I want to write you a letter, Singapore
SG, You’ve Got Mail (信说新语), now on at the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, captures a collection of artists’ personal reflections about Singapore expressed through traditional artistic forms such as ink painting, calligraphy and seal carving. Writer Teo Han Wue shares his thoughts on the letters he read.
(All photos courtesy of Teo Han Wue, unless otherwise stated.)
I was so charmed by a letter I read last week that I decided to write about it because it touched me with its sentiments and style of presentation. The letter, or should I say “love letter”, is actually a collection of personal reflections about Singapore in a unique medium that harks back to the almost forgotten elegant art of letter writing in Chinese tradition since ancient times.
Through the centuries, some of the best examples of Chinese calligraphy work by great masters have come to us by way of private letters, memoranda and manuscripts. As an art form, for example, special stationery incorporating designs of painting made by Ten Bamboo Studio (十竹斋) with woodblock prints during the early 17th century was used by scholars and artists to write letters on.
The love letter I am talking about here takes the form of a small but well curated exhibition called “Sg, You’ve got mail” (信说新语), now on at the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (SCCC) till 24 August. It has been lovingly put together by Siaw Tao Chinese Seal Carving, Calligraphy and Painting Society jointly with the SCCC, featuring 60 letters by its members to celebrate SG60.
Circle of life
In Chinese tradition, the notion of 60 years has a special significance — it represents a sexagenary cycle in chronology used in the lunar calendar. Customarily, a person can be said to enjoy longevity 大寿 only on reaching 60, having completed a full cycle 一 花甲, which suggests his or her full maturity and experience in life.
While “city in nature” is the planners’ vision of Singapore to be fully realised by 2030, Seow Wei seems to imply as though in a definite and playful tone: no need to wait that long — we’re already there.
In this sense, Siaw Tao and SCCC could not have conceived of a gift more apt than these 60 letters, which are actually pieces combining painting, calligraphy and seal carving specially created to commemorate SG60. They are Siaw Tao’s members’ deeply felt messages of love, memories and celebration handwritten and drawn with the brush in ink and colour, much like an affectionate and intimate personal letter or note on a matching letterhead. The letterhead or jianzhi (笺纸) may be in the form of a miniature painting by the artist himself or herself, or paper specially selected from ready-made stationery with woodblock print design.
These letters are written in the artists’ own calligraphy or seal carving on a suitably designed letterhead, often with his or her own painting as an illustration of the message.
An ode to home
In this collection, a good number of pieces are dedicated to the beauty of Singapore’s natural environment, which the artists find most endearing in thinking about Singapore as home.
Artist Tan Seow Wei writes in her letter, “Some people say you are a concrete jungle. But I say you are not — you have transformed into a city in nature.” It is a clear message accentuated by her accompanying picture of various animals such as the hornbill, wild boar, otter, pangolin, chicken and deer often sighted in an urban landscape marked by high-rise buildings and traffic lights. While “city in nature” is the planners’ vision of Singapore to be fully realised by 2030, Seow Wei seems to imply as though in a definite and playful tone: no need to wait that long — we’re already there.
Not forgetting the rich plant life in the city, artist Lee Hock Moh pays tribute to our national flower Vanda Miss Joaquim with his characteristic detailed brushwork painting of its blooms attracting a charm of bees. The Cultural Medallion painter recalls the date 15 April 1981 when the hybrid orchid was chosen to symbolise Singapore because of its resilience and year-round blooming quality as a most memorable moment in the past 60 years.
Artist Tan Kee Sek picks the ubiquitous bougainvillea as the subject for his painting in his distinctive swift yet precise brushstroke, presenting the blooms in sparse, understated brilliance rather than profuse exuberance. “Ordinary plants they may be, the fame of our garden city cannot do without them”, says Tan in the inscription. Indeed, it is a timely reminder for Singaporeans that we should not take these common flowers that we see everywhere for granted.
A group of young people sitting by a lily pond enjoying a picnic under the trees is probably a familiar scene Cultural Medallion artist Koh Mun Hong sees in East Coast Park near his home in Marine Parade. He painted it and composed a classical-style poem, which he inscribed on the painting to describe the idyllic beauty of our park, proving that Singapore’s reputation as a garden city is well deserved and not just a vain claim.
The sweet taste of the pancake when taken with kopi-o (black coffee) brings him back to his NAFA days when he was frequently shuttling between Singapore and Kulai to visit his friends in Siaw Tao 30 years ago.
Love in every brushstroke
The theme of garden city also emerges in poet/calligrapher Choo Thiam Siew’s longish but unillustrated text written in his elegantly sober strokes where he reminisces the time when he served in the National Parks Board dedicated to the greening of Singapore, and later the time when he was the executive director of the National Arts Council where he worked hard to promote arts and culture.
Singaporeans’ declaration of love for the country is rarely made without mentioning food. Interestingly two artists who do so in this exhibition come from a Malaysian background.
From those who chose to call Singapore home
Malaysian-born Tay Bak Chiang, who has become a Singaporean since he came to study at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA) 30 years ago, sings praises in pictures and text of culinary delights he enjoys in his adopted homeland. He focuses on the kueh lapis (layer cake), a popular Southeast Asian dessert, which he has included in paintings he exhibited previously. Here, he lists the brightly coloured cake and black coffee in plastic bag among his fondest favourites from Singapore, where he became an artist, made many friends and started a family.
Chong Choy, an artist from Kulai, Johore, took the line “I want very much to write you a letter” (wo henxiang geini xie fengxin 我很想给你写封信) from a Xinyao song he heard when was studying in NAFA in the early 1990s as inscription carved on a seal stone to complement the text.
He recalls how much he was taken with the taste when he first tried the Singapore min jiang kueh with fillings of coconut gratings soaked in palm sugar syrup and red bean paste, as seen in the painting framed by a stalk of bougainvillea. The sweet taste of the pancake when taken with kopi-o (black coffee) brings him back to his NAFA days when he was frequently shuttling between Singapore and Kulai to visit his friends in Siaw Tao 30 years ago. Chong has remained an active member of the society to this day.
... do people, especially those among the young, still write a letter with a pen or brush on proper, elegant stationery?
It is indeed heartening to see in the small but rich exhibition how the artists have successfully used this almost forgotten classical art form to express contemporary subject matter and sentiments. In this day and age, when our life is inevitably entirely dominated by computer keyboards and various digital devices and applications, do people, especially those among the young, still write a letter with a pen or brush on proper, elegant stationery?
Doesn’t the exhibition offer a glimmer of hope that the good old art of letter writing, as is done in the 60 small pieces of paper, will endure in Singapore?
I feel especially heartened when friends from Siaw Tao tell me the show has been well received.
Maybe that’s reason enough to let it go on a little longer.
As ceramist Oh Chai Hoo writes in his letter, as if summing up, “… what should be forgotten sticks on our minds but what should not be forgotten is completely gone without a trace,” as though cautioning us not to forget as we look forward to the next 60-year cycle, what we should remember.
