Joanna's Singapore adventures

This would have to be one of the more unique Singaporean musical acts i've heard of. The Complaints choir of Singapore was a choir set up to give a voice to the pet peeves of Singaporeans. If the Singlish and abbreviations are too much, i can translate some of it.

Singapore is known for having lots of rules which means lots of signs about the rules. Some of the signs get a little strange. Apparently not suffocating birds is one of the rules. Why anyone would try or how they'd be successful i'm not sure.

Some of the special decorations are for the Deepavali festival

View from the central courtyard


The common room for my building. These rooms are airconditioned unlike most of the hall so they are a nice place to relax.


This is one of the more popular food places in the residence. It stays open to 2 am every night. Even after midnight it is often still quite crowded.

Singapore's most famous hotel is the Raffles Hotel and one of the things they are most well known for is the Singapore Sling cocktail. Some friends visiting Singapore were keen to try one so we all headed off to Raffles together.

The Singapore Sling is served at the long bar. It's quite a nice place. When we were there, a very good jazz band was playing. The weird thing about the place is that it is perfectly acceptable to throw peanut shells on the floor!

The drink was a bit of a letdown. It tasted like cough syrup. I think i've actually had better tasting cough syrup. I only managed to drink a few centremetres of mine. The rest went to my friends.

I'm sure I've also had cheaper cough syrup. We had assumed that the price mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide was correct. Not the case. Apparently there had been a price rise. We had also forgotten to consider that tax would not be included in that price (it is included for most things) or that they would add a service charge. In the end it cost S$27 a drink! (AU$21, US$19). My friends were so shocked at the bill that they asked for copies of the receipt to keep as souvenirs.

Pulau Ubin is a small, not very developed island to the north east of Singapore. It may be Singapore territory but it is so different to the rest of Singapore. The difference is evident before you even arrive. Unlike the rest of Singapore with efficient, timetabled public transport, the little boats out to Pulau Ubin run whenever there is enough people wanting to go to make it worth their effort. Just behind the Pulau Ubin jetty is a small village. Very little fancy construction there, most of the shops and houses look as though they haven’t been renovated in quite a while. Beyond the village is walking and bike riding trails through the island. Although there was once some mining conducted on the island, it is still largely untouched forest and mangrove- much like a lot of the rest of Singapore would have looked like a hundred years ago. We even encountered a herd of wild pigs, complete with cute little piglets. I like being in the city but it was really nice to get away from it all to somewhere so relaxed and peaceful.

House and boats next to the Pulau Ubin jetty.

Pulau Ubin village.

Mum gets excited about getting back out into nature after a few days in the city

Singapore is not just the one big island. Singapore’s territory includes many smaller islands. Two of the most well known are Sentosa and Pulau Ubin. These islands are so amazingly different that it is hard to believe that they can exist in the same country.

People often ask how university is different here to back home. In some ways it is quite alike but there are some noticeable differences.

The work load is similar back home in regards to the amount of reading to be done and length of essays to be written. The difference is that here the marks are curve graded so its not just a matter of doing well on your own merits but of doing well in relation to everyone else. Given how hard many people study here that is a bit unnerving. The other difference is what weighting is put on each piece of assessment. Back home the marks tend to be weighted towards essays (eg. 60% essays, 30% exam, 10% tutorial participation) whereas here the assessment puts a lot more weight on exams- i think the exams are worth 60-90% in my subjects. Some subjects have 2 or more exams spread through the semester. Like at home there is a big emphasis on tutorial participation. This is met with mixed success, sometimes everyone has more to say than there is time for, sometimes the tutors have to coax answers out of people.

The campus culture is quite different. Almost everywhere you look on campus here there is someone with a laptop or books out studying. I'm pretty sure there is no unauthorized political activism allowed on campus. Can't say i've missed being set upon by socialist activists every time i try to leave the campus centre. I think a few of the campus restaurants do serve alcohol but there certainly isn't any of the blatant public alcohol consumption that can be seen on many a lunch time back home. I think there is probably even more clubs, events and sports teams than back home. There seems to always be heaps of things happening here.

If studying in the library gets too boring, here studying on the beach is a viable option too!

Most Singaporeans can speak pretty good English when they have to. When they don’t have to they are likely to use Singlish. Singlish is a creole language that mixes words from English, Mandarin Chinese, Malay, Hokkien (a Chinese dialect), Tamil and an assortment of other dialects. The grammar shows a strong Chinese influence. Sometimes it sounds like slightly mangled English, sometimes it is almost impossible to understand if you just know English. Check out the Coxford Singlish dictionary for some examples of Singlish. Singlish is most well known for the use of the particle “lah” which seems to function like verbal punctuation. Some Singlish words have even made their way into international dictionaries.

Singlish has become quite a controversial topic here. Fans of Singlish argue that it is an important part of what it means to be Singaporean. Singlish can be heard from people of all ages, races and social classes here. Furthermore, through the inclusion of words from different languages it reflects the cultural diversity of Singapore. Having unique things that everyone can rally around are really important in developing a national identity and patriotism. As a very young and very diverse country, such things are not particularly easy to come by.

Despite their strong desire to develop a national identity and instil patriotism, the Singapore government is decidedly unimpressed by Singlish. They worry that if people use Singlish, they will not properly learn to speak Standard English, resulting in them being an embarrassment to the country. To counter this they launched a campaign called the Speak Good English Movement. This campaign includes language classes, books, websites, social events where Standard English must be used and forcing soap operas to have their characters speak better English. I’m not sure what to make of their current slogan, “impress, inspire, intoxicate.” Maybe Standard English is sometimes impressive but intoxicating? It would seem that despite the government’s efforts Singlish is not going anywhere in a hurry. It still gets used a lot, and not just in informal social settings ether. It even gets used in public manners campaigns! (see included picture)