I have arrived safely in Singapore and have pretty much figured my life out here, finally. I have a nice (but small) room, working internet and phone lines, a cell phone for local calls, and a solid group of people I'll regularly be hanging out with. Although these all sound like simple things, trust me, they were quite difficult to attain.
The flight over was long but not terrible. From Detroit to Tokyo I didn't have one of those small headsets where I could choose what I wanted to watch, so out of the many things played, I stayed awake for Flight of the Conchords and the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (the risque edition). I then had about a 3 hour layover in Tokyo. Words cannot describe the hilarity.
First of all, advertisements were in English, but in some sort of provocative yet confusing version of English. For instance, a bottle of water said "Power my beauty" while another was named Pocari Sweat. I passed time with some green tea flavored Kit Kats and a television in the public lounge that alternated between news reports and Japanese pop music videos. The latter was more enjoyable.
Even funnier were the shops in the airport. Did you know that in Japan, bumper stickers are called "auto graffiti"? Neither did I. There were also far too many apostrophes everywhere, packages saying "Pin's" and "Shoe's". One of the shops had a sign outside that said Drug on one line and Watch on the next. Does this mean that they're on the watch for drug use in the store? Do they sell drugs and watches? Are they doing a drug demonstration and they want you to watch? Unclear. I took several pictures to document it.
The flight from Tokyo to Singapore had the nicer TVs, but some pretty bad turbulence. My stomach rebelled, and to put it bluntly, my kosher meal from Borenstein's catering in Jamaca, New York came right back up. I got to watch Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist (great movie, in case you haven't seen it), and talk with the lovely woman next to me. She was a citizen of Singapore, of Indian descent, who had grown up Hindu but converted to Christianity. She was very maternal, and even gave me her home phone number in case I needed anything while I was here.
After spending 23 hours on airplanes and in airports, I finally touched down in Singapore. My meet-and-greet buddy from the university, Jie Bin (pronounced Tsiye Ben), helped me get settled into my dorm and took me for some late night (this was now 2 in the morning) food at a nearby hawker stand.
Singapore has many nicknames, including "Disneyland with the Death Penalty", "the nanny state", "the land of stairs and slopes", etc., but none have struck me quite as much as "the food capital of the world". This couldn't be more true. My first taste was a banana and cheese prata, a sort of south Indian sweet pancake, and some lychee juice. Much too delicious for my waistline.
Jie Bin introduced me to her friend, Riya, who incidentally has the exact same taste in music as me. She told me that although concerts are expensive on the island, a lot of good indie acts make their way over. In just the next week they'll be hosting the Ting Tings, Bloc Party, and some other acts, and she recently got to see Broken Social Scene front row center. I told her to hook a sister up.
I spent most of the next day wandering around campus like a lost puppy. Much like the Hebrew University campus and much unlike the U of M campus, the roads are circular and curvy and very hard to navigate. Luckily for me, the bus lines are very easy to figure out, stop very frequently, and most importantly, have some awesome air conditioning. In case I haven't mentioned, it's currently 95 degrees, sunny and incredibly humid.
I had no clue where I was going, so I asked a guy at the bus stop which bus to take to the Multi-Purpose Sports Hall. He was taking the same bus, so he got off at my stop, walked me to the building, and made sure I knew where I was. Once there, he just smiled and went back to his business. No sneaky ulterior motives whatsoever. Everyone here is that nice; you think they'd get annoyed by the foreigners, but they just smile and show you where to go.
I met a lovely girl from Java Island, Indonesia, named Dinna. We both showed up to registration a day early and decided to spend a bit of the day wandering together. The campus is really beautiful, and very modern. If a student here calls a building old, it means it was built in the 1980s. We made our way to a 7-Eleven, where they supposedly sell NETS CashCards (a kind of debit card needed for registration, printing, copying, etc.), but they were all out by the time we got there. Instead, I just chuckled at the Slurpee machines and hotdog cookers situated right next to the dumpling cookers and mochi cases. A 7-Eleven in Singapore. Really. Right outside, there was a Subway and another place selling Coney Dogs. I swelled with Detroit pride.
