As someone who only speaks one language, multilingual people fascinate me. I know many people who can speak on the phone in one language and carry on a conversation in person in a different language at the same time. I am incredibly jealous of this skill. On this trip, I have run into countless more people who are fluent in multiple languages.
In one of our many bonding hours at the airport, we realized in our group there were eight Americans, one Malaysian, and one Venezuelan. The eight Americans spoke a combined total of one language, english. Many people can get by in other languages if truly forced, but no one is close to fluent. The two non-Americans spoke a combined total of eight languages, all of the fluently. This absolutely astounds me. They both have been learning the languages since they were young, but I still cannot imagine ever being able to switch between that many languages.
Almost everyone in Singapore is multi-lingual. There are four official languages: English, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil. English is taught in schools and is used in official business. Many people come from families that speak Mandarin. Malay is used in all official songs, and poems and other such documents (no real idea of what all this includes). Tamil simply comes from the Indian population here. What I really find interesting is that while all business is conducted in english, almost no one is really comfortable and fluent in the language. When two people are together that know another language, they will almost always switch to that language.
While in Hong Kong, one person in our group made the observation that while fewer people spoke English, those that did spoke it much better than people in Singapore. In Singapore, there seems to be almost no regard for spelling and grammar. On my official quarantine papers, there was a stamp on the very top of my paper that read, "Isued Tamiflu: Yes/No." I could not believe that a stamp had been made and then used countless times with "issued" spelled wrong! I thought that was bad, until I went to the mall and saw this shirt. Sorry I'm too lazy right now to try and figure out how to rotate it.
Hello world! I am pleased to say, I am free at last! Okay, I've actually been free since Thursday. I've just been too busy enjoying being free to post anything yet. But don't worry, I did eventually tell my parents.
What is more important now is that I am trying to plan out what to do with the rest of my time in Singapore. I have already done most of what I had planned for in Singapore (with the exception of the Night Safari), but there are other places I want to travel. Here is the list of possibilities:
7/4-7/5 Stay in Singapore and go to the drifting show 7/9-7/12 Possibly go back to Thailand. I really really liked it and the full moon festival is that Thursday 7/16-7/19 Open 7/23-7/26 Open 7/30-8/3 Korea 8/3 Go home!!!!!
There are several possibilities for the two free weekends. I really want to go to Vietnam, so that will probably be one of those weekends. I also know some people are planning on going to Perth, Australia and some people are going to India. I don't know when either of those trips are, but I might go on one. However, I might also be broke and just decide to stay here. We shall see.
By the way, check out my lovely interview with the Technique here: http://nique.net/ and then download the PDF.
Before I go into all of the glorious details of the trip, I will start out by saying that I am now in Singapore and doing fine, though I am a bit sleep deprived and hoping food will arrive soon.I will go into the details of sightseeing later, but this post is going to be dedicated to swine flu hysteria.
Thursday evening, 10 people on the trip left Singapore and flew to Macau.The adventures actually started at the Singapore airport.Being students here, we all received national student identification cards so we could be residents.As residents, we show immigration this card when we enter or exit the Singapore airport.Well, some silly person forgot her ID card.Okay, that person happened to be me.Luckily, immigration in Singapore managed to look me up onlineand pass me through.However, I ran into trouble in Macau.There, the asked for my ID card since I did not have an exit stamp from Singapore.Since I am a resident,I had no stamp.After about 30 minutes of negotiating with five different immigration people, I was allowed to go through.Then, the whole group went through the health screening.We turned in our forms saying we had no symptoms and had not been in close contact with anyone known to have the flu in the past seven days.However, when the inspector saw our forms, she became alarmed by us being American and asked how long ago we left the US.We explained it had been 4 weeks and so she let us through.
My favorite part of Macau was customs.The customs inspection consisted of a man sleeping behind a desk.There wasn’t even an x-ray machine for if he decided he did want to check anything.
We spent Thursday night in Macau and took the ferry to Hong Kong on Friday.We did some sightseeing and were out in the town when we received an email from someone’s phone saying that a member of our group from Tech had tested positive for the swine flu (the ministry of health papers I received still call it that).We said crap, that sucks, but we continued with our sightseeing.He had felt fine the last time we saw him and none of us felt sick.
