a breakfast drink that costs less than two dollars of equal parts of coffee and tea named after a mandarin duck that does not exist in southeast asia. greenery in every corner of the city, stretches of green spaces between clusters of public housing apartments, lines of regulary permed trees separating the two directions on the highway and walls inside malls and on building faces curated gently with growth. buses you wait without a single doubt of their potential cancellation. seeing your middle school math teacher walk past as you write a poem in the starbucks of your nearby mall walking with his young child and wife. seeing seniors from debate society or prefectorial board who no longer recognize you at the hipster coffee shop you were trying to decide if you liked. not needing to ask for chili sauce at fastfood chains because the cashier already stuffed more than you could need into your paper bag. an extensive public library network that will deliver any novel to the closest outlet to you for only $1.57. my mother and my cousin sister who i can call anytime without having to navigate the mental math of timezones. pasar malam (night market) tentages snaking along the entire pedestrian walkways, coercing you into the embrace of the wafting butter corn cups and fried squid on skewers. one hundred hours of community service expected from students, running down apartment building hallways collecting newspapers and sliding them into the elevators lifts or performing songs at an old folk’s home. theater performances disguising anti-authoritarian messages as christmas pantomines about asian myths. speaking malay to one person in office, hoping to hide the intention to go for a smoke break and then switching to mandarin to make plans with the other person to get peanut waffles. the choice of the same a dish either à la street or for three times the price at a buzzing spot in a gentrified neighborhood i grew up close to. a comic book that was refused funding for a negative portrayal of the glorified founding father but instead was etched into annals of graphic novel history by readers refusing to be silenced. the thin layer of unfamiliarity on the sepia of your childhood route to primary school which is now completely sheltered, a defense against heat and rain you’d have loved those years ago.