What it means to live in Singapore – Part 1

Short disclaimer: Due to many exams and quite a high workload, this blog hasn’t received the attention it deserves from Ana and Simon. If you, as reader of this blog, had to read boring stuff on the internet in the meantime, they truly apologize!

Singapore is a Fine City

So far, the blog entries have told the interested reader many stories of “special events” such as settling in, apartment hunting, new work / study environments or travel experiences. However, life is not every day THAT exciting. There are pretty uneventful days for Ana and Simon that consist mainly of working / studying, maybe joint dinner time and sleeping. Nobody would be interested reading that. On the other hand, everything happens in Singapore and the place is quite different to most other places in the world. It is a somewhat unique mixture of the skycrapers of a metropolis like New York, the order and structure of Switzerland, the population of East Asia and tropical climate that may as well be found in steaming Africa or Latin America. This blog will list a few interesting stories from this truly special place on earth.

Food & Drinks

Singapore is generally expensive. Ana and Simon specifically realized this during apartment hunting but also most other expenses are higher – about 30% over Munich prices. One of the few exceptions is food, or at least the basic version of it. Most neighborhoods have so called “Hawker Centers” which are basically food courts. They usually offer a great variety of different cuisines for a very affordable price of €4 to €8. What does different mean? Well, you can have Malay, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Indian, Indonesian, Japanese, etc. Sounds all very much the same to you? Well, there is usually also one food stall serving “Western food” – everything from Schnitzel to Spaghetti and Fish & Chips. First, Ana and Simon thought that this was a bit random. However, they realized that there are also a number of places in Europe that sell “Chinese/Thai/Indian” food. It really depends of the perspective what variety means and which food you would maybe normally not mix together. That being said, Ana and Simon also have had very good experience at more upscale restaurants. Especially Ana was lucky to be invited to a few nice places with her colleagues and they feasted on Peking Duck and Asian Lobster.

One of the specialties of Singapore is the so-called “Chili Crab”. It actually also exists as a “Black Pepper Crab” and is basically a huge steamed crab served marinated in chili or black pepper. Knowing that Ana is not a great fan of spicy food, they were actually hoping that the black pepper crab would not be thaaat spicy. Well, proven wrong – the only one who mildly enjoyed it was Simon and they finally figured out that you could also order a crab without any sauce – it was not on the menu though.

In general, the different cuisines in South East Asia are all pretty spicy. Simon always thought that he had a high level of spice resistance. Turns out that when people at a restaurant tell him that the dish is “spicy”, it is already too much for Western taste buds. “A bit spicy” is very spicy, “just a little bit spicy” means it is spicy and if it is “not spicy at all”, chances are 50/50 that it is not spicy at all or only a bit spicy. If wanted, this information could be translated into a handy table to carry with you every time that you travel the region.

Obviously, eating out is not the only way to get food. Ana and Simon have their own “local” supermarket about 5 minutes from their apartment and enjoy the Chinese music coming from the speakerphones just as much as the interesting offerings in the shelves. Rice is – to no surprise – a big part of the diet and if you can find many sorts of potatoes in a well-equipped European supermarket, so can you find about 30 to 50 different sorts of rice in a local supermarket. 

Also, the variety of different tastes for Chips (Crisps) has been extended. If you thought that “Salt & Vinegar”, “Barbecue”, and “Red Pepper” is not enough, you were right. Come to Singapore and enjoy chips with “Kyushu Seaweed Flavor”!

Occasionally, especially Ana is missing the rich tastes of Spain. Both of them have tried a few Spanish tapas restaurants, some of them even with very decent food. Compared to the very affordable Hawker centers, the prices at these venues are pretty close to outrageously high though. So in order to bring some culture to their apartment, Ana and Simon also hosted some friends with good Spanish tapas and the obligatory Galician white wine that their friends Ana & Jesus had brought in March. The combination of "tapas and a view" was quite nice!

 

When it comes to drinks, Singapore is unfortunately again very expensive. The government taxes alcohol quite heavily so even in a super market, you cannot get a can of beer for much less than a Euro (in Germany, this starts at 25 Cents, if anybody was wondering). So when you go out, the cheapest (large) beer that you can get will cost around € 5 which is still ok. But this is at a hawker center. Tiger Beer is the beer of choice for most locals and can be purchased almost anywhere.

If one wants to get a “good German beer” (and many people in Singapore actually drink German wheat beer, probably because it is very refreshing in the heat), you should be thinking about €8 to €10. Sometimes, there is nothing better though! The best parts are when you can melt an Asian dinner experience with the German beer. Especially Simon is glad that this is possible!

Regulation

Singapore has the reputation for being one of the most dull and most heavily regulated places on earth. Ana and Simon thus went there, expecting it would be like Munich (which already has a high presence of police and many regulations) times 10. Little did they know. Well, actually, it is not that bad. There is for instance a popular myth: It is forbidden to possess or even consume chewing gum. While this had been true in the past and there is still no gum on sale in Singapore, one can import and consume it. Before Ana and Simon figured this out though, they just realized how bad they missed chewing gum.

On the other hand, many stereotypes about Singapore and its heavy stand on regulation are true. There are many signs that forbid the use / consumption of almost everything in certain public spaces, especially in the MRT (subway/metro): there is a 500 dollar fine for eating or drinking, 1,000 dollar fine for smoking and you also cannot bring Durians (the smelly tropical fruits that people here seem to love) into the MRT . There will be signs in the toilet what not to do (even though Ana and Simon thought that was pretty obvious) and even in night clubs. However, you do not have to obey everything.

Actually, Ana and Simon were surprised about the police presence. While there are often warnings in the metro “if you see any suspicious looking person or article, please inform our staff”, there is relative few police on the street – definitely less than in Munich. It seems that decades of law enforcement have done their deal and by today, it is not considered necessary for the police to be present everywhere.

On the other hand, even without police presence, there is “law enforcing” by the average citizen. One day, Ana and Simon went into the metro, having purchased a lollipop and having it in their mouth. Suddenly, they were approached by an employee of the MRT who reminded them that eating was prohibited on the MRT (subject to a $ 500 fine, see above) and that they needed to get rid of the lollipop. Excuse me? Well, they were basically chewing the rest of the lollipop in 30 seconds and thanked the employee for not enforcing the $ 500 fine.

The reader probably gets the message – it is somewhat ambiguous: People cross the street despite a red traffic light (probably more often than in Munich) but they in general do like the rules and obey them. But be assured, Singapore is less uptight than you may have thought.

There will be more insights on cultural specialties in Singapore such as language, going out, work ethics and administration – but this will follow and hopefully sooner than this update has reached the interested reader.