That night, we had just arrived at our dinner location when we received a phone call from the Ministry of Health in Singapore telling us that we were going to be held in quarantine when we got backto Singapore.We had not heard about this from any of our Tech representatives, and they started asking us for identification details including passport numbers, birthdates, etc.At this point, we became nervous about identity theft and not actually knowing who we were talking to.As such, we called people back at the school to get confirmation that we should in fact pass on this information.They gave us the go ahead, and we proceeded to cooperate.
Saturday, we decided as a group to continue with the sightseeing, but avoid really crowded places and wear masks on the MTR (their subway) and on other crowded transportation.During our contact with people inSingapore, we learned three people were being tested and others were waiting for results.They also started going back and forth about where we would be held in quarantine, whether it would be in our dorms or at a government facility.Eventually, it was confirmed that we would be allowed to stay in our dorms.
That night, a few people started to feel some flu-like symptoms.We had an assortment of medicines among the group that everyone was taking liberally.We were planning on spending all day in Hong Kong so we could see the horse races and a few other things, but we decided to go ahead and take the ferry in the morning.More than anything, we were worried we would be stopped in Macau and put into quarantine there.Given the option, we knew Singapore would definitely be better (if for no other reason than the fact that they speak English).With all of this in mind, we realized there was no way sight-seeing in Hong Kong would be any fun.
Sunday morning, we woke up and all took our temperatures.No one was even close to having a fever, but some people were not feeling great.No one was sure if this was in fact the flu, or just caused by the air quality in Hong Kong, or something else all together.We loaded up on drugs and took the MTR to the ferry terminal, wearing our masks along the way.We noticed then and on Saturday that there is no way to be Caucasian and look inconspicuous while wearing a mask.It is not at all unusual for Asians to wear them, but we never see white people with them on.At one point on the MTR, we saw a woman look at all of us with our masks and promptly cover her mouth with a cloth.She glared at us for awhile and promptly got off the train at the next stop.
The ferry ride was about an hour and everyone’s hearts were pounding when we got off.I honestly started shaking as I went towards the temperature screening.It ended up that we had nothing to worry about.They were actually changing shifts when I went through, so I’m not sure they even saw my reading.
In Macau, we had several hours to kill at the casinos before going to the airport.Once at the airport, myself and several others checked in without a problem.Then we had some more fun.Two people had accidentally booked their plane tickets for the previous day.Of course, the flight was booked and there were four people ahead of them on standby.We spent some time trying to help them look for different flights, but everything out of Macau was already booked.We eventually went through security and said we hoped to see them soon.Luckily, as boarding started, we saw them and they said they made the flight.
On the plane, we were once again all wearing masks.I never felt so bad in my life then when a man who seemed to be from Britain or Australia sat down in a seat surrounded by a bunch of us and then laughingly said, “this doesn’t feel suspicious, being surrounded by all of these Americans in masks.”We all laughed with him then silently said a few prayers for his sake.
The flight itself was not too bad.Since we are cheap and took Tiger Air (Asia’s equivalent of Ryan Air), we were not served drinks for the three hour flight, and that kind of sucked.However, the landing was absolutely terrible.By that point, we were all at least a little congested, as much from the smog in Hong Kong as anything.The change in pressure was probably the most painful experience in my life.My eyes started watering as I thought my ears were going to start bleeding.Even once we landed, it took a good 15 minutes or so to feel pain free.
We got into the airport at 2:20 am (getting in that late was a good $100 cheaper than any other flight), and braced ourselves for immigration.The temperature screening was first, and that was not a problem.For immigration, since I did not have my student card, I had to go to the ICA desk while everyone else went to the lines for residents.
I handed over my passport and explained I forgot my student card.They said it wasn’t a problem and started looking me up.As I waited, the first of the Tech students were going up to the immigration officers.Before anything had been found onme, the first of them was escorted over to the ICA desk.The officer told my agent the passport had been flagged, so I went ahead and said, “yeah, about that. . . I’m going to have the same problem.My passport is also flagged.In fact, there’s ten of us.”My agent looked at me and said, “what?!All ten of you forgot your student cards?!”However, by that point, everyone was quickly being escorted over and he soon realized there were ten flagged students.
