Two Card Games and a Wedding

Ovidia--every other Tuesday

It's always hot in Singapore (We’re on the equator, after all) but recently it's also been raining and rainstorming. Luckily even the showers are warm here, so it's not so bad... and Singapore umbrellas are UV as well as waterproof!
And even more luckily, it held off for the important transitions over last weekend's wedding.
Lately it feels like all the nephews and nieces have been getting married one after the other. After meeting our new in-laws, I must say the best thing I'm realising about our family is we're really good at picking life partners!

It's also really nice meeting at weddings than funerals--which, sadly, is getting to be the other main reason we all meet up these days.
The older generation—the ones just above us—are gently receding (though to the young ones, we're probably all just 'old'!). They are more vague, walking more slowly, or worst of all--no longer with us.

And my own generation--since when did my cousins and siblings (and me!) suddenly turn into white haired aunties and uncles? But that's only the first impression. Once we start talking everything snaps back to the way it's always been and it feels like we're back in our late teens/ early twenties/ ageless and unaging selves again--even more so now because the children who turned up and took over their lives have now grown up and moved out.

So it felt (almost) like old times. But I encountered something new to me--card games. Remember how we used to play Monopoly and Cluedo? Which led some of us to grow up to be property tycoons and others to solve murders? I thought card games went out with rotary dial phones, but apparently they are definitely still a thing. And the ones I was introduced to are quite beautifully crafted!

Here are: Oh My Orchids! (created by Daryl Chow), Singapore 1889 (designed by Steve Ng, art and graphics by Regina AE (Ance Art) and my sesame-peanut dessert (totally delicious!) Our playing games didn't really take off because we were eating and talking too much, but I pinched these two packs and brought them home because I'm always interested in new ways to learn about Singapore history and I love flowers, especially orchids!

This is the 'River Mat' from the Singapore 1889 game. You shuffle and stack the cards (instructions included) along the river then 'fish' them out. What you 'catch' and what you do with it decides how well you do in the end, which is kind of matches how things worked in Singapore's early days.

Like this Salted Fish card--

If you fish out the Salted Fish card, you get to sneak a peek at the top card about to enter the river and decide whether to grab it for yourself or return it to the bottom of the stack.

And these other samples of Singapore's past--Opium, Spices and Joss Paper--are marked as managed by the British East India Company, Secret Society or a Chinese kongsi

btw, in this game, Joss Paper isn't just Underworld currency--it also allows you to draw two cards from the River and put one above the Secret Society card and return the other to the bottom of the deck.

And then there’s Oh My Orchids:

We didn't get to play this one at all--we were too busy catching up and maybe there was a little too much liquid conviviality. But I really liked the care with which these cards were drawn... and if only I'd found these cards earlier I could have given out that angsana seed card when The Angsana Tree Mystery launched!

But in between all the laughter and shared memories, there's also an awareness of time passing. The dancing, jogging, cycling, singing, super mahjong playing aunts who now sit quietly and the uncles who think you are your late mother (luckily we have the same name so it kind of works).

And you remember these people lived through history: British Colonialism, the Japanese Occupation, Secret Societies, the fight for Independance, oil lamps, rotary dial phones and cassette tapes, compulsory vaccinations, the cleaning up of the Singapore River and Covid. They saw the world's power centre move from Britain (in the 19th century) to North America (in the 20th) and are watching the craziness coming out of the United States right now.
And they survived all that--so hopefully we'll survive this too.

Orchids, Nero Wolfe and can you name this tree?

"the orchids were his concubines: insipid, expensive, parasitic and temperamental. He brought them, in their diverse forms and colors, to the limits of their perfection, and then gave them away; he had never sold one" 

                --The League of Frightened Men 

Ovidia--every other Tuesday

I'm still settling back into daily life and writing, and looking longingly at Nero Wolfe's routine: 

Breakfast

Orchids (9am to 11am)

Work (11am till Lunch, then till 4pm)

Orchids (4pm to 6pm)

I also love his particularity, precision and enjoyment re: language, thought, food and life.

If only I could adopt a routine like his, my murder solving score might improve too. But right now, between edits, emails, laundry and the vengeance of daily tasks put on hold for two weeks, it's not happening. 

But even with all that and the jet lag, it was so wonderful to be at Bouchercon again!

I took these orchid photos at the Asia Pacific Orchid Conference 2023, two days before leaving for Bouchercon. 

Orchids are taken seriously here in Singapore--when we were looking to pick a National Flower in 1981, 30 of the 40 contenders were orchids. And yes, an orchid--Vanda Miss Joaquim--is now our National Flower.

