Just Singapore things

There are a lot of amusing things about living in Singapore, and Eoin and I have been trying to think of a few of the more amusing ones.

First, differences between Singaporeans and people in other cultures I have dealt with that I find amusing most of the time (although sometimes I do have to close my eyes, take a deep breath and work hard to convince myself that they are amusing and not incredibly frustrating). 

1. Walking incredibly slowly, but having desperate need to be in doors first - probably the two most frustrating things about getting around - Singaporeans (particularly ladies) are incredibly slow walkers! I mean noticeably incredibly slow. The kind of slow you can't even adjust your pace down low enough to walk behind comfortably. This report makes me laugh hugely, because it's so blatantly wrong! Obviously this doesn't mean I'm faster than all Singaporeans, but I can't recall walking anywhere where I've encountered other people that I haven't had to pull up short or overtake. The second part... people will go to great lengths to make sure that they are first in/out of the train, bus, elevator or almost anywhere there's a door, pushing in front of the frail and elderly, wheelchairs, stepping on toes and trying to walk straight into you. So they can be the first to walk at snail pace to the stairs, shops or office. Sigh.
2. Not walking more than physically required - this one I can understand - it's HOT here. But as a huge generalisation, most Singaporeans will wait 15 mins for a bus to avoid a 5 minute walk.
3. Being skinny despite eating lots - See, in Japan, I could understand why everyone was skinnier than me. They ate less. I got it. Here, there are tiny women routinely tucking into bowls of oily soup that should double their BMI from the volumes they are slurping up alone, and consuming plates of noodles thicker than their arms. They love food here (and I love them for it), but I cannot for the life of me understand where they put it. Dudes too - how can your national diet consist of so much delicious, sweet, fried, carby food while you have an average body weight of 58 kg?
4. Unnecessarily heavy clothes- every mall has a shop or two selling parkas. No worries, people travel, kind of makes sense... until you are standing on the train next to the dude with the fur-collared, quilted canvas jacket. Or the lady over there with her fleece on. Or the teenage dude sweating away in his leather jacket. It's not like there's a winter here to prepare for - it's 25-31 all year round! Why even bother to sell track pants?!
5. Doing stuff at same time as everyone else - OK, I'll admit that this isn't really specific to Singapore, but it is a big thing here. People like to have lunch exactly at lunchtime. People like to catch the train at exactly train catch time. There are huge tides of people all moving the same ways/places simultaneously, and if you are happy to just move out of sync with the majority slightly, life can be a lot easier and less crowded (seats at restaurants, less sardine-tin trains, no waits on water slides).
6. Buck passing - this is a work one, and very much based on my personal experiences. As far as possible, most people I've encountered will avoid doing their job until they're really backed into a corner with no one else to point you at. This can involve walking around in a lot of circles. I've found this across many departments, types of job, ethnicities, and levels of employment (although higher seems to be worse). People will only help you if there's really no choice left and you're crying.
7. Singlish - It's a unique experience to have people speaking 80-90% English while you manage to understand 10-20% of whats going on. The sprinkling of Hokkien, teochew, cantonese, mandarin, and malay combined withYoda-ish grammar mean that I often have to repeat things in my head several times to be able to effectively eavesdrop. Mostly, Singaporeans turn off their Singlish when talking to foreigners, and I haven't had the chance to actually talk to a Singaporean about Singlish yet, but I'm keen to learn a few more words than "Shiok" (awesome/cool), "lah" (this is the end of my sentence, please agree with me), "mah" (this is the end of my sentence, and I actually asked you something), "kiasu" (pushy anxious person who's rude or arrogant because they are scared of missing out on something. See: my description of trying to get on/off a train above). I want to learn the good swears!
8. Going out clothes to work or uni - Some young ladies dress significantly better than most people would dress to go out to a fancy dinner to come to work and stay in a lab all day. There are people in evening-dress-ish dresses running all over campus and it confuses the hell out of me. The lady two desks down from me wears floaty maxi dresses or little black dresses to work every day. I'm not sure if this is a "trying to find a rich husband" thing (Singapore would definitely be a great place to be a trophy wife!), if these people just like dressing up, or if it's just normal to look like you are doing a daily walk of shame.
9. Customer service - This doesn't exist in Singapore. I'll tell you when I find some... This isn't actually true - there are some places where customer service is great. Its just that it can also be HILARIOUSLY bad - there is a shop I've been into probably 10 times, and the lady behind the counter is yet to make eye contact with me, or even look at me when I approach the counter. There are also quite a few impatient aunties who enjoy a good eye roll at the stupid foreigner who should know the (unlisted) prices of every item on the (non-existent) menu at hawker markets, bakeries or pretty much any place that deals mostly in cash.
10. Carrying food - More than any other country I've been in, takeaway culture is big here. Food and drinks are lugged all over the place, and I've regularly caught public transport with people who carry unopened Starbucks coffees for more than 30 mins to NTU (where there is a Starbucks). I guess Singaporeans can put up with cold coffee and cheeseburgers to be seen with the slightly-status-raising items? The packaging here is pretty cool, and there are some clever techniques that even hawkers use to let you bring your dinner somewhere else.

