breaker zine

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Instead of sending him to A&E in an ambulance,

as well as psychological support. There are a lot of

the dorm operator just brought him to a GP, who

unmet mental health needs among them.

didn’t do any tests on him.

He was quite distressed when he came to see me again two days later. It was very smart of him to continue seeking help. Can you imagine - he was sent back to his room thinking he was

Q: Any last thoughts, as you leave the medical post and begin working at your usual clinic again?

A: We’re still under DORSCON Orange where

going to die? I sent him to A&E where they did a

the Covid -19 pandemic is concerned. I’m flexible,

Covid-19 test and some other tests on him. Luckily

and just happy to help with wherever my skills

everything turned out okay for him.

and help are required. I’m going to be back at my regular clinic in a HDB estate in the north. I’m still going to wear my PPE there because I know that

Q: Can you tell me more about a particular case that stood out to you?

A: There was a young patient. We shall call him Ali. He’s a recovered Covid-19 patient, who was discharged from the hospital and the community care facilities, then sent to stay at a dormitory which was not his original dormitory.

The accommodation was in Senja, and was part of a construction site, which had been converted

some cases of Covid-19 can be asymptomatic.

One never knows in the frontlines who we will be encountering next. I’m just going to protect myself, protect the patients, and practise infection control.

A lot of people are still avoiding the clinic, but for some of our chronic patients (with chronic health conditions like diabetes or hypertension), they have no choice but to come to see us at the clinic.

Some workers have gone back to work

to accommodate the foreign workers who have

already. The situation in the dormitories has been

recovered from Covid-19.

improved as they are less dense nowadays. As

He consulted me through telemedicine for a cough, which I diagnosed as a post-viral cough.

(I stopped doing teleconsultations with the migrant workers after a while because it is a lot of responsibility on top of my regular job.) I advised him to eat more fruits to aid his convalescence, but he said he could not leave the facility to buy

such, the government has ramped up swabbing for community, not just workers, to detect community cases of Covid-19 as we gradually open up after the circuit breaker ended. When I go back to work at the clinic, I will be mainly doing swabbing of our local community.

Working with a new team, in a new environment

fruits. He’s the same age as you and kor kor, and

at the medical post - it’s a refreshing change from

Hari Raya was just round the corner. I decided to

the usual clinic routine, almost like an adventure or

drop off fruits and some Hari Raya treats for him

going for a medical mission abroad. It’s interesting,

at his accommodation.

and I learnt so much. It’s more than just working

Some doctors did a great job at organising and getting contributions from their contacts, collecting money and vitamins, and distributing to the migrant workers on a larger scale than what I did. On my part, I also supported HealthServe through a donation for the great work they are doing for the migrant workers. HealthServe volunteers give the workers medical treatment 60

with my usual clinic assistants. It is good to be able to contribute to the national efforts in controlling the pandemic. ∎

--Note: Policies and information in the article may have changed since the interview was conducted in July 2020.

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naghihingalo “Gasping for Air”

Bhinali Wallah As I watched my parents climb into an airport-

When I returned home to Metro Manila in

bound taxi on my first day of college orientation,

December of that year, I beamed at the sight of

I didn’t cry because I was scared to live without

the single escalator in the arrival hall that has

them for the first time. I cried because they had

never failed to remain broken, and couldn’t even

dropped me off in an unfamiliar place – one where

bring myself to be upset at the thirty-minute

an app could tell you exactly when the next bus

wait between my first suitcase and my second.

arrives at your stop; where if you miss that bus,

During the ride home, I found myself overcome

you can rest assured knowing the next one is

with exhilaration as we glided upon worn asphalt,

just around the corner; where you can use your

digging my nails into my seat every time another

cellphone to reserve a table in a crowded food

vehicle came too close for comfort. My right palm

court; where you can walk the streets alone, as a

pressed against the car window as I took in the

woman, and not have to worry about whether or

expletives and depictions of genitalia graffitied

not you’ll make it to where you need to be.

upon walls painted with reminders to “keep our

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city clean.”

This is the ideal of a city that I grew up with: where congested streets ensure that no two

exercise “compassion,” deciding not to file charges against him.

