I saw an article and this collage in the form of OUR Merlion's head. This is a symbolic animal...the hybrid of a mermaid and a lion. So if you asked me...what is uniquely Singapore, you start with the Merlion. For those who have been to Singapore, they must have taken pictures of this animals and took back souvenirs to say they have been here.
Actually what is Singapore? Singapore is a multi-culture, multi-religion, multi-race, multi-food, multi-behavior, multi-ethnics and many more. So what represent this little island (mind you we live in houses and not tree-dwellings as some of my western friends think so)?
1) Singlish, our unique style of English - its slang, the use of words, jargon and phrases. This is a hybrid of the Queen's English. Of course the better educated ones will want to speak "Good" English....'I beg your pardon'. You will find people here speaking English with Malay and Chinese dialects at the same time...like "today I am driving to work, that man like 'gila', he 'chong' traffic lights and kena hit"...unique right? What he meant was ''today I was driving to work, that man drove like crazy, he sped through traffic light and got hit''.
2) Dress style - We are getting from bad to worse. Some go to work with a tang top and 3/4 pant...as if they just got up from bed. Some overdressed - with all the blink blink sequins. We are a little island not far from the equator and we are hot...hot...and humid. You will sweat like a pig if you over dressed. In Singapore we are decently dressed and no over exposures or you will end up in the police station.
3) Food - we care more about food. Uniquely Singapore is it's Hainan Chicken rice. Initially I thought that Hainan Chicken rice is the speciality of the Hainanese...WRONG...you can't find this dish in Hainan, China. The next is our local salad. Talking about healthy salad with greens and olive oil. Ours is yew char keow, tau pok, cucumber, blue ginger flower, pineapple mixed in prawn paste with chilli and top with ground nuts bits. You eat it like a dessert or appetizer. It will surely fire your 'stomach' and made you hungry. Singapore is also known for its black pepper crabs and sweet sour crabs. Many Asian countries serve crabs, but not our style.
4) Attitude - The unique Singapore attitude- ''Kaisu and Kaisee", meaning cannot loose and scare to die. Everything must win and must be the first one. 'Q' for food, must beat the line and be the first one; drive on the road, must be in front of you and cannot be behind you - for this you will find 'blind' drivers, blind to the fact that your signal lights are blinking like crazy and no one seems to see it. Scared to die because anything that is classified against the law, they will make sure they keep within the line . Of course there are the daredevils, I DARE YOU! So they use all kind of vulgarity on the Internet talk line on the government, hiding behind pseudo names like Ah Beng, Ah Seng and Kopi Achek!
5) Education - Of course we are very stressed. Some parents said "I want to send my child overseas. Very hard to cope with study here leh. Must know Chinese and grades must be good to go JC or cannot go Uni. My poor son, study like xiao". However I think we have the best education systems compared to many Asian Countries.
6) Go to Army - Our boys here must go to army when they are 18 years of age. Some have to break in between study to do so. They have to learn how to defend the country...so we march and go into the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police Force. This is when our boys are toughen up to be young men. NOT A BAD Idea...but parents felt that their sons are going into some hardship postings.
7) For a little island, we are not bad as we are nicely mapped out. Our locations are classified into Financial district, Business districts, Shopping Districts, Industrial Districts. We have high class residential area and neighborhood blocks.
8) We are also a 'Fine Fine' country. Be careful if you are a smoker, there are certain areas for smoking and if you defied the law, your fine will range from S$300.00 to S$2,000.00. Don't think you can get away by vandalizing public places unless you have money and a 'tough backside' because the punishment can be fine in cash as well as canning. DRUGS paddling is a DEAD SENTENCE in Merlion City. If you don't want to die in a foreign land and hang by the neck, don't try. Please don't think you can appeal...it don't work and why should you be pardon when you endangered others lives?
9) We are a clean clean country. We are also a safe safe country. The environment and pollution level is low with the exception when Indonesia starts burning their forests. Crimes do happen but most of the time you are safe here because our laws do not take lightly to such undertakings. Religious harmony is another issue which we take very seriously here. Don't try to create disharmony...keep your believe to yourself.
Actually what is Singapore? Singapore is a multi-culture, multi-religion, multi-race, multi-food, multi-behavior, multi-ethnics and many more. So what represent this little island (mind you we live in houses and not tree-dwellings as some of my western friends think so)?
1) Singlish, our unique style of English - its slang, the use of words, jargon and phrases. This is a hybrid of the Queen's English. Of course the better educated ones will want to speak "Good" English....'I beg your pardon'. You will find people here speaking English with Malay and Chinese dialects at the same time...like "today I am driving to work, that man like 'gila', he 'chong' traffic lights and kena hit"...unique right? What he meant was ''today I was driving to work, that man drove like crazy, he sped through traffic light and got hit''.
