Singapore Oil Spill Response

I heard about the oil spill on Saturday 30 May, idly surfing the net over breakfast.  I’d smelled petrol on Thursday afternoon, sitting in the office but passed it off as an oddity when no one else confirmed it (and I work a long way from the ocean).   
The collision between a tanker and a cargo ship happened some 13km off the shores of Singapore three days prior to that, spilling an estimated 2,000 – 5,000 tonnes of bintu light crude (depending on sources) into the water.  The preliminary story I picked up was in a Malaysian news article as follows.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/5/28/nation/6355091&sec=nation


The problem I have with this and other press releases I have read is that it’s being treated like it’s no big deal, that the mess isn’t a problem.  From articles I have read, I have seen statements such as “the light crude will evaporate from prolonged exposure to the sun” and “efforts have been positive, more or less”.  Now, while all this may be true and honestly, I am no organic chemist, my gut feel is that the importance of the event and the profile of the response to it has been understated.  Especially when you compare the reactions (admittedly on grossly different scales, I will grant you) on different sides of the pacific to similar dramas.  Both are in major oil territories; the Gulf of Mexico for drilling and Singapore as an entrepot for storage and refineries.
http://sg.yfittopostblog.com/2010/05/25/oil-spill-off-singapore-after-vessels-collide/

Living so close to the beach, I took myself for a run on Saturday 30th to see how the ‘response’ was being enacted and the progress made to date, given the expectation of the authorities that the situation would be dealt with by Sunday.  There’d been no official warning to stay away, besides, the Sundown Marathon was to go ahead along the east coast park that evening.
The powers that be had allocated 100-125 personnel to combat the spill, stopping it spreading to the sand which was where animal life was at risk and as I trotted along to the beach I could see many people milling around in the usual way that outdoor workers do here, slowly.  


Don’t get me wrong, you’d expect the authorities to have been prepared for this, and they were.  You can’t run such a massive operation here and not be ready for collisions. But the assembled team was a rag-tag collection of labourers, mostly Indian from what I could see, dressed in a variety of bizarre non-uniform uniforms; jeans, track-suits, short-sleeved shirts, sandals, running shoes, bandana facemasks and towels wrapped around heads to keep the sun off.  One or two guys had donned the worker’s traditional high-visibility jackets, but more so as an accessory rather than to be seen.  From a safety perspective, all I noticed was one guy using safety gloves to pick up the oil-covered sand (safety gloves made of black polythene refuse bags) and one guy using a face-mask to protect himself from the fumes (a face-mask that was actually a knitted, black balaclava).  It was a motley crew indeed.


The smell of the beach could best be described as a cross between a fishmonger’s store as the fresh fish are unloaded and a gas-station’s forecourt.  A salty, sea-weedy, petroleum aroma.  It wasn’t a good smell that I sucked into my lungs through the afternoon heat.  My lungs might be big and strong and I managed an audible laugh on seeing the recreational smokers lighting up along the beach.  East Coast Park is one of the few remaining public areas where Singaporeans can smoke yet this week probably wasn’t the smartest place to be waving around naked flames (again, I don’t profess to be an organic-chemist nor do I profess to know the risks of the oil spill, but should I have been told?).


I ran past hundreds of refuse bags along 4km of beach, full of oily sand and debris, lying in the sun on large tarpaulins, ready for collection at some point later in time.  Bags of oily rubbish lying in the sun in full view of many children running around on the beach.  Does that sound sensible?  It was as if nothing had ever happened: cyclists kept cycling, runners kept running, in-line skate first timers still tried to avoid falling and kids kept playing.  The park was crowded with people enjoying the weather, flying kites and barbecuing.  People were even fishing, idly throwing a line at the ocean opening of the Siglap canal, through a rainbow shimmering film of light crude oil. Seriously?  I don’t see much in the way of catch-and-release sport fishing going on here so where were any fish going?  Not the barbecue, surely.


