Alarm set at 7am to go market but fail. Ended up 9am only went to market.

Doing a series about insignificant unsung hero and wish to capture portraits of people at work, those who are marginalized but happy heartlanders.

Don't really know anywhere in Singapore that has the raw market that I wanted. Thank God for awesome friend. Cyan brought me to this wet market near our place. So awesome, really makes me feel like I'm in Malaysia.

A little bit uncertain what to capture, a bit scared seriously. Market is so crowded. But what gave me a confident booster is when I brave myself up to start talking to vendors. I guess I'm lucky. The first lady that I talked to, I asked her if I could take photos and she is so more than willing for me to do so. She shared about her children studying design also in Temasek Poly and how she understands like all the projects thing we're doing. Taking pride in her sons results, even shared with me that the twin sons' GPA. And went around taking fishmongers around her. It's so nice that people are just genuinely friendly and it made me open up to share about my own stories like how I understand them as my maternal grandfather was once a veggie seller. Lots of heart to heart stories exchange, simple conversations. They're so cute. I promised them I'll come back to show them the photos.

A few stalls of course are not that nice. Some even thought we're reporter or here to give them SAMAN. But of course when we face rejections, we just smile our way through. There's also this uncle who sells pork, shared with me how younger generations nowadays will not step into wet market and there's no successor for their business. I can see in their faces that as if they're a bunch of forgotten people. He talked about how government nowadays also wanted to demolish wet markets and encourage people to buy stuff at more convenient places. But I think he's quite proud of the market when he shared like how good the things here as compared to supermarkets. Cyan told me the uncle took a comb to comb his hair (which I did not even realised). He's a bit camera shy and keep saying he's not handsome. haha. Singlets and shorts are like so cool for him. (:

I really thank God for today. How He made me feel so alive once again to be able to be a story teller and story collectors of these little stories of little people. I pray that this series will be one that really speak of what I see and feel. Haven't really got a concrete idea whether should I include other groups of people or just the market heartlanders. Will see how it goes. (:

Sometimes.. maybe really just open up our hearts, we'll see things clearer. And if only people would put down all our selfish pride, defensive walls and hardened heart, the world is quite beautiful right?

And also.. today I see a different side of Singapore, which made me a bit more convince that it is actually not a bad place. There are really lower middle class people that somehow I could always relate to and bring me smiles. And maybe they felt like a social misfit sometimes and I could do something to encourage them in ways I could too.