Singapore streets

Ahh wow, Singapore – this city gets me, it understand me. It provides a 24 hour Starbucks 10 meters away from a pristine and perfect subway. It has clear and clean walkways for pedestrians and cyclists. It has the beauty of high rise buildings with their lights, blue tinted windows and gun-metal grey architecturally alluring angular walls, reaching for the sky in pure prideful self indulgence (buildings are tall here because they can be, that is all) and an atmosphere of forestry due to the beautiful green grasses, South East Asian trees and the many twisting lakes and rivers winding through the bright streets and shining cars and busses. This is what strikes me most and first about this country compared to South Africa, nothing is dusty. I haven’t seen dust in my 3 days here so far – everything is clean and nothing is any less than its true colour. Everything seems to be bright. The gray roads even seem to shimmer like silver and the sidewalks like precious stones.

Singapore city (c) JSB

Thud thud thud, went the sound of my feet as I took my first run through this concrete jungle this morning. I woke up early enough to take a 30 minute run and be back at st. Andrews village before breakfast. My brand new New Balance running shoes were perfect for the occasion, new like everything else in Singapore. This city is a shopping mall. Actually it’s like some grand city creator opted away from the cheaper brands and walked straight into the designer city chop, picked Singapore in it’s expensive packaging off of the top shelf and payed for it with a Platinum Credit card. Unwrapped it from it’s pricey plastic wrapper and placed it in the ocean for the amusement of the Chinese, Indonesian and other South East Asian people. This city is fresh like a Samsung Galaxy S3 right out of the box, comes with its batteries pre charged and like an Asus Transformer: Primed to go.

I run out through the automated booms unnecessarily guarding st. Andrews village from one of the safest places on earth. I take a left through a group of Asian school kids making their way to school for morning classes. I keep my pace up, measuring my stride by my breathing, not growing tired simply because of how entertained my mind is at the people, streets, buildings, grasses and Singapore river which has now come up beside me as I move through the streets. I am amused, I am very amused. 1.3 gadgets per person as I get to a bridge girded by purple flowers, I have never seen such a technology integrated culture before. I am reminded as I join the runners walkway next to the river of two nights before when in my jet lag I took a walk to an all night Chinese diner through dark alley ways and obscure corners in the shadow of the government housing apartment skyscrapers with my eight thousand rand tablet loosely in my hand, not a fear in the world. My South African nerves took a few minutes to calm and then the safety of this world sunk in. Thud thud thud, the feel of my feet hitting the perfect pavement still reverberating through my body as I pass old Chinese men and women stretching in Tai Chi stances against the railings by the river. I make a mental note: “stop to stretch in a tai chi fashion when you’re too tired Jeremy, that’ll be cool”.

“I should probably turn back” I think to myself, 07:55, I read the time on the watch of a 5 foot tall Chinese lady runner because I can’t understand her Mandarin when I point to my wrist in the global sign language of the developed world, noting that 25 minutes have passed and I’m getting quite far from my base. I don’t want to stop though, this is too good. A perfect running experience, the pain of the air straining through my lungs and the developing stiffness in my calves are a dull backdrop to the sights, sounds, smell, atmosphere of where I am. Dull like the streets of Pretoria – a whole nother world, more than a world away.

Soon I’m in the city, and an hour later I’m finally back at st. Andrews village. Having gotten lost in the city and circled around with the help of locals until I finally found myself in a familiar area and on my way back to Patong Pasir, my Singaporian home suburb.

“Glorious” I sms to a friend back home in South Africa. That run was glorious. This city is almost perfect. Only three days in and I am enthralled with what I have seen.

Into Thailand

* Note from the Author: these are merely my thoughts. Some of them not put together or explained all that well. Read with grace.*

Readers, supporters, friends, family, internet trolls: I am off on a journey to South East Asia. Welcome. Here are my thoughts:

The idea snuck up on me like a ninja in the night. I’m not sure when I first began to dream of travelling to the East. It may have begun when I read a book by Sam Sheridan who travelled across the globe learning the fighting trade. Boxing in the USA, Brazilian Jui-jitsu in South America, wrestling in Russia, Tai Chi in China, Muay Thai in Thailand.

It may also have been the Kung Fu movies I love – crouching tiger, hidden dragon; The forgotten kingdom. It may have been spurred on by my love for martial arts and my training in Kickboxing (etc).

Mostly though – I think it was a fascination with their philosophy. Eastern philosophy has something to it that it’s western cousin just can’t quite capture. Something spiritual, something beyond logical constructs which paradoxically form illogical constraints that dull the honest search for wisdom. A wisdom beyond ontological argument and Niche scepticism. Eastern philosophy at it’s best is the oasis in the desert of the western paradigm.

Now I stand ready to take this single step so as to begin my journey of a thousand miles. Confucius would be proud. My visa is in the works, my airplane tickets are bought and payed for, the money I’ll need for this mission is raised… Just one month from now, I am off.

I will be travelling with my own philosophy into a completely new world drenched in the philosophies of a different sort to those I’ve grown up around. My philosophy is a christian one. The philosophy as taught by Jesus of Nazareth – as such; I go with a mission to make His glory known, simply through living as a man moved by His truth, glory, love and hope. I will be involved in education in Singapore and Thailand through local churches and mission organisations. In Singapore I will help to teach and influence Vietnamese School students and in Thailand I will offer myself as an aid for Thai students to learn conversation skills in English.

There is more though.

I think I have one very specific calling (among others)- to write. Not necessarily right now (I am not wise enough or skilled enough just yet), but one day – I must fulfil this mandate to write of what I discover – mixing experience, philosophy, apologetics, politics, history, science, technology and theology. I must discover the essence of Buddhist transcendence and Hindu fragmentation and learn to apply Christian truth to Buddhist culture and Hindu practices. If Jesus isn’t applicable in all places – he isn’t applicable at all. I must learn and apply different perspectives, like filters, to this analysis of Christ and his message so as to free my philosophy of the peripheral and base it on the essential. I believe the whole truth is right here in the bible – but it is clarified when one applies and examines it across contexts – therefore I must make an effort to experience other contexts. I believe the truth of the gospel is applicable to all people and across all contexts – but to demonstrate this I must widen my understanding of the world and it’s people. I feel as if God has something to show me, some story for me to discover and some perspective to gain from which to write about it. To a large extent that is what this trip is about. An investment into preparing myself for the work I must do for the kingdom of God and for the kingdom of the world as time takes me on this train ride onwards through my life.

“Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.” – Confucius.
“And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds were evil” – John 3v19.
“Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying “I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life”” -John 8v12

Please stand with me in prayer and support as I go off in this light to discover and learn;

Regards,
Jeremy (aka Jack Figure)