While Pimentel was pardoned for his

trips from point A to B ever look the same; where

transgressions, over 30,000 civilians were

knowing someone means knowing their parents,

arrested for breaching various COVID-19

siblings, and second cousins twice removed; where

measures – however minor – in the month that

going to a party entails leaving with more gifts

followed. Images of quarantine violators being

than you came with; where music emanates from

stuffed into dog cages circulated the internet,

churches, ice-cream carts, and home karaoke

while on 21 April, an innocent man was killed while

machines alike, drowning out the rest of the noise.

smoking a cigarette outside of his own home

It is through this lens of juxtaposition that I came

following a televised address by President Duterte

to resent Singapore. Its unrelenting functionality

in which he empowered his police force to “shoot

and robotic artificiality – I told myself – would

[violators] dead.” Amidst the public uproar, pro-

never feel like home.

government influencer Mocha Uson silently joined

But things are no longer as they once were.

On 16 March – when President Rodrigo Duterte declared a state of community quarantine upon 60 million people in the region of Luzon – his supporters from all over the country praised him for his dedication to the battle against Covid-19. Indeed, the Philippines was one of the first countries to declare such stringent lockdown measures, representing what I thought to be a significant step in the right direction. The weeks that followed, however, turned my home of 20 years into a place I barely recognize – devastated by an administration riddled with double standards, driven by bigotry, and devoid of empathy.

After Senator Koko Pimentel tested positive for Covid-19 on 25 March, it was uncovered that hundreds of frontline workers and civilians alike had gained undue exposure to the virus at his hand. Upon developing symptoms of the virus, Senator Pimentel not only exploited his VIP status to gain access to expedited testing, but also deemed it appropriate to go grocery shopping and accompany his expectant wife to one of Manila’s foremost Covid-19-fighting hospitals while under strict home quarantine orders. Despite this utter disregard of public safety and evident breach of protocol, the Department of Justice decided to

Senator Pimentel in the ranks of those pardoned by the Duterte administration, after she managed to get away with hosting a mass gathering of over 300 Overseas Filipino Workers.

On this same day – my 36th day in isolation – I jumped on a video call with a handful of my Singaporean friends also serving out their stayhome notices in an attempt to lift my spirits. One by one, I witnessed each of them fetching their freshly-cooked dinners from the doorsteps of their government-sponsored hotel rooms, which arrived promptly at 6pm as they did every night.

I thought about the millions of Filipinos going hungry as we spoke.

In between bites of food and stories about our respective semesters abroad, my friends shared their grievances surrounding the virus – the closures of their favorite restaurants, cancelled internships and travel plans, and their inability to meet each other in person. Amidst the bustling conversation, I couldn’t bring myself to share the extent of chaos happening here, a mere three-hour flight away from them. Even if I did, I figured that they wouldn’t be able to comprehend the plight of institutional corruption in developing countries like the Philippines, given that they’ve never had to experience it for themselves. circuit breaker zine

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Once we hit the first week of May, it was

we sing, we party, and we smile to forget that

announced that 1,886 healthcare workers had

we live in a country of four-hour commutes to

been infected with the virus – comprising over

and from work, lives lost to extrajudicial killings,

18% of total cases across the Philippines. I find

slum dwellers by the millions, rampant child

it difficult to grapple with this number – how

sex exploitation, and government officials that

could we have let it come to this? I keep thinking

will never be held accountable. These are not

back to a recent press conference, in which the

idiosyncrasies, but vast systemic failures of

President thanked fallen frontliners by proclaiming

administration after self-serving administration

what an “honor” it must have been for them to

that have run this country into the ground.

“die for [their] country” – when in fact it was his administration’s lack of support for the healthcare system that killed them in the first place.

