From the selection "the song of two cities" , what have you learned from the author who lives in a modern world ?
Answers
Explanation:
Perhaps it’s the hawker center’s leisurely ease that seems so familiar. Especially in the early evenings, when people are coming home from work, it’s where people sit down to talk and grab a bite before they return to their HDB flats to sleep — in Singapore a good number have dinner out. It’s busy, yes, don’t get me wrong. It’s crowded. And sometimes it takes both stealth and cunning, not to mention a quick hand, to grab a seat. But in highly urbanized Singapore where discipline is a pride of honor, and rules are if not set in stone then hard pressed into the mind of one’s manners, the seeming chaos and sense of recklessness could very well be a version of home. It has the ease of possibility. Anything can happen. In the Cebu way of both linger and surprise — lounging in the porch in the afternoon and then rushing out of the house because a friend is suddenly back in town — nothing need be as planned. One is assured always of finding something great to eat but there is also the opportunity of following one’s sudden cravings, one’s unpredictable hungers, one’s guts. Besides, in the evenings the hawker centers seem to be permeated with the energy of a huge, anonymous extended family dinner where everyone’s a cousin of a cousin, and this is a collective version of hot soup served by an invisible mother figure welcoming her sons and daughters from a long day out in the world.