The electricity in my room wasn't working, so I had a maintenance guy come check everything out. This was definitely a culture lesson. I'm starting to learn how incredibly loudly I, and all Americans, speak. He took off his shoes before coming in my room, and wouldn't point directly at me (something you're really not supposed to do to people here). He kept asking if I was comfortable with him being in my room and offered to go outside on several occasions. He ended up staying for about an hour while I made sure everything worked, and he let me use his phone to call the office. Nicest guy ever. Apparently, American power strips don't work in Singapore, and you really shouldn't try. Nothing like a loud "pop!" and some sparks to get the point across.
Later that night, Jie Bin's friend picked us up to take us to Vivo City, the newest mall in Singapore, for some dinner and a movie. Malls in Singapore are quite different from American malls. First of all, it's considered quite normal to go to the mall food court (a collection of hawker stands) just to eat, as if going out to a restaurant, and not do anything else at the mall. There's also a kind of park outside where people walk around and kids play, and Vivo City even has an ampitheater in its park. It's on the southern tip of the island, and it overlooks the water and Sentosa, a nearby island resort.
At this point there were about 8 of us, including me, Jie Bin, her guy friends, Riya, a guy from Texas named Ricky and a Romanian girl from Toronto named Joanna. We decided to pool our money and buy a bunch of food to share. Very good decision. I don't know how many countries were sampled on that table, but it was delicious. Jie Bin was great at making sure I didn't eat anything that wasn't kosher, and tried to get me to try a Century Egg until I informed her that horse urine probably isn't kosher. If you're curious, google "Century Egg".
After the movie, we went to a discount store for some odds and ends and great peoplewatching. We set plans for tonight to go to a local club (Wednesday nights in Singapore are ladies' nights, and at some places you can get free admission and free drinks).
Let me pause here to randomly list things that are illegal in Singapore:
Spitting
Selling gum
Littering
Jaywalking
Possessing pornography
Being gay
Eating on public transportation vehicles
Swearing in public
Openly criticizing the government is a huge no-no, and most of the aforementioned crimes carry with them a hefty fine, or in some cases, a cane. That's right, corporal punishment is alive and well here. Drug trafficking is an automatic death penalty for certain amounts, and Singapore boasts one of the world's highest death sentences per capita. It also has the lowest crime rates. Go figure.
This morning was registration, a painstaking process that took 3 hours and involved a lot of walking back and forth across campus. On a cooler note, they took my electronic thumbprint. I felt like a criminal, only a lot less apprehensive of my future. I also got to meet a whole bunch of exchange students from Holland, Norway, Australia, Canada, China, and other places. I even ran into Dana Mendelson, a Montreal friend from Camp Ramah that I haven't seen in about 4 years. When you're Jewish, you can't escape the tribe anywhere. Not even Singapore.
We hung out for the rest of the day, along with a friend of hers and Joanna. Later on, Jie Bin came and took me to Clementi Road to get a phone. It sort of reminded me of the shuk (bazaar) in Jerusalem, only much cleaner and more polite. The guy selling me the phone even stopped me from buying one that wasn't working properly. I never would have noticed if he hadn't pointed it out.
Clementi Road and other areas of the city are under construction, and Jie Bin had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, she sees it as good for the economy and appearance of the city. On the other hand, she watches her childhood memories get replaced by something shinier and newer, and knows people's neighborhoods are involved in the process. Overall, though, nobody's too upset about it.
I even got my first taste of public transit. It was deliciously air conditioned. I also learned a fun fact about Singapore: people love to gamble. There was a massive line at the gambling pools, and upon activating my phone, I found at least 10 lotto and gambling numbers automatically programmed into it along with my voicemail and balance check. I spent a while trying to figure out who "Horseracing" was.
That's all for now. Keep checking back for more updates on my new life here, and I'll try not to disappoint. As soon as I figure this all out, I'll upload some pictures so you can see the beautiful landscapes here and attach some faces (and foods) to names. Let me know if this was too long or detailed; I don't want to bore anyone. Now that I'm in Singapore, I'll have to practice something I'm definitely not accustomed to doing: biting my tongue.
Love,
Lizzy
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