Dear reader,
It’s our last issue of the year! To give everybody here a break, we’re off for the next two weeks. And to keep you occupied till January 10th, we’ve got two essays and much else.
Festive discount. We’re offering a festive discount—just S$88 per year, or 25 percent off our monthly rate—if you want to give Jom subscriptions to your friends and loved ones. Limited time. Give now.
“Singapore This Week”. In our weekly digest, we discuss whether Singaporeans deserve their reputation as champion complainers; the 30-year anniversary of that seminal 1984 general election; the new Central Arts Library; the revival of vinyl; Trump and TikTok; and more.
“Essays”. Two pieces of news have dominated our screens this past week: the NRIC debacle; and revelations by Bloomberg about secretive mansion transactions, for which two ministers, K Shanmugam and Tan See Leng, have threatened legal action. We look at them both in “A torrid December for the PAP: transparency, trust, and truth under scrutiny”.
While you may want to dive into that right away, our second essay, “Vanishing hoofprints”, is one to savour languorously over the break. The writer Pamela Ng, who describes herself as “a creative storyteller who cares deeply for biodiversity and ecological challenges”, spent much time over the past year at the Singapore Turf Club (STC)—observing, absorbing and connecting with horse owners, jockeys, punters and patrons. The end result of her immersion in this community is an essay that goes beyond the decline of the equine, one both textured and multi-layered, with its musings about everything from the class segregation expressed in the STC’s architecture to the symbiotic relationship between Central Asian Tuvans—whose throat singing she’d previously heard at the Esplanade—and their horses.
I will leave you, dear reader, with one of my favourite passages:
“‘You can touch him,’ my friend said. The gelding moved forward with an uneven gait, towering over my head. Is that an injury? He lowered his velvety snout, initiating a nose rub. Restraining myself slightly, I inched towards him and gave this creature an assuring caress on his gigantic snout. The gush of warm breath right after seemed like an affectionate sign of approval. Fuzzy. I felt a rush of adrenaline and that’s when I knew. I was and would always be obsessed with horses, especially racehorses.”
Jom baca,
Sudhir Vadaketh
Editor-in-chief, Jom
Behind Jom’s art, with Charmaine Poh
This week’s essay deserved an illustrator who could draw horses not only in precise anatomical ways, but also depict them as fellow living, breathing creatures, each with their own sense of self. How Kah Hwee’s work paints the horses as possessing their own desires, whether reacting to the jockey or running towards freedom. In the spot illustration, a horse is seen staring straight at the viewer. The history and context of the Singapore Turf Club reveals a complex relationship between humans and animals, one that Kah Hwee’s talent allows us to reckon with.
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