I guess the main problem I have is the lack of acknowledgement that anything bad was happening here, or that there was any potential risk to the general public.  Yes, I considered any potential risk that I knew of, as a reasonable person (not a chemist) and still went running along the beach, making a concerted effort to run on the track, not the sand.  I hope everyone else made the same conscious decision on behalf of themselves and their children.  But did they? Should they have had to?   Maybe I missed something, but in the space of five days I did not hear one item of news about the spill, did not hear any recommendations about what to do when, IF, you wanted to go to the beach and saw no warning signs at the beach at all.  
Clearly there was something out there from the powers that be, but was it enough? 
Shovel

An open zoo - beasties and crawlies in your own home

Why does there seem to be a distinct absence of flies in Singapore?
You'd think that this tropical, steamy island would be a breeding ground for them, it certainly is when it comes to mosquitos and the signs at building sites on the importance of eradicating stagnant water cannot be missed. However I've only spotted a couple here and there; a couple of weeks back there were two lazily buzzing around my thonged right foot whilst I waited in line for a taxi. Maybe they were waiting too, after all, with all that flapping of wings, you'd get pretty tired here; why not take a taxi instead?

Maybe there really is a small population, maybe there's a mysterious shortage. Maybe they have been picked off by a supremely efficient predator or most likely they are all feasting on some fetid, festering garbage heap in the less populated parts of the island. Who knows?

In this first week of moving into our new place, we've been visited by geckos, which is something you don't see too often in the home-counties of the UK.




 The little lizards seem to be the good-guys here, living off the numerous slugs, bugs and roaches that linger in dark alleyways. Maybe they're the ones eating the flies, but how would you catch a fly if you're bound to the ground and have no chameleon-styled tongue? The ones that found their way into our kitchen (our door-frames are not the best fitted. The builders left a good centimetre gap either side, probably for ventilation health and safety purposes) are five to eight centimetres in length, pale green almost yellow in colour and have big brown eyes. It almost sounds adorable, doesn't it?

They flick about, with a distinct pad pad pad of their sticky-toed feet and, having tried to catch them, are pretty nippy over short distances. So far, I have evicted two, one day after the other, although maybe i didn't do a good enough job of showing the first to greener pastures and he just wandered straight back on in, like a drunk cowboy who has been turfed out through the still-swinging saloon doors. Then again, the process wasn't so difficult, they are reasonably cute little dudes and it's not so much of a hardship chasing them with a tupperware cup in my hand.

In addition to the gecko invasion of my kitchen, I stumbled across a fat cockroach in the door way of the regional tax manager's office this morning, and reacted with typically new-expat revulsion. Good job he's out of town travelling this week. The beasty was a good three centimetres long and two centimetres wide, proudly lying on it's back, displaying its cockroach-brown glory, crossing all it's stick-like arms and legs. Dead. The dessicating insect lay there for a good couple of hours before magically disappearing.
Shovel

Singapore Night Safari

With international visitors in tow, we ventured out into the night to the Singapore Night Safari; the first night zoo in the world. This is a big draw card for visitors to Singapore, rated number seven in the top-ten things to do in Singapore by the eyewitness travel guide we have and it doesn’t disappoint, unveiling a range of nocturnal animals from small to large, slick to furry, herbivore to carnivore, which are more active in the cooler evenings than their diurnal cousins who hide from the heat of the day.
There is such a different feel walking about the zoo at night than I have experienced at other places around the world, for a start you’re more aware of your surroundings; your eyes are more keen, adjusting to the low-light so that you can spot the smaller inmates as they feed on hanging fruits. And secondly your skin and sense of touch heightens. Something happens in your head that magnifies everything you feel, be it the breeze, the touch of a leaf, a mosquito or even just the touch of your friends who are pushing to see the animals better than you.


For the entire time the four of us brushed our arms and legs, thinking we were being feasted upon by the pesky mites. It’s a good job that at the entrance gates, amongst the merchandise and foods, there is a small stash of anti-mosquito products. We selected the Tiger Balm patches, impregnated blue spots about three centimetres in diameter, because Lady is pregnant and these patches simply stick to your clothes giving you an aura of protection without the direct skin contact.