It quickly became apparent they had little idea of how to deal with this situation.They were all very glad we were wearing masks and kindly asked us to keep them on.They collected everyone’s passports then started escorting us to a holding room (actually their breakroom).As we walked away, they counted us.Ten students.Then they counted the passports.Nine passports.They counted us again.They counted the passports again.They counted us three more times.They finally took us to the room anyway.They came into the room and counted us.They asked us if we all handed in our passports.We assured them we had.They walked away.They came back and again asked about the passports.Finally, they left and found the tenth passport.
While we were waiting, we heard that people who left in the morning took three hours to get out of the airport.We laughed, confident in our ability to get out faster.First, the MOH knew well in advance the time of our flight, unlike the other flight which was booked at the last minute.Secondly, one of those people was from El Salvador.We had gone through enough airline check-ins with him to know it usually took people at least thirty minutes just to figure out where El Salvador is.
After about an hour, we were told the doctor should arrive in 1-2 hours to check us out before taking us to our dorms.That meant he should be there by 4:30 (I believe.I don’t honestly remember for sure now).We were all starving and asked if we could have food.The immigration officials took down our orders, we handed over money, and they bought us some McDonald’s.That was at 3:30 am.
We spent the next hour or so walking away the immigration area.No other flights were coming in, so we got to know the heat scanning people and the immigration officers really well.Some people tried to sleep, with varying levels of success, though there only a few really uncomfortable couches and a lot of plastic chairs.
Two hours and fifteen minutes after the doctor had been contacted, we were told he had virtually cleared us.That meant we just had to went for the MOH to sign off and contact the company responsible for transporting us.
We spent the next hours trying to sleep.As morning approached and nothing had been changed, we were told various tales of how the MOH hadn’t signed forms, or NUS hadn’t approved us coming back to the dorms yet, or how the transportation company hadn’t agreed to move us yet.I slept for about an hour and few people did much better than that.
Finally, at 12:30 p.m. Monday, the transportation/security company arrived.They then informed us that we would be transported two by two.With our dorms at least 45 minutes away, we realized this was still going to take hours.Luckily, myself and the other girl were the first to be taken to the vans.There ended up being two vans.Each van could hold two of us, so four people could be transported at a time.Actually, each van could have easily held all ten of us.However, they were not allowed to put more than two people in a van so that we could not contaminate each other.Say what you will about that logic.
While some of the security people were sent to get two more students, we had our temperatures taken.Mine was a very healthy 36.5˚C.I also reported that I was not suffering from any flu-like symptoms.
Shortly after the other two people were brought out, we were handed our official quarantine orders.I glanced through them and quickly saw that I was not being taken to my dorm.Instead, I was going to a government resort.I told the security guys this had to be wrong and they got on the phone to check.After many phone calls, we learned the MOH had changed its mind.We were supposed to go to the government resort and someone would later bring us our belongings from our dorms.At this point, I had no computer and no phone battery or way to charge my battery.In fact, three-fourths of the group at the airport had no way to contact the outside world without first returning to their dorm.
After an hour of negotiations, begging, and threats over the phone, we were allowed to return to our dorms to pick up our belongings.At 3:30 pm, I finally arrived at my government resort.It would have been quicker, but the driver managed to get lost twice.
The accommodations here are not terrible.The food will probably make me starve, but we’re close to the beach so we have a nice breeze.I have my own room in a bungalow.I can leave my room to walk around the rest of the bungalow and talk to people.The common areas are all open, so I can get fresh air.The room is actually bigger than the dorms and the bed is more comfortable.The worst part is that I still have no internet (obviously that will have changed by the time this is posted).
At this point, four Tech students have tested positive and several others are waiting for results.Everyone not in the hospital is being transported to the resorts, with the guys at one and the girls at another.For some reason, they decided to start this process at 11 pm on Monday.
After getting some sleep, I am feeling fine, though I know boredom will hit soon.That is where all of you come into play.You should all send me nice long emails, realizing I have plenty of time to send equally long (or probably longer) replies.Hope all is well in the US!