I remember, too, the Department of Health’s

The story of the Filipino people, therefore, is one of survival. In the months leading up to the pandemic, we bore witness to the displacement of 390,000 after the unprecedented eruption of

promise of mass testing by 14 April, and how

Taal volcano. We’ve outlasted five of the world’s

the Filipino people rejoiced at this victory of

ten deadliest typhoons, including Typhoon Haiyan

being provided the bare minimum. Then came

in 2013 (from which we are still recovering). With

the awaited day, and we realized it was all one

only prayer and heart as weapons, we overthrew

big lie, along with the promise of government aid

a dictator of 21 years – but not before tens of

to low-income households, which had “run out”

thousands were abducted, tortured, and murdered

by as early as 16 April. But how could this be

at his hand. In the centuries before that, we

the case after the administration had managed

endured over three hundred years of Spanish

to accumulate a pandemic war chest of over 16

imperialism, only to be sold to the US for forty-

billion dollars, sending the Philippines even deeper

eight more. Each time, we’ve come out of it alive –

into debt than it already was? If not PPEs for

but just barely. We laugh off death and devastation

frontliners, mass testing for civilians, or aid for

as quickly as our politicians sidestep accountability,

those stripped of their ability to work, where could

because making light of our pain is the only way we

this money possibly be going if not the pockets of

know how to cope.

politicians themselves?

In the final week of May, I touched down in

These past few months appear to be just another exercise in exactly what we’re used to, only

Singapore after spending two-and-a-half months

it isn’t: A pandemic is not a tropical depression that

locked down at home in Metro Manila. Upon

will come to pass, a dictator to be dethroned, or

arrival, I was whisked from plane to immigration to

a colonial influence to be overcome. Without any

baggage collection all in the span of 20 minutes

political resolve to fight against it, the threat of

– after which I was escorted to a chartered bus

infection will be here to stay.

that transported me and 15 fellow Filipinos to a five-star hotel, where I would spend the next 14 days quarantining free of charge. A part of me feels ashamed for seeking refuge here, after all the time I’ve spent touting Manila for its countless idiosyncrasies, and resenting Singapore for its lack thereof.

In the Philippines – I’ve realized – we eat, 64

This time around, the Filipino spirit will no longer be enough to save us. ∎

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poems by low kian seh an zua ai chut khi nobody graduates properly anymore a dream home | sweet home

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an zua ai chut khi ----

ah ma jin tee kee geh geh gong gia gia tao tao dua zhua lee mng gia si kuay sio teh tit toh tan tio ngeh si buay beh bio meh yee mng zai si lao liao luan luan lai gong wa jiat liao bee

Hear Low Kian Seh reading the poem in Hokkien (with English subtitles) here: https://youtu.be/l7eB-1w7DrY

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nobody graduates properly anymore ---these days, everything is made remote: learning, work, contact, you – all these leap in value with each measure. I am learning: coping mechanisms for pan(dem)ic, that leaps of faith are never easy, that in coping with absence the heart grows fonder of you in the most torturous way possible with no recourse – short-term isolation from you is fine compared to jail term or fine, barely; no way to list you in my household since ROM is not an option. we telecommute affection, away in separate homes – hiatus, and even love is not excepted. withheld: ceremonies to graduate in school; funerals to graduate from life, except for kin – weddings, from singlehood. we are schooled to wait, but the best things are still worth waiting for

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a dream – home I have never wanted much and expressing what I want is my freedom and why should it reduce why is a man physically stronger; it is never easy hiding marks left behind to avoid the humiliation of persistent interrogation his absence changed to over-presence, and he now often claims I am out of line; even as a member of this family myself, I have no say. I avoid and I remain in my room, all the time – the toilet though, no choice. I now fear the sound of skin tearing I cannot stay here any longer school was at least the one safe place but now no one can escape this house

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sweet home friction does not only result in argument: a force that abrades me to less than what I am I know too well the pressure: on a wrist grabbed too tightly, of a hand on the face, with forehead against the wall but the impact is not just on me. so what if canes were sold out?

