Singapore Eats

A few more random thoughts about Singapore from my trip. (Part 2.)

History. We hit up the Images of Singapore museum attraction, which teaches you about the history of Singapore. They gave a lot of detail of the past 100 years, basically starting when the British, Chinese, Malays, and Indians started building up the island into a world trading port. But there is absolutely no mention of the aboriginese who were there before the immigrants. Said one friend when I brought this up, "Before us, there was nothing in Singapore." Huh, interesting attitude.

Munchies. Oh, boy, this is not the place to try to lose weight. Like Taiwanese (probably all Asians), they prioritize eating. It's not just a meal, it's really a pasttime! Apart from having authentic Chinese and Indian dishes that immigrants brought from their homelands, Singaporeans have since developed some local specialties that are sold at tiny stalls: chilli crab, buk kut teh, mee goreng, stingray, popiah, roti prata, satay meats, laksa, char kway teow, Hainanese chicken rice, and rojak.

Talk to me. English is the official language there (no problems for me), but because of the 75% Singaporean Chinese population, Mandarin Chinese is also one. Yet, if you look at the phonetic English translations of Chinese names on signboards and place names and whatever, you can't link them. Instead, we relied on our Taiwanese dialect to draw the parallels -- most of these translations are Hokkien pronunciations, which is very similar to Taiwanese! It was neat to see that this unique combination of English, Mandarin, and Taiwanese meant we could get around the country without any trouble at all.

Okay, I'm done talking (in any language) for now. See ya!