Sentosa is like Disney. Big, beautiful, man-made, expensive, luxurious, and not necessarily enjoyed by everyone. Sentosa is an island off Singapor'es south coast, full of everything imaginable, from swimming with pink Amazonian dolphins, to swimming in man-made beach lagoons, to indoor skydiving, animal encounters...etc etc. Since we have yet to hear of the fun local beach (there are not beaches here, like you might think. Its either sky scrappers or industrial stuff at the coast), we decided to go to Sentosa for the day to catch some sun. 2 hours later, as the MRT doesn't go directly there and me and a friend may have gotten lost on which bus to take, we arrived. You can immediately tell it was out of place; the sand felt like sand, but it felt like you were standing on a concrete surface, since there was not more sand under the top layer. The beach was obviously carved out, and there were concrete plastered fake rocks everywhere, someones positioned near pieces of granite rock, making it look even fake-r. But the sun and the breeze and water were real, and that was all we needed. Our little group has grown even larger, there was 19 of us total at the end of the day. We went around talking about ourselves and just hung out. It was a great way to end the weekend.
There was a local with us, a freshman Physics student, who talked with me for a long time. He was telling me about his time in the (forced) service after high school, spending three years in as required, now a 23 year old freshman. It was funny, he was telling me stories of their basic training, the exact same stories I have heard over and over and over again. There honestly was nothing knew. Everyone learned how to shoot M-16's, rucked long distances, forced to do stuff nobody wanted to do at all hours, etc etc. His favorite story was him throwing a live grenade for practice. They have the same ranking structure, and many many of the same things. He said well the US must have copied Singapore. Ha. He told me he thought Singapore's Army could beat the US. Then he changed the subject when I kind of hid a laugh. I found out that the name names DO have first and second name initials on them. I also picked his brain about a lot of other things about Singapore and here is what I learned:
Singaporeans start to date in high school, like the US. Most do not find husbands/wives until after college. You live with your parents (unless you live on campus) until you are married. Singaporeans don't always have children and if they do, only a few. He said the Chinese are like that, but not the Indians or Malay's; they have tons of them. If you are 30 and still single, the government will give you your own apartment, so some people chose to stay in school a while to get to live by themselves. Also, everyone (pasted freshman year) who wants to live in a dorm MUST contribute somehow. Many chose to do JCRC, which is the committee structure (president, PR, etc) for the halls. Some chose to be on hall sports teams. This is interesting because he said if your sport and team lose, you do not get guaranteed a hall the next year. So if your hockey team sucks, you and al your team mates must pay to live off campus.The library also provides previous-years' notes and tests to students. Like a school sponsered test bank!
Before we left Sentosa, we swung by the Southern-most point of Continental Asia (yes, Singapore is somehow concidered to be attached), which was kind of cool. Great views! (see FB). I stayed up late last night, planning by semester of trips, when I had two sets of kids come by trying to tell me things. It was midnight! It was for school committees, and they had cookies, so I contrubuted. They also sell hall shirts for an equivalent of under $2. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth aound 1am. Now, since I have been here for over a week, I have only seen ONE Person, one, take a shower. I go in there at night to wash and in the mornings and I swear I am the only one ever in there. Well, I found out last night was that is because everyone takes their showers at 1am!
My two classes I have had so far are okay. My first class, Materials Science for Engineers, sits in a room that can seat !500 people and maybe its half way full. There are 8 different projection screens to see the power point notes. OMG. It was huge. There is a number you can text which shows up on one of the professors screens for when you need to ask a question. You text him, how cool! My second class was the Islamic World, its an Islamicate history class. I am the only white person and westerner besides by British professor. The first lesson today was going over the history of how the west and east see each other. We watched this very rasist "movie" (clips from films) showing just how racist Hollywood can be towards Mulsims. It was awkward, because I have seen like 90% of the movies (Law and Order was even on there!) and they were all American. In context, it made more sense. There needed to be an enemy, so use an Arab looking person because we are currently fighting them. But out of context, man it looked bad. I will keep my mouth shut about being in the military in this class. But it was good and very interesting and there was no bashing or anything of the sort. One thing I did learn was about the perception of Muslims. South east asia has the MOST Muslims, 60% of them like in SOUTH EAST ASIA. Did you know that?? It is funny, when we (Westerners) think of Muslims, we immediately think of Arabs. In Singapore, them they think Muslims, they thinks of Malay's.
Anyway, the Singapore exchange student facebook group has put together this cool tour where we go to Bintan, Indonesia via 45min ferry ride Fri-Sun for $100USD and get everything (but food) paid for, including two nights at a 4 star hotel on the beach. Sweet.
No comments:
Post a Comment