I have to hide the knives, just in case. but his belt is worn and everyone still needs to use clothes hangers. and he calls it discipline agonizing in silence while my daughter suffers with me – a turning point for her is only if I can stand and resist and I have yet to run out of tears

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Citizenship in

Crisis

Hardly had my boyfriend and I gotten

R.Y. Zhang

The lockdown had not yet begun when I

engaged before we realized our marriage

arrived in mid-March. But by the time I was done

application was untenable. We became bona fide

with my self-quarantine, it was April, and the

pre-law scholars and detectives of the decree, yet

borders were closed. I watched as cases began to

it was no use. “It’s us and the state,” my boyfriend

grow in Singapore and the US, and spike in South

tried to explain, when I attempted to find one

Korea, China, and Italy. Five days before I was to

loophole or another, looking for a more flattering

be discharged from my quarantine, my boyfriend’s

angle through which to present ourselves in the

landlady called with bad news: she’d been watching

marriage application form. “It’s not a negotiation,

the news, too, and no longer wanted to host me in

honestly. They have power to find discrepancies

her property. Fine, we told ourselves, feeling along

based on technicalities and reject our application

the subterranean register of panic that limned the

or prosecute us under the law. It’s not worth

baseline of this alert.

fudging anything.”

Let me explain. Like many millennials, my

If there was any surprise, it quickly melted away. Anxiety was in the air: we started to sense

boyfriend and I are in a long-distance relationship.

a wariness about my American identity, and an

Unlike most others we know, however, the

understandable reproach toward those arriving

difference between us hosts three nationalities

from the West. As we browsed budget Airbnbs

(me, formerly Chinese, now American; him,

for a place to stay, we alerted potential hosts of

Singaporean), two flights, 12 hours, and at least

my situation (post-quarantine) and citizenship

5,000 miles. Make no mistake—we are lucky: not

(American) in long, taffy-like sentences, afraid

only to have met when we did (three years ago, on

to say too much but wary of saying too little.

New Years’ Eve during one of my research trips to

Dutifully, we felt it our obligation to flag my

the island) but to be able to mobilise, for the most

potentially parasitic presence; to give our hosts

part, our passports, our wallets, and ourselves

the grace of foresight. “Oh, American, issit,”

to visit each other at least twice a year. When

some of them said. “Better not.” Others, more

the pandemic arrived in the US in late February,

euphemistically, “You will have to tell the landlord

and my East Coast liberal arts college suddenly

about that.” Theirs was a refusal that bespoke

cancelled in-person classes for the rest of the

a spooked distance from the fever dreams of

semester (conveniently offering FinAid students

American empire, no longer a place of refuge but

like me a reimbursement for flights out of our

a treacherous giant felled amongst meeker peers

rural town), I knew that Singapore was the only

in hellscapes afar. I put myself in their shoes and

place I could go.

thought: the virus, uncontained by the West’s crumbling borders, were too rapid and too sudden

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to be the responsibility of a little island whose postcolonial existence was built on the crucibles of resource scarcity and a vision of survival against all geopolitical odds.

In hindsight, I marvel at the strange turn

that was the object of resentment?

Perhaps not. The changing attitudes toward the Western foreigner could never measure up against the longer arc of social and legal vulnerabilities that beset migrants from the non-

our circumstances had taken; the red tag that

Western developing world. As my boyfriend hunted

now came with my Americanness, respected and

for a new apartment, I read about the growing

coddled during peacetime. Part of me was almost

numbers of migrant workers being tested positive

pleased, giddy at the fact that in that moment

for Covid-19. We watched as cases spiked and

of crisis, something like naked antipathy—a

news of living conditions for workers—most of

loosened kernel of anticolonial sentiment?—might

them Bangladeshi, Tamil, and Chinese—broke in

be emerging toward the Western expat. This

the media. Remember the ditzy social media star,

generalized wariness of whiteness, I thought, was

that Chinese Singaporean heiress who’d married

surprising and not entirely undeserved. As a racial

into Indonesian royalty, who dreamt that brown

minority and second-class citizen of my country,

migrant workers “invaded” her mansion? I kept

I felt vindicated at the thought that the social

thinking about that woman, myself, and the migrant

strike against me might be an equivocated as a

workers—triangulated subjects of this country,

strike against whiteness writ large—whiteness,

one citizen and two types of immigrants, three

the social, historical, and economic system of

categories of differing treatment. I was struck

domination, that orb at the centre of empire’s

by the tragic irony of this woman’s dream: the

core. Yet suspicion lingered: was it truly whiteness

paradox of her fear, a fundamental belief that migrant workers were filthy and disposable, deathbound and abject. Yet it occurred to me that she could not get away, for our relation to disgust is always self-reflexive. In this woman’s fear of invasion is something of an acknowledgement—of her own closeness to those that she despises; of her historical proximity to their labouring status.

