Before I came to Singapore I knew only a couple of things:
Some American got caned there a long time ago.
You can’t chew gum.
It’s safe and clean.
No guns.
Government is very strict.
It’s somewhere in Asia.
The weather is warm.
When Brian said Singapore was becoming a legitimate option for us, I had to go look it up on a world map to see just where it was. It is lots farther south than I thought. Only 85 miles from the equator and the year round summer heat and humidity prove it. I also didn’t realize the continent of Asia was so incredibly spread out and that it actually extended below the equator. Lots of people have emailed me questions about things here so I thought I’d answer them here on the blog. Just a compilation of my experiences living here and some online research mostly on the great Singapore Government website but I used a few other sources too.
Singapore is a real “Fine City”
First thing to know is that Singapore is a “fine city.” That common phrase has double meaning. It’s a fine place to live and work. And any little thing you do wrong will cost you in the form of a fine. For example, the ERP system is like a the EZPass Toll Road systems back in the states. Money is automatically deducted from your card as you pass through electronic gates on the highway or in parking garages. In the states you load a balance and refill it with a credit card set to autopay when you reach a lower threshold amount. Here you stick a smart card in a device every car has on the dashboard and it transmits and deducts from your card balance. You take the card out of your device and “top it up” as you go in or out of the grocery store at a machine like an ATM. It is also used for almost all parking garages in the country so the balance goes down quickly on ours all the time. Here is where the fine city part comes into play. If you are on the highway and forgot your cash card it isn’t a huge problem. Instead of paying the regular $0.50 road toll, you will simply be mailed a ticket for $10.00 to your house. So if you know your balance is too low for your trip you can always decide. Is it worth running home to get the cash card or finding a place to top up? Or if you are really in a hurry just pay the fine.
Gum
The most popular/quirky thing Americans pick up on with Singapore seems to be the ban on gum. It was really odd to get to the grocery checkout stand and see rows and rows of breath mints but not a single pack of gum. Before we moved I checked online to see what the rules were. Google brought me to tons of expat websites with write ups and opinions but no government sites hit the top of the search screens and I didn’t look any farther than that. They told me that it was illegal to buy or sell gum, but people could bring a few packs in for person in home use. Wrong.
Since arriving I found out that there is no such allowance made for in home use of gum. I also found that going to the government website directly and searching for what you want quickly brings any answers I need. (I can only dream of laws being so easy to find and understand in the USA.) Bringing in any gum is a crime here. I have a friend here who took his kids and their cousins to Malaysia (a 15 min drive from my house). He bought a couple boxes of multiple packs of gum. Coming back across the border he was searched. Of course they found about 500 pieces of gum. The gum was confiscated and he was ticketed. If I remember correctly it was something like a $200 ticket for the offence but I won’t swear to that.
It makes me laugh a little bit when I find gum in my house. I have found it as I unpacked the contents that came from my nightstand drawer. All three purses I own had at least one half eaten pack of gum. Those super-secret pockets in my winter coat that you only think to check when you are putting your coat through the washing machine. Ants even found one package in my scripture bag. I had to take my Bible out to the front yard and leave it there until all the ants crawled off of it. (I found the ants at bedtime so left it out overnight. Of course then with the humidity the pages were a little moist and wrinkly. Ugh.)
It surprised me to learn that you CAN buy gum here. The government relaxed the ban on gum to include gum for “therapeutic uses.” You may buy gum from either a pharmacist or a dentist. They must write down your name, government ID number and how much you buy for their records or face stiff fines. (See? There they go with fines again.) Therapeutic uses include things like gum that claims to strengthen the enamel (the government regulation I read details the exact amount of ingredients that must be present to qualify for the medical exemption to the gum ban) and gum like Nicorette to help people stop smoking and things like that.
Even though a pack only costs just under $1.00 I find it to be too much trouble to go to a dentist to get gum and I’ve broken my gum habit when I had my tooth extracted and had to wear the classy fake tooth retainer contraption for ten months last year. So it doesn’t bother me at all anymore to not have gum.
I do however appreciate knowing that I will never find gum on my shoe, never stick my hand in someone else’s gum on the bottom of a table at a restaurant or have to see it on a wall. The only reports I can get on the reason for the gum ban was the cost and expense of gum clean up. From many, many, many internet sources I did find that the original gum ban was conceived as a response to the cost of cleanup. Most Singaporeans live in government housing called HDB, Housing Development Buildings. They are nice enough places, but the population density here is so extreme that the buildings even in the suburbs near us are often over 20 stories tall and can have multiple wings to house hundreds of families. With all those people crammed together, just a few gum littering folks can cause big problems. The streets and buildings are kept really clean, but gum was getting stuck and breaking the street cleaning machines. People were poking it in mail slots, elevator buttons and inside keyholes in the HDBs. It was also being found on bus benches, public tables and chairs, etc.
The last straw for the ban is reportedly in 1987 when the public train system began operating. Public vandals began putting gum on the door sensors of the MRT trains causing disruption of the train service and repairs. In the busy train stations it was difficult to find the culprits. That finally lead to the ban. And there it sat for twelve years until the United States and Singapore began talking about free trade between the two nations in 1999. The gum company Wrigley helped push a deal through that relaxed the standards to include the “therapeutic uses” I mentioned above.
