The Good Life in Singapore
Friday, February 19th, 2010It doesn’t take a neurosurgeon to convince me that a fleeting moment can turn into the ride of a lifetime. Sometimes these things have to be taken slowly, where you have to just let yourself get caught up in the whirlwind that’s starting to form. Other times, I don’t know how it happens, but I know it happens, at other times you can see it open up in front of you, and with a little finesse you can just jump in and the ride is suddenly revealing itself as being totally dependent on you. It’s a hard line to negotiate, and if you miss the moment forever, you have to resign yourself to quiet desperation, but if you jump when it’s not the time to jump, that can be even worse.
I love a great Italian restaurant, and although I’m perfectly at ease eating Italian in Italy, I like it better in other places. I like the people in the restaurants in Italy, and the food is probably more fantastic there than anywhere, but I feel like that’s cheating. To recreate a cuisine far away from your homeland is the real test of a great cook, and it’s also a nice way to think about how culture develops and travels around the world. So I’m in Singapore, enjoying pasta fagioli, and am happily resigned to giving into the moment and letting it pass.
There is a sense for the good life here that you don’t really see anywhere else in the world. The city’s got a remarkable capacity for a truly cosmopolitan outlook, and the centuries of working with other cultures in trade has paid off in terms of exchange of ideas. There are places here where it seems as though the best part of the world’s religions and philosophies are all mixed together, with no contradiction. I am sitting at a table. There are people around me that I like. I have a story to tell, and I love to tell stories, and I like to talk too loud. At this moment, things stop suddenly, and I decide to keep my mouth shut.