Once you walk through the gates and get past the tribal dance group with flaming batons (which is mighty impressive, if not smokey) then you do lose most of the other people and you feel like you’re on your own to some extent, with the animals as your entertainers. Normally zoos are chock-full but the Night Safari seems to be relatively empty.
Admittedly it is not pitch-black, it couldn't be.  However the lighting is low and strategically placed for maximum exposure to the animals.  Lights are placed near the walkways, where keepers will have just recently placed food-stuffs to entice the wildlife out to say hello.
The variety of life is wide, from otters and bears to start, through various tree-dwellers with big eyes for seeing at night, then the carnivores; lions, tigers, hyenas, wolves, leopards.  The zoo is segregated by clearly sign-posted trails that weave through the jungle and also two tram paths that take you through the open areas where animals such as deer and tapir do come right up to the tram.
In addition there is a 40 minute show that runs through the night which is very funny and very entertaining.  It showcases some of the zoo's favourite and more loveable animals in a large amphitheatre but be warned, the queues are very long and you need to get into one early to avoid disappointment.  But do go, it's very entertaining.

The only down side we found, okay, so it’s not so much a down side as an annoyance, the only annoyance was the shocking commentary and driving on the trams that ferry you around two sections of the park where animals roam free. The various guides had learned the same patter (we overheard another tram from the elevated lion viewing platform) and all pronounced the words as if they’d been to the Disney Club School of Elocution and taken the same minor degree as taught by Dick van Dycke during his time in Mary Poppins.

We had to listen to the regular lead-in to every new section,
“ovah ‘ere on tha roight ‘and soide of da tram”
and endless dramatic pauses when none were really warranted;
“a capybara weighing…seventy-five kilo……grams.”
We know where you’re going, when you say ‘kilo’ so you don’t need to string out the ‘grams’. It’s the same when we learn that a rhino can charge at speeds of “twenty-five kilometers an……hour”. It would be an impressive fact if Singapore Night Safari rhino could charge at 25 kilometres a second, but we all know that’s rubbish, so just tell us alright, don’t lay the drama on.

And the driving, oh my gosh, the painful part of the visit, the driving!
I didn’t realise the Singapore F1 Grand Prix course ran through the zoo. That's amazing isn't it? The drivers were taking part in free practice! Every time we pull up to an exciting new animal enclosure, we would slow but not stop, continuing to move forward while the commentary kept rolling, even before Minnie Mouse had finished telling us about the Malaysian Tapir. The most frustrating was to run past two elephant enclosures, the tigers, bearded pigs and numerous other animals who were up and about late at night, whilst we stopped for an elongated moment at the capibaras. FLAMING CAPYBARAS??? They’re giant rodents! I don’t care that you’re driving the last tram of the night, but you DON’T speed through the zones on our tickets.

So, some recommendations for other animal-lovers visiting the zoo; wear comfy shoes, it can be a warm walk. Take some mosquito repellant and reapply. Take some spare water, the price of refreshments jumps when you reach the far side of the park and you’re desperate. Agree not to use the flash on your camera. Agree and abide by it. Make sure you jump in a return taxi before midnight or the price sky-rockets.

Shovel

Mall Shopping – a nation’s favourite sport

Katong Mall/Parkway Parade is the big mall along the east coast. We’d wandered along n the weekend to see what was what and where we could get our groceries from. Don’t get me wrong, there’s much shopping to be got from wet markets and the endless fruit shops that have accumulated around Still Road and East Coast Road. I like to help the little guy, the one-man-band, so I do hope to purchase most of my fresh goods from these stalls, however every now and again you just need to go big.

There’s two options at Parkway; Cold Storage and Giant. Cold Storage, unlike it’s name suggests, is not for frozen foods, but is a normal store. A normal store except that it carries every expats smallest wish for food from the homeland; for me there’s tea from Marks & Spencers, Dorset muesli, Twisties, Cheezels. “Just like home” should be their tag line. Obviously this comes with an expat price too, so beware, once in a while is OK.

