The wet market near Kreta Ayer on weekday mornings is a classroom if you know who to stand beside. Auntie Leng — not her real name, but her real presence — taught me mangoes by smell rather than colour: press the shoulder gently, inhale near the stem, reject anything that smells like perfume instead of fruit.
Before her instruction I chose fruit like a lottery — bright skin, hope, disappointment at home. Now I choose slowly, which annoys people behind me until they realise I am not blocking; I am learning in public. Today I selected two mangoes that passed the shoulder test. The stall holder nodded approval without looking up.
Markets reward repetition. The same stall, the same auntie, the same questions until the answers become muscle memory. I think of her when I cut mango at the kitchen sink — knife against stone, juice on tiles, the sweet mess of doing something correctly because someone patient showed you how.
On the bus home I carried the fruit in a net bag that left oval marks on my wrist. Small pressure, temporary. The mangoes ripened by Thursday. They were perfect — not a word I use lightly. Perfection here means nothing wasted, nothing sour hiding under golden skin. A neighbour's lesson, still working years later.
