Culture Shock - Arriving in singapore

[JR8]

Reverse-'beepers' going almost permanently, from engineering plant/machinery at a nearby building site.

I can easily hear it through the 20+ flr closed windows of my D9 area room.

It's 10.30pm!!! Grrr!!!

I paid to have a great stay, not live in on a 24/7 building site. The construction is omnipresent, as I have experienced nowhere before...

I'd say as a first impression that it really freakin sucks. But maybe there is reason why it is justified somehow.... I don't know. Don't they get that for most people this noise is awful and ... just not wanted?

[Brah]

People chewing with their mouths open doesn't bother you? It's pretty gross whether it's at the dinner table or outdoors.

Well I don't mind having dinner or take a walk with a pretty, elegant, well dressed lady even if she's gulping her food. It just shows that she's a normal and relaxed person.

It's another matter if it's a man though.

Elegant and chewing with your mouth open are mutually exclusive where I come from.

+1 for zzm9980 and -1 for Aragorn2000.

I've been on a number of dates with Singapore Chinese women who I never called back afterwards because of exactly like that and other poor manners and etiquette.

[nakatago]

Reverse-'beepers' going almost permanently, from engineering plant/machinery at a nearby building site.

I can easily hear it through the 20+ flr closed windows of my D9 area room.

It's 10.30pm!!! Grrr!!!

I paid to have a great stay, not live in on a 24/7 building site. The construction is omnipresent, as I have experienced nowhere before...

I'd say as a first impression that it really freakin sucks. But maybe there is reason why it is justified somehow.... I don't know. Don't they get that for most people this noise is awful and ... just not wanted?

It's Singapore. Tower cranes are always part of the skyline.

[Sergei82]

I'm a guy therefore the lady's sexiness can make up for her shortcomings.

Gross! I'm not in that dire deficit of women!

[zzm9980]

On hearing this I concluded that, apart from the ‘authority’ sitting across from me, I was eating in a hawker entirely populated by PRCs.

If I believe everything Singaporeans tell me (or post online), 99% of the people I see in my daily life must all be FT.

I have noticed that Singaporeans complaining about PRCs are complaining about the same thing as the Westerners (and such) about Singaporeans.

Exactly. And when I raise this point, I'm told that as FT, I just can't tell the difference between Singaporeans and PRC. A good example, about half of the cab drivers I get must be PRC with fake/stolen credentials since legally I believe all cab drivers are supposed to be SC.

[therat]

Exactly. And when I raise this point, I'm told that as FT, I just can't tell the difference between Singaporeans and PRC. A good example, about half of the cab drivers I get must be PRC with fake/stolen credentials since legally I believe all cab drivers are supposed to be SC.

cab driver must be Singapore citizen which also include converted citizen.

[JR8]

It's Singapore. Tower cranes are always part of the skyline.

Oh, I'm not concerned with cranes being on the sky-line, it is more that any peace and quiet is broken by jack-hammers at 10.30pm.

In Europe typical permitted building work hours, where there is a risk of disturbing neighbours - are:
M-F, 8.30 - 5.30
Sat, 8.30 - 12.30
Sun and Bank Holidays - Not permitted

You will notice how that segues neatly with a typical working week, so people do not really expect to get noise disturbance in their homes at all.

It leads to an impression that construction of the built environment here, has priority over people's 'quiet enjoyment' of it.


p.s. As I said before, please don't take this as a whinge-fest it's not. These are just 'first impressions'. In a week or two I know just about all these things will have become... just a normal day!



- In southern Germany it is illegal to mow your lawn on a Sunday! (you're meant to be in church, rather than toiling on the 7th day, and disturbing your neighbours).

[bgd]

It leads to an impression that construction of the built environment here, has priority over people's 'quiet enjoyment' of it.

The pursuit of money takes precedence over everything.

[JR8]

- No public seating or benches on the streets. Anything you might sit on at that height (walls) have spikes to stop you.
- No rubbish bins.
- Many young women who look like men.
- Very slow cash-till operators at supermarket check-out. Sometimes you wonder if they're trying to write a book on their cash-till consoles.
- people acting blur so they don't have to move out of your way as you walk along. 'Stuck to mobile? Writing SMS? 'Then I don't need to register you', and they WILL walk right into you.
- Great value and range and quality of sushi etc!
- 3 gen family groups sort of moving as a collective unit along the pavement. Say two shuffling forwards at 5M/min, 3 stationary cooing over babies/toddlers, 3 facing backwards, stationary. They seem to rotate these statuses, and so collectively travel along in a rather random slow-mo way.
- I left air-con on 26c in the room to help acclimatise, Housekeeping visited and had left it at 16c - far colder than the country I have come from, where I pay to heat my home to far above 16c.
- Family groups in from Brunei. All over scarves with just eye-slits. Heavily made up eyes though! Loud perfume. High pitched squeaky gabbing voices as they proceed in a gaggle fussing over their brood.
- An identikit - look, hair, clothes, male gay couple. They resemble each other. They resemble a couple of puppets off Thunderbirds. I suppress a laugh.
- a small bunch of delicious 'pisang' bananas for lunch, superb and inexpensive..
- afternoon rain again. WTH, it's not monsoon but it's every day.
- a background cacophony of humming, whirring, jack-hammers, whistles. This seems to be the base-level of background noise. I have experienced nothing like it before, not even in mid-town Manhatten.
- German Krombacher Pils beer costs less at NTUC Finest, than Heineken, Carlsberg, and Tiger. Jeez... what a taste/satisfaction arbitrage that offers!! Though not cheap here, still, Kromabacher is head and shoulders the best of the bunch...
- The newspapers filled with ads for Swiss watches, and diet plans for fat women (with graphic but probably faked photos.
- Loud obese Americans yelling at each other next to the pool.
- No birds flying in the sky. Almost no birds at all. Just an occasional sparrow hopping for a dropped crumb around the pool-side.

