Joanna's Singapore adventures

Everywhere else people seem to be worrying about the recession. Here you'd barely know there was one. It seems wherever you look there is another construction site. Many new train stations are being built for a new train line. The university has several new buildings under construction. New shopping centres have been opening. Two huge "integrated resorts" are currently being built. (intergrated resort is Singapore polite speak for casino). Most extrodanary is the number of appartment buildings being built. The most popular newspaper is filled with ads (many full page) for the latest luxury apartment building. The construction companies all seem to be trying to outdo one-another to have the fanciest facilities. Given this is one of the most densely populated countries on earth I'm wondering where they find the land to build these, especially given many advertise having extensive gardens! The newspaper reports people queuing for days to improve their slim chance of securing an apartment or sending in their agent with a signed blank cheque to do their bidding. Not only is there a huge demand for local properties, the newspapers often have ads for property in other places like Canada and Australia.

I’m now into my 3rd week of classes. Back into study mode!

Prior to my arrival I had experienced some enrolment dramas which continued when I got here. After getting a massive number of subjects pre-approved there still wasn’t enough running and willing to accept me. I ended up having to pick and start new subjects hoping that they would be alright. Thankfully I did eventually get approval for those from my home university. I’m just glad I didn’t have to go through the enrolment process local students do. They get assigned a certain number of points which they use to bid against each other for places in subjects. I’m told that since leftover points can be carried from one semester to the next that it gets insanely competitive for some subjects.

So far I’ve done pretty well at finding my way around the campus. Might have a bit more trouble with finding tutorial rooms when tutorials start. There are shuttle-buses that go around the campus, leaving every few minutes. That really appeals to my lazy side and it is really nice to not have to walk far in the heat. The food on campus is mostly really cheap although some of the available interpretations of western food are “interesting”.

One of the major differences here is how the assessment is structured. Back home, assessment in many arts units is heavily based on essays. Here, for the subjects that have them they aren’t worth nearly as much. Some subjects don’t even require me to submit an essay. Instead, the assessment is heavily weighted towards exams (usually 2 a semester.) I have mixed feelings about this. On the negative side if it is mainly exams you have to really know your stuff because once you get the question you have very little time to think about it. On the positive side, exams don’t require footnoting. Even with good citation management software footnoting can be one of the really frustrating parts of doing an essay.

This is one of the stranger vending machines i have seen so far. It dispenses toasted sandwiches. Unfortunately I didn't get to try one because it swallowed all my change.

Often the English on product packaging here is not quite right. I suppose at least in this case they are being honest.

Here even the overly soppy inspirational books are patriotic.

I just had someone let me know they'd been having trouble commenting on the blog. I had a look in the settings and sure enough, things weren't quite as they should have been. You should now be able to comment without any problems on all existing and future posts. If you select name/url or anonymous in the "comment as" box you can comment without having to log in. Of course, if you were previously going through your google account you can still do that. Let me know if you run into any further problems with using the blog.

Last Sunday was Singapore's national day. National day is similar to independence day in America or Australia day. National day celebrates the anniversary of Singapore’s independence from Malaysia, this year being the 44th anniversary. The main event is the national day parade. Unfortunately I was not able to attend that because the event is ticketed and I didn’t have a ticket. Tickets are very difficult for locals to get and nearly impossible for foreigners to obtain. We decided instead to head down to the esplanade (an area like Melbourne’s Southbank) to take in some of the other festivities. Down at the esplanade there was some outdoor concerts, a military display involving boats, helicopters and planes. Later in the evening were the fireworks. Heaps of people came dressed in the national colors of red and white. It was very much a family event with lots of kids around enjoying the festivities with their families.

My friends and I did try to get a bit closer to the parade but couldn’t get close enough to get more than a tiny glace of the side of the stage. I did get to see some of the parade on the big screen simulcast at the esplanade. While they call it a parade, it looked more like an Olympic opening ceremony than what you would normally consider a parade to be. The bit I caught included the song I Will Survive. Not exactly a song I normally would have thought of as having patriotic uses. There was some controversy about the use of pole fitness gymnastics (aka pole dancing) in the parade but I didn’t see that part. Of course the event had to have an inspirational patriotic pop song. I’ll include that below. The big moment of the night was the recitation of the national pledge. The pledge was not only being recited there but was also being recited at the same time at other places around the island and in Singaporean expat communities around the world. Many letters to newspapers in the following days declared it to be a very meaningful experience.

