The Possum Bistro

Even China doesn't have lanterns hanging from street to street all the time.

Sun Yat Sen's memorial sculpture - apparently, the Chinese community in LA just celebrated its 70th anniversary, which spans close to perhaps two or three generations of Chinese Americans. A common topic of conversation among us these days is how detached the current youth of Chinese Americans is from their root culture and heritage. Everything about them save their physical appearance shouts "American", and if parents do not consciously provide their children with cultural education and knowledge about traditional customs and practices, these future generations will only cling onto the American variant.

Furthermore, given the ascendance, proliferation and popularisation of American culture, it seems unlikely that Asian-Americans would resist the temptation to associate themselves with a dominant culture that allows them to circumvent their minority status and maintain more inclusive relationships with native-born Americans. Yet we believe that retaining one's heritage and assimilating into a foreign one are not mutually exclusive goals, for we as cosmopolitan individuals in an increasingly globalised world should be able to feel proud of being members of one culture and ambassadors of another. Only then can cultural diversity, and not cultural uniformity, be entrenched.

Then we realise for ourselves how blessed we are to be in Singapore, to be able to speak our mother tongue, to discover an identity for ourselves that encompasses more than just being part of a nation-state. Nationalism is a construct, and while some may argue that ethnicity may be as well, the traditions and customs that we practise in Singapore, including the language that we speak - all these aspects reinforce an identity that we can fall back on for comfort and familiarity. And it is such a loss that Asian Americans who shun their original identity just to blend in.

We also managed to visit one of the largest Buddhist temples in LA and offer our prayers. Kaixian was extremely contented after the visit, and Preeya is looking forward to visiting the Hindu temple in Malibu. Just being able to find spiritual comfort in religion, especially in a foreign land, is highly reassuring. I felt there and then the true essence of what they call "transcending boundaries" - finding deep resonance with one's religion no matter where one may reside.

Drove over to Beverly Hills, home of the rich and the famous, the scandal-ridden and the tabloid-hoggers.

Beverly Hills is pretty and posh, but there's really nothing too fantastic about it. To me, it's like deconstructing the Paragon on Orchard Road and placing the boutiques side-by-side on the road such that it stretches from Far East to Cineleisure. Not impressed.


The La Brea tar pits, where one can witness the bubbling of methane and carbon dioxide from below, emitted from the decomposition of fossils millions of years ago. Animals wandered too close to the pits and then became stuck; predators saw the animals who were stuck and wandered too close and then they became stuck, and so on.

Plus we were walking along the pavement when we bypassed a couple walking their dogs. The man was a tad pudgy but of considerable height and build, greyish hair and a greyish beard. I jokingly remarked to Preeya and Kaixian that the man reminded me of William Petersen from CSI, or Grissom.

It was him.

Then the gasping begun with the girls, to which I was rather nonchalant about, me not being an ardent fan of CSI, though there was that tinge of star-struck-ness tingling somewhere in my gut.

A fulfilling and reassuring weekend spent, and we're satisfied indeed.

Two weeks have gone by, with six more to go for the presidential election on November 4. After that, another five before I meet up with Mingwei and Joyce for Disneyland in Anaheim. Then after that, I'm home-bound - to my family, my dear friends.

And of course, to her warm and soft embrace, for which I crave and yearn every single moment that I am here.