The second option is Giant, now that does live up to its name, it’s massive. Narrow aisles mean you can cram in more, and cram they do. The shelves are a real-life pop art wall of blocked colour as cereal boxes, tins and bottles of sauce overload your vision with symbols and bright labels whilst yours ears are subjected to 1950s love songs. Just like any other supermarket the world over, you enter to the fresh fruit and vegetable section; everything here is FRESH, this is FRESH shop (thanks Eddie Izzard)!

You look along the aisles to see fruit, veg, meat, fish, breads, tins, jars, boxes, buckets, bags, packets and then TVs, radios, clothes, home furnishings, outdoor tables, EVERYTHING is here. It’s the Vegas of supermarkets.

It’s all going so well, there are so many brands at very reasonable prices, but which one is best? Which one is cheapest? Why are three packets of almonds from three different almond suppliers sized in three different weights? That just makes the mathematics harder to calculate price per 100g. I don’t need this on a Sunday morning.

Finally, 45 minutes later, (which I was pretty chuffed with, given the amount of stuff we have crammed into our trolley on this our first shop in the new place) we are loaded to busting with multi-packs of tissues and toilet roll, vats of cleaning products, larder spices and sauces, rice, pasta, noodles; the basics. Serious shopping and we head to the checkouts, checkouts that stretch for about 300m along the entire shop front. We pick at random aisle 36. Never pick 36 on a roulette wheel. It’s a bad number, here’s why.

It took us a further 45 minutes to line up (we were 4th in line), pack and pay. That’s as long as our shopping excursion itself. We found that the Giant staff (in that they are employees of the corporation called Giant, not that they work for a giant nor indeed are they gigantic humans) have an orderly, rigid, don’t-be-messed-with approach to packing bags. Certain products live together and therefore get packed together.

You don’t get a multi-cultural shopping bag in multi-cultural Singapore.

No, you get three items in a non-biodegradable plastic bag which is then placed inside your reusable bag like a polluting version of Russian dolls.

Faced with our large collection of reusable heavy duty bags from various supermarkets in various countries there was some confusion and a little hesitation from the poor girl as we insisted she just throw everything in together. Gosh, it took so LONG! Instead of scanning each product as it reached her, she was cherry-picking along the length of the conveyor belt to select like-products before placing them in the bags. Arrrgh!! Infuriating! We then faced a 15 minute line up for a taxi. Good job we had no frozen products.

So, be warned, sort your purchases wisely and take your recycling bags. Singapore recently held a six week long trial for one day a week where customers were required to use their own bags. They have now stopped that and are back to plastic. Sigh.

Orchard Road on the other hand is a mecca of shopping, if Giant is like Vegas, then Orchard Road is like Paris; excess but with the glitz and glamour in equal amount. A new mall has been built recently seemingly just for the luxury brands; Luis Vuitton, Prada, Armani, Gucci, D&G, Rolex…yadda yadda yadda and the list goes on until you’re in debt to your extended lash eyeballs. If shopping is a national sport, then this is the Singapore Olympic Stadium for the 21st century. It deserves its own blog entry.

Visiting China - a drive in Beijing

After obtaining my visa for China, I finally got to enjoy the first week of travel for work, holding meetings to discuss new technical issues that impact the business. I get to finally meet the teams in Beijing and Tokyo who I have previously only spoken to.

However as I’m working all the time, the peak-hour taxi to the office driving through Beijing’s traffic is pretty much my overriding memory of Beijing from this trip and the extent of my cultural engagement, for the moment that is.

Everywhere there are cars. Thousands of cars. There are thousands of people. Everywhere you look there are people. It’s truly busy, but not in the same way that Bangkok is overtly in your face, but it’s a constant, humming busy.


Perpetual human motion.


