The wildly drunk men on my flight leaving Australia shocked me. Not because they were drunk. Because they were drunk on a plane. Folks, in plane-paranoid America, this behavior simply does not fly. Literally. You won’t be allowed to fly if even suspected of being intoxicated, especially to a level of belligerent disregard for all other passengers. But here these men were, clad in matching sports-team jerseys, standing around the aisles, shouting, laughing, and tossing back drink after drink. (Yes they were! Standing! In the aisles!!)
Other Australian things in which Americans do not participate:
- Legislation of Shopping Hours — Even in a city estimated by Wikipedia to have 1.97 million people, there are three supermarkets open past 9 p.m. Three. It’s the law. Many close even earlier. And Sundays? Hours range from laughable to none. The good: the little mom-and-pop places don’t get out-competed by large chains with vastly more resources. The bad: I often wish to purchase groceries and cannot. Also, sumtymes no lyke gubbermint in my bizness.
-
Mmmmm….
Desserts as Metaphors — when things go horribly wrong, Australians may describe the situation in terms of treats. i.e. “While they were pouring the foundation, it started pissing down rain and everything turned to custard.” Americans do not say this because they do not eat custard. Not habitually. Not traditionally. (Custard, you Americans, sort of looks like runny yellow pudding. It’s a combination of eggs, milk, and sugar. It tastes like heaven’s sunshine.)
- Fashion-less Cold Protection — I actually laughed out loud, sitting in 90 °F Australian heat reading an American’s December Facebook post about not being able to find her matching hat/gloves/scarf. Very few Aussies are faced with temperatures requiring regular donning of heavy-duty cold gear. Therefore, the importance of looking fashionable in said gear doesn’t register on the collective Australian radar.
-
Like a boss.
Nerd Nomenclature — Aussies don’t have a word for “high-waters” (as in the too-short pants that were famously uncool in my youth), but they do call the person wearing them “Harry High Pants.”
- Subdued Sophistication — accent wasn’t the only reason I often failed to understand my co-workers. When it comes to expression, the Australian nation is incredibly suave. No wild hand gestures, no words-cannot-convey-how-awesome-this-is fast-talking… While it’s all very poised, sometimes I longed for the unbridled enthusiasm of my fellow patriots.
Anyhow… back to the unbridled enthusiasm of the drunk Aussie’s on my farewell flight.
We were bound for Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian city I’d picked out via my find-ludicrously-cheap-tickets strategy. After purchasing said tickets, friends invited me to nearby Singapore the very same weekend. Bus ride: 5 hours, $50. Plane ride: 45 minutes, $20. Uh, beam me up, Scotty!
Thrilling culture shock filled my stopover in KL (as the city is known to those who reference it frequently). I loved the dirty, stinky chaos that throbbed just outside the budget travel terminal. I loved the people streaming past the vacant “goods to declare” area to the “nothing to declare” exit, while authorities looked on apathetically. I loved the thick humidity that enveloped me in the dark evening. I loved the baby cockroaches that skittered across the floor of the creaking, groaning, decades-old bus, delivering me to the sterile, bright, culture-less international terminal.
Several hours later, I was landing in Singapore — a city famous state-side for it’s brutal punishment that extends to even small crimes.
Littering. Jaywalking. Spitting. Hanging up a Yard-Sale sign. Failing to flush a toilet.
From the air, the sail boats looked like seagulls. Up and down the coast, the countless cargo ships looked like a child’s legos spilled across a glass tabletop. Endless skyscrapers overlooked some of the world’s busiest maritime shipping lanes.
Everybody wants to make a statement.
Was Singapore a freakishly clean place full of citizens cowering under the threatened wrath of an authoritarian government? Hell no. The thing is, the laws in Singapore can be summed up as such: “Don’t be an asshole.” There aren’t a million gun-toting cops everywhere, billy clubs at the-ready to confront anyone who steps out of line. There is just a complicit cultural agreement that “we should have nice things” and a series of severe punishments on the books for anyone who thinks being respectful is beneath them.
Now, was Singapore a freakishly expensive place full of citizens who eat until they’re full, then shop until they’re hungry? Hell yes. I’ve dreamed of experiencing Singapore’s food scene for a long time. However, the shrines to commercialism and Singapore’s price tags repeatedly landed the country at the bottom of my priorities list.
Enter the unparalleled experience of Singapore with a local!
The inaugural meal – the last time in four days that my stomach had any extra space.
For nearly a decade, my friend’s dad has lived and worked in the city. He is the kind of man you admire from the first hand-shake, and he introduced us to heaven-on-a-plate over and over and over. Though he easily could have been a Michelin-star-addicted foodie, he had wisely amassed a restaurant rolodex of places serving dishes steeped in thousands of years of tradition. Singaporean cuisine draws from a multitude of cultures, resulting in unbelievable flavor bombs with cult-followings. I can’t remember a single moment that I wasn’t dizzy with food pleasure. No guide book could have delivered winning-meal after winning-meal the way this man did.
Stunning new Gardens by the Bay captured by my favorite personal photographer.
In between bouts of dying-of-food-happiness, he shipped us off to explore Little India, Chinatown, Clarke Quay, the ION megashopolis, hipster-ville in Haji lane, the rooftop bar at Marina Bay Sands, Universal Studios Singapore, the buzz-worthy botanical Gardens by the Bay, and the aforementioned shipping lanes aboard his good friend’s “sail boat.”
On our walk to the marina, I had envisioned taking turns running the jib lines and perhaps rushing to reef the main sail if the winds blew too hard. Instead, we ended up in a yacht cockpit drinking beer and watching mechanized systems manage the 76 ft. hull. Two of the boat owner’s Singaporean friends joined the voyage as well. It was fascinating to hear their insights about how and why Singapore has grown and changed over the years I’m sure if you look up “melting pot” in the dictionary, you’ll find the Singaporean flag. I mean, this is a country with four official languages! Tamil, Malay, Mandarin, and English. Reading public signs is its own entertainment.
Beer always tastes better on the water.
The men also revealed some fascinating financial figures. I’ve said Singapore is expensive. Their currency isn’t far from the almighty greenback… 80 cents to the U.S. dollar at the moment… so these figures can’t be dismissed the way you might a quote about a few-hundred-thousand rupiah for one night in an Indonesian hotel. Ready?
Petrol in Singapore is $2.30 a liter or $9 a gallon. Really. A lottery earned permit to own a car (yes, you need one) in Singapore costs… $80,000 dollars. Yes. Eighty grand. The permit is officially called a “Certificate of Entitlement.” Then there is buying the car. Customs duty is at least 41%. The Singaporeans told me, all up, just to start driving a basic Toyota Camry in Singapore would be about $160,000. All in the name of reducing traffic, congestion, and pollution. Wowsa.
So, there you have it – an example of the extreme expense that’s always caused me to give Singapore a miss. But not this time! I never littered, I never spit, I never jumped “the q”*, I never failed to flush a toilet, and thanks to our amazing host, I never stopped digesting. ♣
See Fi eating a dosai the size of a small child, a subway map in all four languages, and an anti-terrorism ad in this facebook album.
*Outside of America, standing in line is referred to a waiting in the queue (rhymes with blue — said “cue”). In Singapore on prolific signage about lines, it is adorably shortened to “the q.”
Twitter Facebook Google+ StumbleUpon Reddit Pinterest