Welcome to the Reading Room, which is not a room in any literal sense. It is the cleared corner of my desk where the fan does not reach, the place I stack printed drafts before deciding whether they deserve ink. Journal Wave began as a private joke: I wanted a name for the hour when the corridor lights come on and the sky has not yet surrendered to night. Queenstown supplies that hour reliably, especially during the monsoon months when cloud cover turns the town into a study in grey-green patience.
I publish slowly on purpose. The internet rewards velocity; my neighbourhood rewards repetition — the same bus stop, the same wet handrail, the same auntie who remembers you even when you have been away for a season. These notes are my way of keeping pace with a place that changes its shopfronts faster than its elders change their walking routes. If you are looking for hot takes, trend forecasts, or affiliate links, you have taken a wrong turn somewhere near Commonwealth. Here you will find junctions, lifts, market stairs, and the occasional confession about how difficult it is to write honestly about home without sounding like a brochure or a eulogy.
The main note on the home page is always the most recent long piece — presently a memory of Chin Swee told in present tense, because some places refuse past tense. Older notes live in the Stacks, sorted by how far I had to walk to gather them. Near the lift is where daily life happens; one MRT stop away is where errands blur into observation; further out is where the city shows its seams. I do not think of distance as hierarchy. A note written at my window can be as true as one written at a bus interchange, though the wind sounds different.
Journal Wave is edited by nobody except me, which is either integrity or negligence depending on your standards. I fact-check memories the way people fact-check dreams — loosely, with affection, allowing for the mind's habit of improving a scene for narrative effect. Names are changed when kindness requires it. Landmarks are named when they belong to everyone. I use British spelling because it is what I was taught and because colour looks more honest to me than the American variant, even when writing about tropical humidity.
Readers sometimes ask whether this is a journalism project. It is not. There is no newsroom, no assignment desk, no advertiser whispering in the margin. It is closer to a commonplace book — fragments of attention stitched together until they resemble meaning. I write from Blk 88 Dawson Road, #07-13, a flat with good cross-breeze and a view of other people's laundry, which is its own kind of serial narrative. The Reading Room is where I tell you what I am doing before you wander into the stacks and wonder why the categories sound like directions.
Start anywhere. Read the Chin Swee piece if you want the spine of the project. Read a short note if you only have the length of a kettle boiling. Visit Portrait if you need a face to attach to the voice — though I warn you, I am better on the page than in person, where I tend to apologise for talking too much and then talk more. If you want to write back, the Find Me page lists a phone number and an email. I answer post slowly and email slower, but I do answer.
The map at the foot of this page situates us in Queenstown at neighbourhood scale — not because you need directions to my flat, but because context matters. These notes are anchored to slopes, corridors, and interchange timings. Remove the map and they float, untethered, readable but wrong. Allow functional cookies if you wish to see it; refuse if you prefer text alone. Either choice is respectable. The Reading Room remains open in both cases.