Suddenly the monkey stated staring at me. He bared his teeth and came at me. Those teeth looked pretty sharp and I was certain I didn't want to feel the monkey's teeth or claws on my bare legs so I took a couple of steps back. I started second-guessing my decision to wear shorts--why didn't I chose to wear nice thick Levis to protect me from strange animals at eye level with my knees? Luckily the monkey stopped moving toward me, but it did keep staring at me.
Now I was in a dilema. My family was waiting for me at the Zoo entrance and I needed to pass the monkey to get to them, but I really did not want to excite the monkey anymore. I slowly and carefully took a few steps to move past the monkey in a wider arch. The monkey kept it's eyes on me, but did let me pass. I quickly hurried to my family, relieved that I wouldn't be visiting the hospital for a monkey bite.
From Maddie: “Playgroup is fun. It was the best one because it had lots of things that I liked. It is the best in the whole entire world because it has a beautiful table. I’m going to take Ben and Dad there because it’s so fun. You go up stairs and you can’t go on the paint parts.”
Yesterday we decided to be adventurous. Playgroup through our church was planned for a park. Since the congregation members are literally from all over the entire country/island it’s going to be all over the place. Several people took the bus or taxi, only two people drove of the eight moms that came. I’ve never in my life been to a playgroup where people took buses and taxis to get there. If you didn’t have a car or a ride you just didn’t go.
We tried the bus this week. It was a little scary at first not knowing where we were heading and knowing for sure I wouldn’t recognize it when we arrived so it could go terribly wrong and I’d be stuck, lost in the big, huge, scary city with two kids. The up side was that I didn’t have to show up if things went bad and it was a great first try at the bus system because I could take one bus without a single transfer. Both good things for a beginner.
Everything went really smooth. Public transit is still new enough to Jake and Maddie that they were content to watch everything out the window as we drove along. That meant I was able to hold the bus schedule in hand and watch for landmarks, buildings and street signs to keep track of where we were so I knew when to get off. It was about a 35 minute ride and we hopped off. Then I tried to get my bearings and found we were one stop farther than I had hoped, but it was only a quarter kilometer beyond my target so not a bad walk back.
The park we went to was beyond interesting. It was the Tiger Balm Park. The family that discovered and marketed Tiger Balm had the park built to give back to the community that brought them success so it was free an it was phenomenal to walk through. One mom kept saying "I feel like I walked into a watercolor painting." I think that is a great way to describe it. Think Mary Poppins jumping into the sidewalk pictures. Everything was 3-D and painted with bright colors. It was pretty old, so some stuff was showing age, but still magnificent detail went into every square inch of the acres of sculptures. There were sidewalks that went up and down, stair cases that lead all over the place. It was a bit like a maze there were so many ways to turn and the entire park was like the pictures show. Big and little sculptures, even an underground tunnel totally painted with waves and water leading to spiral staircases in and out. To put light into the tunnel the roof had big vertical voids which were were the outer edges under a gazebo and foot bridge.
Near the beginning Maddie had to use the bathroom and Gage wanted to come to, so his mom Jessica and I took them. Then we couldn’t find the rest of the group but figured if we wandered we’d hit into them. After all, we were only gone about 4 minutes so they couldn’t be too far. We explored for an hour letting Maddie and her brand new best friend Gage lead us along wherever they felt like running. It was delightful and a much needed day of free energetic running for my two kids who have been locked down in a hotel setting for way too long.
After an hour, Jessica called someone and found out most of the moms camped out on that tunnel gazebo place and the kids ran up and down and around them for hours. We meandered back and spend another hour just there. We had some goldfish crackers, raisins and water then they went off to explore the nearby area again. Maddie and her great imagination began to lead the group through what then became the “Spooky Tunnel” and they would all make loud high pitched spooky ghost noises as they ran through the tunnel. Jacob was the absolute best. He is becoming such a big kid and loves to follow in anything Maddie does. He’d drag me through the “pookie tunnel” over and over with a smile from ear to ear and his hands in front of his body bouncing up and down like a zombie coming to attack but not really sure why he was doing it other than that’s just what you are supposed to do in a pookie tunnel. I spent more time than I wanted in the tunnel and less time getting to know the other moms, but it was still a great day and I did get to chat with Jessica for a long time in the beginning. A much needed day for all.
After almost three hours I decided we needed to call it quits. Jake should have already been down for a nap. I was out of water and the kids were drenched in sweat. Maddie’s entire head and all of her hair was so wet it looked like she had been out swimming. It was gross. We packed up and walked to the bus. Jake fell asleep on the ride home and Maddie tried but was too darn interested in absolutely everything going on around her. She has been such an amazing walker here. Maybe it’s because we haven’t really ever asked her and we haven’t had a stroller until I broke down and bought one* on Tuesday so riding wasn’t an option.
Hello Brian,
You may have noticed I’m a little bit weird lately. Sorry about that. It’s just that when I’m overwhelmed, stressed out and unsure of what’s going on around me and in my own mind, I sort of shut down, even with you. I know you’re the one I should be sharing these things with the most, but right now I’m not always here, I’m inside myself trying to figure out little old me and understand what my new life is supposed to be. Hopefully I’ll be back soon.
Maybe it’s best said this way, you know, in your language. I feel like I’m on delayed response, like a computer locked up when you ask it to send an email with an attachment that is just too big. I know I lock up, but if you’re just patient, I’ll come back just like the computer always does. You’ve been great to me. I hope I’m supporting you too. I really am happy here. And I’m glad we’re here together because, well, “we’re uh-possed to be together” if you know what I mean. Wink, wink. I love you.
Ang