As far as classes go, I have finished my first class and am now halfway into my second. The first class was Modern Chinese and Japanese History. Now I am onto the IE classes, starting with Supply Chain Economics. The material is sort of interesting, but after about an hour of it, it gets very boring. Then I realize I still have three more hours and that makes me want to cry. As you would expect, we are learning all of the aspects of managing a supply chain. That means we are looking at transportation routes, inventory management, etc.
Our first test was yesterday. It was probably the longest non-final I have ever taken. It was ten pages of multiple choice, true/false, short answer and math problems. It took me 1.75 hours and I was the first or second person done. None of the problems were too difficult, though I will always hate linear programming problems.
One of the problems on the test was also a routing problem. I think I have now done routing/shorting distance problems in at least five different classes (Supply Chain Logistics, Combinatorics, Linear and Discrete, Optimization, and Stochastics). I'm pretty sure i'm now qualified to work for MapQuest or GoogleMaps.
As part of the class, we took a tour of the local IBM manufacturer. My biggest takeaway from the tour was that IBM is working very very hard to get away from the image of being a dull, gray company. We repeatedly heard that one of their processors now comes in color instead of just gray. Additionally, a few months ago, they broke into teams within the company and each team was assigned a conference room to decorate. They had a $100 budget and had to work outside of normal office hours. They were incredibly proud of these conference rooms. We even got to see a power point presentation about the contest.
I'm being reminded of the blog name lately. I'm very very sick of Asian food of all types. I can't remember the last time I went this long without pizza and I really miss it. Plus I don't think more than 2 meals have actually filled me up. We went out to a burger place on Saturday. They put bread on our table and we ravenously scarfed it down. I did finally go to Little India last night for some Indian food. The Indian restraunt in Columbia is honestly better and it was a bit pricey, but still nice to have something different.
I stayed in town this past weekend but am leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow. A guy on our trip lived there for a few months so he has lots planned for us, starting with Macau and some gambling on Thursday.
One of the things I've been intrigued by here are the restrooms. I think the U.S. has some of the most boring bathrooms in the world. You can expect the same things in almost any bathroom you enter: a toilet, toilet paper, a sink with soap, paper towels, and a hand dryer. Sure, the level of cleanliness changes, but not much.
In the countries I have visited thus far, the possibilities when you enter a restroom are much more exciting. First, not all of the stalls have toilets. You'll notice I didn't say restooms, I said stalls. At least half of the restrooms I've been in have given you an option, you can sit or squat. Why would someone choose to squat instead of sit? I have no idea. I think it's supposed to be a cleanliness thing, but that is still always going to be perplexing to me. I am at least thankful there are actual toilets everyone I've been so that I have not been caught pulling a Rachel ;-)
The next thing that is different is toilet paper. Many places do not have any. Some have places to put it and are simply out while other do not even seem to have an option. One place in Thailand had toilet paper hanging outside of the stall, so you had to decide how much you wanted in advance. Instead of toilet paper, most places have a hose. I have not tried this and do not care to. I cannot imagine how this can be done without making an even bigger mess.
The next thing is paying. I know that paying to use a restroom is not exclusive to Asia, however, I do not think I will ever understand it. It's never more than a few cents, but the principle of the matter still gets me. Also, I was at a mall in Malaysia and needed to use the restroom.. I started to walk in when I saw a sign that said this restoom was a "premier restroom" and would cost me 2 ringgit to enter. However, the restrooms on every other floor were free. I went to another restroom and it was perfectly fine. Since then, I keep wondering what could possibly make one restroom so much better that you have to pay for it.
The final thing that gets me are the handdryers. Think of all the different handdryers in the United States. The only real differences are whether or not the are automatic and the pressure the air blows. Here, that is just the beginning of the differences. Some make you put your hands down between two pieces of plastic and blow the air from both directions. Some are like the ones in the US. Many blow the air out at an angle. One blew the air straight out towards me. This was one of the worst and worked terribly. I'm getting better, but for awhile it was taking me 5 minutes to figure out how to use every dryer.
2) To those of you reading this through facebook, I didn't mean to freak out/confuse anyone with the "Asian Boyfriend" blog. I posted the blog to the website http://asiawithoutrice.blogspot.com/ and there the video showed up.
3) To those of you who did see the video, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I do what I can.