[Brah]

I dig these observations

Many young women who look like men.

This.

Sort of. They only like look sorta like men.

So what is more weird - a woman who desperately tries but still does a poor job of looking like a man, and ends up looking like something that is neither, or, a normal looking woman that is a partner with that person - how does one define the attraction?

Great value and range and quality of sushi etc!

Could not disagree more. Sushi is everywhere here, and almost none of it is good, most of it drek, sorry, am probably just spoiled by the real thing, can't eat it here, nor can the better half.

I left air-con on 26c in the room to help acclimatise, Housekeeping visited and had left it at 16c - far colder than the country I have come from, where I pay to heat my home to far above 16c.

And this.
I took a photo of the temperature settings at the cinema - they had all the rooms set for 18.something.

Loud obese Americans yelling at each other next to the pool.

I guess I dig this one somewhat less.

[x9200]

Great value and range and quality of sushi etc!

Could not disagree more. Sushi is everywhere here, and almost none of it is good, most of it drek, sorry, am probably just spoiled by the real thing, can't eat it here, nor can the better half.

Could you recommend a place if any?

[Brah]

Great value and range and quality of sushi etc!

Could not disagree more. Sushi is everywhere here, and almost none of it is good, most of it drek, sorry, am probably just spoiled by the real thing, can't eat it here, nor can the better half.

Could you recommend a place if any?

Just about anywhere in Japan.

Seriously, the sushi here is more often than not awful and rarely done properly.

There is an expensive Japanese place in Raffles City, if it's still there, for Japanese by Japanese, I went once and it was ok but not stellar, and the Japanese friend I was with felt the same.

These are my experiences, there may be better ones from others, to me it's kinda like bagels - you can get them almost anywhere but they don't taste right from most places outside NY.

[x9200]

Could not disagree more. Sushi is everywhere here, and almost none of it is good, most of it drek, sorry, am probably just spoiled by the real thing, can't eat it here, nor can the better half.

Could you recommend a place if any?

Just about anywhere in Japan.

Seriously, the sushi here is more often than not awful and rarely done properly.

There is an expensive Japanese place in Raffles City, if it's still there, for Japanese by Japanese, I went once and it was ok but not stellar, and the Japanese friend I was with felt the same.

These are my experiences, there may be better ones from others, to me it's kinda like bagels - you can get them almost anywhere but they don't taste right from most places outside NY.

I've been to Japan only as a tourist but undoubtedly what I had there was the best sushi ever, before and after and indeed it was like this every place we had it. In Singapore it is random at best and I have the impression it's getting worse. Hard, compacted rice (not fresh enough) is probably the most frequent failure.

[zzm9980]

- Family groups in from Brunei. All over scarves with just eye-slits. Heavily made up eyes though! Loud perfume. High pitched squeaky gabbing voices as they proceed in a gaggle fussing over their brood.

How do you know they're from Brunei? Just curious. By the description if I saw that, I'd assume KSA or UAE.

- Loud obese Americans yelling at each other next to the pool.

Ok Jeremy Clarkson. We get your point about American stereotypes.

- No birds flying in the sky. Almost no birds at all. Just an occasional sparrow hopping for a dropped crumb around the pool-side.

Funny, I see so many outside my windows where I live. Come by East Coast Park. I'm a good five stories above the tree line, and I watch the birds a lot. The interesting thing is, it looks to me as an American (who may be loud but isn't obese!) that a local pet store had a fire and all of the pet birds escapes. The birds are all bright yellow, green, red, and various different colors. Sometimes they land on my aircon and make a lot of noise too.

[zzm9980]

I've also only been to Japan as a visitor, but I would say some of the Sushi I had in Vancouver was on par with what I had in Japan. It is possible that I only went to a so-so place in Japan. But Vancouver and Tokyo Sushi to me was 100x better than anything else I've had anywhere.