Cars are weaved within inches of each other, straddling lanes. People do a sort of stop-start action at pedestrian crossings, trying to cross the road. These are pedestrian crossings that are really more akin to spilled paint on the road than formal markings. Bicycles are peddled in line or in formation of fours or fives, taking the place of a car on the road. Electric powered bicycles are cruised, serenely easing past their muscle powered ancestors. Everywhere you look is jostling, bustling, bumping, pushing to get ahead. It’s gutsy, no fear, forceful. It’s pretty loose when it comes to road-sense, just frightening enough to get you on edge so you don’t need a coffee but not enough to scare the living daylights out of you.
One morning, after having sat in a traffic jam for 10 minutes trying to get onto one of Beijing’s ring-roads, our man took a back route out of frustration, leading us through a local area where the world was getting ready to trade: three wheeled bikes pedal bags of lettuces and noodles to the restaurants or carry lashed up bags of refuse for recycling. We see one bike loaded 12 feet in the air with recycling materials, the top load being plastic bottles, tied together with string so that they look like an opaque bubble-cloud.

Sitting at traffic at a later time, I heard a clicking noise, it wasn’t the tapping of blackberries coming from the back of the car, it was coming from the driver. I looked over to see him palming a pair of varnished mahogony walnuts in his left hand, like some sort of worry-token. It brought a smile to my face as I thought that it wasn’t just me that thought Beijing driving required a certain level of testicular fortitude, he was also driving with his nuts out.

America's most backwards airline?

I'm sitting here at Hong Kong International airport, bare-footed, admiring the majestic, mist-shrouded hills that surround Hong Kong, contemplating the next thirteen and a half hours on a plane. Based on the last three hours from Sg to HK, I am less than excited.

I took this United Airlines flight because of the connections to Star Alliance, allowing me to rack up more frequent flyer points. It's starting to look like a long term decision with short term pain, not least the fact that I am tired and running off three and a half hours sleep (I prised my non-compliant body off the bed up at 03:30 this morning to check in and have held it hostage since. Human Rights allow me to hold my own self for so many hours before I can release it to sleep) but because the flight is going to be stupendously, arse-numbingly, DVT-inducingly, uncomfortably dull.
And this I attribute to the fact that I have become so accustomed to being entertained every step of the way, so the prospect of this transpacific flight without an extensive multi-media selection just fills me with dread. I am going to have to watch whatever they have decided to show us. I watched The Blind Side from Sg to HK, which I admit, i thought was good and brought tears to my eyes (but then again, people know that i'm a big sook and cry at the drop of a hat), but the most recent crop of movies on airlines doesn't excite me.
There are also the restrictions on using PDAs or advanced cell phones to amuse yourself on flights (ok, so there's a flight-safe mode, but how long is your mini battery going to last you and how long can you play solitaire for anyway?). I can't imagine how the Singaporeans must feel, they seem to be symbiotically attached to their devices.
To be honest though, I should be sleeping. If I follow the mantra of water, water, water and live in the timezone you're heading to, i should be polishing off the litre bottle of Watson's Water (that sounds bad doesn't it, but the blurb i can read that's not in chinese says it's distilled and the water is clear) and brushing my teeth right now. It's 22:26 in Chicago. Maybe a few pages of The Economist and a glass of wine might help. And that's not to say the informative pages of The Economist are boring, far from it, but they make you think and i get sleepy when i think on planes.

So, with a fond farewell to the high-rises of HK, which do put the Singapore HDBs to shame, both in scale and uniformity, they're calling the massed throng to board. Actually, they're calling important people to board and I'm in group 4 of 4. So last to get my kit in. I'll just continue to admire the view and let my feet breath.
Shovel

Clarke Quay - bright lights, food, drink and people watching

The weird world of Clarke Quay - a heritage location with a distinctly non-heritage cooling system

After living on Clarke Quay’s doorstep for nigh on 6 weeks, it was time to actually venture in and sample the night-life. To get the best out of it, we wanted to sit and watch so we decided on middle-eastern bites.

Two places on Clarke Quay are available, restaurants called Marrakesh and Shiraz. Marrakesh looks to be more of the sit down, chill & chat type establishment which was what we were after so the plan was to order a couple of appetisers, nibble on some pita, hummus, mountabel, have a drink and watch some people.