Our shared diasporic Chinese-ness joined me to this woman: we were both descendants of coolies, only now she thought she was madame.

** My boyfriend and I considered getting married, so that I might apply for a long-term visit pass. He proposed, jokingly, with a soju bottle cap as a ring, and I accepted with equal nonchalance, quipping that our informal union was more an engagement to be engaged. Even

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if we’d been serious, however, we knew that actual marriage was near-impossible. I had not yet officially graduated from university and had no tenable professional future in Singapore. To top it all off, the American embassy the Registry of Marriage closed long before I had stayed the requisite month to become eligible, as a foreign citizen, to even apply for a marriage license to a Singaporean.

Citizenship is a funny thing: I could not refuse my prismatic recognition from the American

Like Singapore, I’d gone from third world to first, only, how funny it was: I could only become American in Singapore, and Asian in America.

empire, nor could I refuse my legal binding to it. At times, my American citizenship was a halfbaked promise, at other times it was a vengeful reminder of my country’s desperation to consume me in its process of disintegration. Yet in my schadenfreude, I’d forgotten that empire is always built within a protective rind of disposable flesh, its circumference lined with a roster of those made to die; few of whom had real stake in the white-hot orb at all. Daily I watched the number of confirmed cases grow and was reminded of the suicidal selfishness of the moneyed global north, who fled abroad at news of infection at home. I felt both convicted by and incontrovertibly a part of their deathly trajectory.

Singapore became a first world nation not through capitulation or assimilation, but relentless discipline and meticulous planning, so that the island nation may rise to the occasion as a firstrate investment node for Euro-American capital

74

on the frontier of the Pacific Rim. Mercenaries— and indeed, Singapore’s economic position on the global stage is akin to that of a brilliant latecapitalist mercenary—are survivors roped into forces of strategic alliance. What Singapore has carved out for itself, by hook and by crook, is a tenuous legal and cultural autonomy that few in the non-Western world possess. That autonomy, won by playing ball with the devil, comes at a high price. In a way, I felt similarly. My game, too, is one of strategic manoeuvring conducted at the helm of transnational capital. Like Singapore, I’d gone from third world to first, only, how funny it was: I could only become American in Singapore, and Asian in America. ∎

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1.

2.

My name is Mariko. I’m a 5 months old boy.

This is where I live. It’s cosy and just the right size.

4.

3.

One day, my human told me that we are moving out and won’t be back for some time.

mariko

Written by Ma Ruonan Illustrated by Tan Ying Ying 76

She brought me to her friend’s place. At first, the room didn’t smell like home.

5.

6.

The other humans here don’t seem to like loud sounds.

7.

And they make big fusses over little things.

8.

But they give me chin scratches and treats aplenty.

Some days I go to sleep in my carrier. It smells like home.

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9.

10.

I dream dreams of a warm hand and a gentle voice calling “Sayang”.

11.

12.

At night, I curl up and listen to the human’s breathing.

78

When I awake, I hear the rattle of dinner and forget about it all.

It’s quiet. I wonder when I will hear that familiar voice again.

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how inequality holds us up Leong Yee Ting 80

Covid-19 took a while to hit home for me.

have been laid off because of the pandemic, or had

As a young, middle-class, employed Chinese

their working hours and wages cut, and yet others

Singaporean, I am one of the privileged. For

were made to work harder for the same wages. But

us, Covid-19 simply means no more bubble tea,

what struck me were the structural inequalities

working in the comfort of pyjamas, pleasant

they lived in. Day-to-day struggles that had been

hours saved from commuting, and plugging into

invisible before the pandemic are now thrown into

e-commerce and Zoom. We cannot meet our

stark relief.

friends, but the circuit breaker was on the whole very manageable.

Yet, for many others, Covid-19 is a world

The story that touched me the most was one of a father striving to provide for his family. Months ago, he had attempted the leap from part-time gigs

turned upside down. On top of lost jobs and

to full-time employment. He got the job, and things

reduced wages, they have to deal with rising food

sailed smoothly until the 26th of his first month

prices and soaring electricity bills. Theirs is a

in. By then, he had run out of cash to feed his kids,

cash-strapped, precarious, uncertain existence.

and could not wait until month’s end for his wages.

