New Amsterdam

Originally published May 2006.

New Amsterdam
[Fiction - Draft]
Ian had taken a short trip to Benelux two years earlier, and all that survived from that time were flashes of memory constantly invaded by random noise. No, he had not smoked weed in Amsterdam. So the joke goes, he went for the canals. No hos either, why would he, when the only visits he pays Geylang are for killer beef hor fun. But truly he had been there for Van Gogh, Anne Frank and Rembrandt. Van Gogh struck a chord in looking for a new Japan in Europe. Ian felt like he himself was searching for utopia. His friends took the route of mushrooms and other Amster-gems, but he had objected to anything that modified his mind.

"But you have the death penalty too," he retorted to his American friend, though he conceded that hanging was more brutal than lethal injection. He was more unsettled by the fact that he only knew about Singapore's investments through reading the Journal and FT. An opposition madman had accused the incorruptible government of supporting Burma's druglords. He didn't care for the madman and would never vote for him or his party, even as the opponent was PDP. What he was concerned with was how Singapore tolerates Aung Sang Su Kyi being under house arrest. Then again, foreign journalists claim the same of Singapore's political dissidents.