I abstained from the sheesha/hookah/hubbly bubbly (depending on your choice of colloquialism) this evening; I’d recommend that you have a few friends around to experience this if you’re not a regular puffer.

We selected a mixed grill shared appetiser, a bit of everything. We’d been to Kabul on Cuppage Road up in town last weekend and had a really good experience so wanted to compare and contrast the quality.
Unfortunately, the food was out on our table before our drinks arrived (a sprite & bottled beer) which was somewhat unusual. Surely it would take longer to prepare some kebabs and warm the pita than to shoot a post-mix sprite into a glass, right?
What arrived were some distinctly average koftas and kebabs, a ‘salad’ of cubed cucumber and carrot with thin tomato sauce. We assumed the tomato sauce is meant to be some harrisa derivative, but it lacked spice of any sort. The pita were like quarters from a dough-frisbee, and were not warm but hard instead.

All in all it wasn’t a good dining experience.

However, as a people watching corner, it’s great value. Across from the debauched drinking establishment of The Clinic we sat back and mused over the passing patrons: based on their clothing what is their home country, employment status, ability to use the very expensive camera slung from the shoulder. Cheap fun!

A day that has run like the weather - the embassy

Oh man, I had an up and down day when I went to sort out my visa to the People’s Republic of China. It’s my second visit to the efficient, perfunctory but super busy China Embassy on Tanglin Road. Everyone says to go early so I arrived before opening time to see the line up moving through the entry-vestibule that’s the same size as a walk-in wardrobe.
I guess it’s for security purposes to limit access, but it makes for a very crowded and potentially ineffective security area. Everyone who enters passes through a metal detector, which subsequently then beeps for everyone because there’s been no prior warning to remove metal from your bag or person. The poor security guard has to check everybody and by doing so, checks nothing in any detail at all. I opened my laptop bag but he didn’t blink at the mass of wires and papers popping out the top.
Once in, the lines snake to the numbered desks,
1 for payments,
2 for collections and
lines 3 to a million for visa applications.

The line up this morning for me to pay for my visa was 50m long and the second line for me to collect my visa was also 50m long. That was at 9am, bang on opening time. I mean, there’s a lot of people already in China, let alone the people wanting to visit!

A half hour later, I reach the ticket counter, thinking that I just have enough cash to cover the $75 fee (cash only, again, cash counts! There’s no getting into China on credit!), only to find to my embarrassment and loss of face that I was $2 short.

So straight back out front I find it puking with rain, no taxis and I didn’t have my umbrella. Not good.
I called Lady to come and help bail me out. Not a good start to the day then for either of us. While reading the paper and catching up on news, I see my team got “bundled out of Europe”, by the Germans. So, my morning is waning, the chances of silverware to associate myself with are gone and I’m listlessly passing time standing in the tiny, wet China Embassy entry-way, eaking out the tiniest article in the Today freepaper which as you would expect is 50% advertisements.

I find to my distain (literally, a stain) that newspaper printers in Singapore have not discovered the benefits of ink that doesn’t transfer to one’s hands. My fingers are now filthy with today’s lacklustre news.

Anyway, my wonderful Lady rides in on the back of a triumphant taxi to my rescue and resume queuing, cashed up, for another attempt, but by this time, it’s 10:15 and the lines are noticeably shorter, there are fewer people here and the atmosphere is much more agreeable.

My advice to the world trying to get China visas in Singapore is not to go early; this just exacerbates the problem, but to go later in the window. By that time, all the rabble, very much showing the trait of kiasu (not wanting to lose out), have lined up and gone. So my guidance is to go late, lah, and miss the queues.
Shovel

Weather – never underestimate it

There's a storm a-comin'!

We both knew that Singapore would be hot and with guaranteed rain. My boss said to me when he moved out here that you must always expect it to rain, you just don’t know when or how much. Our UK habit of carrying sunnies and umbrellas at the same time comes in handy. The last couple of weeks have been around 2pm, daily, with gross thunder and an unhealthy discharge of rain from the ever-giving heavens. What’s become a laugh between Lady and I is that it’s not just thunder, it’s escalating, cataclysmic thunder.

