60 signs you've been in Singapore too long!

[ecureilx]

- When you understand that if you encounter a local and he asks if you've 'taken rice', he's not asking whether have you eaten, rice or not. But there's a second level to it, it is not a literal question expecting a literal answer.

I had it a hard way. It happened very shortly after my arrival to Singapore and was just trying to embrace all the new things around. I was going by a cab when the cabbie asked me something like this: did you have e-o-dee-ne? I took me good 15 min to make some sense out of this.
The problem was pretty complex and I realize it may sound a bit idiotic for an English native speaker but two factors kicked in: 1) I am a chemist; 2) in my native language you normally read words the same way they are written. What I got and had big problem to process was this: did you have iodine. I just could not get why a taxi driver was suddenly asking me whether I had a chemical element of the atomic number 53 belonging to the halogen group. A conspiracy thinking was triggered too: how the hell did he know I was a chemist?

Now I am already very familiar with the phrase so if somebody asks me, Sir, did you have your dinner, I can immediately answer, yes, thank you, how about yourself?

That's gotta by a sticky introduction to Singlish

[Strong Eagle]

^^^^^^^^^^^^

Absolutely hilarious.

[nakatago]

when you understand what they mean by "going bak"

it took me ages to understand that ...i always ask going back where??

I know I already mentioned this but my response first time I heard this was, "But we just got here." We were on the same bus and I was saying it with no sense of irony whatsoever.

[rajagainstthemachine]

you stop getting upset about the footmarks on the toilet seats, water on the floor and dried urine droplets splattered everywhere.

Mental note: just imagine you are in a public toilet in Calcutta's railway station. This is not Singapore.

[ecureilx]

you stop getting upset about the footmarks on the toilet seats, water on the floor and dried urine droplets splattered everywhere.

Mental note: just imagine you are in a public toilet in Calcutta's railway station. This is not Singapore.

and then while in a toilet at the 'top' of Orchard Road, when you are using the urinal, a big sized ang moh next to you reminds you that you gonna get caned if you don't flush .. ! you just smile and ignore him .. instead of telling him that almost all urinals flush automatically and there is no caning for not flushing

[nakatago]

you stop getting upset about the footmarks on the toilet seats, water on the floor and dried urine droplets splattered everywhere.

Mental note: just imagine you are in a public toilet in Calcutta's railway station. This is not Singapore.

and then while in a toilet at the 'top' of Orchard Road, when you are using the urinal, a big sized ang moh next to you reminds you that you gonna get caned if you don't flush .. ! you just smile and ignore him .. instead of telling him that almost all urinals flush automatically and there is no caning for not flushing

The upscale mall toilets are nice. Not many people use them and are therefore, clean, very private as public toilets go, and a welcome refuge when you have a sense of urgency.

[JR8]

you stop getting upset about the footmarks on the toilet seats, water on the floor and dried urine droplets splattered everywhere.

Mental note: just imagine you are in a public toilet in Calcutta's railway station. This is not Singapore.

and then while in a toilet at the 'top' of Orchard Road, when you are using the urinal, a big sized ang moh next to you reminds you that you gonna get caned if you don't flush .. ! you just smile and ignore him .. instead of telling him that almost all urinals flush automatically and there is no caning for not flushing

Lol... good one!

another...

- you stop trying to figure out why so many public lifts smell of urine.

[ecureilx]

- you stop trying to figure out why so many public lifts smell of urine.

Maybe lifts need auto-flush systems ???

[Wd40]

When you forget that dogs can bark and bite also.

[JR8]

- A sign you've yet to move to Singapore. You're negotiating a relo package, and despite happily living in 'zone 5' suburbia back home, and it making little budget/geographical/lifestyle sense, you are adamant that over here you have to live in Holland Village.

- A sign that you lived in Singapore for too long. You return home and feel compelled to install 7-lever deadbolts on all the doors and windows of your Xth-storey apartment.

[rajagainstthemachine]

The absence of roadkill starts to perturb you, no run over dogs or cats, or crows pecking at bloated rotting carcasses, not even the odd human brains splattered over the sidewalk.
no crunching sound of bones/dull thump as you drive over a dead animal.

[JR8]

The absence of roadkill start to perturb you, no run over dogs or cats, or crows pecking at bloated rotting carcasses, not even the odd human brains splattered over the sidewalk.
no crunching sound of bones/dull thump as you drive over a dead animal.

/At moments like these, you almost miss Autumn back home in rural New Jersey. And realise you've lost the 6th sense of whether a fast approaching road-kill deer is safe to drive over without messing up the car./

--- the brains on the sidewalk. That's more the wrong side of Jersey City, Philadelphia, and DC [hehehe...].