Getting out of the area after the event was a bit of a challenge due to the huge volume of people. There were so many people there I don’t think there could have been many Singaporeans left in the suburbs. My friends decided to do something very Singaporean and go trekking across the CBD in search of a hawkers centre they knew of that had good food.






National day song
Electrico- "What do you see"


What do you see MP3

I saw this at a mobile phone store which gave people a choice between normal mobile phone numbers and lucky mobile phone numbers. I am still trying to work out what precisely makes the numbers lucky. I was of the understanding that Chinese influenced cultures tend to consider the number 4 (sì in Mandarin Chinese) unlucky because it sounds like the word for die (sǐ). Most of these have 4 in them though. Hmmm

Apparently Singapore is so special that it gets its own special formulations of laundry detergent. I'm not sure what is so special about Singaporean clothes. Maybe the detergent is especially good at getting sweat stains out of your clothes?

This was stuck to the side of a construction site. I think ether some construction workers have had too much time on their hands or there is some important hidden meaning to this I have missed.

Coming from somewhere where it doesn't rain nearly enough, it is a bit of a novelty that it actually rains here. Even more of a novelty is that you can buy umbrellas out of a vending machine.

I couldn't resist posting another photo of a member of the local feline population. This one was asleep on an otherwise unoccupied table at a market. I got a shock when i first saw it because it looks very much like one of my cats. I think the stallholders may have thought I was crazy for snapping photos of the cat.

This ad gets played on the screens at some train stations quite a bit. There is also matching posters. I'm showing you it because it shows you some of the different types of public transport and because it is totally ridiculous.

After all the hype about swine flu, I was relived not have any flu like symptoms when i was travelling to Singapore. Such things aren’t looked upon kindly in airports. Unfortunately my good health did not last long. Within 5 days of arriving I developed a cough. At first I explained it away as asthma triggered by something in the air. 24 hours later, the other major flu symptoms (fever, sore throat ect) started to make their appearance. Just what I needed having just arrived alone into a new country.

The fever started to get pretty bad so I decided I should get it checked out by a doctor. Only problem with that was the university health centre doesn’t open on weekends. That meant I had to go to the hospital emergency ward. I was seen impressively quickly- I waited only 5-10 minutes. Back home you wouldn’t get seen anywhere near as quickly (probably not even if you were dying). It wasn’t all such smooth sailing. Despite the fact that both myself and the doctors/nurses/admin staff all spoke English, I had a lot of communication difficulties. I had an Australian accent and a sore throat. They had Singaporean accents. Both of us were muffled by surgical masks. I had to repeat myself a lot (as did they). I gave up trying to explain that I was an Australian, not a local so just handed them my passport instead. Eventually we managed to sufficiently communicate and I got sent home with multiple medications.

The medicines were a bit of a problematic experience. I have trouble swallowing tablets and tried various ways to get them down. I ended up grinding up the panadol tablets and mixing them with mashed banana. A lot of effort but at least it meant I got the panadol down. If I didn’t take them the fever would get worse. Fever is bad at the best of times. The heat and humidity of a tropical country made it so much worse. I don’t think I have ever sweated so much. No matter how much water I drank, I would still end up dehydrated. Then there was the cough syrup. They weren’t kidding when they said it may cause drowsiness. Only problem was this was not “send you quickly into a deep, restful sleep” kind of drowsiness, more of a “keep you unable to sleep but way too out of it to complete even basic tasks. I tried to stay in my (often kinda warm) room so that I wouldn’t infect anyone else but sometimes I had no choice than to venture out for food or other necessities. That required a facemask. Those can get rather stuffy in hot & humid weather. They also make eating and drinking in public remarkably difficult. You don’t wanna be seen taking it off public because it then looks like you don’t care about whether others get what you have but you can’t eat or drink easily with it on.

Thankfully I am a lot better now. The fever is totally gone and the cough is nowhere near as bad as it was. Hopefully it isn’t an experience I am gonna have to repeat while I am here.