When the thunder started a couple weeks ago, I mean started in earnest, it was loud. Every day Lady would tell me, rolling her eyes, saying “Wow, that’s the loudest clap of thunder I’ve ever heard”, even louder than yesterday! But that was the loudest rumble until the next day, and then the next day. The walls and desk around me have actually shaken. Physically shaken.

Bad weather +30 minutes - Good weather!

It could also have something to do with the flimsy interior renovation conducted at the soul-destroying offices that I’m working at for the current month, but I’d like to think that the Norsk god, Thor, retired out here because of the quality of the seafood and the warmer climate. He’s just keeping active incase he’s ever needed. You know, topping up his pension. As every Singaporean has told me,

“Singapore’s a great country to live in, but a bad place to retire in. So ‘spensive, lah!”.

Shovel

Practical matters of setting yourself up

When you move into a new place, you have a short period of time when you’re in between rental deposits; either you’re cashed up but you know it’s leaving you soon or you’re strapped for a big chunk of cash until your old real estate agent clears that last property. Normally, deposit in equals deposit out +/- a few bucks, depending on where you’re moving. Lady and I found that Singapore is a lot of extra bucks, and it’s not just deposits for rental agreements; there’s deposits for a lot of the basics.

Starting with the new home, yes we’re still renting, we read up that there would be big deposits, but it really hits home when the real estate agents walk you through what you need up front. Upon finding a place you want, you sign a letter of intent that you wish to be taken seriously and that you would like the landlord to take the property off the market. For that, you pay a deposit of 1mth’s rent, you pay it immediately and it is not refundable. If the colour of your money is not flashed then you’re not a credit worthy tenant. Once this is accepted, you pay another month’s rent for bond and one month rent up front. This is paid one week after the first letter of intent is signed. Payments are either cash, cheque or direct bank transfer.

Now bearing in mind that you won’t see the two months’ deposit until you leave the property at the end of your two year fixed term tenancy, that’s a lot of money to tie up. And we’re not talking low rents either, we were being shown three bed apartments starting at S$5,000 a month, which expects you to find at short notice a spare S$15k just lying around. That’s some culture change from credit to cash. Don’t ask about stamp duty, it’s not so big, but again, it’s up to the new tenant to pay stamp duty on their new rented property. Not sure I understand that.

Bank accounts are a similar beast. To prove you have sufficient credit and resources, all bank accounts require an initial deposit. Most are S$1,000, others are higher. POSB who we went with is a lenient S$500. That’s per account; so one for current account purposes, one for savings, one to hold your monthly tax (which you have to set aside yourself) and for us another savings account to take advantage of my employer’s savings scheme and suddenly we’re handing the bank S$2,000. For the pleasure of having a bank account to manage our money, we are lending the bank two grand (at an interest rate of less than 1%) and are not allowed to withdraw it until we close the account. Well, that’s not strictly true, we have a S$500 minimum balance which we can go below but are charged a penalty on it. Needless to say we’re rethinking how we manage the money! To own a chequebook, well don’t go there. As foreigners we would have had to pay S$3,000 as a deposit and retain a minimum balance of S$1,500, to ensure that we don’t write a bad cheque and run off without paying. Again, you’re funding the bank, for no benefit to yourself, until you close the account or pass away and leave it in your estate, presumably to cover the cost of your casket or urn.

Singapore is totally a cash based society, or rather the culture is cash based. You either have it and doors open or you don’t and nothing happens.