These are the stories we need to hear.

Desperate and without options, he quit the full-time

I understand the limitations of my perspective in representing them, but in these

job and resumed food delivery gigs.

As he shared, the pain in his voice came not so

strange times we live in - what Donald Low calls

much from his failure to transition into full-time

our “Parasite moment” - it is more important

work, but from the condemnation he faced from

than ever before that we acknowledge and talk

his social worker. He asked me, “Is this fair? Was I

about this disparity. In the film Parasite, the

wrong to give up that full-time job to provide for

hard-up Kim family creatively deceives their way

my kids?” Now, even though the circuit breaker has

into employment with the wealthy Park family,

decreased cash flow for the family, he doesn’t dare

who are ignorant and oblivious of their privilege.

to approach the social worker for help again.

This poses the question of who the real parasite in society is. Just as the heavy rain in the film completely floods the home of the poor while leaving the rich unscathed, the Covid-19 crisis

This father is one of an estimated 250,000 Singaporeans, or 7.5-10% of households, belonging to the “absolute poor”. According to Yeoh Lam

has thrown the lives of the poor into disorder and left the privileged relatively unaffected.

Since the circuit breaker started, I have been calling up residents of rental communities as a volunteer with Project Stable Staples. We wanted to find out three things: firstly, if their family has lost income during this period, which would qualify them for the grocery vouchers we raise donations for; secondly, how their kids are coping with home-based learning; and thirdly, what other needs they may have, such as masks, diapers, and milk. Yet, as the conversations loosened up and meandered, I realised that their difficulties went beyond the circuit breaker. It’s true that many circuit breaker zine

81

Keong, these are people whose income does

disadvantages people like them, to the extent that it

not allow them to meet their basic needs –

undermines basic human rights. I believe we can do

nutritious food, a roof over their heads, utilities,

better.

transport to and from school and work, out of pocket expenses for medical needs and school programmes.

We grow up being taught that no one owes

In pre-Covid-19 days, I ran tours on Samsui women in Chinatown, mostly for Singaporeans and long-term residents. Samsui women are female migrant workers who came to Singapore in the

Singapore a living, and we must rely on ourselves

1930s and 1940s to do construction work. I spoke

to survive. But for these people, it is not for the

of their sacrifices, their hard work, their courage

lack of trying that they are stuck. As hard as they

in crossing the seas at a young age. I always end

try, they can barely make ends meet for their

off with a comparison between them and today’s

families, much less pursue better opportunities.

migrant construction workers. The Samsui women

It then becomes our responsibility as a society to

are valorised as pioneers and nation-builders now,

ensure they have access to basic needs. It is not

but back in their time, they were treated with

even about levelling the playing field, but ensuring

contempt. One former Samsui woman recalled the

these people stay in the game. As this pandemic

feeling of being seen as inferior “because after all,

has shown us, we as a society are only as strong

we carry mud”.

as our weakest links.

The other story that stuck with me was of a

In our treatment of migrant workers today, I question if we are giving respect where respect is

girl younger than me. She turned 21 this year and

due. After all, it is on the back-breaking labour of

works as a grass cutter on a HDB estate. She had

our construction workers, cleaners, and shipyard

been sick for a month but assured me that it was

workers that this city gleams. Perhaps history

not Covid-19. I advised her to see the doctor, take

repeats itself, but it is incumbent upon us, as those

time off work, and rest up well. She told me that

alive in 2020, to at least try to learn from our past.

she could not afford to take any more medical

∎

leave. During the pandemic, construction sites and shipyards have emerged as Covid-19 clusters, meaning that migrant workers had continued to go to work while infected. This accelerated the spread of the virus across dormitories. I imagine their struggle was the same – between taking care of their health and earning a living, the choice was clear. Health is a function of inequality in our society. It should be a fundamental human right, but instead it has become a privilege inaccessible to many.

There were other stories of anxiety about the kids, struggles with mental health, making do with what they have. As a human being, I am inspired by their resilience. As a citizen, I am deeply uncomfortable with the injustice.

