We had a few enlightenments. Did you know that "pervert" in Mandarin is translated into "color wolf" and "dim sum" is translated into "little piece of heart"? And I bet most people don't know that the origin of "ketchup" is from Cantonese. I don't have room here to mention all the things that we talked about, but it's definitely fun to explore other cultures.
Most people would have thought that the Chinese newspapers here would have better content than NY's. Well, think again. The Chinese media coverage here is not as good as the World Journal in NY. Actually it's not even close, which is quite surprising. I am not sure it's the censorship or there is no interest in anything outside of S'pore. The thing to note is that S'pore followed China's lead of simplifying the Chinese character set, while Taiwan and HK still use the complex set. IMHO, S'pore is trying to position itself to be the next HK after 1997. There are a lot of cooperation between China and S'pore recently and I am sure there are more to come.
So riding in a bumper car is not consider real driving. But I finally got a chance to drive in S'pore. Of course, everything about the car here is the mirror image of its counterpart in the States. I wonder if I can get away with driving with a mirror glasses 8-) Anyway, I first drove on the campus of Nanyan Technical University (NTU). And a car with manual transmission at that (!) I have to admit that I almost knock a few bikes over because I misjudged the distance on the left side. But after a while, things became kind of natural. Few things I have to keep reminding myself are wider right turns and narrower left turns, and looking at the correct direction for traffic. I also had to constantly switching hands to change gear and use the turn signals because I usually drive with one left hand. I know, I am supposed to keep my left hand at 10 o'clock and the right at 2 o'clock, or is it 1 o'clock? Never mind, I wonder if it's easy to switch back once I get used to it.
Next day was on to the Central Business District (CBD) in a jeep-like vehicle, a Suzuki Vitara to be exact. It's a real yuppie stuff, or chuppie for Chinese yuppies. I heard from the lady owner of the vehicle that in S'pore having a car is like having a wife, except it's a bit more expensive. I will leave it as an exercise for the readers to interpret the exact meaning 8-) Well, it's onto the highway next. I still can't imaging going on a date without a car. Buses and taxis are so impersonal 8-( "Want to go out an a date? I will meet you at Outram Park bus stop, bus fare will be on me. Maybe we will go into the back seat of the cab on the way back. What do you say?" 8-)
Every country has its own TLAs. What's TLA? I am glad you asked. It stands for three letter acronym. The most recent ones that you see on the press here are CPF, COE, GST and GSM. Central Provisioning Fund, or CPF, is the mandatory savings plan. You contribute 20% and your employer contributes another 20%. It's in the news recently because the government want to raise the minimum sum that people must accumulate before they can withdrew it for stock, housing and few other purposes. Certificate Of Entitlement, or COE, is what makes cars in S'pore outrageously expensive. It's in the news because it might have hit the peak and starting to come down. The 3% Goods and Services Tax, or GST, is going into effect April 1 (No, it's not a April Fool's joke). A lot of stores are having pre-GST sales. I am sure they are going to have post-GST sales afterwards as well. And finally, Global System for Mobile, or GSM. This is a standard for hand-held (or mobile, or cellular, or big brother big.... I hope someone would standardize the term already) phone system. Don't be surprised if you never heard of it in the US, because US is adopting a different standard than most of the world. I am sure this is not the first time that the US has "created" a standard. Just like at NTSC, SONET and HDTV. Wondering what these acronyms are? 8-)
p.s. just a correction about a previous posting. You can withdrew cash from certain banks' ATM with Plus logo here in S'pore if you have an account in the States. But you can't check the balance. Watch out for the service charge and the exchange rate though.
24/3/94
