ANTARA SESALAN DAN SAYANG

On the day that she went off to have dim sum with all of her relatives and her boyfriend she looked beautiful.
Red really suits her, it emphasis precisely how slender she is, how very young she looks.
And she knows how to choose lipstick.

Stunning colours - red sweater, golden necklace, pale ivory skin, crimson lips, and dark dark hair.
Quite the vision.
Radiant.

I left the house before she did. Felt a depressive mood coming on, and didn't want to rain on her parade.
I wished her a good time before I left.


It was a day I didn't want to hear or speak any Cantonese, so instead of stopping for breakfast in Chinatown as I usually do when I flee on weekends, I bypassed the old neighborhood entirely and went straight to the office.
One bad omen, visible from the bus, did manage to nauseate: a double happiness in magnificent calligraphy surrounded by traditional decorations and propitious symbols.
Golden script on a deep crimson background; a very fine presentation piece.
Given present circumstances I do not need to see stuff like that.

Even if we didn't still live together I would manage to make myself miserable on weekends. It's a peculiar talent. Probably always latent, but not being in a relationship really gives it the chance to come out and shine. Remarkable.
I never knew that about myself.
Gonna learn to squelch that.


For much of the weekend I listened to old-timey krontjong. Not the ballads of Zhou Xuan (周璇) in Mandarin, nor Francis Yip (葉麗儀) in Cantonese. Not even the mellifluous ('saccharine') tones of Teresa Teng (鄧麗君) singing Hokkien songs. Krontjong.
Oh, and also some Indo-rock.
But mostly Krontjong.

Kertjong-kertjong-kerontjongong!

Various renditions of Bengawan Solo, several versions of Sayang Sayang E, and a number of Ambonese and Stambul classics.
As well as dulcet-voiced thirteen year old Sandra Reemer, when she first recorded for Philips back in the sixties.

One or two songs by Wieteke van Dort, though she specializes a bit too much in unhappy airs about leaving the old country, about parting and separation, about the good old days.
The Dutch have too much a taste for sugared lyrics and honeyed dreariness.

Trying to put oneself in an other-where and an other-when is done best when listening to more light-hearted stuff.
Krontjong.
Krontjong.
Krontjong.



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