2) Dress style - We are getting from bad to worse. Some go to work with a tang top and 3/4 pant...as if they just got up from bed. Some overdressed - with all the blink blink sequins. We are a little island not far from the equator and we are hot...hot...and humid. You will sweat like a pig if you over dressed. In Singapore we are decently dressed and no over exposures or you will end up in the police station.
3) Food - we care more about food. Uniquely Singapore is it's Hainan Chicken rice. Initially I thought that Hainan Chicken rice is the speciality of the Hainanese...WRONG...you can't find this dish in Hainan, China. The next is our local salad. Talking about healthy salad with greens and olive oil. Ours is yew char keow, tau pok, cucumber, blue ginger flower, pineapple mixed in prawn paste with chilli and top with ground nuts bits. You eat it like a dessert or appetizer. It will surely fire your 'stomach' and made you hungry. Singapore is also known for its black pepper crabs and sweet sour crabs. Many Asian countries serve crabs, but not our style.
4) Attitude - The unique Singapore attitude- ''Kaisu and Kaisee", meaning cannot loose and scare to die. Everything must win and must be the first one. 'Q' for food, must beat the line and be the first one; drive on the road, must be in front of you and cannot be behind you - for this you will find 'blind' drivers, blind to the fact that your signal lights are blinking like crazy and no one seems to see it. Scared to die because anything that is classified against the law, they will make sure they keep within the line . Of course there are the daredevils, I DARE YOU! So they use all kind of vulgarity on the Internet talk line on the government, hiding behind pseudo names like Ah Beng, Ah Seng and Kopi Achek!
5) Education - Of course we are very stressed. Some parents said "I want to send my child overseas. Very hard to cope with study here leh. Must know Chinese and grades must be good to go JC or cannot go Uni. My poor son, study like xiao". However I think we have the best education systems compared to many Asian Countries.
6) Go to Army - Our boys here must go to army when they are 18 years of age. Some have to break in between study to do so. They have to learn how to defend the country...so we march and go into the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police Force. This is when our boys are toughen up to be young men. NOT A BAD Idea...but parents felt that their sons are going into some hardship postings.
7) For a little island, we are not bad as we are nicely mapped out. Our locations are classified into Financial district, Business districts, Shopping Districts, Industrial Districts. We have high class residential area and neighborhood blocks.
8) We are also a 'Fine Fine' country. Be careful if you are a smoker, there are certain areas for smoking and if you defied the law, your fine will range from S$300.00 to S$2,000.00. Don't think you can get away by vandalizing public places unless you have money and a 'tough backside' because the punishment can be fine in cash as well as canning. DRUGS paddling is a DEAD SENTENCE in Merlion City. If you don't want to die in a foreign land and hang by the neck, don't try. Please don't think you can appeal...it don't work and why should you be pardon when you endangered others lives?
9) We are a clean clean country. We are also a safe safe country. The environment and pollution level is low with the exception when Indonesia starts burning their forests. Crimes do happen but most of the time you are safe here because our laws do not take lightly to such undertakings. Religious harmony is another issue which we take very seriously here. Don't try to create disharmony...keep your believe to yourself.
10) For a small island, we have too many highways and ERP gantries. OMG, every morning I pay and pay to go through ERP gantries to get to work. With so many highways, we are still packed with cars and impatience drivers driving close to each other's Á** and that is when accident happened in chain reactions. Even if the Traffic Police indicates speed limit, you will see drivers DARE the limit and take a chance. Most of the time they get away that is why they do it again and again.
This is a good country and a kind country. Small as we are, we donate to neighbor countries when they are hit by disasters. We are also very torrent of our neighbors as long as it will not cause any riot here.
The unique thing about Singapore... most of the people own a resident. Yes, their very own, paid up by themselves monthly by CPF. As long as you work, you have CPF contributed monthly by the company and one self. The government help the people to plan for old age as to how they want to spend their CPF.
The next thing, you don't see beggars on the streets and you won't find squatters as well. Everyone has a roof above their heads.
This is a good country and a kind country. Small as we are, we donate to neighbor countries when they are hit by disasters. We are also very torrent of our neighbors as long as it will not cause any riot here.
The unique thing about Singapore... most of the people own a resident. Yes, their very own, paid up by themselves monthly by CPF. As long as you work, you have CPF contributed monthly by the company and one self. The government help the people to plan for old age as to how they want to spend their CPF.
The next thing, you don't see beggars on the streets and you won't find squatters as well. Everyone has a roof above their heads.
This is also a green, green country!
没有那么大的头就不要戴那么大的帽子...負債何来???
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