Utilities are the next step for us as we move into Chez Shovel. We’re excited to be paying for electricity and water services (gas we buy a calor gas bottle for S$30, no deposit paid!), telephone and cable TV. Whatever else we don’t know yet, but we’re waiting, cash ready and waiting!
Shovel

To AC or not to AC, - that is the question:-

Whether ‘tis easier on the wallet to suffer
The misery and sweat of outrageous humidity,
Or to take air-conditioning against the stifling oppression,
And by creating a breeze end it?- To cool,- to dry,-
No more; and by dry to say we end
The clamminess, and the thousand chafing burns
That thighs are heir to, ‘tis a Paradise
Continually to be wisht. To cool, - to dry;-
To dry! Perchance to go out again later; aye, there’s the rub;
For in that chilly state of aircon what delusions may come,
When we have shuffled off this cotton t-shirt,
Must give us three further shirts a day: there’s the catch
That makes charity donations of so grand a wardrobe;
For who would bear the burning and dehydration of equatorial heat,
The weatherman’s monotony, the doorman’s insistence on dress-code,
The pangs of relentless thirst, the condensation drip on your crotch,
The cessation of aircon in the office after six of an evening, and the moistness
That the commuter meets, unwarranted all be it,
When he himself might be jostled against another drenched wretch
With a bare arm? Who would bear their employer’s ergonomic backpack,
To puff and pant under a laptop or files so as to work on the weekend,
But that there is a chance of someone else to foot the AC bill,-
The 24 hour coffee shop, from whose caffeinated, icy cold couches
No worker returns,- it puzzles the will how they can afford to cool us all,
And makes us rather bear ill towards those early birds who already have a table
Than fly to another coffee house that we know not of.
Thus humidity does make slaves of us all;
And thus the pale-face immigrant’s hue of pastiness
Is ruddied o’er with the steaminess of a sauna;
And images of an outdoors life and getting back in shape,
With this draining heat, these endeavours fall away,
And lose the name of action.


What Hamlet might have said, had he ventured outside of Elsinor for a summer vacation to Singapore instead of bemoaning his unhappy lot in rather more temperate Denmark.
Shovel

Multi-Culturalism – a phrase oft-used in reference to Sg

It is important to look at the make-up of the population if you’re going to have any idea of how Singapore works, its positives and pressure points alike. The population of Singapore including non-residents is approximately 5 million, with Chinese people forming an ethnic majority with large populations of Malay, Indian and other people. According to government statistics, the population of Singapore as of 2009 was 4.99 million, of whom 3.73 million were Singaporean citizens and permanent residents. Government facts are always helpful to get your hands on, regardless of how much massaging other hands may have done to them.

Interestingly, to combat a falling birth rate, the government is encouraging foreigners to immigrate to Singapore and have children. See my thoughts later on who is driving the country forward; is it the locals or the foreign workers? According to the collective intellect at Wikipedia, various Chinese groups form 74% of Singapore's residents, Malays 13%, Indians 9%, while other groups form the rest. Reflecting this, you have four official languages; English, Malay, Tamil, and Chinese (Mandarin), all prominently displayed on all public signs which I think is positively inclusive.


Mass Rapid Transport (MRT) signage - the underground, subway, metro...

Spot the difference

Singapore is indeed a multi-racial and an effective multi-lingual nation. The national language of Singapore is Malay for historical reasons, and it is used in the national anthem, "Majulah Singapura” which still plays, gloriously, on the free-to-air channels at close of scheduling every night I believe.
English is the operating language of Singapore and has been heavily promoted as such since the country's independence, principally with the aim of allowing Singapore to run on an even playing field with the business world outside of Asia. However, as I am becoming more familiar with it, most Singaporeans speak a localised hybrid form of English known as Singlish ("Singapore English"), which incorporates vocabulary and grammar from Standard English, various Chinese dialects, Malay, and Indian languages. It is one of the things that I have immediately fallen in love with, the wit and humour that is used to create many of the Singlish phrases that are in wide use.
While Mandarin is a more pure form of Chinese, you’re more likely to come across a regional dialect because most Singaporeans are descended from immigrants who came from the southern regions of China where other dialects were spoken, such as Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese, Hakka and Hainanese. Bahasa Malay is generally spoken by Singapore's Malay community, while Tamil is spoken by about 60% of Singapore's Indian community. Indian languages such as Malayalam and Hindi are also spoken in Singapore.
As you can imagine, it’s a buzzing place with all manner of chat going on around you when you walk down the street. Moving from Little India, to Chinatown to Raffles Place is like taking part in a big language class.
Shovel