This system privileges people like me and 82

Fun Fun Fields Fields A PLAYGROUND COLOURING BOOK

by Lunastry

1. Playgrounds were places where I spent a lot of time as a kid.

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83

2. I remember how most of us would come down at 4pm in the afternoon on our bicycles to go around the blocks.

3. They have also changed in appearance and form over the years, like this one in my neighbourhood. When it was first built, many of us wanted to go on and try out the new slide!

84

4. This was another playground that was close by.

Occasionally we’d head over here where there were more kids, to play “ice and water”!

5. “Oh ya, peh ya, som!”

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85

6. However, during the Circuit Breaker, these places that are usually filled with joy and laughter became empty, barricaded structures.

7. Playgrounds are places where you can have fun and socialise.

Although they are open again, we should still be careful.

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8. I hope that this colouring book can inspire and encourage you to draw and create your own expression of a space that brings you joy.

Download the free printable colouring pages here: https://tinyurl.com/CBZfunfields

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87

pitches OPEN FOR issue two

Did you write or make art during the circuit breaker? Have a unique personal experience or perspective on the Covid-19 pandemic?

We welcome creative submissions of all forms (essays, short stories, poetry, art, photos) at https://tinyurl.com/CBZissue2 or by email (circuitbreakerzine2020@gmail.com).

PITCH DEADLINE: 30 November 2020

88

r i t b n u o to c

rs’ bios

Alysha Chandra is an arts and humanities student based in Singapore. Previously the Editor-

Cheryl Gan is a community arts facilitator, a daughter, a sister, a partner, and a friend.

in-Chief of Yale-NUS College’s student newspaper The Octant, she has also written for The New Paper.

G. S. Deepak writes about migration and

You can see more of her work at https://muckrack.

diaspora in the Indian Ocean world. He is maybe on

com/alysha-chandra/articles.

his way to being a historian someday, and his work centers around the tensions of decolonization and

Bhawna Sharma is in her penultimate semester

nation-statehood in South and Southeast Asia.

at Singapore Management University, majoring in Politics, Law and Economics. Her lifestyle and

Hazirah Helmy is currently trying to ensure

opinion pieces have featured in several online

that her youngest sister makes edible cinnamon

platforms, including Campus Magazine, The Blue

rolls. An aspiring social studies and history

and Gold, and CNBC.com. In her free time, she

teacher, she has a small interest in learning

enjoys reading corny romance novels and watching

about everything, but acknowledges that she

Hollywood cult classics.

spends a bit too much time thinking about how to incorporate cultural productions into her classes.

Bhinali Wallah is a Sociology student who is

She hasn’t really written anything since submitting

currently pursuing her undergraduate education in

her thesis in 2019, so she hopes she isn’t too

Singapore, but secretly hopes that she will one day

rusty.

be able to make it as a freelance musician. Jokes aside, her long-term ambition is to play a part in

Hong Hu (b. 1990, Malaysia) is a Singapore

increasing access to affordable public services

based artist and filmmaker. The idea for ‘When I

and music education in her home country, the

Was Thirty’ came about when the pandemic hits

Philippines. In school, you can find her tutoring

and the world scrambled to adapt. Drawing on

writing, playing board games in lieu of doing

his daily experiences living in the circuit breaker

actual work, and late-night jamming with various

and beyond, he attempts to analyse, satirize and

music groups. During this time, Bhinali has found

capture the zeitgeist of our times. FB: http://

fulfillment interning for a regional NGO and serving

facebook.com/wheniwasthirtycomic IG: http://

as a research assistant at her university.

instagram.com/wheniwasthirty Website: http:// wheniwasthirty.com

Chris has a compulsion to talk and write nonsense in spite/because of his Science degree.

Izyanti Asaari keeps an even eye on the world

He wishes he was employed, or at least cool enough

with a professional practice in visual design, and

to have his own website like his fellow collaborator,

a search for understanding through language.

Jace.