4) I have written some postcards! Now I just need to find a postoffice. I'm told it's in the student center, which means I need to find the student center.
So for those of you who haven't heard, I absolutely loved Thailand. The country was gorgeous. The people were incredibly friendly. Everything was unbelievably cheap. It was once again a trip to a foreign country that cost under $300, including travel, lodging, food, souvenirs and excursions. It helps that when you do the exchange rate, you first remove two zeroes from the price there.
One of my favorite things about Thailand was that it featured both beautiful beaches and mountains. Most of you know that I'm not a huge fan of beaches. However, we went snorkeling, which I haven't done since I was about 7, and I really enjoyed that. That water was really salty, so I could easily float on my stomach with my face in the water and see all of the reefs and fish.
The elephant ride was really fun. My elephant had a mind of it's own and it seemed clear that the guide had little to no control over it, but that just made it more fun. At one point, my elephant decided it was time to drink some water. This turned into him giving himself a bath. That turned into me getting a bath as he sprayed water everywhere. It was fun.
We went during the off-season (it's apparently monsoon season right now), so the hotel was fairly empty. The pool was amazing. I do not have any pictures, but I think some other people do, so I will try to steal them at some point. There were actually three pools, but the big one was big enough that it had a grass covered island in the middle. It also had a swim-up bar where we got mai thais in pineapple (or mahi mahis as I like to call them). They were amazingly good. I want to learn how to make them. One thing that I loved there (and in Singapore), is that there is tons of fresh fruit. I don't know when, if ever, I've had fresh pineapple. It was incredibly good. Actually, all Thai food is incredibly good.
Many of you have heard me say that I have some interest in doing Teach for America when I graduate. After traveling around here and realizing the food is in fact edible, I've started thinking about doing the Peace Corps as well. I obviously don't know for sure, but it's something I'm considering. I would want to go somewhere like Thailand or the Pacific islands.
By the way, some of you should stop stalking and start commenting :-P To those of you who have commented, I enjoy reading them! I miss everyone, though not so much that I'm ready to come home quite yet!
I will soon write all about the wonders of Thailand. For now, I am finishing the second of my two papers due tomorrow. I will say that I am very sunburned and in a bit of pain, but I loved Thailand and am convinced Mom or Dad should take the family there for our next family vacation.
What can I say, I wanted some french fries! Post cards will be sent to all who participated as soon as I stop being lazy :-) And once I figure out where I can send them from.
The swine flu has officially hit Singapore. I heard 7 people have been infected and they have all been from somewhere in North America. We have been affected in several ways. First, at any airport we fly into, when we get off the plane, they have a heat sensing camera that will look at your temperature. In Malaysia, two people in our group were pulled aside and their temperature was read through a thermometer that reads through their forehead.
Here on campus, there are several signs of awareness. I walked by the hospital the other day and EVERYONE was wearing a mask. It looked like something out of a movie. Also, NUS (the university) provided everyone with a thermometer. When we first arrived, we had to take our temperature and reporter. Periodically, the school sends out an email and we have to report our temperature by 10 am the next day. Nobody in our group was aware of this timeline. As such, we all got the email last night/this morning and promptly ignored it. Someone came to our class later to yell at us since not a single person had reported their temperature. You can either text it in through your cell phone or report it online. Since we were all in class, we all promptly made up our temperatures and texted those in (anything between 36-38 Celsius is acceptable). I would feel bad for making this up, but if you go online, you can simply check, "I do not have a fever," if you don't feel like you have a fever.
I'll let everyone know if I start oinking any time soon ;-)
7 a.m. Wake-up 7-8:30 get ready for class/check email/see how the Cardinals are doing/read the news. This is 7 pm eastern or 6 pm central, so if you want to catch me online, this is probably your best bet. Except for mom, she might have better luck at 5 am central ;-) 8:30-9 take the bus to class while breaking the rules by eating a poptart for breakfast on the bus 9-11 class 11-11:30 eat lunch. There are several food courts in the engineering building. 11:30-2 Study. I either go to the library (only about 5 minutes away) or there are lots of benches to sit on. All of the building are connected by covered walkways, so I usually find a bench in one of the walkways. 2-4 class. 4-6 Check email/be lazy 6-6:30 eat dinner. There are two food courts within 2 minutes of my dorm. For dinner and lunch the options are basically chicken and rice prepared in any Asian styling of your choice (Chinese, Japanese, Muslim, Indian, etc.) 7-11 (or so) Hit the town. One day I went to a mall. One day I went to Chinatown. Tonight I'm going to Little India for the first time. It varies, but I feel like the day is kind of a waste of studying abroad if I don't get out at some point.
