Joanna's Singapore adventures

Created as a tourist campaign mascott, the Merlion has ended up becoming one of Singapore's unofficial symbols. It is half fish, half lion. The fish represents the sea. Lions play a role in the mythology of the area, despite the fact they are not found in the wild anywhere in Asia. There is a few statues of the Merlion around Singapore. The one pictured is located by the Singapore river.


The Esplanade theater is one of Singapore's most significant performing arts venues. It is often called "the durian" after the smelly and spiky Asian fruit of the same name


The Singapore Flyer is currently the tallest ferris wheel in the world, with a diameter of 150 meters. The views from it are very impressive on a clear day. I took this photo from Marina Barrage, a popular place for picnics and kite flying.

Yes, I know it is the new year now, but i didn't get a chance to go see the lights at Orchard Road in Singapore until new years day.

It is one of those commonly held bits of wisdom that McDonald’s restaurants and McDonald’s food are exactly the same regardless of where in the world you are. That’s not entirely true. There’s a few quite noticeable differences between McDonald’s in Australia and in Singapore.

The food does taste a bit different. I think one of the reasons is that here in Singapore it is halal which means it contains no pig products and is therefore suitable for Muslims to eat. The food is also different because McDonald’s in Singapore seems to have made little effort to make their food healthier. I think some of the items are even greasier than in other countries. There is also a few items you don't find in other countries like a spicy chicken burger and cups of corn. They certainly seem to like the food over here- Singapore has one of the highest per-capita rates of McDonald's burger consumption of anywhere in the world.

Another big difference is the kind of people you see in McDonald’s. Here many of the front counter staff are older. They are sometimes known as McAunties and McUncles. There’s also very often students using McDonald’s as a place to study. I even saw some study in the McDonald’s at Changi airport at 4 in the morning! McDonald’s is a popular place to study because many students don’t have much space to study at home and McDonald’s is air-conditioned. I don’t think most Australian students would dare be seen studying in public!

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.

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)

One thing that has happened repeatedly here is people incorrectly guessing my nationality on the basis of my accent. When people meet me they often guess from my accent that I'm Canadian, British, Kiwi or occasionally American. I even had a Canadian think i sounded kinda Canadian. Having grown up in a quite mono-cultural town it is not as though i had many chances to pick up a foreign accent from anyone. Maybe it was my years of singing in a choir that messed with my accent.

Then there is actually understanding what I'm saying. Despite me trying to speak clearly some people just still don't understand. This leads to some awkward moments. One of these was when coming out of a concert i tried to ask the security guard where the bus stop was. He thought i was trying to get more free drinks passes and got a bit annoyed. When i had swine flu it was especially bad because my accent was getting muffled by a facemask.

The other issue with being understood is that some words that are quite common in Australian English just aren't used here. Sometimes it is because a different word would be used here, sometimes it is because the cultural concept just doesn't exist in Singapore. One such one that doesn't exist here is bogan. I have asked Singaporeans here and Singaporeans living in Australia, none of them can come up with a suitable Singaporean equivalent word. I can't explain it with the aid of Australian movie or TV characters because unlike many places, Australian TV shows featuring bogans have not made it here. Sometimes people understand the American term "redneck" but even that doesn't quite capture it. It feels really weird to have to make a long winded explanation to communicate a concept that takes one word back home.


Wikipedia article explaining the word bogan

It would seem it is music festival/concert season here in Singapore. Last week I went to three concerts. I’m justifying it as “research” for my sociology of popular culture course. The concerts proved to be quite an experience.

First up was Timbre Music Fest. This one was held in the very nice theatre at the university. As I had quite a bad headache I didn’t stay too long. I only got to see one artist, Shirlyn and the UnXpected. They did a really good set of original pop-rock songs. It was quite a tame audience- most people stayed seated.

Next up was JamFest (Yes, they quite like shortening the word “festival”). This was also held on campus but this time in a very large sports hall. It didn’t really sound like my kinda thing so up until about 20 minutes before it started I had no intention of going. Then I realised that sitting at home alone on a Friday night was pretty lame so hurried on over. The event was very well attended (I think they said 1300 people), no doubt encouraged by the free drinks. The number of free drinks was capped which thankfully kept people in the sing loudly and dance badly stage of drunkenness rather than the sleazy or aggressive stages of drunkenness. (For the record, I wasn’t one of the drunks). The music for the first part of the night was provided by several different cover bands, all of which were really good. Later in the night, the music was provided by a DJ. The bands tended to play lots of popular songs from artists like Coldplay, Kings of Leon, Lady GaGa and Rihanna so many people would sing along. The most memorable moment of the night was standing in the middle of the excited crowd listening to a boy band play a rock cover of Poker Face by Lady Gaga. That it was happening at the university made the experience seem even more surreal and strange. Singaporean students might have a reputation for being serious but they certainly know how to party!

Last was the Bay Beats festival. Bay beats was held at the esplanade centre in the centre of the city. The festival was focused on alternative/indie music. The headline act was American band Anberlin. Friends had been telling me they were really good so mostly went to see Anberlin. Their appearance was split into 3 sets. The first one was an interview with one acoustic song in a library of all places. Unfortunately due to incorrectly estimating my travel time I was running a bit late and ended up at the back where I couldn’t really see or hear much. The second set was an acoustic one in a small outside arena. This was a lot of fun. While I didn’t know the lyrics, it seems most of the other people there did and they sang loud. The last set was a full on very loud rock gig on a huge stage. The crowd went totally nuts and quite a few people tried to crowd surf. As well as Anberlin, I saw a bit of some of the other bands. The most interesting thing about this festival was not so much the music (as good as it was) but the people watching. I didn’t realize there was such an indie rocker, alternative and emo scene here. Lots of very creative outfits and body art. Having gone dressed in jeans and a plain T-shirt I felt quite plain and out of place in comparison.

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.

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