Her work picks at the fabric of the stories we circuit breaker zine

89

inherit, creating a margin where discomfort is

preoccupation. For the love of the craft, he makes

the lens which best explores the covert nature

time to write, despite being a busy civil servant

of our desires. The joy of existing in a city is

and father-of-three. His works had been published

encountering all the motions that make the

in SingPoWriMo anthologies, A Luxury We Cannot

machine tick. She previously has been published

Afford, A Luxury We Must Afford, Twin Cities,

in anthologies, Ceriph #3 and This is Not A Safety

Anima Methodi, Contour and Seven Hundred Lines.

Barrier (Ethos Books).

He won first prize in Singapore’s National Poetry Competition 2019, and he is better known for

Jace has an Engineering degree, but a passion for graphic design. She’s done branding and

his twin cinema poem, Singaporean Son, that had gone viral, twice.

marketing work for startups and publicity design for the university clubs she was in. See more of her work at https://jacelyn.myportfolio.com/

Ma Ruonan is a freelance writer, producer and percussionist currently based in Singapore.

Her written works have appeared in digital lifestyle

Khairullah Rahim (b. 1987, Singapore) is

publications such as VICE Asia and CityNomads.

a multimedia artist working across painting,

She enjoys good storytelling and getting involved

assemblage, video and photography. His practice

in creative projects.

is concerned with the stories and experiences of marginalised communities whose identities

Michelle Lee is a writer, researcher,

do not subscribe within societal normativity.

and designer. Her research interests include

Incorporating everyday and found objects from

performance art and global modernisms. Find her

spaces in which these specific communities

portfolio at http://michelleleeyy.contently.com.

inhabit, his works allude to the veiled and lived experiences of his varied subjects. His work

Miranda Jeyaretnam is an undergraduate

has been presented internationally and he has

student at Yale University. She is based in

participated in several artist residency programs,

Singapore and New Haven, USA. She is an opinion

namely Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria

columnist for the Yale Daily News and enjoys

(2018); Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, Hubei, China

working in theatre.

(2018); Taipei Artist Village, Taiwan (2017); and YOUKOBO Art Residency Programme, Tokyo, Japan (2013). www.khairullahrahim.com

R.Y. Zhang is a writer based, at turns, in Singapore, the US, and the UK. She is a graduate student at Cambridge.

Leong Yee Ting is a banker by day, and a recent history graduate from the University

Shanice Nicole Stanislaus is an artist who

of Oxford. She has experience working in the

strongly believes in making the arts accessible

NUS Museum, Singapore Heritage Society and

through multi-disciplinary mediums. She believes

ASEAN Foundation. Her work has appeared in The

in the power of arts empowerment for all and uses

Jakarta Post, and she is interested in inequality,

her role as a performer, creator and educator to

development and microhistories in Southeast Asia.

create meaningful work for communities around her. Her artistic practice is strongly influenced by

Low Kian Seh has a chemical engineering

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her work as an international performing artist and

degree but is an artist to a larger degree. He is a

arts educator. She is the founder and director of

chemistry teacher by occupation but has poetry as

Creatives Inspirit, a creative arts company with

the mission to empowerand nurture a community of socially responsible thinkers, artists, problem solvers and creative change-makers.

Tan Ying Ying is a graphic designer, illustrator and art teacher currently based in Singapore. One of her favourite comic series is the Sandman series

by American author, Neil Gaiman. She volunteers with Animal Allies and is passionate about animal welfare.

Terence Lim a.k.a. Lunastry is a creative who enjoys exploring ideas and creating visuals in a variety of mediums! You can see more of his work at https://www.instagram.com/llunastry.

a g m e i credits p. 9 photo by John T on Unsplash

p. 17 Photo by FOODISM360 on Unsplash p.32 Photo by awar kurdish on Unsplash p.35 Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash p.56 Photo by Allie on Unsplash p.59 Photo by Brian McGowan on Unsplash p.62 Photo by Jae Tabuada on Unsplash p.80 Photo by Christian Chen on Unsplash p.81 Photo by Afif Kusuma on Unsplash

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circuit breaker, noun

/ˈsəːkɪt ˈbreɪkə/

1. An automatically operated electrical switch designed to protect an electrical circuit from damage caused by excess current from an overload or short circuit.

2. A stay-at-home order implemented as a preventive measure by Singapore in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the country from 7 April 2020 to 1 June 2020.