Fiction: Everything changes when D’Asthetique, a swank salon, opens in a colony of beauty parlours
An excerpt from ‘Beauty Queens of Bishan’, by Akshita Nanda.
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Tourists who visit Singapore concentrate on the funfair island of Resorts World Sentosa or head to the futuristic Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino, a snaky curve perched on tall towers surrounded by giant, glowing umbrella trees.
Tourists might move a bit further inland to Orchard Road, the gleaming designer shopping district where some of the most expensive labels in the world have quietly imposing storefronts. On Orchard Road, shoppers can buy Birkin bags, Christian Louboutin heels and Kate Spade dresses or queue for hours to get a slice of cream-filled crepe-cake from the boutique confectioner Lady M of New York.
These tourists accustomed to the manicured areas of Singapore would be shocked to discover Bishan, five stops away from Orchard Road on the red MRT train line.
Bishan is part of Singapore’s “heartlands”, the suburbs where most Singaporeans live, eat, play and shop. Smack in the centre of the island nation, Bishan is a 3-D jigsaw puzzle of cream-to-orange blocks built by the government’s Housing Development Board, surrounded by steaming green jungle and the glistening waters of the MacRitchie Reservoir.
The heart of Bishan is Bishan Town Central, a transport interchange where buses and MRT trains from every outlying suburb of Singapore converge. From...
