Rooftop at CHIJMES

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Rooftop in the morning, at CHIJMES
Text & Photo © K Leong, JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

The CHIJMES cluster of buildings along Victoria Street is what to me remains as one of the more beautiful architectural features in the changing landscape of modern Singapore.

Having grown up in another Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ), I feel right at home strolling the grounds of this one in the heart of the city. From the rooftop, you’ll get a good overview of the courtyard and the corridors of adjacent buildings that lead to once classrooms, today turned into office spaces.

The Chapel’s gothic architecture is breathtaking when basked in the morning light, in the quiet hours just prior to the rush of the city’s daily traffic.

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A Buddhistic view of markets – ‘there is no train …’ – at Maeklong, Bangkok, Thailand

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Covered in gold leaves
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, R Cordeiro, CM Cordeiro 2013

Temple visits
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Fortune on a stick

When in Thailand on a short visit you have an endless number of options on how to spend your time. However, if you are not shopping, sunbathing, eating, drinking, boating or trying out any of the local spas or various massage options, you will eventually find that you are on your way into one or several temples.

For example, right next to the Maeklong Railway Market you will find the Wat Baan Laem temple with its important Buddha statue and just near that, another temple, and near that, another.

In one of these, I found the option of having my future read to me through a brush pot of fortune sticks. For those who have not done this, you shake a brush pot filled with numbered bamboo sticks until one of them somehow volunteers itself out of the holder. Eventually I got my stick and with the help of my guide Susie, I found the matching fortune explanation.
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Meeting by the Chao Phraya, Bangkok

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Cheryl Cordeiro and Professor Joe A. Foley, standing at the bank of the Chao Phraya River, Shangri-La, Bangkok, Thailand.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

It had been quite some years, since 2007 thereabouts, that I last visited Bangkok. The early morning drive through the city from the airport lent an immediate update of impression of just how much and how fast the landscape was changing that left me wondering if I could, with some effort, find my favourite street hawkers at the places where I once knew where they stood.

I have thus far remembered my visits to Bangkok fondly, often in the sense that I’ve managed to acquire a curiosity of items that range from floor mats, cushions to kitchen utensils and a spattering of orphaned treasures.

While the city is ever modernising, I was happy to find, what to me was its signature rhythm of a heartbeat – its wet and soggy market streets – still around the corner from where I stayed.

More than street marketing this time around was the fact that I had the pleasant opportunity to meet again with a mentor, Professor Joseph A. Foley. Joe was previously my thesis writing supervisor through all my theses, beginning with my honours and master thesis writing back at the National University of Singapore, through to my doctoral thesis writing at the University of Gothenburg. He currently lectures at the Graduate School of English at the Assumption University in Bangkok, Thailand.

We met alongside the Chao Phraya River for dinner.
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Reverberations of Royal summer parties at a Swedish 14th century castle

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A copper engraving of the castle.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

North of Stockholm sits a grand and picturesque castle that was the residence of Princess Sophia of Sweden from 1578-1611. It is today in fact the only privately owned Royal castle in Sweden. It has a rich history that is best associated with Sweden’s King Gustaf III and his young Danish consort Sophia Magdalena. They lived in the castle during the 1700s enjoying a mostly carefree and happy life. From the 1300s the castle belonged to a succession of Swedish royalty that included Gustav Vasa, John III, King Gustav II Adolf and HSH Hereditary Prince Frederick, who eventually became Frederick I of Sweden and reigned at the time of the foundation of the Swedish East India company (1731-1813) who had their first ship ever sailing to China named after him i.e. – Fredericus Rex Svecia.

In 1917 the castle was acquired by a Swedish industrialist who eventually took a great interest in Chinese porcelain collecting in a circle of friends that included the then reigning King Gustaf VI Adolf and the then young arts historian professor Bo Gyllensvärd. The castle and its substantial porcelain collection was subsequently inherited by his children in 1967. The family settled in the castle trying the best they could turning it into a home. Today, the castle has been passed on to new owners and theatrical performances, weddings and other large banquets continue to be held at the location.

The castle and its grounds, having seen its fair share of social parties and crowds moving through its rooms, reverberated such energies that waxed and waned with time of day and seasons of the year. As with most castle grounds in Sweden, as night falls, the silence that encompasses those grounds become so deafening that the drop of a pin on a polished tabletop might come as a relief. But the castle grounds were seldom quiet, especially at night.

A while back when the castle was still a home and its grandeur silently lingering in private hands, after a long day and night of pleasant conversation on our common interest in Chinese porcelain, the topic eventually ventured over into the supernatural and the possibilities of this huge building housing some uninvited guests. “Well not really”, the hostess answered, “we don’t really think of any of it much. It is just kind of part of the house but incidentally, I hosted you all on our guest floor and was just curious if any of you experienced anything unusual this night?”
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Chokladkalaset 2013, Göteborg

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At the annual Gothenburg chocolate festival.
Rule Forty-two.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

I didn’t think I would meet Douglas Adams’ thoughts in this context, but this was an event of forty-two. In Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979:181), in answer to the ultimate question of life, the super computer, Deep Thought, was adamant forty-two was the answer.

“Forty-two!… Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?”

“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”

“But it was the Great Question! The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.. .. ”
“Yes,” said Deep Thought with the air of one who suffers fools gladly, “but what actually is it?”

Thing is, Adams was not alone, for Lewis Carroll might have known the same.
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BARCELONA

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Timelapse of Barcelona by Alexandr Kravtsov. Just beautiful.

As David Bickley wrote, of A.Kravtsov’s 480gb of images:

“What’s even more impressive is what Alexandr went through to make this piece. In his words it took “a broken camera, lost flash drive, near 100 subway rides, 24 000 photos, endless hours of post production and rendering and 480 gigabytes of material.” That’s insane!”

BARCELONA. MOTION TIMELAPSE from Alexandr Kravtsov on Vimeo.

Art, wine and a reading

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The Swedish East Indiaman Gotheborg III, by a Swedish Marine artist, Niklas Amundson.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

The smiles were friendly and the smell of – what? – newly lacquered frames? filled the air as I walked through the solitaire gallery. Bright lights, strategically placed, to accent the finest of details whether of paint on canvas or the deep burgundy of the wines against the glasses in hands.

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I studied frame after frame of paintings on the walls of the gallery, my gaze pausing slightly longer at – a surrealistic Miró. With wine swirling in the glass in hand, that wasn’t for my drinking, the picture on the wall sent my mind into a vortex of thoughts, with the words of Charles Bukowski’s South of No North (1973:85-86):
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Bok & Bibliotek, Göteborg Book Fair 2013

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At the Göteborg Book Fair 2013.
Text & Photo © JE Nilsson, CM Cordeiro 2013

It’s been a few years, since 2008, that I’ve found myself at the annual Gothenburg Book Fair, one of the Nordic regions largest market place for the book trade that began as a trading platform for teachers and librarians. Since opening their doors in 1985 with just 5,000 visitors, the book fair has today, more than 101,000 visitors over four days, with three parallel running sessions of conferences, seminars and events, alongside sales stands and an International Rights Centre for agents and publishers. The book fair celebrates their 29th anniversary this year at the Swedish Exhibition and Congress Centre.
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