Next on the list, some of the observations of Singapore life itself , and differences to what we've previously encountered in Australia, Ireland, Japan or Germany:

1. Alcohol Prices - Whoa, what? $18 for a beer? OK, it's probably a pint of some imported German brew, but alcohol here is ridiculously expensive - I have had a sum total of three beers since I arrived 3 months ago, and only when we've had visitors (Nike paid for one of those for me - thanks Bridget!). Jarring difference to the rest of south-east asia, and although there are some slightly cheaper alternatives if you know your way around, most Singaporeans will just go to Malaysia or Indonesia with their friends for a weekend to have a bender (and end up with much fuller pockets)
2. Jobs for all - A lovely taxi driver told me that the one of the basic goals of the Singapore government is to try to make sure there's jobs for everyone, which helps to stabilise society. It means you see a lot of older people working at McDonalds or cleaning plates in cafeterias where you'd normally see teenagers working in Australia. The fact that there's no social security here probably contributes to this as well...
3. Chicken Chop - "Western Food" here is an amusingly Asian take on all Western cuisines combined. Probably the same amusement that people from Asian countries get when they come to Australian Asian Takeaways to see made-up asian dishes (lemon chicken) with mixed Chinese greens and Japanese-style rice. Aside from the amusing spaghetti with fish and chip meals, there is a uniquely Singaporean dish called chicken chop, which Singaporean people think is western. It's a de-boned chicken thigh hammered out to flat and then fried like a steak, and I have to admit I haven't actually tried it yet.
4. Singapore-d food - Heaps of food here is amazing. Amazing! But if you are hankering after a specific thing that isn't Singaporean/Malaysia/Chinese/Indian (e.g. bacon and eggs for breakfast), you might have a bad time. We discovered this the other weekend when we tried to go out for breakfast - Eoin ordered pancakes, and I ordered Eggs Benedict with bacon. The man asked Eoin if he wanted crispy or fluffy, and he asked for crispy (thinking crepes) rather than big American style-fluffy ones. What he didn't expect was pancake cooked to waffle-cone broken up with a plate full of dry nuts. What I didn't expected was a muffin, ham, cooked spinach and hollandaise sauce... all covered with a lake of bad onion gravy! There was no gravy on the menu or in the picture, and I was so sad. The worst part was how much we got to pay for the pleasure of the worst breakfast ever. But at least it was amusing. 
5. Information control - censorship aside (DO NOT WATCH HORROR MOVIES HERE, all patchily censored for blood, gore and nudity), Singapore administrative bodies seem to guard all information like it's national secrets, regardless of how non-sensitive the information is, and how vital it would be to the seeker. How long?, how much?, how can I? and why? seem to be questions that Singapore does not want you to know the answer to, even if it's just about the lunch you just ordered.
6. Big Brother vibe - Singapore is really safe. People mind tables in crowded food courts with their wallets and phones, and there is virtually nowhere you couldn't walk at any time of day. 
7. Plus plus - that was a great dinner for only $20!. Wait, why are there these plus signs at the bottom of the menu... That would be plus plus. $20 PLUS 10% service charge (decent-fancy restaurants only) PLUS 7% GST (GST only charged by larger companies that turn over $1 million per year or something like that). So we'll take your $23.40 please. BEWARE THE PLUS PLUS!

OK, that's some of the new and interesting things we've learned about Singapore/Singaporeans in the first few months. Stay tuned for more of our adventures (I know, I'm way behind).