We should all get a crash course on some basic facts about Singapore before we embark on exchange!have been quite stumped by simple questions like - so how big is singapore? (err... the size of Haidian district in beijing?) so what's the annual GDP? (err i know what my starting pay is gonna be?) so what's the story behind the merlion? (err... that it's ugly?)
a typical conversation:
-- oh! i've always wanted to visit Singapore! (or: i've been to singapore!)
-- but there's nothing much to see there.. (the tourism board needs to 'educate' us)
-- it's a hao di fang! so clean! and lee kwan yew! such a clean president!
it's amazing how big other countries are, and the Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Americans etc can tell you all about their hometown and many other places in their country even without having been there before!
Singaporeans? we probably only know that Geylang has good tauhuay (beancurd), Bedok has good chweekuah (rice cakes), Bt Timah has good heh mee (big prawn noodles)... yummy! and i still can't get the different geography between hunan, hubei, henan, hebei, guilin, guizhou, yangzhou....!!
we haven't exactly made that many international friends here, hanging out with many singaporeans in beida and qinghua :P but it's been fun in the past week or so getting to know some new friends better!- Ruishan from NUS law school all the way here in beijing, Shin from japan - who's a collector of masters in law (LLM) from london, new york and beijing-, Incheon from korea who probably speaks better mandarin than i do. =)
Beijing international Christian fellowship (for foreign passport holders only) is also super international - lots of westerners, asians and africans. There was a Hillsong concert this week - and it's super cool to have everyone worshipping together with great music under a great worship leader =) with many super high koreans right in front of us who started jumping right from the first song. haha.
Answers.com guide to Singapore
Land Area:
total: 692.7 sq km
land: 682.7 sq km
water: 10 sq km
The per capita GDP in 2005 was US$26,833.
About 9.7 million tourists visited Singapore in 2006. (how come we didn't sink! considering we've 4.5million people already stacked up on each other)
The local colloquial dialect of English is Singlish, which has many creole-like characteristics, having incorporated vocabulary and grammar from various Chinese dialects, Malay and Indian languages. Singlish is spoken commonly on the streets, but the government frowns upon its use in official contexts. (speak good english campaign ahem) English became widespread in Singapore after it was implemented as a first language medium in the education system. ---
[ most of them are most intrigued with this aspect. but it's a little hard to demonstrate, not like i can give you a english/chinese-singlish dictionary for every word! it's more in the sentence construction - or lack thereof?]
this is so funny
| Basilect ("Singlish") "Dis guy Singrish si beh powderful wan. Hoh seh liao lah!" | Mesolect "Dis guy Singlish damn powerful one leh." | Acrolect ("Standard") "This person's Singlish is very good." |
anyway, no matter how much i love beijing, i don't exactly want to migrate here! somebody give me National Day tickets!!!
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