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    Monday, February 9, 2009

    Singapore in a nutshell

    Apologies for not updating sooner, you would have thought that I would have so much to say about the past five or six months! Which is true, I do, but to condense it all is difficult. I guess the best way to do this is to write about the important elements of my exchange in Singapore; that is the country itself (obviously), the culture, the people and the university. When I was back home in England, Singapore seemed like one of those countries that people just nodded and smiled at when you mentioned it. To me that meant that they didn’t really know what it's about but it sounds like a cool place to be (because it's not in England), and they wouldn't ask that many questions in the fear of sounding stupid or ignorant or both. And to be honest, I was like that a few years back, even though I visited Singapore 2 years ago for a holiday, I never did see what Singapore was really about, but now, I think I’m beginning to understand.

    The Country

    Anyway, Singapore is a country in it's own right (independency since 1965), it's a small island beneath Malaysia (to put things in perspective, London is double the size of Singapore). All year round temperatures are around 25-30°C which means no seasons, it's constantly summer. Despite having a Chinese population of around 75%, it's still very multicultural, next in line are Malays (13%) and then Indians (8%), and the rest of the population is made up of people from all over the world! You can find more about the history and stats on the country here. There are many languages spoken here; English, Chinese (mostly Mandarin, but I've heard Cantonese too and other dialects are spoken such as Hakka and Hokkien), Malay, Tamil, Punjabi and then you get other Indian dialects which I'm not too familiar with the names, and of course, Singlish... O.k. so it's not a "real" language as such, it's just the way to describe how Singaporeans speak. Due to their history and diversity, they throw different words from different languages together, it's not unusual to hear them speak English and then all of a sudden there's "makan" or "shiok" or "walau".

    Singapore is actually a really modern and cosmopolitan place to be, for me, there was very little culture shock when I arrived, and there was nothing distinctly out of the ordinary. To be honest, at times it felt as though I was back in England, but the only difference was that I’m part of the ethnic majority rather than the minority.

    The University

    The university I’m attending is Singapore Management University (SMU). It’s in the city so quite convenient to get around to all the main spots of Singapore, it’s pretty hard to get lost, as long as you can find your way to an MRT station, you’re fine! SMU is quite new and the buildings reflect the modernity that Singapore has built itself up to be. The method of teaching is different to Manchester University though. They use the American learning system, so instead of sitting in a lecture hall for an hour or two filled with around 200 or so students and one lecturer, we have a small class size of around 45 and a professor teaching and encouraging discussion from the students. This took me a while to get used to, not the small class sizes, but rather the participation part (we’re graded on how well we participate), the weekly meetings with your project group for 3 hours non-stop, mid terms, make up classes and the constant assignments. They say that SMU has a very competitive culture, with all the work they do, it’s no wonder they find it stressful, I’m normally a very laid back person with what I consider lower than average stress levels and even I’m starting to feel it here haha.

    The Culture

    The culture here is interesting (I’m saying that in a good way). You could say it’s typically Chinese because it’s predominately dominated by Chinese Singaporeans but that doesn’t mean that they take over the other cultures and traditions that exist here. They celebrate a lot of festivals and significant calendar events for different cultures such as Chinese New Year which has just passed, Hari Raya, Divali (Deepavali as it’s known here), Christmas, and one that I’ve only just heard of as it happened yesterday, Thaipusam, and many others.

    I remember in one of my classes the professor said that Singapore could be seen as lacking culture because there isn’t one specific ‘culture’ that it follows but adopts all the practices from the major ethnic groups. I understand why that could be the case, but why can’t the diversity factor be a ‘culture’ for Singapore. It’s not easy to find a country that has so many different cultures in one place, the multicultural aspect is what makes Singapore unique in a sense. One thing that I have noticed here and has probably brought all the different groups together is the love for food. Food is a pass time for Singaporeans (hurray! Something I can relate to). Majority of Singaporeans, if not all, love their food. They will be more than happy to travel to the other side of the island for some good Chinese/Indian/Malay/Peranakan/Indonesian/Japanese/Thai/Western food, you get the idea. Where are the best foods? I find that it’s in the hawker centres. Good, cheap, local dishes. You’re spoilt for choice in Singapore when it comes to food! That's one of the main reasons why I love it here!

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