The way our schedule is set up, we take each class for two weeks. The class meets twice a day for 2 hours each day. The first class is history. Being engineering majors, this is a little intense for us. We're not used to reading. Plus we have two papers due next Monday. They are only 5-7 pages each, but people are still a little freaked out. Though not so freaked out that we're canceling our plans to go to Thailand this weekend. . .
To get around Singapore, I use a combination of taxis, buses, and the MRT (the subway). If you have 4 people, taxis are pretty cheap. No taxis are allowed on campus unless they are picking someone up or dropping someone off, so you have to call to get one, but it only takes a few minutes for them to arrive. Elsewhere in town, there are usually taxi stands so you only have to wait a few minutes. The buses are also convenient and run fairly frequently. However, I was on the school bus today when it rear-ended a car. Oops. I don't know that there was any actual damage.
The subway may be my favorite mode of transportation. Depending on the time of day, they can be very busy. However, it is worth taking the subway for the times I get to see the MRT Rap. That's right, their subway system has its own rap song, complete with music video. It is all about proper etiquette when loading and unloading the MRT. The pictures are stills from the video.
Of course, I also do lots of walking. You would think that walking is a fairly universal mode of transportation and would not cause many problems. However, you would be wrong. In the United States, it is generally understood that you should always walk on the right side of the hall or sidewalk. Additionally, when on an escalator, you can stand on the right side or pass on the left. There seems to be no such standard here. Cars drive on the left, so you would think everyone would stick to the left. No such luck. As a result, everyone is constantly running into one another. Additionally, there are random steps everywhere. To get into my bedroom, I have to step up. To get into my bathroom, I have to step down. This is the case everywhere. I am getting better, but I will not be surprised if I leave Singapore with a broken ankle.
In Malaysia, we stuck to the taxis and buses. You have to be careful with the taxis, because they like to charge you a flat rate instead of going on the meter. The meter is always more. However, in Singapore they are very strict about not letting you squeeze an extra person into the taxi, but that is not the case in Malaysia.
When we got to the airport, in Kuala Lumpur, we had 7 people trying to go to the same place. We didn't want to take two taxis, but the van only held 7 passengers. However, a guy told us he would go ahead and take us. Thus began the sketchest taxi ride of my life. First, we immediately had to stop at a gas station. He pulled into the station and lifted up the hood of his car next to a pump. He realized he was on the wrong side, so he got back in the car and pulled around to the other side, still with his hood up. He then proceeded to pump something in under the hood of the car. At first we assumed it was some strange way to get gas. But no, because once he finished, he had to pull into another pump to get gas. Again, he pulled in on the wrong side on his first attempt. While filling up, he went inside. We all sat there talking and listening to music until Yinka (one of the guys in the car) asked, "is it just me or is the car still running?" Sure enough, it is apparently standard practice to leave the engine running while you fill up on gas. Finally, we got moving again. We headed toward the city until we came to a round-about. We the proceeded to go around this round-about not once, not twice, but three times. The first time around, we all managed to see the sign pointing towards Kuala Lumpur. Not so with the taxi driver. However, he eventually managed to get us to our destination. I am still somewhat convinced that he must have just stolen the taxi and that was why he had no idea what he was doing.
When we returned to Singapore last night, we took a taxi from the bus station (it was cheaper than flying) back to our hotel. This became the flat out scariest taxi ride of my life. The speed limit most of the way was 70 km/h. Our driver decided 120 km/h was a much better speed. Honestly, I was okay with this. As some of you know, I tend to drive fast myself. But then our driver's head started bobbing. At first I thought he was just getting into the music. Then I looked at his eyes. Sure enough, he was falling asleep while he sped through the city. We stopped at a red light. He took a nap. We didn't start moving again until we made some noise to wake him up. I'm still not sure how we made it back alive.