These (partly) black orchids in particular make me think of Wolfe--

They also remind me (uncomfortably) of traditional Chinese bunholders--

 These are among my favourite orchids, with what I think of as 'bottle brush' sprays--

The show left me with a head full of orchid intentions, just as Bouchercon left me with stacks of books and reading intentions.

But unfortunately right now I'm in another part of the Nero Wolfe universe. Closer to:

"Fritz Brenner was in bed with the grippe... On that Tuesday in November the kitchen had not seen him for three days, and the resulting situation was not funny..."

Not me--I'm still fine. But the Beloved who escorted me to San Francisco and San Diego is down with something that we hope isn't Covid. The fever is in at 38º++ C and if it doesn't break by today we'll be heading to hospital.

Not the best of souvenirs to bring home!

It was so wonderful being surrounded by the mystery writing tribe. I can still feel the energy, through the jet lag and sickroom blues!

There's one more memory I'd like to preserve from Bouchercon San Diego, if anyone can help me:

I love these trees I saw in Downton San Diego that I couldn't identify--can anyone tell me what they are?

 And a closer look at those beautiful flowering bundles:

I'd really like to find out more about them. I fancy there was some fragrance too, but can't say for sure.

Becoming One With the Garden at Teamlab Planets Tokyo

 -- Susan, every other Sunday

To say I'm a fan of Teamlab art installations and exhibitions is a massive understatement. I've visited both the Borderless and Planets sites in Tokyo multiple times, and have plans to see some of the installations outside Tokyo later in the year. (Sadly, Borderless is closing on August 31, but fortunately Planets has been extended until the end of 2023.)

Teamlab installations are interactive, ever-changing, and expanding the boundaries of digital art in  amazing ways.

As it happens, though, my favorite Teamlab exhibition piece isn't digital at all.

The Teamlab Planets exhibition contains a "garden space" that includes an exhibit called "Floating Flower Garden: The Flowers and I Are of the Same Root, the Flowers and I Are One."

Visitors to the space pass through an entry entirely hung with blackout drapes. The sign below hangs on the one illuminated wall:

The sign at the entrance to the exhibit space

From there, visitors pass through yet another curtain into a mirrored room that opens onto a hanging garden filled with orchids, trained to grow in a bare-root environment, hanging upside down. Long ropes of orchids hang from special ropes that raise and lower independently, at random. 

Visitors waiting to become one with the garden.

As the flowers raise, visitors can walk beneath them and enter the exhibit space, which has mirrors on the floor and walls, creating the illusion that the people are entirely engulfed in flowering plants. (Signs ask people to be careful, and not touch the delicate plants, and I have never seen anyone disrespect that request.)

Can you see where the flowers end and the floor begins?

Every one of the thousands of orchids on display is in some stage of blooming. (More on that in a minute...)

Orchids above, mirrors below. We are one with the garden.

The title of the piece references a Zen Koan (a question without an answer that forms part of Zen priests' theological training) known as "Nansen's Flower."

According to Zen tradition, when the monk Nansen was asked his thoughts on the famous saying, "Heaven and I share the same root. All things are of the same substance," Nansen gestured to a flower and said, "In these days, people see this flower as if they were in a dream."

Can you see the flowers looking back?

The creators of the installation hope that visitors will see the flowers as living things, and since orchids, in particular, evolved to thrive in places where no other flowers grow (as saprophytes, clinging to the trunks and branches of trees, because there were no niches left for them in the soil), the creators also want us to understand that "evolution selects for diversity" and to consider what that means--and should mean--for the way we view, and value, not only flowers but other humans too.

Take a minute with the photos that follow. Pictures are a dim reflection of the artwork's power, but hopefully it resonates with you too.

Some of you may be wondering what happens to the orchids when their blooming days are over. As it happens, the creators of the installation thought about that, too. The museum shop at Planets has a room filled with "retired" orchids that have finished their blooming cycle. There, visitors can choose and buy one of these former performance artists to take home, or for a little more, buy a canvas tote bag filled with a group of orchids that formerly lived in the exhibit space. If you buy the tote bag (which I did) you can take it back with you the next time you visit, and the staff will fill it up again, free of charge (assuming the shop has orchids on the day you go - which, in my case, they did).

My "home for retired performers" now has seven residents, three of which are blooming once again. Their presence livens up my home, but also reminds me to celebrate and appreciate the diversity around me--a piece of Planets' message that now lives in me as well.

Japan is beginning to reopen to tourism, and hopefully will be open entirely long before the doors to Planets close for good. If you happen to be in Tokyo, and have the time, I definitely recommend a visit.

If you go, please tell the flowers I said hi.