Unusual Singapore Things #18

You can sue your children if they fail to take care of you in your elder years, under the Maintenance of Parents Act.

 

(this is actually not uncommon in Asia as they have a strong history of filial responsibility)

Unusual Singapore Things #17

Jury trials were abolished in 1969.

Unusual Singapore Things #16

There are petrol station attendants who put the petrol into your car.

Unusual and wonderful.

Unusual Singapore Things #15

Ambulances stop at red lights with their lights flashing and siren wailing.

Unusual Singapore Things #14

The floor numbering system starts at “1”. There is no ground floor.

Unusual Singapore Things #13

Businesses close down with no notice.  Here today, gone tomorrow with not so much as a sign in the window to let their customers know.

This is OK with restaurants (2 favourites have vanished in recent weeks) but my local “walk in” doctors have disappeared without a word of warning, taking with them our medical records.  Now, I’ve never known a doctor’s surgery to disappear before but what I would expect is a letter in the mail informing each patient in advance.

Maybe this is too much to ask?

Unusual Singapore Things #12

The Singapore government runs a dating agency, called the Social Development Network.

Social Development Unit (SDU) was formed in 1984 to promote marriages among graduate singles, while Social Development Services (SDS) was set up in 1985 to promote marriages among non-graduate singles.

Unusual Singapore Things

We have been here for the best part of a year.  Three quarters of a year, to be exact.

As such Singapore has become more familiar to us and things which we found unusual 9 months ago are now common place, so my series of “Unusual Singapore Things” hasn’t had an update for a while.

Here are some things that once seemed unusual but now seem normal:

• using blinkers/indicators appears to be optional;
• as does sticking to the one lane on the road.  Feel like straddling both lanes? No problem!;
• men riding unrestrained in the open back of trucks.  This is how labourers are generally transported to their work site;
• beef mince at the supermarket costing $35 a kilo;
• the smell of durian.  I still don’t like the smell but it’s now a normal part of the fabric of Singapore;
• fast internet speeds with no download/upload limit!  You pay for line speed not data allowance;
• monsoon rain arriving seemingly out of nowhere;
• sweating;
• the wonderful (and seemingly harmonious) mix of cultures;
• being able to “pop overseas” for the day;
• travelling to pretty much any part of the country by public transport;
• not finding clothes to fit my Western butt;
• when grocery shopping filling my shopping trolley with food from pretty much every continent on earth;
• on forms I am asked my race. For the record I tick “other”;
• there is rarely a queue of more than a couple of minutes at the airport’s passport control counter;
• to have air-con running the majority of the time;
• writing addresses the “wrong way” around. Here it’s name, street address, complex name, unit number.

There are also some things that will never, ever seem “normal”:

• child car restraints fitted to the front passenger seat;
• children not wearing any restraints in cars at all;
• government owned media.  Print, radio and television are all government owned and I will leave you to join the dots on that;
• Cheezels produced in Malaysia;
• bread enriched with sugar;
• and then there’s this:

I bet you can't wait to slather that all over your face, can you?

Unusual Singapore Things #11

Two hours (and a bit) car parking at the airport costs $4.65.

At Melbourne airport this would cost $28.

Unusual Singapore Things #10

Eggs are sold in cartons of 10.