March, April or thereabouts

I realized my passport was expiring and went off to the Immigration
and Checkpoints Authority last week to renew it. This required a new
photograph, and so, completely unprepared, bad morning hair and no
makeup, I sat in a photo booth and squinted into the lens. When my
photo popped up onscreen, the photographer started Photoshop and
proceeded to scrub out the dark circles under my eyes. She grinned as
she handed the prints to me. All the photographers (5 or 6 of them)
were doing similar touchups for their subjects, young and old. Now
THAT'S service!

Talk to any taxi-driver, food stall server, shop-keeper...actually any
Singaporean man or woman in the street about politics right now, and
you will be locked in a debate for hours! The reason is the current
fury over Singapore ministers getting a hefty pay hike. Starting
salaries are 1.2million and senior ministers earn well over 3 million
a year. Full story :
http://news.asiaone.com/a1news/20070405_story12_1.html

The argument the government uses is that they need to pay high
salaries to attract the Singapore intelligentsia. They say they have
to actively persuade doctors, lawyers and other high-fliers to give up
their lucrative practices with the lure of high pay. When pressed,
the minister making the announcement said that if the people were
unhappy with this, they needed 'a dose of incompetent government' to
shut them up! He added that if we did not make this pay adjustment,
our security would be at risk and our women would end up as maids in
other countries! And of course the Filipino and Indonesian
goverments, many of whose women DO work in Singapore as maids, are
infuriated by the implication of ineptitude. The daily paper (usually
a govt mouthpiece) is full of angry letters from readers! It's great!

Those who live here like to call Singapore 'the little red dot',
because that is what you see on a world map when you try to locate it.
In fact, the dot usually is bigger than the island! But the
self-importance the government confers upon itself in world and
regional affairs is often disproportionate to its size. Unlike the
US where no one can ignore the giant's sneeze!

Some things make us both chuckle and flinch. I can speak the
Singapore lingo (Singlish) with aplomb. And switch to Received
Pronounciation immediately as needed (you've all heard me speak like
this!) In order to get good service at a local coffeeshop, I use
Singlish. In order to get good service in a hotel restaurant, I use
RP. But for my tall, fair-skinned, Causasian husband there is no disguise!
A local hardware store charged him $8 for a plug that I had bought for $1.80
before. A bottle of Tiger beer at an outdoor cafe varies from $5 to
$9 depending on the color blindness of the server!
http://www.tigerbeer.com/index.html#

That said, people love children here, no matter their race. Sprog1 has
started swimming lessons at the Chinese High School nearby. Before
the first lesson, as we were registering at the reception desk, an
unsmiling, swarthy Chinese man who had been watching us disappeared
into the back room. He reappeared with little snack sized bags of M&Ms
(the universal treat!) and handed them to Sprog and the other kids
milling around. Of course Sprog received the treat with shrieks of delight,
the other kids (Chinese mostly) without expression. The man (still no
smiles) nodded briefly at the Thank Yous and Xie Xies (Thank you in
Mandarin) and returned to the desk. I assume he was overwhelmed by
inner joy, because there was no visible evidence otherwise.

At the drycleaners (Bishan Famous Drycleaner Service) a short walk
from our house, the lady who took our drop-off was distantly amused by
the children. As we were leaving she spontaneously reached behind her
desk and pulled out these amazing Hello Kitty dolls dressed in
traditional Korean clothes for both Sprogs. Of course, again, loud
American shrieks of delight responded to with polite Singaporean
smiles and nods.

The monsoon rain every day fills the canals and drains up in minutes.
The view of Bukit Timah canal from the road is fairly peaceful after a
night of rain. Before canals were built, Bukit Timah, the district we
live in, would flood regularly. Some canals drain directly to the
sea, and the water level in them rises and falls with the tides.

After our morning run, S. and I sometimes grab breakfast at the
Adam Road Food Center. Breakfast du jour is usually a plate of
prata with curry sauce. Prata is a fried bread made of flour and
ghee, and fried in more ghee. We prefer not to think about the calories per serving.

Our humble abode is a two-storey (bedrooms upstairs) with a small
garden to the front and side. Behind the house, I've mentioned the
construction. We'velearned it will be two years before construction of the 500 room,
7 storey student hostel is complete. The noise is really horrible, but
the mosquito problem due to the rain collecting in the site is much
more insiduous. There was a Dengue outbreak not long ago, and we are
quite nervous due to the kids being outside so much. DEET is our
friend right now.

To the front of the house and unlike the US, are the trash cans out on the curb.
Trash is picked up every morning, even Sunday. A once a week pickup is
not practical given how quickly things rot here because of the heat.

Because of the thick trees in our neighborhood, the birdsong around
our house is incredible in the early mornings and at dusk. Lots of
birdcalls and songs from mynahs, orioles, finches, cockatoos and
others I can't identify. In the afternoons, a flock of screeching wild
white cockatoos tear through the sky towards the nearby reservior.
At night, the cello-like reverberating call of the nightjar.